Chapter 142

"How about we... take out that BOSS!" Guan Suixing declared confidently over the voice chat.

What player enters a disaster world and, knowing full well the tiger is on the mountain, still charges straight toward it? When faced with natural and man-made calamities, shouldn't one hoard supplies and hunker down in their own little corner to weather the storm?

Lu Haima and the others, who had been dragged into the group chat earlier, saw this explosive message for the first time and nearly fell to their knees in despair: Sister! We beg you! Please, put away your godly powers!

Lin Tu shook her head. "It's not that simple. I only have one chance, but I don't know who the mastermind is."

Yi Ying understood this even more deeply: "Our Black Factory has been searching for the mastermind all along, but very few people have found any relevant information. If I hadn't followed Sister Lin, I'd probably still think the so-called outsiders were just a legend."

"So we'll proceed with the original plan."

Guan Suixing was a bit reluctant, but Lin Tu's next words made her swallow her objections: "But we can try to lure it out. I already have some ideas."

Lin Tu wasn't someone who spoke without a plan. Since she said she had ideas, she likely already had a scheme in mind.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The company's vice president was already dead. At the very least, when Lin Tu returned to the thirteenth floor, she wasn't attacked, indicating the company was now safe. However, Lin Tu didn't rush to call the players hiding in the darkness back for a meeting.

Instead, she arranged for Luo Yongzhi and the others to scout out the eighteenth floor first.

Luo Yongzhi and his group ascended without any hindrance. It was both expected and unexpected—there were no floors above the fourteenth. To be precise, the fourteenth floor was the highest in the entire building.

For the first time, the players left the building and stood on the high rooftop, surrounded by gray, hazy mist that obscured the sky.

Luo Yongzhi stuffed a handful of snacks into his mouth to block the hallucinations, then tentatively glanced downward. It was bottomless; nothing could be seen.

The player group chat immediately exploded: "He told us to enter the eighteenth floor during the night, but there is no eighteenth floor here at all!"

"Then that confirms it," Lin Tu said, sending out the third rule from the 'Leadership Handbook' she had photographed earlier. "Third, here, truth and illusion coexist. When illusion reaches a certain degree, it becomes truth; when truth weakens to a certain degree, it becomes illusion. Therefore, as a leader, even if you are no different from others, as long as you wear your badge every day to punish and optimize employees, you will gain increasingly real power."

"What does that mean?" Liu Sheng asked, dumbfounded.

"Did you all notice? The vice president's monster form couldn't enter the fourteenth floor. That suggests the fourteenth floor might not be a nightmare space—i.e., daytime. But those flesh mountains did cause me to hallucinate, as if it were still a nightmare space," Lin Tu analyzed methodically. "According to the third rule, reality and illusion coexist here, so I can guess that both night and day exist simultaneously."

"But I couldn't be sure my theory was correct earlier, so I had you all check what the eighteenth floor looks like in the night," Lin Tu said. "Now, it seems my guess might be right."

Lin Tu's words were indeed a bit convoluted. The players fell silent for a while, absorbing her meaning before it clicked.

Yi Ying asked, "Then how do we confirm that the rescue we encounter on the eighteenth floor isn't an illusion?"

Luo Yongzhi felt his brain spinning faster than ever: "Right, if illusion and reality coexist, and illusion becomes reality while reality becomes illusion, then we have to..."

Lin Tu watched him spiral into a brainstorm, unsure if it was appropriate to interrupt.

But seeing that Luo Yongzhi was about to compose an eight-hundred-character essay and tie himself into an Ouroboros knot, Lin Tu quickly interjected.

"Actually, it's not that complicated..."

"Huh?"

"Just eat snacks."

"Oh." "Oh..." That seemed perfectly fine—they had been using snacks to distinguish illusion from reality all along.

Luo Yongzhi silently shut down the group chat. He had actually, for a brief moment, genuinely thought he was smart.

In the end, they had to return to the daytime.

