Chapter 128: The Company You Can’t Leave (Part 6)

Chapter 128: The Company She Can't Leave (Six)

Monday morning.

The time countless office workers dread the most, Zhu Ning's desk was piled high with documents.

"Juanzi, you handle these clients."

"Juanzi, take a look at this material; it will be helpful to you."

"Juanzi, work on this project proposal."

"Juanzi, I can't get to this plan right now; you revise it. I have high hopes for you, so do your best."

"No, redo it, redo it."

...

To every request, Zhu Ning could only smile and say yes, because she wanted to be an outstanding employee and couldn't afford to resist.

She would be criticized and nitpicked repeatedly, each of her proposals sent back for revision.

She couldn't leave the company; if she did, she would just repeat this day, facing her projects and work all over again.

Repetition upon repetition, this was mental pollution.

As long as she conformed to this logic, she would become an excellent sheep, and perhaps in the end, Guangming would really give her the title of Outstanding Employee.

Tap tap tap—

While thinking, Zhu Ning casually tapped the keyboard. If this was a cycle, then this was the second Monday.

As she typed, she often felt a sense of disorientation, wondering if she had been in this polluted area for a long time, experiencing many cycles, but unable to perceive it because each day was a repetition?

Here, all concepts were blurred.

Zhu Ning felt herself trapped in some strange cycle, yet she couldn't accurately determine where she was.

Like that peculiar vortex in the sky.

The tomb post owner said she was trapped in the same day, her desk remained unchanged, and she encountered someone committing suicide after work every day.

Zhu Ning experienced all this without knowing how it happened.

Tap tap tap—

She typed away, surrounded by pure white sheep-headed people, but Zhu Ning fit in perfectly, her rhythm matching everyone else's, completely assimilated into the polluted area.

Nothing terrifying had appeared yet, why? Because Zhu Ning hadn't touched the core point?

If the polluted area didn't make a move, could Zhu Ning take action?

Zhu Ning waited for the Monday performance review meeting to start.

During this time, she was bored, typing with her left hand while picking at a dent on the desk with her right fingernail.

There was a tiny scratch on the desk, and when people daydreamed, they often fiddled with things on their desks.

Some behaviors that seemed boring and childish in daily life became interesting when slacking off.

A corner of the desk's paint had been picked off, and Zhu Ning's fingers, wrapped in black protective gloves, still transmitted the sensation through the sensitive sensory system.

Suddenly, Zhu Ning frowned, feeling something was off about the desk.

Why was it soft under her fingertips?

She lifted her finger and examined it more closely under the light, seeing a drop of blood on her fingertip, similar to what she found at the cardboard desk before.

Blood? Why would there be blood on a desk?

Last time, she found a scratch under the cardboard desk, and the blood didn't seem to come from someone's fingernail but rather seeped out from the desk itself.

All around, the sheep-headed people were typing, none noticing the anomaly. Zhu Ning bent down to examine the small hole on the desk.

The texture was very strange, as if she was touching warm flesh.

Zhu Ning carefully peeled back the surface of the desk, like peeling an eggshell, deepening the hole.

After about a finger's depth, the original color was revealed, deep red flesh exposed.

The hole was too small for a clear view, so Zhu Ning leaned in closely to examine it.

Her helmet close to the desk, no one had noticed her odd behavior yet. If someone looked back at her now, they would find her appearance quite peculiar, her entire body pressed against the desk.

The desk seemed to be a disguise, revealing its true nature once the disguise was stripped away.

Zhu Ning activated the camera on her helmet, which had a macro mode. After adjusting the settings, she looked inside again.

Due to the perspective, there was some distortion.

At first glance, she didn't recognize what she was seeing. It took her three seconds to react, as Zhu Yao, being a doctor, had exposed Zhu Ning to many medical books during her childhood, showing various close-ups of human organs.

Even though she had forgotten those memories, she could still roughly identify what she saw.

It was a layer of flesh.

Veins spread throughout, deep red human flesh buried beneath the desk. Zhu Ning instantly withdrew her finger.

It wasn't her imagination; the desk was indeed alive?

She had never thought about this before: when Zhu Ning joined the company, all the desks in the office were occupied, and this was the only empty seat.

Where did the employee who used to sit here go? Did she leave the company smoothly?

If she didn't leave, where is she now?

In the basement, opposite the cafeteria, there is a storage freezer filled with the bodies of many Minotaur-like creatures. What are they used for?

Is the desk, drawers, and even the keyboard made of flesh?

Zhu Ning took a deep breath, her instinctive reaction was to cover the small hole, as if covering it would hide the truth.

This situation was beyond her comprehension. So, is the chair she's sitting on also a former employee?

Has she been sitting on a chair made of human flesh, leaning on a table made of human flesh, and working with a keyboard made of human flesh?

Does every keystroke she makes mean someone is crying for help?

Are they... still breathing?

"Mental Health Decreased by 1%"

Zhu Ning realized that the way this contaminated area works is to silently infiltrate you. She couldn't move; any large movement might draw attention from others.

The chair next to her could immediately sense Zhu Ning's unease.

