Chapter 33 Big Factory
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At that time, the interviewer stepped out of the restroom, adjusting his pants. Noticing a cluster of people up ahead, he demanded with a scowl, “What’s happening here?”
When the interviewer got closer, Wen Shi clarified, “My little brother heard I got a job and came to stay with me.”
“Stay with you?” the interviewer echoed with a touch of sarcasm, “Weren’t you inquiring about the dormitory rules just now?”
Wen Shi nodded.
“The first rule of the dormitory: keep outsiders out.”
Wen Shi pressed his lips together, choosing not to speak.
The interviewer went on to scold the dorm supervisor, “No wonder you’ve been stuck on the fourth floor all these years. No sense of discipline at all. How could you just let anyone inside?”
The dormitory supervisor’s face darkened, thinking that the other person only dared to act tough in his presence. If he came across a supervisor from the sixth floor or above, he’d practically crawl on the ground like a dog.
Not wanting to invite any more trouble, he strode purposefully towards the staff room.
The interviewer’s attention shifted back to Jian Qingrong.
Jian Qingrong slowly walked out with a similarly sluggish pace, handing over his passbook to the interviewer.
Just as this ‘exchange ritual’ was nearing completion, Jian Qingrong’s wrist was grasped. He looked up in surprise as Wen Shi smiled and said, “The bank will be closing soon if we rush over now. Why not wait till tomorrow? We can also take a few photos and feature them in the company newsletter.”
When they arrived, there weren’t many malls or banks around. They were probably quite far away.
【The interviewer’s favorability towards you -10.】
“Do you think the tasks assigned by the factory manager are nonsense?”
Wen Shi’s smile remained unchanged as he lowered his voice and told the interviewer, “With you absent, Overseer Zhao handles the interviews alone. Afterward, the new employees will have to offer the Beautiful Soul Elixir as tribute. Won’t it all end up in his pocket?”
When it came to personal interests, the interviewer did show a fluctuation, at least momentarily shifting focus away from the passbook.
Wen Shi subtly pressed down Jian Qingrong’s hand, signaling him to put away the passbook.
Jian Qingrong glanced at him and quietly stashed the passbook in his pocket.
While Wen Shi wasn’t exactly a saint, he had his own principles. Despite Jian Qingrong’s odd behavior, when compared, those from the factory who saw others as mere pawns were even worse.
When the thought of the Beautiful Soul Elixir being misappropriated crossed the interviewer’s mind, his impatience grew. After providing some instructions to Wen Shi, urging him to promptly fill out the application form for submission tomorrow, he hurried back to the interview site.
Wen Shi pulled the teenager aside. “Come with me.”
With that, they hurriedly walked away together.
Now that the interviewer had left, there was no better time to run. He didn’t want to stick around and say hello Jian Qingrong’s father.
Behind them, in the dimly lit corridor, the slender man slowly raised his hand, placing it where Wen Shi had touched earlier. In that instant, the warmth that once belonged to someone else had long faded away, leaving no sensation.
Clutching the passbook in his pocket, Jian Qingrong walked back into the dormitory expressionless, taking his time.
…
Wen Shi had no intention of lingering for even a second in the dormitory building. As they hastened their pace to leave, the teenager abruptly halted. Standing outside the staff room, he used his naturally alluring tone to speak to the dorm supervisor inside, “I’m sorry, it’s all because of me that you were scolded by that ill-tempered person.”
This tone sent shivers down Wen Shi’s spine.
Surprisingly, the dorm supervisor bought into it. “He only dares to show off in front of me. Wait until the day I become a supervisor on the sixth floor or above, hmph…”
The rest of the conversation halted as the teenager’s thoughts turned to his aspirations for the future.
The teenager touched his silver hair and softly asked, “Are the people living upstairs very powerful?”
The dorm supervisor was about to spout some nonsense, but unintentionally met the teenager’s gaze, causing his words to catch in his throat.
The staff room had its lights on during the day. He saw the faint reddishness at the corner of the teenager’s eyes, and the innate fair skin like jade that the mask couldn’t completely hide. He couldn’t help but swallow hard. “Extremely powerful. Even the factory manager would show respect to the employees living on the seventh and eighth floors.”
“I see.”
The teenager flashed a meaningful smile and politely said, “Thank you.”
After walking a good distance downstairs from the dormitory, the two finally felt the summer sunlight.
The chill on their bodies dissipated slightly as Wen Shi sized up the teenager. Under the sunlight, his silver hair was even more striking. He wore a loose-fitting shirt, revealing his delicately beautiful collarbone.
Throughout the journey, the teenager still had a faint breathlessness, indicating a lack of physical stamina. In a world teeming with monsters and demons, what could a physically feeble child with no strength do?
“How old are you?” Wen Shi asked.
“Younger than Big Brother.”
