Non-Human Seeking Re-employment

Without a doubt, Zhou Wenyan was quite interested in this S-level copy. Thus, he nodded his head, agreeing to enter the S-level copy with another group.

Despite having Zhou Wenyan\'s consent, Wu Jia became hesitant again.

"Boss, their reputation is a little bad…" Wu Jia said, "They frequently bring new players along to become cannon fodders, and if they\'re hiding something, wouldn\'t we be too reactive?"

The game did not care if the player had the sufficient strength to clear the copy; once they came in contact with a game token, they would be pulled into the game whether they were willing or not.

Hence, a lot of players would increase their chances of survival by bringing ignorant new players and use the lives of others to protect their own safety.

The method was rather abominable but the game did not stop it, because this was a game where only the fittest survived when all was said and done.

Zhou Wenyan did not mind it in the slightest. His lips curled up as he said: "After we enter, everything will depend on their own capability."

Wu Jia came to his senses.

This was a Big Boss who had experienced an uncountable number of games, and the grass before the graves of the players who wanted to pit him was probably two metres tall. Most people could not pit him even if they tried.

Wu Jia: "I\'ll get in contact with them then, and have a meeting with them when we have the time."

"Contact who?" Shen Dongqing pushed open the door drowsily and leaned against the door, asking the question with half-lidded eyes.

His partner was gone the moment he woke up, but he could faintly hear Zhou Wenyan and Wu Jia conversing about something.

Wu Jia said: "The sort of people that we\'re entering a S-level copy with."

Shen Dongqing became interested: "S-level, I haven\'t played that before. Is it very fun?"

Wu Jia: "… Presently, no one has cleared a S-level copy."

Shen Dongqing nodded his head. "Then it must be very fun."

Wu Jia laughed dryly in response.

It\'s a S-level copy, could you give it some face at least and treat it seriously?

* * *

The group that Wu Jia was contacting went by the name of "Night Devils". Although the name seemed inflicted with Chūnibyō, the core members inside the group were players who have been through three to four instances of A-level copies.

The person liaising with them this time around was a woman with shoulder-length hair and a cold expression. Without beating around the bush, she placed the information on the table.

"The background of this S-level copy is a city, its parameters are unknown." The Short-haired Woman was sitting opposite of Zhou Wenyan as she roughly spoke about the contents of their next copy, "There\'s very little information in the copy token itself, and we couldn\'t find related information despite scouring the entire forum."

Shen Dongqing scanned through the information curiously. The pages were filled with densely compacted words and his eyes went blurry at a glance. He closed the material and pushed it far away from him before he buried his head to eat his mango slushie.

But eating by himself was not enough, so he scooped up a spoonful and brought it to Zhou Wenyan\'s mouth.

The atmosphere became slightly strange.

It was clearly a serious occasion, but these two were showing off their love as if no one else was present.

The vein in the Short-haired Woman\'s forehead jumped. Unable to hold herself back, she pressed down the information and said in an icy voice: "Up until now, not a single player has cleared a S-level copy and the dangers within it requires no further elaboration. I hope everyone here can treat this seriously."

Blinking his eyes, Shen Dongqing raised his left hand and said: "I\'m very serious."

Qe Alj reqqgfrrfv tlr rwlif.

Vtbga-tjlgfv Qbwjc: "……"

Itbe Qfcsjc gjlrfv tlr fsfr ab ulnf tfg j rkffqlcu uijcmf. "Jbcalcef."

Kter, atf Vtbga-tjlgfv Qbwjc mbeiv bcis lucbgf Vtfc Gbcudlcu jcv mbcalcef ab rqfjx: "Gb sbe tjnf jcs miefr gfijafv ab V-ifnfi mbqlfr? C gfmlqgbmjalbc bo wjafglji jrrlrajcmf, lo sbe klii."

Itbe Qfcsjc vlv cba ags ab mbnfg la eq jr tf rlwqis rajafv: "Coafg ublcu lcab j V-ifnfi mbqs, la\'r nfgs ilxfis atja kf\'ii yf jrrlwlijafv lcab atf mbqs."

When the Short-haired Woman heard that there was some possible useful information, she straightened her back immediately. "Assimilate? What do you mean by that?"

Zhou Wenyan explained: "You will forget your identity and become a part of the copy."

The Short-haired Woman mulled over it. "That wording is too vague…"

Zhou Wenyan said: "This is what I would occasionally hear from the other living beings in game copies. While its veracity is unconfirmed, I think we need to create a safe word for our own safety."

The Short-haired Woman nodded, "Certainly."