Unlucky as it was, Lu Haima, Zhang Xingxing, and others from the former Art Department had all been stuck back in the daytime because they lost their grip on Luo Yongzhi's hand. At that time, the office space must have been compressed to a certain degree by the vice president, and they were all squeezed back into their own workstations.

Thus, Lin Tu called another meeting, but unfortunately, it seemed the number of people Luo Yongzhi and the others could bring into the night was limited, so Lu Haima and his group were stuck at their workstations again—extremely unfortunate.

Fortunately, the supplies had been handed over to Luo Yongzhi, so the five players in the night carefully inspected the goods they had snatched. Lin Tu, obsessed with clocking in for the attendance salary, didn't go along. Around evening, she brought the night group back and shared her plan with everyone.

The night passed in the blink of an eye, and the next day arrived.

Early morning brought the familiar scream, and the plot unfolded as scheduled.

This time, the players didn't hesitate and ran downstairs, becoming the first batch to reach the lobby to watch the commotion.

According to plan, the players split into two groups: Lin Tu, Guan Suixing, and a few others stood in the center of the lobby near the coffin spot, while the rest guarded the elevator and emergency exits.

The employees seemed to come alive, suddenly gaining thought and free will. Seeing the players standing in the middle, they even came over to gossip about what was happening.

Lin Tu: "...Go ask him." She pointed to Lu Meiliang, who was staring at her with a look full of ill intent after being 'optimized' by Lin Tu. "He knows a lot."

"Oh! Thank you, thank you!" The employees ignited with gossip passion, squeezing through the crowd and heading unwaveringly toward Lu Meiliang.

The plot soon played out as expected. Accompanied by funeral dirges and a foul stench, a coffin was carried in by a group of people. Immediately, sobbing sounds filled the air.

The coffin bearers slowly moved toward the center as the crowd parted ways.

A slightly plump middle-aged man in a suit stepped out from the crowd. Lin Tu had planned to keep her composure, but when she saw the person behind him, her gaze froze—

Wasn't that the infinitely splitting cockroach leader from the outstanding employee selection?

"Today, our friend, our family—Hu Lulu has left us forever!" he announced.

As soon as he spoke, he paused. The mournful wails that should have filled the hall also died out as if the power to the speakers had been cut.

Because there, in front of the coffin, stood Lin Tu, who had not moved aside.

Their original plan was to act a bit later, but upon seeing the cockroach leader, Lin Tu decided to take him out early.

"Now!" Guan Suixing shouted immediately upon noticing.

At the same time, Luo Yongzhi lunged forward, knocked down one of the coffin bearers, and then grabbed the coffin. Guan Suixing quickly activated her skill, dashed beneath the coffin, and found a signal flare taped underneath.

She snatched the flare, felt the coffin vibrating violently, and looked up to see Luo Yongzhi turning pale as if he could barely hold on.

"Go!" Guan Suixing said quickly.

Meanwhile, Lin Tu had already drawn her long blade and swung it at the cockroach leader.

"Who are you!" The cockroach leader grabbed the chairman's assistant beside him to use as a shield. In the previous loop, he had similarly thrown the assistant behind him as a rear guard. Back then, Lin Tu had even seen the assistant's head torn off and eaten as a delicacy.

With a loud crack, Lin Tu kicked the assistant away.

"I'll give you a promotion and a raise! Don't be impulsive! Don't kill—" His lines weren't as monotonous yet; only the words "bad employee" were missing.

But he never got the chance to say "bad employee" again, because Lin Tu sliced him in two with one stroke.

The coffin slammed to the ground, its lid flying off. Hu Lulu sat up from inside. Though her face was blurred, fury radiated from her through the broken coffin. "I'll take you all with me!" she roared.

Flames rose from nowhere, consuming her figure, and from the fire stepped skeletal figures, nothing but bones.

But before the skeletons could attack the employees, Liu Sheng and the others had already opened the emergency exits.

"Please don't push! Line up and enter the emergency exits in order, and return to your workstations! The Chief of Design Department will protect us! Please don't panic!"

