Chapter 131: The Company You Can’t Escape (Part 9)

Chapter 131: The Inescapable Company (Part Nine)

Zhu Ning felt as if she was trapped by something. She opened her eyes to a deep, dark expanse above her.

Layer upon layer of pressure pinned her down, making it impossible for her to stand up. Where was this place?

Zhu Ning saw two massive shadows, like the inverted reflections of icebergs floating on the sea, pressing down in layers, enveloping her with an instinctive fear.

"Juzhi, come and sign the employment contract," she heard someone say.

After a moment, Zhu Ning finally realized where she was—this was the scene where Hope was about to bring her on board.

The two dark shadows were the faces of Hope and Zhu Ning, with a huge contract placed on the glass table.

She was pressed beneath the glass table.

Zhu Ning had once heard of people falling into lakes in winter, unable to break through the ice above them as they struggled. Now, Zhu Ning felt exactly that way.

She felt as if she had been submerged to the bottom of the sea, with thick black glass above her. No matter how she resisted, she could find no way out.

Bang!

She pounded on the black glass, trying to attract the attention of the other self above, but the other Zhu Ning was completely unaware.

Bang!

She felt as if she was suffocating. When a person is on the brink of death, they hope to save themselves and also want the other self to escape quickly.

She pounded on the glass, pushing with her shoulders, like a fish struggling in its final moments.

"If there are no problems, just sign here," Hope said, smiling at Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning had experienced this scene before; she knew she was about to sign her name. Once employed, one must conform to the logic of the contaminated area, becoming polluted in the process.

Mental contamination occurred earlier than she thought, silently and without warning.

She had been contaminated long ago.

"Zhu Ning!" She pounded on the glass, shouting loudly, "Run!"

Zhu Ning, run!

Don't sign, don't do anything that seems normal in this contaminated area.

The new Zhu Ning hesitated for a moment with the pen in hand, then signed a series of scribbles.

"That's fine," Hope said. "Back to your workstation."

Then Hope and Zhu Ning stood up and left the office. Hope even kindly closed the door, completely cutting off all sound from Zhu Ning.

Her arms fell limp. Zhu Ning couldn't hear her.

She knew what would happen next: she would go to work, attend performance evaluation meetings, and strive to become an outstanding employee.

It was too late to stop it.

As Zhu Ning relaxed, her body began to sink, as if reaching the true depths of the sea. She watched helplessly as the glass tabletop grew farther and farther away.

Her consciousness became increasingly blurred, and no matter how hard she tried to regain control, it was futile.

Wake up.

Zhu Ning suddenly opened her eyes to see a ceiling, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant and flowers everywhere.

What was that just now? An illusion?

Her body was wrapped in bandages, which revealed traces of blood. Strangely, she couldn't lift her arms.

Her limbs were tied to the four corners of the bed, as if a mental patient had finally been restrained back in the asylum.

After entering so many contaminated areas, this was the first time she had lost consciousness. What substance did they give her just now?

The system in her mind seemed paralyzed, not even giving a warning of danger.

A leader looked over with concern. "Juzhi has woken up."

"Juzhi, rest assured, we will definitely cure you," they said.

One of the most disgusting scenes in the world is when the criminal who harmed you smiles and says they will heal you.

Flashbulbs kept going off, and Zhu Ning took photos with different leaders and doctors, who smiled contentedly, allowing her to recover here.

After the leaders left, only one person remained. Juzhi placed his hands on his knees, his shy gaze hidden behind black-rimmed glasses.

Juzhi spoke softly, "If you need anything, you can tell me."

Zhu Ning remembered the bulletin board, which stated that employee mutual assistance demonstrated a harmonious and loving family environment.

The person taking care of Zhu Ning was Juzhi, whom she remembered kicking against the wall.

Juzhi said, "Light forgave you, and the company doesn't hold that against you."

Zhu Ning felt like a former troublemaker who had strayed for a moment but was now forcibly put back on track.

They even wanted to show great mercy and forgive her? How ridiculous was that?

Juzhi spoke softly, "Thank you."

At the performance evaluation meeting that day, Juzhi already knew she was the last one. Without Zhu Ning's sudden madness, she might have been eliminated.

Cardboard Box: "So I really want to take care of you."

Zhu Ning didn't speak; her limbs were bound, and she stared heavily at the ceiling.

Cardboard Box said, "The doctor said you're sick, it affects your brain, and you might be a bit unstable in your thoughts."