The game had a lot of routines.

For one, the ghosts and monsters could imitate their teammates to cause damage but routines like these were small issues. Time loops were more terrifying by comparison, because they did not know who was speaking the truth at any given point in time.

While they could talk about everything and anything before they entered the game copy, they would only know about the circumstances after they entered.

Evidently, the Short-haired Lady also understood this principle as she said: "I\'m still missing a key fragment to make a complete key, and it hasn\'t dropped no matter how many copies I went through.  It\'s definitely a piece that can only be acquired by entering a S-level copy, so no matter how dangerous this copy is, I have to go in."

Zhou Wenyan: "Same here."

The Short-haired Woman stretched out her hand. "Happy cooperation."

Zhou Wenyan did not move as he gave Wu Jia a look.

Laughing dryly, Wu Jia extended his hand to shake it with the Short-haired Woman as he explained: "Men and women should not touch when they give or receive things haha…."

The Short-haired Woman gave them the copy token before she left.

It was a name card.

Zhou Wenyan accepted the name card.

The name card looked utterly normal: its background colour was pure white, the company\'s name and telephone number was printed on the front, while there was a complicated decorative pattern printed at the back in black, with an open eye in the middle of the pattern.

【 Life Science Research Company: Marketing Director, Mr. Chen 】

【 Telephone: 0000-83427800 】

As Zhou Wenyan pinched the name card between his fingers, he looked at the back and front several times but he could only conclude that it was just a normal name card.

Shen Dongqing took it to have a look. His inspiration struck and he pointed at the telephone number as he said: "Let\'s make a call and ask!"

Wu Jia was about to say that there was no signal in the city for in-game players, but before he could open his mouth, Shen Dongqing had already inputted the numbers and called.

"Du— Du— Du—"

Baffled, Wu Jia exclaimed: "It actually went through?!"

Unless… they were not making the call to a "person".

Wu Jia stared at the phone screen fixedly. The display showed that the call was outgoing.

Ghosts and monsters were not supposed to exist in the cities where the players lived and relaxed, but right now, Wu Jia was slightly sceptical. He felt a little cold and he could hear the erratic beating of his heart inside his chest.

His emotions were very complicated; he wanted the call to go through but he did not want the call to go through at the same time.

If the call went through, they could learn information about the copy and occupy the dominant position; but if the call went through, no one could be certain if they would attract some kind of terrifying living creature.

No one had attempted it. What would the player\'s city look like if a ghost or monster entered?

However, no matter what it would become, the call went through after ringing three times.

But there was no voice on the other side, only dead silence.

Wu Jia swallowed his saliva and asked with much difficulty: "Did they hang up?"

Shen Dongqing and Zhou Wenyan exchanged glances, not moving for the time being.

In the end, it was Zhou Wenyan who reached for the phone. However, just as he was about to touch the phone screen, a hoarse voice suddenly rang out from the other end. If you listen carefully, the background was a mix of despaired and wailing noises.

"Greetings, Life Science Research Company…"

* * *

Ding ling ling—

An alarm noise suddenly exploded next to Shen Dongqing\'s ear, which pulled him out of his dreams. With half-lidded eyes, he felt for the phone beside his pillow and turned the alarm off.

It was only after he laid there for a while more that he completely opened his eyes to look at the ceiling that was within arm\'s reach, as if he had yet to fully understand what was happening.

This was a student dorm.

It was unknown how many batches of students it had seen through but the walls were a faint yellow and there were cobwebs hanging at the corners of the walls. The electric fans whirled with noise and there was a chaos characteristic of a male student\'s dorm everywhere.

The other students in the dorm have already gotten out of bed and they were dragging their slippers around as they walked back and forth.

A male student with a buzzcut raised his head, and when he saw Shen Dongqing still sitting there in daze, he could not help but laugh: "Dongqing, why are you still dreaming? You\'re going to be late for class."

Shen Dongqing did not seem to be awake, and he was a little absent-minded. "Class? What class?"

"Statistics and probability ah." Buzzcut Boy said, "Did you lose your head while sleeping? Weren\'t you the one who told me to remember to wake you up? If you continue to play truancy, you\'re going to fail this class."

"Yesterday?"

Shen Dongqing tried his best to recollect it, but his past memories seemed to be partitioned off by a layer of gauze which obscured everything. It was like a low-quality film where he could see the plot, but it was lacking in emotions and relatability.

A male student wearing a jersey pushed open the toilet door and walked out, saying: "Hurry up, or else we won\'t have time to eat breakfast."

Shen Dongqing wore his clothes and slowly climbed out of bed. After he was done washing up, he left together with his dorm mates.