Kou Lin, standing on a water dispenser with a megaphone, directed the chaos:

"Hey, employee over there—yes, you in the yellow jacket—don't crowd the elevator! It's overloaded! Are you stupid? Get in line and head upstairs!"

In the previous loop, Lin Tu had seen many people die from crowding the elevators, so she had specifically instructed the players to keep an eye on that area.

"You in the purple pants! Don't cut in line! Think you're special? Get in line properly, or if the monsters don't kill you, I will!"

"And you with the hair that looks like it hasn't been washed in days—yes, you, the guy with the little bun! Stop shoving the person in front of you! Let her walk properly, and you both can make it upstairs!"

While Kou Lin yelled from above, Yi Ying and others below pulled apart the frantic crowd, and Liu Sheng, Lu Haima, and the rest managed the elevators.

After killing the cockroach leader, Lin Tu turned to see such an orderly escape scene—no pushing, no overloaded elevators—and felt a wave of relief.

She raised her blade to help Luo Yongzhi and Guan Suixing. After cleaving off a skeleton's arm, the bones on the ground flew back to reattach to the skeleton's shoulder. Lin Tu kicked it away, realizing these skeletons couldn't be killed.

Just like the plot-mandated deaths where subordinates couldn't disobey their superiors, these skeletons were likely also plot constructs.

"Forget it, let's go!" By now, the lobby was nearly empty of people. Flames were spreading outward, and more skeletons crawled from the fire. Lin Tu shouted and sprinted toward the emergency exit.

The other players were already near the exit and followed her out of the first floor.

The flames engulfed the entire ground floor like a giant tongue.

The players back on the first floor were tired, but Lin Tu didn't stop. She knew the players experienced time differently from the employees—each punch-in for them equaled a day for the employees—so she couldn't waste a moment.

From her backpack, she pulled out a massive pot and, to the employees' astonishment, set it up in the middle of the office on the first floor.

Once settled, she poured in water, then scattered in some rice, flour, opened a few cans of meat and dumped them in, and tore up a few cabbages to throw in.

—That's right, she was going to distribute porridge as disaster relief.

Hah! This disaster wanted people to eat each other? She'd make sure that never happened. Then she'd see—when the entire company could eat their fill, how would the illusion even arise!

But feeding the entire company to full capacity would consume too much of her stockpile. Although she could afford it, it stung. So Lin Tu decided to emulate the ancient practice of distributing thin porridge, using just enough resources to keep employees from being hungry enough to crave human flesh.

Besides, her porridge, though simple, was a nutritious, healthy meal with carbs, protein, and even dietary fiber. No one could fault it.

After setting up the pot on the second floor, Lin Tu handed it over to Yi Ying and Guan Suixing to watch over, then went to the third floor to set up another pot, followed by the fourth, fifth, sixth...

"Sister Lin, you must be used to taking the blame for others—how do you have so many pots..." Luo Yongzhi finally asked as she set up another pot on the eighth floor after handing off the seventh floor's pot to Zhang Xingxing.

—As a logistics person, Luo Yongzhi seemed to be able to go anywhere during the day, so he got to follow Lin Tu to the eighth floor.

Lin Tu: "..." How could she explain this? She couldn't exactly say she didn't know. The stuff just accumulated over time, and she ended up with more and more. Besides these eight, she had plenty more pots!

After setting up the pot on the eighth floor, she poured in water, rice, canned meat, and vegetables as usual. But since the eighth floor had fewer people, she reduced the amounts accordingly.

Once all that was done, it was soon time for the 6:00 punch-in.

After handing the pot to Luo Yongzhi, Lin Tu made it back to her eighth-floor office just in time to clock in, then returned to the first floor.

One punch-in equaled a day's passing.

Trapped in the high-rise with nowhere to eat and no takeout available, the employees felt a faint hunger. As they rummaged through their desks for leftover food, a rich aroma of rice wafted from the center of the office.

Their hungry stomachs immediately woke up.

On every floor from the first to the eighth, the players guarding the pots picked up megaphones and announced, "Line up for porridge! One bowl each! One bowl each! Grab your bowls and line up now!"