Zhu Ning thought to herself that she was more than just unstable in her thoughts; she felt like she was going mad in the contaminated area.

She could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion, having been mentally polluted long ago.

What was real and what was fake? Was what she was experiencing now actually happening?

Not only was she weak and her mind unclear, but she also faced two of her most hated situations.

Unable to find the source of contamination, she couldn't even use the system items because resistance was futile, merely a waste of life points.

Zhu Ning remained silent, looking as if she had completely given up hope.

Cardboard Box comforted her, "They say you're immune to radiation and will treat you for free. They'll figure out what's wrong with you."

Zhu Ning showed no interest in anything and still did not respond.

Cardboard Box handed her a document, an internal company bulletin, "We're really close to success."

Bound, Zhu Ning could only listen as Cardboard Box read the bulletin aloud. It stated that Hengsheng Machinery Company had accidentally discovered a new substance, one with kinetic energy far greater than that of the contaminating spores. If successfully developed, Hengsheng Machinery Company's wealth would surpass any existing financial empire.

However, the energy was extremely unstable, with such strong radiation that prolonged exposure caused employees' internal organs to corrode and their bones to shatter, leading to death.

An unstable energy source is like a rich mine—people know there's gold down there, but they can't find a way to dig it out.

Despite knowing the energy was radioactive, the company continued to expose batch after batch of excellent employees to it.

Driven by greed, humans can do any despicable thing for profit.

Cardboard Box: "You're the only survivor now. They suspect you have some kind of antibody. Don't worry, they'll take very good care of you and treat your illness."

Zhu Ning sneered. She could guess what this company would do. If she were a capitalist, encountering such an employee, they would certainly find another way to exploit them.

Employees hope to be cured, but the company finds ways to extract more value from you.

With mechanical prosthetics so advanced, if they truly wanted to cure an employee, they could simply buy her full-body mechanization, like Chu Ling.

This company is stalling for time, likely deliberately depriving you of your ability to act, preferably making you unable to speak, so you can neither speak nor seek help.

Ultimately becoming a puppet completely controlled by the company.

She was experiencing what Wang Qinxi had gone through, now she was the unfortunate survivor.

Cardboard Box: "The other employees all have high hopes for you. The company invested all its funds into this project, ran out of money, and then raised capital from us. Many employees bought shares."

Zhu Ning frowned, her mind recalling the back-channel information she had found.

Hengsheng Machinery Company had been operating well, but suddenly went bankrupt, with various speculations from the outside world. Now it made sense—they had launched an extremely costly project.

The company painted a grand vision, draining not only the company's funds but also the employees' money.

If the project succeeds, everything will be fine, but if it fails, all the efforts of the company and its employees will be in vain.

And the key to the project is a survivor?

Zhu Ning looked down at herself. She was already wearing a hospital gown. As long as the antibody in her body could be successfully researched,

they could safely use the new energy source.

Such a person would be in a state where they cannot live or die. If Zhu Ning tried to escape, everyone in the company would come to capture her.

If anyone were given the opportunity to become a capitalist, they would unhesitatingly choose to exploit.

The cost of wrongdoing is very low. Other colleagues neither participated in binding Zhu Ning nor came to harm her directly.

They just invested in themselves.

How could investment be a form of harm? It's even a recognition of your personal value.

Mental power converges, people bring extreme madness, and it's strange that they don't become part of the contaminated area.

So this is what happened to Wang Qinxi.

Zhu Ning was trapped here, her cleaning backpack disappeared, and she didn't even have a gun in her hand.

Zhu Ning closed her eyes, too lazy to struggle. Seeing her mood was really bad, Cardboard Box closed the door and left.

At first, the doctors thought Zhu Ning would resist violently, as she looked like a troublemaker, but over the next few days, Zhu Ning remained quiet.

Like an exhausted wild animal, she eventually stopped struggling, recognizing that she was locked in a zoo, having completely lost her will to live.

Zhu Ning spoke little, just reading books and newspapers, occasionally chatting with Cardboard Box.

She had never stayed in the contaminated area for so many days, so long that she completely lost track of time, merging with the contaminated area.

Zhu Ning's strength was rapidly depleting. In the process of treating her, Zhu Ning had gone from barely being able to lift her hand to only being able to lift a finger.

She was decaying. The hallucinations she saw before were becoming real; her internal organs were rotting, and she would eventually be completely consumed by the contaminated area.

