Chapter 135

"I really don't have any food!" The man turned out all his pockets. "See? Nothing! Now let me through, please! We're all from the After-sales Department, right? I was on the third floor!"

The fourth-floor employees exchanged glances, reluctant. "No way! No food, no entry! This is our floor, and we make the rules!"

The man looked like he was about to get on his knees and beg.

Suddenly, someone behind him shouted in surprise at the crowd: "Brother He!"

Since floors two through four were all After-sales, it wasn't surprising that some people knew each other.

"Brother He! Please help us!" the man shouted happily. "Talk some sense into them. We're all colleagues. Why make it so hard for each other?"

Lin Tu and the others also looked toward Brother He. He was a middle-aged man in his forties. He averted his eyes guiltily from the person who'd recognized him, then silently took two steps back, disappearing into the crowd.

"Brother He?" The man's face was a mix of shock, panic, confusion, and disbelief. "What's wrong with you?"

"Hahaha!" The fourth-floor employees at the door laughed. "Told you, this is our floor. Whatever you hand over, we split among the fourth-floor staff. No one's helping you!"

The second- and third-floor employees stared in shock at this shameless bunch, unable to believe these were their own department colleagues—

"You bastards!" someone cursed.

"Let us up! People behind us are going to be burned to death!" someone pleaded.

Among the fourth-floor employees, there were some softhearted ones, but they only looked at the crowd at the door with troubled expressions, ultimately averting their gaze without a word.

They were all colleagues, but that didn't mean they had any obligation to live or die together.

In the end, the second- and third-floor employees caved and paid some food to enter the fourth floor. Ironic, really—earlier they'd hidden everything, each claiming they had nothing left, and had even fought over a bite to eat. Now, everyone managed to produce a biscuit or two, a couple of candies.

About twenty or so people couldn't produce anything at all. The fourth-floor employees had absolutely refused to let them in. But for some reason, they changed their minds at the last minute.

Lin Tu caught a whiff of burning flesh—a charred, sickly-sweet smell—drifting up from the stairwell, and wrinkled her nose.

"How long until you can get to the fourth floor?" Yi Ying asked Luo Yongzhi and the others in the group chat.

"By five in the morning," Luo Yongzhi replied. "We also got word that rescue has been called, but there's no ETA. They said to wait for notice."

Lin Tu: "Can you handle things over there?"

Luo Yongzhi: "The monsters on the third floor have doubled. Liu Sheng and I have been luring them one by one; we can barely manage."

Yi Ying: "Stay safe!"

After checking on Luo Yongzhi, the players had a rough idea.

They planned to block off the stairwell again and rest in the emergency stairwell for the night.

Earlier, Lin Tu's single slash had kept the fourth-floor employees from daring to provoke them, so when the players started hauling away cabinets, tables, and chairs from the fourth floor, the employees could only glare in silent fury, watching them like wolves circling prey.

Whether they were truly wolves and would attack the players, Lin Tu couldn't say. When people are hungry, they'll do anything.

So while blocking the stairway and moving things, Lin Tu stayed extremely vigilant.

Although the players had combat skills, as the saying goes, two fists can't beat four hands. Except for Lin Tu and Kou Lin, the others could only stay on the fourth floor with nowhere else to go. If these employees really did attack the players, it would be a battle hard to contain.

Fortunately, these people only wanted food. When they clocked in that evening, they didn't give Yi Ying and the others too much trouble. Taking advantage of the clock-in time, they tried to do some work, and surprisingly, they finished quickly.

"Is something wrong?" Lin Tu suddenly asked.

"What?" the others asked.

"Did any of you see hallucinations at work today?"

The others shook their heads in unison.

Lin Tu's mind had felt shrouded in fog earlier, but she quickly snapped out of it. "The product promos I reviewed—no rotting corpses, no brains, no gristle. Just normal canned meat."

Reminded by her, the others chimed in: "The calls I answered were all normal people." "Our work was too normal."

That kind of normalcy felt off.

But Lin Tu thought that what felt off was actually right. If the company really existed, how could it blatantly produce human meat? So maybe this company wasn't actually a human-meat producer at all?

According to the Handbook for the Art Department Manager, every morning, Lin Tu's first clock-in would reward her with a company meal. But this morning, when she clocked in, she got nothing. Even missing the meeting because she couldn't get to the eighth floor at noon didn't trigger anything weird. It was very possible that this perk wasn't from the original company, and these rules weren't the original company's rules either.

