The Entire Department Moved Away

“Truly, nothing is free.”
Su Lai looked at the food in the display cases, devoid of any color, aroma, and taste. Though it looked unappetizing, the prices weren’t cheap, and they were paid for using employees’ hardest-earned work hours.

100 grams of white rice: 0.5 work hours. A serving of shredded pork with garlic sauce: 2 work hours. A serving of Mapo Tofu: 1 work hour…
Even a bowl of watery small wontons cost 1 work hour.

And the rules were clearly posted at the pickup counter:

1. Cafeteria opening hours are 12:00-13:00 and 18:00-19:00. All employees must arrive at the cafeteria during these times to eat.
2. Do not enter outside of opening hours. If the elevator accidentally stops on the second floor, do not easily walk out of the open doors.
3. Employees entering the cafeteria during meal times must order food. Outside food is prohibited.
4. Choose your dishes carefully. The cafeteria does not accept returns.
5. Spend within your means. Waste is shameful.
6. Be careful when taking food out of the cafeteria (Some food taken out may lose its edible properties!)
7. Remember, all your colleagues are very hungry. (crossed out)
…

In summary, employees are forced to eat on time, the food isn’t free, waste is prohibited, and taking food out is risky.

Su Lai: “A security guard earns only 0.5 work hours per hour. That’s barely enough for 100 grams of rice. Won’t fill you up.”

Bai Ke: “Not everyone has a boss as kind as Auntie.”
He looked at Su Lai with an expression that said, “Maybe you should just go home and inherit the family business.”

“The wool comes from the sheep. Management thinks employees need a certain level of anxiety and survival crisis, need to make them uncomfortable, to get them to work hard.” Bai Ke sighed.

Anxiety and survival crisis were the contaminants that transformed employees into beasts of burden.

The 「work hours」 generated by employees were the currency in Fortuitous Retribution Building. The real-time settlement was to give employees a sense of “achievement” from hard work.

Nothing here was free. To follow the rules and survive, you had to consume work hours. And work hours had to be earned through hard work.

Bai Ke: “The main quest requires us to compete to the death and survive until payday. I wouldn’t be surprised if tonight’s lodging also costs work hours.”
The familiar work-related anxiety was setting in. Good thing he had no more hair left to lose.

Su Lai mused.
“What if you run out of work hours?”
Rather than anxious, he seemed a bit intrigued.

Bai Ke shrugged.
“Can’t eat in the cafeteria, can’t stay in the dorms. Either way, you’re breaking the rules.”

Su Lai was relieved.
“Good thing I have the security booth.”

Bai Ke: “You still need to eat.”

Su Lai pointed at the greasy rules posted on the wall.
“The rules only say you must order food. They don’t say you can’t ‘borrow’ a colleague’s card to pay.”

Bai Ke suddenly had a bad feeling…

“New Employee Handbook, Article 9: Solidarity and fraternity are part of the company culture.” Su Lai smiled amiably, leaning in like a friendly colleague.
“Using a colleague’s card to pay for a meal isn’t too much, is it?”

Bai Ke quickly clutched his ID badge, looking around nervously.
“Cousin, no, Lai-ge, don’t do anything crazy here.”

“Ahem… I’ll pay for you. Just don’t let anyone else see. I can’t handle a crowd.” He lowered his voice, afraid that if Lai-ge started using his card, it would cause trouble for both of them.

Work hours were very precious in this instance. Instinctively, he didn’t want them taken by others.
But Bai Ke knew that the reason he was alive and had made a fortune from livestream rewards was because of Lai-ge’s help.

He might be a humble corporate s*ave with thinning hair, but his loyalty was thick.

Su Lai pulled back and waved his hand.
“One laborer doesn’t make another’s life harder.”

He was just joking. Bai Ke was his own cousin. He wouldn’t screw him over.

After speaking, Su Lai fell silent again. Bai Ke was a bit worried about the security guard’s 0.5 multiplier. But then he thought, him, a mere chicken, worrying about a boss was a bit unnecessary.

Su Lai: “Good thing I inherited the security guard position. You can’t take food out, and you can’t eat at your workstation. If I were still a delivery guy, I’d be out of a job here.”

Bai Ke looked at Su Lai sincerely.
“I believe you won’t starve anywhere.”

Su Lai thought for a moment, then nodded.
“I’m connected. I have a cousin. I can mooch off him.”

Bai Ke smiled bitterly.
“… You must really be suffering.”
“Lai-ge, what should we do now…” Though banter lightened the mood and boosted resistance against contamination, they still had to survive the instance. And he was still used to asking Su Lai for advice.