That day, Cardboard Box came to see her as usual. If she hadn't known in advance that Cardboard Box was just a contaminant, Zhu Ning felt they might have become good friends.

Zhu Ning: "I want to go to the rooftop."

For so many days, this was the first time Zhu Ning had made a request to Cardboard Box, who was a bit surprised.

Zhu Ning had thought that Box, being so timid, wouldn't come to help her. But on that day, after dinner around 7:30 PM, Box pushed the wheelchair over.

Zhu Ning was lifted onto the wheelchair by Box. As an athlete, she had never before lost her mobility and needed to be carried; it was humiliating.

Box considerately covered her knees with a blanket.

They avoided the doctors and took the freight elevator, evading checkpoint after checkpoint, like two schoolgirls sneaking past their teachers on an adventure.

In the end, they reached the rooftop without any excitement.

This was Zhu Ning's first time on the rooftop. The employee handbook had warned against entering it without permission, and she wondered what would happen when she went up there.

The rooftop was very close to the sky, with a swirling vortex above. Zhu Ning stared at it, feeling her thoughts growing increasingly muddled.

The building, over two hundred stories tall, resembled a mountain, with clouds below, making people atop seem incredibly small.

How she wanted to jump, a strange impulse surged in Zhu Ning’s heart.

While Zhu Ning enjoyed the breeze on the rooftop, Box merely watched from the side. The railing here was quite low, and one could easily fall if not careful.

Zhu Ning focused intently on the view below. Her helmet’s perspective was activated, allowing her to see the movements downstairs.

Suddenly, Zhu Ning frowned; there was a figure downstairs.

Another Zhu Ning cautiously stepped out of the office building’s main door. Zhu Ning remembered this day; it was her first day at work, and after a day of pressure, she felt a sense of relief as she walked to the company entrance.

Lying on the edge of the rooftop, Zhu Ning still felt weak, and it seemed she was reliving this moment.

Zhu Ning had already been corrupted. If everything was happening again, did she have a chance to change reality?

Did one have to jump off the building to escape this polluted area?

Zhu Ning held a piece of paper in her hand, which she had kept with her all along. It read: "Find the future."

It seemed she had returned to her path.

Was the person who jumped that day really herself? Seeing another figure on the rooftop, it made sense—it was Box.

She had indeed jumped.

Zhu Ning clutched the paper tightly. The other self downstairs was about to step out, and according to the procedure, she should jump.

She should sacrifice her damaged self to warn the other self and help her avoid danger.

Looking down, from the 200th floor, everything looked like ants unless viewed through the helmet’s perspective.

Should she really jump?

If she jumped, she would be free, no need to clean up the mess, just leave the rest to the other self.

She would take her place.

When Zhu Ning jumped, she would hear the sound of the wind, her body descending while her soul ascended.

She would hit the ground, her helmet shattering, its fragments piercing her eye sockets, warning the other self to run before dying.

This would complete the relay.

As long as she jumped, as long as she committed suicide, as long as she completed this ritual, everything would be over.

Dying would be better.

Zhu Ning repeated this scene in her mind, the helmet fragments piercing her eye sockets.

The wind howled in her ears, and Zhu Ning had already leaned over the edge of the rooftop, half her body hanging out.

But she stopped.

No, no, something wasn’t right.

She sat back in the wheelchair, having almost fallen into the trap of the polluted area.

Zhu Ning could feel someone holding the handle of her wheelchair from behind. They stood carefully, frowning when they saw Zhu Ning sit back.

Zhu Ning left Box with her back, the wind on the rooftop howling loudly.

Zhu Ning laughed, a low, eerie laugh that matched the bloody smile on her helmet.

She seemed like a true madwoman, or even a deranged killer, regardless of her mobility. Indeed, Zhu Ning was the most terrifying person in this polluted area, no matter what.

"Box," Zhu Ning said, after laughing enough, "are you Qinxi Wang?"

The Box behind her tightened her grip on the wheelchair handle. "What?"

Zhu Ning didn’t turn around but looked forward, remembering that she had asked for Box’s real name when she had collected Box’s remains, hoping not to be questioned.

But this prohibition wasn’t written in the employee handbook, hoping to prevent Zhu Ning from knowing Box’s real name.

Zhu Ning: "Your real name is Qinxi Wang."

The wind howled on the rooftop, and after Zhu Ning spoke these words, the vortex in the sky began to spin.