Wen Shi’s headache worsened. He couldn’t fathom what went wrong with the summoning ritual. He had definitely paid a recommendation fee.
“I don’t know why the game chose you, but this world is dangerous. I can only do my best to ensure your safety. If that’s not enough, then it’s fate.”
Wen Shi paused for a moment and asked, “Do you have any special skills?”
“Special skills?” The teenager pondered seriously, his slender fingers tracing his earlobes before slowly taking off his mask.
In an instant, the sun and moon seemed to pale in comparison!
His eyes were as cold as stars, his slender brows like willows. The corners of his mouth naturally curved, and when he smiled, he exuded the brilliant allure of a rose and the unique charm of a peony.
Even the sun in the sky shied away from such radiance, hiding itself among a mass of clouds.
For the first time, Wen Shi experienced what it meant to witness Nuwa’s most outstanding creation.
This beauty was already at a catastrophic level.
Wen Shi fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Apart from your face, any other special skills?”
The teenager nodded. “I’m really good at dating.”
Terrible game, refund! Refund! Refund!
Without a powerful force to protect it, this beauty would undoubtedly attract countless covetous desires filled with malice.
However, Wen Shi couldn’t send him back either. Based on his previous instance experience, only those summoned could return to their original world upon completing the level. Before that, Wen Shi needed to ascertain if the game itself had a problem. He asked the teenager why he had arrived so late.
“I wasn’t born under lucky stars, so I’ve always worked hard to earn others’ love. But in the end, I was cruelly imprisoned in a place.” The teenager’s eyes flickered downward, seemingly recalling something saddening. “That place had tight security. When the mysterious power exchanged me out, it took some time.”
The game itself came to fetch him? And it took this long?
Squinting slightly, Wen Shi observed that Xie Tangyan remained tight-lipped about her past, yet the person before him spoke openly. Either the game had loosened its restrictions or he wasn’t completely truthful. But at the very least, it confirmed one fact–the game wasn’t wrong. This was the person it had originally intended to send.
Wen Shi re-evaluated the person before him. Perhaps he wasn’t as simple as he appeared.
“Put on your mask,” Wen Shi advised, “Don’t draw too much attention to your beauty.”
Drawing attention to beauty.
The eerie wording seemed fitting for the teenager. There were quite a few sinister characters in Big Factory, and Wen Shi could almost be certain that there would be those with ill intentions towards this appearance.
The teenager obediently complied, putting his mask back on and affectionately linking arms with Wen Shi. “Big Brother, don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get to live on the top floor.”
“…Oh.”
Only the fourth floor had a staff room. Right now, Wen Shi needed to figure out how to live in a place with a dorm supervisor. Passing by the third floor earlier, he had seen blood splatters on the walls.
Staying there would be perilous for his life. The restriction against having outsiders in the dormitory would be even more troublesome.
A player emerged from Workshop Three ahead. The interviews were done. Wen Shi headed in that direction with the teenager.
There were no more failures among the players. After the unfortunate first one, the rest safely passed the interview by following the correct approach. Seeing Wen Shi return, each one was immensely curious about what he had been doing during his absence. When they noticed the extra person with him, their curiosity intensified.
“This is my younger brother from the countryside, who came to join me,” Wen Shi explained casually.
This certainly wasn’t a real younger brother. He was most likely a special NPC or part of the instance’s setup. As the others speculated about the teenager’s identity, only Tu Bianxi focused entirely on the appearance, his gaze as if attempting to see through the mask and unveil the sealed beauty beneath. In the end, Tu Bianxi excitedly touched the puppet doll sitting on his shoulder, as if he had found the perfect pair of eyeballs and hair for the doll.
The nearby players, observing Tu Bianxi’s behavior, immediately sensed that he had some ideas in mind. They couldn’t help but feel sympathy for this teenager who suddenly appeared.
There were rumors that Tu Bianxi’s【Puppetry】skill had already advanced to an advanced level. The intermediate stage of the【Puppetry】skill had already unnerved many players, let alone the advanced stage. Currently, no player had witnessed a member of the Puppet Guild actually using advanced puppetry.
The unfortunate person who was targeted as prey with a single glance seemed entirely unaware. The teenager suddenly lifted his gaze, his overly long eyelashes resembling fluttering butterfly wings in the sunlight. He met the gaze that seemed like it wanted to dissect him and softly spoke, “Big Brother, how old are you? Still playing with dolls?”
Different tone, similar sarcasm. Somehow, at this moment, the players felt that he was really Wen Shi’s little brother. Even Wen Shi himself raised an eyebrow.
“Childish.”
The teenager slowly spoke the word.
Too childish, unlike him, who only played adult games.
Mocked twice in a day, and both times targeted his proudest skill. Tu Bianxi was thoroughly infuriated. In a sense, he already considered the puppet doll as another part of his life.
