I Wore Funeral Clothes to a Job Interview… and the Ghosts Approved

The corpse, startled by this, immediately let go of his ankle. In life, he had
been an honest man. In death, he was an honest ghost. He decided to give up even
the most basic dignity of being a ghost and just stop trying to scare people. He
just didn’t have the talent for it. Being a person or a ghost, it was all the
same.

Su Lai: “Did you jump, or were you pushed?”

The corpse stared at him in terror, with the look of one who had died with his
eyes open.

Su Lai: “You’re falling from height debris. I need to find the person who threw
you and hold them responsible.”

The fallen corpse decided to keep his eyes rolled back and stay silent to the
end. He once again obediently lay on the ground in front of Fortuitous
Retribution Plaza, staring blankly at the towering office building, his pupils
continuing to dilate.

Facing such an aggressive passerby, he decided it was better to just stay
thoroughly dead.

“I’ll give you a suit. Put it on, and you can have a good death.” Su Lai took
the buy-one-get-one-free burial suit from his delivery box. He figured since
he’d run into this, he’d do a good deed. This corpse hadn’t been persistently
trying to scam him. He was pretty honest.

“If your eyes still won’t close after wearing it, go find the funeral shop
owner, Old He. His shop is at 444, Guinan Market.”

With that, he covered the sad corpse with the smaller-sized burial suit. The
shattered body was now covered by the bright red and green fabric, standing out
vividly in the gray, heavy fog.

“Rest in peace. Don’t have any more bad thoughts.”

Funeral shop owner He hadn’t lied to the neighbors. After covering the jumper
with the burial suit, he indeed peacefully closed his eyes.

Su Lai took the work ID card that the deceased had been clutching to his chest.

Employee Name: *** Department: Marketing Department Employee ID: 1120

The name on the ID card had been reduced to asterisks, as if to the company,
employees didn’t need their own names. No need to waste ink printing them.

At the bottom of the ID card was the deceased’s employee photo. In the photo, he
looked young, with thick hair, seemingly just graduated from school, smiling
with sunshine and confidence.

But the ID card had several scratch marks from fingernails and burn marks. In
his final moments, he seemed to have been desperately trying to scratch out his
former self in the photo.

Now, covered in a burial suit, although he looked much more haggard, he had
become peaceful.

“Borrowing this. I’ll return it to you if we meet again.” Su Lai took out the
paper money that the butcher had returned and used it to replace the ID card in
the corpse’s hand. He himself put the ID card of employee 1120 into his pocket.

To enter the building, you needed to swipe an ID card. Su Lai kept
employee 1120’s card in his pocket, but then he took it out and put it back. In
the end, he honestly went to the front desk to register for the interview.

The exterior of this building looked like a modern, standard office tower, but
the security booth actually had a shrine.

The shrine was strange. The statue was upside down. Four incense sticks were
burning in the censer. The scent wasn’t the familiar sandalwood or mugwort. The
burning incense had a faint, fishy smell, like rotting fish in a market trash
can.

Three for gods, four for ghosts, upside down for worship. This Fortuitous
Retribution Building was indeed rather ominous.

“Don’t meddle in corpses that aren’t your business. There are so many people
jumping every day. You think you can help them all?” The security guard in the
booth lifted his eyelids, glanced at the delivery e-bike parked at the building
entrance, then impatiently sized up this strangely dressed young man. “Delivery
guy?”

But because Su Lai was too tall, the security guard had to crane his neck to see
his face.

He pointed to the warning sign posted on the door——[This building prohibits food
delivery and courier personnel from entering.] Then he raised his index finger,
pointing towards the road disappearing into the thick fog, signaling Su Lai to
go back the way he came.

Su Lai was used to security guards with this attitude. He looked down at him.
“Here for an interview.”

It seemed he would have to temporarily pause his delivery business. Coming to an
interview meant bowing down to life.

“What?” The guard raised an eyebrow, deliberately raising his voice. “Did you
say you’re here for what?”

Su Lai stared unblinkingly into the guard’s eyes. “Interview.” He was sure he
had enunciated every word clearly.

The guard’s eyes weren’t murky, so the NPCs in this instance weren’t “dead
people.” There were no obvious differences between them and the players. They
had all the expected disdain in their eyes.