Zhu Ning watched the spinning vortex, which seemed to hint that everything was cyclical.

Zhu Ning: "There is no cycle, right?"

Behind her, the sheep-headed woman wore black-rimmed glasses, with nothing remarkable about her appearance or personality. After a long pause, Zhu Ning heard her say, "Why?"

Why? What was wrong with her?

Zhu Ning turned around, and on her helmet was a blood-red smiley face, as if it were smiling at Wang Qinxi.

Zhu Ning: "Because there's no blood on the helmet."

She realized where the key issue lay—in the helmet. She had painted a blood-red smile on her own helmet. It wasn't for coolness; it was a mark.

The smile Zhu Ning painted had a very wide arc, stretching from the far left to the far right of the helmet.

If the Zhu Ning she saw jumping off the building was really her future self, then she should have had a blood-red smile on her face too.

On the first day, the "Zhu Ning" who jumped off the building had a shattered helmet, but the fragments only had blood spots, with no signs of any deliberate painting.

And on the second day, the "Zhu Ning" who jumped had a helmet that was broken at one corner, and again, there was no blood-red smile.

Neither time.

Zhu Ning felt like she was trapped in a strange world, but then she suddenly found a clue. From this point, she dug deeper and discovered that the entire world was fake.

There was no cycle of rebirth.

The contaminated area had been deceiving her, and the mental contamination had started long ago.

It might have begun just before Zhu Ning entered the contaminated area, when the rooster used for the ritual at the entrance was hanging upside down, dripping blood.

The rooster swinging in the air was like a pendulum.

Once you entered the company, you had to accept the company's logic, and you would inevitably be contaminated.

This contamination was silent and almost imperceptible, and Zhu Ning's system had never announced it.

This was a mental contamination zone.

The contaminated area wanted to drive Zhu Ning to suicide. Instead of directly killing people, it chose to kill those who entered the contaminated area through this indirect method.

Zhu Ning: "I came to this contaminated area because I accepted a tomb post mission. The OP of the tomb post said that whenever he came to work, he always suspected he was trapped in the same day. His evidence was that his desk would always return to its original state every day, and he would encounter the same person committing suicide every day."

Zhu Ning spoke as if talking to herself, not caring whether the cardboard box behind her could understand.

Words have power, and as she listened to her own voice, she gradually regained her thoughts.

Zhu Ning looked at her bandaged hands: "What if it's not a cycle? What if it's just mental contamination?"

The key to mental contamination lies in repetition—constantly repeating something to engrave an impression in someone's mind.

In this contaminated area, there were many repetitive elements, such as the pen and the new employee joining on the first Monday of the cycle.

But the most repeated behavior was jumping off the building.

The owner of the tomb post was a victim.

All of this was a trick by the contaminated area. When the OP entered the company, it was already contaminated, but he didn't know it.

He thought it was a normal company and came to work normally, but his desk would always reset every day.

Every day when he finished work, he would see an employee jump to their death. At first, he tried to avoid it, as no one likes to see a corpse.

So at first, he didn't know who the jumper was, but the repeated daily suicides were a form of mental contamination.

Eventually, he truly believed he was trapped in the same day and thought that jumping was the way to escape.

The last recording left on the tomb post was the sound of a body hitting the ground.

After Zhu Ning entered the contaminated area, it used the same method on her, making her constantly see "the future" and believe there was something wrong with the space-time here.

It made Zhu Ning find the same pen, experience the onboarding process, and see the dead cardboard box under the table.

On the first night after work, she saw herself committing suicide, which made her suspect that this place was related to a cycle.

After Zhu Ning violently became an outstanding employee, she eliminated her competitor, and the entire office area was shrouded in a blood-red terror.

When Zhu Ning saw the cardboard box for the second time in the corner, she thought she had really seen another timeline.

By this point, the mental suggestion was complete.

Next, Zhu Ning would follow the predetermined path, as these events had deeply embedded themselves in her mind as key clues.

Trapped under the black glass table, her first reaction was to pound on the glass.

When she found herself on the rooftop, her first reaction was to jump.

These were like programs implanted in her mind, everything repeating, and once the mental suggestion was complete, it was hard to resist.

No wonder the goat-headed people were harmless, and the security team didn't attack her. Even seeing countless frozen goat-headed bodies in the basement, Zhu Ning's danger sense never activated, as they never truly caused any harm.

Because the damage it wanted to inflict was not physical but mental.

Its contamination mode was to induce you to jump.