Su Lai: “Since we’re here, eat.”

Bai Ke: “What will you eat?”

Su Lai: “I’m just a security guard with a 0.5 multiplier. I only deserve white rice.”

Bai Ke: “…”

He looked around at the cafeteria display windows. Finally, his gaze settled on the wonton station.

After leaving the urban village instance last time, he had been craving Wang Chunying’s cooking. He had tried several so-called homemade big meat wontons in the real world, but none were half as good as Wang Chunying’s.

Now, seeing wontons in the instance again, his feet carried him to that window.

More people had flooded into the cafeteria. A few players entered, looking very disheveled. They seemed to have just escaped from impossible tasks.

Bai Ke roughly counted through the crowd. Several of his fellow players were missing from dinner.
And his peers were sweating, breathing heavily like survivors.

While waiting in line, Su Lai was also observing, but his attention was more on the NPCs.

Everyone in the cafeteria, whether player or veteran employee, wore their ID badges, which displayed their employee number and department. They also had to swipe their cards to pay the work hours.

These employees were all in groups. Though their faces were dead tired, they still gathered for mindless socializing.

The employee cafeteria at mealtime was lively, but the liveliness was stiff and awkward. Under the heavy exhaustion, a semblance of daily life was squeezed out. It seemed like everyone was acting, and poorly at that.

The dissonance only intensified the building’s sense of oppression, making those inside feel out of place.
Like stumbling into a wax museum late at night. The wax figures pretended to be alive, whispering to each other. But their postures and expressions were stiff. An indescribable strangeness bred fear. The contaminants were unknowingly interfering with the players’ cognition and judgment.

Bai Ke watched these departmental NPCs coming and going. For a moment, he was dazed.
Until Su Lai patted his shoulder, not too hard. Bai Ke jolted, his pupils sharply contracting. He looked at Su Lai, still shaken.

Su Lai’s expression was as blank as ever.
“Cousin, it’s your turn.”

Snapping out of it, Bai Ke realized he had reached the front of the wonton line. The auntie at the window was staring at him impatiently.
“Please swipe your card.”

*Beep——*
[1 work hour deducted. Remaining work hours: 11.]

Bai Ke had joined the Admin department. His work hour multiplier was 3 times normal. He had worked 4 hours in the afternoon, earning a total of 12 work hours.

It seemed that as an admin employee, he could cover basic room and board. But the instance wouldn’t let him survive to payday so easily. It was bound to throw something at him along the way.

The auntie cooking the wontons shook her ladle, stirred the frozen wontons in the hot water. The wrappers weren’t even cooked through before she fished them out. She sprinkled a few dried scallions on the broth, which had frozen oil floating on it. A bowl of “small wontons” was done.

Bai Ke’s hand, reaching out, paused mid-air. The auntie gave him a urgent glare. He forced himself to take the wontons.

Damn, even the stainless steel bowl was cold. His heart was cold too.
This was even more off-putting than Uncle Wang’s chopping-board-flavored watermelon.

Bai Ke looked at Su Lai for help.
“Cousin, aren’t you going to mooch off me anymore?”

Su Lai glanced at the wontons floating in the broth. He shook his head firmly.
“I only eat Mom’s wontons.”

The pale, grayish wontons looked like dead goldfish floating in a tank. He could almost smell the stench of overnight dead fish.

Bai Ke’s lip twitched. His fingers trembled.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll die from eating this, and then there’ll be no one to pay Auntie’s wonton shop employees?” Bai Ke smiled bitterly.

Su Lai: “Cousin, how many relatives do you have in this instance?”

Bai Ke: “Just you. And Auntie.”

Su Lai nodded.
“Then don’t worry. If you die, I’ll inherit your estate.”
“I’ll give you a proper funeral too. Burn paper money for you on Qingming and the Ghost Festival. Don’t worry.”

Bai Ke: “… Using my inheritance to burn for me, huh?”

Su Lai nodded.
“Just close your eyes. No need to worry about anything else.”

Bai Ke: “… Well, thank you very much.”

Su Lai walked over to the rice window. He figured that no matter how bad the rice was, it would just be undercooked. It wouldn’t kill him, and it was cheap.

The auntie at the rice window: “What dish do you want?”

Su Lai: “No dish.”

The auntie gave him the evil eye.
“Never seen anyone eat just rice with no dish.”

Su Lai: “So now you have.”