There were two companies here—one in the real world, one in the nightmare space. They were intertwined, the same company yet different.

Lin Tu remembered that Lu Shishu had said the company had become night and day, perhaps hinting at the difference between the two companies.

After sharing her thoughts with the other players, Lin Tu said, "I suspect we're currently in a nightmare."

"Then where's reality?"

They all thought of Luo Yongzhi and Liu Sheng, who were in the night.

"Damn!" Kou Lin said, exasperated. "Why are those two so lucky?!"

"We'll have to rely on them," Lin Tu said. "Let them scout around and see if they can find any clues."

As for those in the nightmare, they'd have to hold out and survive.

Night fell.

The players split into two groups as usual. Since Lin Tu and Hei Mawu had just rested in the afternoon, the first half of the night would be Lin Tu and Hei Mawu, and the second half would be Yi Ying and the others.

Still suspicious of Hei Mawu, Lin Tu sat far away from him, pulling up a small stool to lean against the wall. She closed one eye to rest, keeping the other fixed on the stairwell and on Hei Mawu.

"Rustle, rustle..."

Around one in the morning, a noise suddenly came from the fourth floor.

Lin Tu gripped her blade and crept to the door of the emergency stairwell.

The lights there were motion-activated, so she moved silently, leaving the stairwell as dark as before.

But the lights outside were different—since some employees had a habit of working late into the night, the company didn't turn off all the lights. Some lights in the hallway had been on for too long, flickering and stinging the eyes.

Lin Tu didn't push the door open; she looked out through the gap where the emergency door was already ajar.

The second- and third-floor employees who hadn't handed over food were now lying in the corridor, drowsy. After days of exhaustion and hunger, many had fallen into deep sleep despite having no mattress or blanket, just the bright, clean tiled floor.

Through the transparent acrylic walls of the fourth-floor offices and the department symbols printed on the panels, Lin Tu saw that many employees weren't asleep.

The ones who'd blocked the door earlier were now holding chair legs and fruit knives, tiptoeing out of the offices and heading toward the sleeping employees in the corridor.

What was even more eerie was that many employees stood inside the offices, staring through the acrylic walls at the sleeping second- and third-floor employees, their eyes glowing green.

"So hungry... so hungry..." Even though they said nothing, Lin Tu could almost hear them snarling.

What these people wanted to do was obvious even without thinking.

Lin Tu turned and saw Hei Mawu standing up, smiling at her—a smile that was somewhat unnerving.

Without hesitation, Lin Tu kicked the cot, waking Yi Ying and the others lying on it.

"What's wrong..."

"What's happening..."

They rubbed their eyes, sitting up drowsily.

When they saw Lin Tu's serious expression, their drowsiness instantly turned to alertness.

"They're going to eat people!" Lin Tu said. She then looked back at Hei Mawu. "Are you happy about that?"

"How could I be!" Now Hei Mawu's expression returned to normal, as if that was just how he was. "Should we stop them?"

"Of course!" Lin Tu affirmed. "The nightmare had to start somewhere. Given that the nightmare company's products are all human meat, eating people is likely the turning point that made the company change. We need to delay it as long as we can."

The other players nodded.

Outside in the corridor, one employee had already grabbed another's arm, and his accomplice swung a blunt instrument, knocking the victim's head.

"Ahh!" The others woke with a start, kicking their legs and scrambling back.

"Let him go!" At that moment, Lin Tu and the players burst out of the emergency stairwell.

Lin Tu moved quickly, darting up to the employee and aiming her blade at the leader's head, just two arms' lengths away.

Having felt the power of that blade before, the employee froze, not daring to move, and his grip on the man he held loosened involuntarily in fear.

"Tie them up," Lin Tu said to the players behind her.

After the [Endless Highway] experience, the resources gained from the highway had been converted into coupons that could be carried around. So the players had no shortage of ropes—they had as many as they wanted.

Each player took two ropes and quickly bound the offending employees.

The employees knelt in humiliation in the corridor. To let them sleep soundly, the players laid them flat on the floor.

"Anyone else who causes trouble will end up the same way!" Lin Tu announced, sweeping her gaze around.

After the intimidation, the players returned to the emergency stairwell.

Guan Suixing found an excuse to send Hei Mawu away, then asked, "Sister Lin, is he a problem?"

Lin Tu nodded. "I suspect it, but I have no proof. Watch out for him."

The players nodded.

Under the players' vigilant eyes, the night passed without further incident.