“Strange. We get a lot of people interviewing here every day, but never anyone
like you.” The guard said.

Su Lai: “Like what?”

The guard gave a contemptuous laugh, then impatiently pulled out a registration
book. “Write down your name and the purpose of your visit. The interview is on
the 4th floor, Room 404. Don’t forget to write the department and position
you’re applying for.”

Su Lai’s hand holding the pen paused. Department and position? That wasn’t in
the interview invitation they’d sent him.

Su Lai simply redialed the phone number from the text message. This time, it was
answered quickly. “Mr. Wang, hello. Do you have any other questions?”

Su Lai was direct. “What position am I applying for?”

The other end was silent for half a second. The voice was polite but cold. “In
principle, we hope the applicant has a clear career plan.” “Candidates who lack
work experience and have no self-career planning will not have high demands on
themselves in the workplace.” The other’s tone was cold, yet condescending. “Do
you have any other questions?”

Su Lai: “No.”

Beep beep beep—— The other party hung up quickly.

His style was to say nothing at all. An empty answer.

Self-career planning. Su Lai thought it over and asked the system. “In this
instance, can players hit the original residents?”

Unlike his previous chaotic entry into the urban village as Wang Xiaosi, Su Lai
was now a temporary player. Having status meant having restrictions, but also
being able to get more rewards. So he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted.

The system lagged for a few seconds, then said through the earphones. [In
principle, the system does not recommend players doing that.]

“In principle” again. It seemed that after entering Fortuitous Retribution
Building, even the system had caught the habit of talking nonsense.

Su Lai: “Then what if I really want to hit someone?”

The system crackled and jumped. [If the player insists on doing so, it may
trigger an unpredictable crisis.] [Please note, in the workplace, violence
cannot solve fundamental problems.]

Su Lai nodded thoughtfully. “But some workplace problems can only be solved with
violence.”

Meanwhile, the security guard, who looked down his nose at everyone, was
muttering endlessly. “Our Fortuitous Retribution Building is a 5A-class office
building. The people who work here are the cream of the crop among young people.
High education, right age, preferably unmarried, childless, with a mortgage.
That kind of young person can work overtime desperately…” “The job market is so
bad now. Plenty of famous school graduates can’t find work. The big companies
are laying off people non-stop. And a delivery guy wants to squeeze in here and
get a desk job? A toad wanting to eat swan meat!”

Su Lai didn’t care about his sarcasm at all. He caught the key information and
asked. “Since the big companies are laying off people, why is this place still
constantly hiring and interviewing?”

The guard waved his hand. “Fresh beasts of burden are the best to use. The old
ones are already drained. They can’t work anymore.”

Su Lai looked closely at the guard’s face. His features were abstract. His face
was long and pointed. From the front, he looked like an ox-head. From the side,
like a horse-face. An ox-head and horse-face.

The guard felt a bit creeped out by his stare. “What are you looking at?
Something on my face?”

Su Lai shook his head. “Nothing on your face. An ox and a horse.” The head of an
ox and the face of a horse. Ox and horse for short. Nothing wrong with that.

[Temporary player Wang Xiaosi, please note. Please regulate your words and
actions. Please complete the interview registration information as soon as
possible to avoid arousing the guard’s suspicion.] [Safety note: The building
guard has a certain degree of aggression. Suspicion may trigger his berserk
state, causing unpredictable harm to the player.]

Su Lai: “Would a berserk guard cause harm to NPCs?”

The system lagged again. [We apologize. This instance has never encountered a
similar situation. The system has no data to reference and cannot provide an
accurate answer.]

He didn’t expect the system to be quite rigorous.

Su Lai ignored the guard’s mood. He continued asking. “How many security guards
does Fortuitous Retribution Building have?”

The guard gave him a strange look. “Just me.”

Su Lai gave a flat “Oh.” “The security system of a 5A-class office building is
so weak.” “What are your daily duties?”

The guard: “What do you mean? Why should I tell you?”

Su Lai nodded without answering. He picked up his pen and wrote down his
information in the visitor registration book.