Speechless, the auntie rolled her eyes even harder.
She slammed the stainless steel bowl of white rice on the pickup counter. *Clang*. It didn’t sound friendly.

Su Lai wasn’t angry. He chatted casually.
“Auntie, do you cooking ladies have KPIs too?”

Auntie: “In this building, everything costs work hours. Who doesn’t have KPIs?”

Su Lai: “Got it.”
He craned his neck to look into the kitchen.

Auntie: “Hey, what are you snooping around for?”
This lousy security guard only ordered rice, no dish. The cafeteria wasn’t making any work hours, and now he was looking around. If it weren’t for his good looks, providing aesthetic value, she would have whacked him with her ladle.

Su Lai: “Just seeing if our cafeteria uses gutter oil.”

Auntie: “What? You here for an inspection?”
She stared at his security uniform. Her face had no extra expression, only exhaustion.

Su Lai waved his hand.
“I’m just a security guard. I don’t do work outside my duties.”

Auntie sneered.
“Wouldn’t do any good anyway. The cafeteria is our contract. Like it or not, you’ll eat it.”

Su Lai gave her a thumbs-up.
“I’ll support your business later. Give me extra gutter oil.”

The auntie gave him a strange look and said nothing.
She didn’t take him seriously.

Meanwhile, Bai Ke was about to find a seat and wait for Su Lai. But when he turned, he saw his colleagues from the Admin department sitting together, silently eating their meals with their heads down.

His colleagues looked up at the same time, staring at Bai Ke, who was holding his wontons.

At first, only one middle-aged colleague stared. Bai Ke, like prey being eyed, stood frozen, afraid to move.

That colleague stared. Then, like an infection, the colleagues beside him also looked up.
Soon, all of Bai Ke’s Admin colleagues lifted their weary faces and stared unblinkingly at him, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Everyone had dark undereye circles, their eyes sleepy and vacant.
Being stared at like that for a long time made Bai Ke’s heart crawl, his mental stability silently dropping.

Being trapped by colleagues’ stares in the cafeteria was never pleasant.

Bai Ke was panicked, rooted to the spot like he was under a spell.
Only when Su Lai, done buying his rice, whistled lightly behind him did the sense of oppression surrounding Bai Ke ease slightly.

He took the opportunity to breathe. Not daring to relax for a second, he forced a smile, fake as hell.
“Hi, everyone.”

Though he was a seasoned corporate s*ave, in real company cafeterias, everyone knew to maintain social distance. Colleagues never stared so blatantly.

Now, the contaminants were spreading through the colleagues’ gazes.

The group still stared at him. They didn’t return his “hi.” They didn’t look away.

Su Lai stood behind Bai Ke. Looking past his cousin’s wig, he looked at the Admin employees’ meals.
Strange. As if by agreement, their meal trays held identical dishes: boiled fish scales and spicy lobster heads.

Even their postures, holding their chopsticks and staring at Bai Ke, were eerily identical.

Su Lai frowned at the fish scales and shrimp heads. Bai Ke looked at him for help. His Lai-ge stood there, eating his plain rice, calm and indifferent.
“I’m just a security guard.”

Bai Ke: “…”
He slowly turned around, his smile widening. But it was stiffer and more hollow.

Whether in reality or an instance, the workplace was still the workplace. A newcomer who didn’t fit in always got the short end of the stick.

Under this silent pressure, Bai Ke’s heart wanted to retreat. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit with his department colleagues, to try to be agreeable.

But against his expectations, something even more bizarre happened.

The colleagues’ eyes suddenly shifted. Their gazes moved from Bai Ke’s face to the half-cooked wontons in his tray.

They exchanged glances. The moment Bai Ke sat down, they all picked up their trays, moved their butts, and silently shifted away from him.

Bai Ke, his butt just touching the seat, was stunned. He looked blankly at his colleagues, embarrassed and confused.
What’s going on? Was he being workplace cold violence-d?

He tentatively moved to another seat. The Admin colleagues shifted to seats further away, clearly avoiding him. ostracizing him.

“I…”
Bai Ke was frozen. Having been taught since childhood to look inward for problems, he started self-reflecting. Had he broken a rule during the afternoon’s work? Offended his colleagues? But that couldn’t be. He had been so careful…

The more he thought, the more outrageous it seemed. What had he done to be given the cold shoulder as soon as he arrived? Had he broken some heavenly law? He had been fine in the afternoon…

Then he noticed it.

These colleagues who were avoiding him were looking at him from the corner of their eyes.
Specifically, they were looking at the wontons in his bowl.

The answer was imminent——