There were a total of four people in the dorm, and apart from Shen Dongqing, there was Buzzcut Boy, Jersey Boy and Studded Earring Boy, and it looked like their relationship was pretty good.

Thus, their group of people ran to the cafeteria to buy two steamed stuffed buns before they rushed to their classroom.

Shen Dongqing was in a daze throughout the entire journey, and it was only when two hot steaming buns were placed in his hands that he suddenly came alive. No matter what the circumstances were, he still needed to eat.

Lowering his head, he took a bite of the steamed stuffed bun but his eyebrows scrunched together instantaneously. "It tastes bad."

With regards to the steamed stuffed buns in the cafeteria, it was not wrong to call it thick-skinned and with little filling. The steamed bun\'s skin was rough, dry and difficult to swallow, the internal fillings were extremely greasy and it was unknown what kind of meat was used but it brought a taint of foul fish smells.

When Buzzcut Boy heard his comment from the side, he ridiculed, "Hasn\'t the food in school always tasted like this? You\'ve been eating it for two years and haven\'t gotten used to it? Why, has your heart grown bigger, such that you want to eat the delicacies from the land and sea?"

Shen Dongqing shook his head, "That\'s not it, this steamed stuffed bun hasn\'t been…"

Jersey Boy swallowed his mouthful of the steamed bun. "Hasn\'t been what?"

Shen Dongqing tried to think about it but his brain came up empty. Thus, he could only shake his head, saying: "It\'s nothing."

But he kept feeling like he had eaten food that was more delicious than this stuffed steamed bun.

It was rare for Shen Dongqing to lose his appetite; he shoved the stuffed steamed buns inside his drawer and drank two mouthfuls of soy-bean milk, which could be counted as settling his breakfast perfunctorily.

Buzzcut Boy glanced at it. "If you\'re not going to eat it, I\'m going to." He took the stuffed steam buns and started eating it with relish.

The statistics and probability teacher was a middle-aged and balding man. He lectured like he was chanting scriptures and Shen Dongqing did not understand the lesson\'s content at all, so he succumbed to his drowsiness barely ten minute into class.

As he propped up his chin, he realised that the classmates left and right of him had already been killed in action, and they were lying on their desks sleepily.

Had it been under normal circumstances, Shen Dongqing would have already joined them in sleeping, but he kept feeling strange today, like something was awry which gave rise to some unease in his heart and made it hard to sleep.

Hence, he surveyed the entire class from the front to the back once.

The statistics and probability class was a huge one since there were over a hundred students in the trapezoid classroom.

Shen Dongqing was seated at the very back so his field of view was wide and he could see everything clearly. Without needing much time, he saw a male student that was sitting a short distance away.

That male student was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and with his cultured and composed visage, he did not seem like a student.

Perhaps because Shen Dongqing had been staring for too long, that male student also sensed something so he turned his head to look back at him.

Their eyes met for a moment. The male student flashed him a smile before he continued listening to the class.

Buzzcut Boy used his elbow to nudge Shen Dongqing: "What\'s up, which female schoolmate did you become interested in?"

Shen Dongqing pointed.

Buzzcut Boy was rather curious, but once he took a look, he immediately made a spitting noise. "Male? Your tastes are quite heavy ah."

Shen Dongqing shook his head, "That\'s not it. I keep getting the sense that… I know him."

Buzzcut Boy said: "Since we\'re in the same faculty, we can\'t get away from each other even if we wanted to. Of course we\'re familiar, don\'t talk about you knowing him, because I know of him too. Isn\'t he that…" He thought about it for a moment, before finally recalling the male student\'s name, "Wu Jia, isn\'t he Wu Jia!"

Shen Dongqing: "… Oh."

But that was not what he thought in his mind.

As the lecturer at the podium walked back and forth, the bald half of his head reflected the light from hanging above his head.

Shen Dongqing stared at him for a long moment. Then, he said vaguely, "Say… Are there ghosts in this world?"

Buzzcut Boy gave him a sidelong glance. "What\'s wrong with you, do you have a fever? Or have you become confused in your sleep? How could there possibly be ghosts in this world?" He replied in a resolute and decisive manner, and he even patted on Shen Dongqing\'s shoulder, "Believe in the power of science! Understand?"

The lecture still continued.

Shen Dongqing sat among the crowd, eyes dazed. However, he gave the impression that he was out of his element, as if… as if he did not belong to this world.

But if you searched the depths of his mind, you would know that he was thinking:

I\'m so hungry, why hasn\'t class ended yet?