Zhu Ning tried not to imagine herself sitting on a chair made of human flesh. She adjusted the parameters of her helmet.

The new helmet had upgraded audio-visual functions, and the parameters she set were almost equivalent to a stethoscope.

This time, Zhu Ning leaned closer to the desk, pressing her helmet against it. The sound of mechanical keyboards tapping around her was too loud at first, making it impossible to hear anything. After adjusting the parameters to their maximum, she heard:

Thump!

A very faint thump. Even at the maximum setting, she barely caught it. Was this... a heartbeat?

This desk is alive. Zhu Ning's desk is definitely not an exception. All the workstations in this office area are likely alive.

It looks like there are only a hundred or so Minotaur-like creatures typing away, but under the constant tapping of keys, there are a hundred heartbeats.

A hundred souls trapped here, unable to make a sound or call for help, just watching one person after another come to work.

New employees are completely unaware of what is about to happen. They are lured by high salaries and benefits, then numbly tap away at their keyboards, making the office area seem perpetually busy.

Was this what Guangming meant by having Zhu Ning keep typing? If a new employee stops for a moment, they might hear something strange and start looking for the source.

So everyone must keep typing.

If Zhu Ning can't get out of the contaminated area alive, will her fate be to jump off a building and then be turned into a workstation after death?

This contaminated area is becoming more and more twisted.

...

At 1:30 PM, there was a performance review meeting.

When the time came, everyone stood up from their workstations, moving in perfect unison.

"Today, we have the Mechanical Design Department's weekly performance review meeting!" Guangming stood at the front of the stage. "First, let's welcome our new colleague, who will bring fresh blood to our department. Welcome, Paper Towel!"

The crowd of Minotaur-like creatures clapped in unison, but no one stepped forward after the applause ended.

"Paper Towel? Paper Towel, please come up." Guangming frowned.

"Paper Towel?" Guangming's voice echoed through the meeting room, and the other Minotaurs began searching for Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning stood up, wearing a black protective suit that made her stand out among the white Minotaurs.

Zhu Ning wore a black helmet with a blood-red smiley face painted on it, two eyes, and a smile line drawn casually with a finger. It was unclear whether it was blood or some other paint, but now the corners of the mouth were dripping.

After seeing the flesh of the workstation, Zhu Ning knew she had to leave. But first, she needed to become an outstanding employee.

How to become an outstanding employee? Zhu Ning considered four options.

1. Work hard, gain the affection of all colleagues, earn the appreciation of the supervisor, win over clients with her efforts, have perfect attendance, and become an outstanding employee.

2. Use her puppet control ability to manipulate Guangming into giving her the award at the performance review meeting.

3. Since she knows the outstanding employee is Keyboard, she could take Keyboard's name and become Keyboard herself.

4. Eliminate her competitors, leaving only one person. She would be the outstanding employee, and the remaining one would be the worst performer.

Option 1: She suspected she would be contaminated during this process, and even if she exhausted all her energy, she might not become an outstanding employee. Or by the time she achieved it, she might be insane.

Option 2: She would only get the trophy and certificate. Whether this truly makes her an outstanding employee depends on how the system judges it.

Option 3: This approach is similar, and even if she fooled the system, it might not improve her situation.

Her ultimate goal is to kill the source of contamination, not just meet the system's requirements.

So she chose Option 4: eliminate her competitors, leaving only one person. She would be the outstanding employee, and the remaining one would be the worst performer.

Zhu Ning's black helmet bore a bloody smile. She pulled out a gun and clicked the safety off.

She said her ID card photo looked like a criminal.

Then she would be a criminal.

The company is an S-level contaminated area, and Zhu Ning is an S-level contaminant. Since nothing particularly terrifying has happened in this contaminated area yet, she would be the most terrifying person in it.

All the rules established are meant to be broken by those who come after.

Zhu Ning guessed that there was another layer of the world within this contaminated area; she would never find it without taking action.

Guangming proved that firearms might work here by shooting the cardboard box with his gun.

Was the system hinting that she could use violence by making her an outstanding employee?

The sheep-headed man's face froze when he saw Zhu Ning, and Guangming was also stunned. He frowned and looked at Zhu Ning, "Toilet paper, what are you going to do?"

His tone was extremely stern, as if he was on the verge of anger.

Finally decided not to pretend? Zhu Ning was quite curious to see what Guangming would do.

"Sorry, you guys have driven me crazy," Zhu Ning said in a particularly polite tone, as if she genuinely felt she had caused trouble.

In short, she seemed like a psychopath.

Zhu Ning tilted her head, the blood-red smiley face on her helmet looked extremely terrifying, "I want to be an outstanding employee."

Bang!

She fired a shot into the air, the bullet piercing the ceiling. It didn't seem to hit any structure but rather flesh.

The ceiling was made of flesh, and perhaps the entire company was built from the blood and flesh of its employees. Every steel beam, every floor tile, every workstation was the same.

The bullet sank deep, and blood gushed out like a showerhead filled with blood, instantly drenching the entire meeting room in a rain of blood.