The registration form required the visitor to fill in the visit date. Su Lai
paused, pen in hand. He figured time in the instance might be different from the
real world, so he asked the guard. “What’s the date today?”

“The 24th.” The guard answered quickly.

Sure enough, different from the real world. In the real world, today was
the 1st. He subconsciously asked again. “What month?”

The guard’s eyes rolled. He didn’t answer, instead saying abruptly. “Just write
the 24th. So many questions!”

The tip of Su Lai’s pen paused. He scribbled the date. The guard’s hesitation
made him take note.

Soon, Su Lai finished filling out the interview registration——

Visitor Name: Wang Xiaosi Date: 24th Floor of Visit: 4th Floor, 404 Purpose of
Visit: Company interview Note: Department Applying For: Fortuitous Retribution
Building Security Department; Position Applying For: Security Guard.

Didn’t the interviewer say he needed a self-career plan? In this cold,
reinforced concrete building, Su Lai thought security guard was the most
suitable position for him.

The security guard stood by, watching as Su Lai wrote that he was applying for
the security guard position. This was beyond his programming. For a moment, he
didn’t know how to react.

Should he be furious? Or should he show a hypocritical smile and welcome the new
colleague to compete? But obviously, Su Lai’s words didn’t trigger his berserk
state. The young guard was just falling into his own confusion and, following
procedure, swiped Su Lai into the building.

As Su Lai walked towards the elevators, the guard finally regained his composure
and continued his sarcastic shouting. “Don’t waste your time. We’re not hiring
any more security guards. I’m the only one who gets this job. Don’t even think
about it.” “I have people behind me. I won’t be laid off.” The guard raised his
voice to express his confidence.

People behind him. Oh. Someone with connections. He wondered if those “people”
behind him were even human.

Su Lai: “Maybe you’ll leave for a better opportunity and quit on your own?”

The guard let out a short burst of laughter. “A better opportunity? In this day
and age, if you leave a job, are you gonna deliver food or packages?”

Su Lai glanced at the guard, who looked down on delivery guys, and turned to
enter the elevator. “See you.” His “see you” always meant what it said.

The security guard standing by the elevator quietly tore off a yellow paper
stuck under the button. “If you’re lucky, you might live until tomorrow
morning’s layoffs.”

“Oh, thanks for the heads up.” So there were layoffs tomorrow morning too.

In the instant the elevator doors closed, the guard revealed an unprecedented,
sinister smile. At that moment, even though his eyes weren’t murky, through the
narrowing gap, he stared straight at Su Lai in the elevator with a bizarre,
eerie look, his mouth wide open, showing his crooked, yellowed teeth.

Su Lai saw it but didn’t react. He pressed the button for the fourth floor.

After the doors closed, a sign on the door jumped into view—— [Please use the
elevator civilizedly. Refrain from uncivilized behaviors such as smoking, eating
sunflower seeds, vigorously tapping the buttons, etc. Keeping the elevator clean
and tidy is everyone’s responsibility.]

Among these, the words “clean and tidy” were already blurry, while the
characters “everyone” were conspicuously painted in crimson.

[For your personal safety, please do not tear down the ** inside or outside the
elevator.] This line was partially obscured by spray paint. Only the first half
was visible. The second half was completely blurry.

Fortuitous Retribution Building looked grand from the outside, but the interior
decoration gave an oppressive sense of rules. The ceiling was thick and low.
There were no windows. Light poured down from cold white fluorescent tubes,
illuminating the dense square tiles on the walls.

For a moment, Su Lai had the illusion that he was at the bottom of a huge
swimming pool. The pool had dried up long ago, the accumulated fishy smell of
water lingering.

After the doors closed, the elevator became a sealed space. The persistent fishy
smell became more prominent.

The elevator began to move up slowly. The rumble of the motor echoed from the
shaft. The entire ascent was jerky, not smooth at all.

When the floor display showed 3, the indicator light suddenly flickered. The
light it emitted seemed shrouded in frosted glass, blurry and unreal.

Su Lai looked at the fourth-floor indicator, which was gradually going out, and
silently sighed. Seeing the guard’s smug, sneaky look earlier, he had known this
interview wouldn’t go smoothly.