Since he wasn’t a player, as long as his life wasn’t endangered, it wouldn’t violate the game’s rules. The puppet doll’s small fingers silently released an extremely fine thread, heading towards the teenager’s delicate facial skin. Unfortunately, Tu Bianxi didn’t have time to fully execute the move. The interviewer and Overseer Zhao suddenly emerged, one after the other, causing the puppet doll to obediently revert to its previous state.
The interviewer held a form that clearly listed each person’s promised amount of Beautiful Soul Elixir, aside from their scores.
Due to Wen Shi’s previous statement, the interviewer couldn’t help but feel that the number written on the form might be slightly lower than the reality. Overseer Zhao’s gaze carried a hint of displeasure. “Take them to have a meal first, then distribute their work uniforms,” he commanded.
Overseer Zhao keenly sensed the interviewer’s dissatisfaction, though he didn’t know the reason. He could only temporarily attribute it to the earlier incident where the interviewer had been scolded by the factory manager and had taken it out on him.
The interviewer had been having stomach trouble all day. Now, as the smell from the cafeteria reached him, his discomfort returned, prompting him to head back to the workshop in search of the restroom.
Observing the interviewer rush to the restroom for the third time in a short span, Wen Shi didn’t believe it was a simple case of food poisoning. His gaze remained fixed on the retreating figure, catching a glimpse of the interviewer scratching his neck before entering the factory. The skin beneath the work uniform revealed a widespread bruise.
Due to the poor lighting at the entrance, Wen Shi couldn’t see too clearly, but even with just that glance, he was taken aback.
Overseer Zhao was still pondering how to curry favor with the interviewer. After all, the latter was one of the judges for this year’s Outstanding Employee assessment. However, as the interviewer didn’t give him a friendly face, he didn’t offer one to the new recruits either. “Follow me.”
The cafeteria only accepted card payments, and the meal times and rules were displayed on a sign near the entrance. These included a prohibition on taking food to-go and a note that interns were entitled to one free meal per day.
The meals for interns were uniform, consisting of one main dish and a soup.
The chef stood on a metal bucket over a meter high, ladling soup into their bowls. The soup’s surface was dotted with bits of green leaves, and at the bottom lay spare ribs. As the ladle stirred the contents, any uncooked blood droplets dispersed, adhering to the leaves, making the sight nauseating.
Wen Shi fondly recalled the trembling auntie who served food in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, the chef was a practical person, ensuring that each bowl had both spare ribs and greens.
The table could accommodate four people. Wen Shi’s table only had the teenager and Ji Yuanzhi.
The players weren’t too far away. Tu Bianxi, sitting nearby, unexpectedly used his chopsticks to pick up a spare rib and casually said, “The person who failed the interview and got eliminated, I wonder if they’re left in the cafeteria to help out.”
Hearing this, everyone couldn’t help but think of other things. They already had little appetite, and now it was replaced entirely with nausea.
Tu Bianxi was indulging in his meal, devouring the meat off the spare ribs. His eyes remained fixed on the teenager, as if he were gnawing at the flesh on the latter’s neck.
Upon confirming that Tu Bianxi’s identity was just an intern, the teenager didn’t even spare him a glance. His gaze wandered around the window where formal employees queued up. With not many people in the cafeteria now, Overseer Zhao’s figure stood out prominently.
Overseer Zhao, who usually lorded over lower-level employees, appeared to the teenager as a simple color spectrum, a mix of desires in various hues.
Greed, arrogance, and timidity… these formed the core of Overseer Zhao’s desires. Such individuals were easiest to manipulate, even without resorting to any bloodline abilities.
“Little trash.” Once he reached a conclusion, a flicker of burning flame seemed to dance in the teenager’s pupils, quickly fading back to normal.
When he scolded others, it was strangely pleasant to hear, even more captivating than the song of mountain songbirds. Unfortunately, his voice was so soft and gentle that even Wen Shi sitting across from him couldn’t quite make it out. Nevertheless, Wen Shi caught a hint of the sound and raised his head. “What’s going on?”
Coincidentally, Overseer Zhao had just prepared his meal and turned around, meeting that inquisitive gaze head-on.
The curvature of his lips was concealed by the mask, but it couldn’t hide the slightly arched eyes. The teenager remained composed, nodding with a faint smile as if exchanging a greeting.
Just from this fleeting exchange, Overseer Zhao’s itching curiosity couldn’t be contained. In a public setting, he couldn’t act impulsively. He casually chose a seat near the teenager, desperately inhaling the air, as if the atmosphere around him was filled with sweetness.
Noticing his wandering gaze, Wen Shi raised an eyebrow. “What are you looking at?”
The teenager cast a sidelong glance at Overseer Zhao, then after a moment, smiled and replied, “Looking at my dog.”
***
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