“Drip, drop… Drip, drop…” A familiar sound came from beside his ear. The fishy
smell grew stronger.

Unlike the fishy smell of the pool before, the smell spreading in the elevator
now seemed more like blood.

The dripping continued. The elevator indicator lights were now completely out.
The once shiny, clean elevator buttons were suddenly covered by blurry bloody
fingerprints.

The bloody fingerprints spread like cockroaches from a disturbed nest,
frantically growing and crawling between the floor buttons and the elevator
door. In a flash, they became thick and dense. Under his feet, a large puddle of
blood had already gathered, flowing steadily towards the cracks in the elevator.

So the elevator scenes in ghost movies were real. Those writers must have had
some real-life horror experience.

Su Lai’s floral shirt was 90% new, a unique pattern from the night market. He
didn’t want it to get dirty from the bloody handprints. So he simply put the
newly bought burial suit over his head.

Since it was already a burial suit, he didn’t mind if it got a bit more blood
and brain matter on it. Even if it got ash from cremation, it wouldn’t matter.

Su Lai knew the ghosts these days were very formulaic. Without even looking up,
he knew the ghost was now stuck to the ceiling of the elevator like a spider,
desperately draining its body’s blood to scare the guests inside.

Back in the day, his grandmother always warned him, if he encountered anything
strange outside, don’t meddle, don’t stop, don’t look, just quietly wait for the
weirdness to pass.

But Su Lai was just too curious. He always had to get to the bottom of things.

Curiosity killed the cat. But he wasn’t a cat. The cat plushie, Chu Qi, hugging
the roof of the elevator, was the cat.

Su Lai raised his hand high and poked his head out from under the bright red and
green burial suit. Just in time to come face to face with the female ghost stuck
to the ceiling.

Both man and ghost were startled. The ghost hadn’t expected this person to be so
calm. The person hadn’t expected the ghost’s death to be so gruesome. Both were
momentarily at a loss.

The female ghost was bent over, her hair thin. Her limbs were in an extremely
twisted position. The worst part was her face. The skin on both ears and cheeks
had fallen off. The irregular marks looked as if the ears had been ripped off.
Bloody muscle and white bone were exposed on her cheekbones.

Her mouth was half open. Her tongue was only a small stub. The broken tongue
root was covered in dark red flesh buds, densely wriggling and proliferating in
her mouth.

The crimson blood and brain matter was dripping from her half-open mouth.

Su Lai sighed for the third time. In his impression, the only way to die in an
office building was from overwork. He hadn’t expected that in less than 20
minutes of being here, he would see one corpse more bloody than the next. Even
worse than Spring Breeze Community.

It seemed sudden death from overwork was his stereotypical image. The true
survival situation of corporate slaves was more complex and cruel than he had
imagined.

Before the female ghost could attack, Su Lai took the initiative in
negotiations. “We’re colleagues now. But I only have one burial suit left. I
can’t give you one for a good death.”

The female ghost’s lips split even more exaggeratedly. The flesh buds covering
her tongue root seemed to have mouthparts, but they couldn’t form human
language. They only emitted a sharp, continuous screech.

He didn’t know if it was because he wasn’t a official player, but Su Lai noticed
that his mental stability wasn’t moving at all. He didn’t have the usual
players’ worry about mental stability fluctuations. Perhaps this was a special
bug for temporary workers.

Su Lai felt nothing inside. He only thought the female ghost, clinging to the
ceiling and desperately sticking out her tongue, looked tired.

If he needed to run, the elevator was too narrow for a chase. How would he deal
with the ghost? Su Lai started missing the days of speeding through the urban
village.

“You need to open the elevator doors so I can go out and find you ears and a
tongue.” Even though the female ghost’s face was torn, Su Lai still studied it
carefully. His grandmother said if you’re missing something, you need to replace
it. This female ghost was missing two ears and a tongue. She probably wanted to
get them back.

As he spoke, Su Lai held up half a pig tongue that the butcher had given him.
“If you’re not picky, you could use this for now. But it’s only half.”

Whether it was something he said that angered her, the elevator lights, which
had gone out, suddenly turned back on, blazing frantically. The buttons for all
the floors started blinking non-stop. The stalled elevator began racing up and
down erratically. Su Lai was dizzy, feeling like he was trapped in a tumbler,
being shaken non-stop.

His stomach churned. Su Lai fought back the urge to vomit and immediately held
onto the elevator wall to reluctantly keep his balance.

Su Lai didn’t like any thrill rides at amusement parks. If this kept up, the
female ghost was going to shake him to death in the elevator.

One of the purposes of a ghost scaring a person was to frighten them to death,
to find a substitute.

In a flash, Su Lai suddenly remembered Chen Po, sitting at the doorstep days
ago, eating a fly. At the time, Chen Po had stared at his feet with her murky
eyes and smiled at his pink flip-flops. “Those slippers of yours are festive.
They’ll like them.”

Such festive flip-flops would be a waste not to try them out!

Su Lai acted on the idea. He immediately took off his pink flip-flops and, like
swatting cockroaches, started frantically slapping the blinking floor buttons.
The pink rubber soles of the flip-flops kept rubbing against the buttons, making
loud slapping sounds in the small, shaking space.

[Beep beep beep——] Instantly, the floors that had been slapped by the flip-flops
stopped blinking. The crackling sound of current came from the elevator ceiling.
The flickering lights stopped. The elevator returned to stable illumination.

Only now, the light in the elevator was tinged with a dim crimson, like blood
that had fermented over the years.

The commotion having slightly subsided, Su Lai used his flip-flops again to
press the button for the fourth floor. The interview was on the fourth floor,
Room 404. Only four minutes left.

“Woo… crackle… woo woo woo…” The female ghost on the ceiling suddenly let out a
heart-wrenching whimper. She seemed very resistant to the fourth floor. She
curled up from the ceiling into a corner, making meaningless crying sounds.

Could it be that the fourth floor, the interview location, was something like a
“safe room” for players? Or, was there something more terrifying than a ghost on
the fourth floor?

Seeing that he was about to be late for the interview, Su Lai couldn’t
investigate further. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Su Lai
actually left the half pig tongue in the elevator.

They say you should eat what you’re missing. Although she looked bloody, she was
still a departed colleague. Since he’d met her, as the new employee, he could
look out for her. Maybe he’d need her “guidance” later.

The guard, who looked like an ox and a horse, appeared on the fourth floor. The
moment Su Lai stepped out of the elevator, he felt the guard’s shocked gaze.

The guard’s eyes widened as he looked at Su Lai, who had emerged from the
elevator completely intact. “How, how are you not dead——”

He suddenly realized he had slipped. He quickly shut his mouth and strode
towards Su Lai. He pulled out his phone, connected to the elevator surveillance,
and played the footage of Su Lai hitting the buttons with his flip-flops,
accusing him loudly. “Can’t you read? It clearly says here: Please use the
elevator civilizedly. Refrain from uncivilized behaviors such as smoking, eating
sunflower seeds, vigorously tapping the buttons!”

Su Lai looked expressionlessly at the surveillance footage. Sure enough, ghosts
didn’t appear on camera. In the video, he looked like a crazy person, talking to
himself and gesticulating wildly in the elevator.

“Keeping the elevator clean and tidy is everyone’s responsibility.” Su Lai
pointed at the second half of the warning sign. “There were cockroaches in the
elevator. I was killing them.” “Doesn’t killing cockroaches count as keeping it
clean and tidy?”

Hearing the word “cockroaches,” the guard’s face showed unprecedented terror. He
quickly stepped back from the elevator, his shoulders trembling violently, as if
cockroaches were some kind of taboo.

Su Lai keenly caught his expression and added casually. “Have you ever seen
someone use flip-flops to press elevator buttons?”

The flustered guard shook his head instinctively.

Su Lai continued. “Have you ever seen someone use flip-flops to kill
cockroaches?”

The guard nodded instinctively.

Su Lai was satisfied. “See? That’s right.”

With that, he left the confused guard behind and quickly walked towards
Room 404.

Just in time. The door was slightly ajar. Su Lai knocked. A cold “Come in”
answered.

The moment Su Lai pushed open the office door, dozens of eyes immediately fixed
on him. From within the formally dressed crowd, a shocked, extremely loud “Holy
shit!” burst out——