It was a surreal scene, but the employees recognized these people—weren't they the ones who helped them escape 'yesterday'? So, with limited thought and growling stomachs, they instinctively grabbed their containers and shuffled into line.

With so few players, only one person per floor was handing out porridge. To prevent chaos, Lin Tu patrolled from the first floor.

With her title of "Chief of Design Department," she didn't need force—just authority—to keep the employees in line:

"What are you doing!" Lin Tu pointed at an employee trying to cut in line and snapped, "The company is our home, and our colleagues are our family. Is this how you treat your family? I won't allow anyone to cut in line!"

"If you're still hungry and want a second bowl, that's fine," Lin Tu said, mixing kindness with discipline. "But we also need to let our other family members eat. Don't worry—when this pot is empty, we'll cook another batch right away!"

"And!" She used her authority to issue another order, "No one may harm their family. Our colleague Hu Lulu just passed away recently. I don't want to attend another funeral!"

The employees obediently queued, gulped down a bowl of porridge, lined up to wash their dishes, and then waited civilly for others to finish before queuing again for the pot.

This went on from morning to night, spanning seven punch-ins, and the fire spread from the first floor to the third.

For the company employees, seven days had passed.

Tonight was a critical juncture, because in the previous loop, it was on this very night that the employees, starved for seven days, had turned their blades on their colleagues.

The players had taken turns resting during the afternoon, and that evening they decided to keep close watch, determined to stop any cannibalism.

But they were clearly being overly cautious, because they noticed the employees' eyes held no green glow at all—only calm, clear light.

The well-fed employees lay quietly at their stations, waiting for the new day.

The next day, the players finally reached the fifth floor.

Another seven punch-ins passed, and seven days went by. The pots never stopped working, with Lin Tu constantly adding ingredients.

As a result, the employees barely experienced hunger.

Worth noting, because Lin Tu had been distributing porridge on the eighth floor, the employees of the office in front of the meeting room hadn't sealed themselves off this loop. Instead, they voluntarily left the office and brought out all their canned goods for Lin Tu to add to the porridge—

Not because they thought the porridge was bad, but because it was a bit too thin for their taste.

Lin Tu: "..." She didn't take all the cans, only the ones she liked, leaving plenty for the employees.

In any case, some of the company members had died, so the pressure of feeding everyone eased. Lin Tu added a bit more rice, meat, and vegetables to each pot as she went.

Finally, Wednesday evening arrived.

No one in the entire company showed signs of hallucination. If they made it through tonight, tomorrow's food festival couldn't proceed smoothly—if everyone feared eating human flesh, how could a cannibalism contest even take place?

But after two uneventful nights, the players, who hadn't rested well, were feeling a bit lax tonight.

To stay alert, they split into three groups of three, gathered together to keep watch and play cards.

At 3 a.m., it was Lin Tu, Yi Ying, and Lu Haima's shift for the night watch.

Kou Lin had set up monitors on every floor and placed a tablet on the card table for everyone to keep an eye on. Lin Tu also connected her phone to the tablet and delegated the monitoring to the Butler.

Just as the players were absorbed in their card game, Lin Tu felt her phone vibrate.

She quickly looked at the monitor and saw an employee pulling another employee toward the restroom.

"What's wrong?" Lu Haima also looked over, hesitating. "Maybe they're just scared?"

As they stared at the screen, one of the employees suddenly looked up at the camera and smiled eerily.

"Hei Mawu!" Lin Tu recognized that smile instantly, though she didn't know why.

Hei Mawu was dead. This might not be Hei Mawu himself, but it was definitely a creature like him!

Lin Tu grabbed her blade and sprinted toward that restroom.

Lu Haima immediately woke the others, and turning around, saw that Yi Ying had already followed Lin Tu out.

Lin Tu moved fast. She reached the spot to find him waiting leisurely. He was holding the employee who had come with him, tearing off one of his own arms and offering it to the employee's mouth. The employee looked confused and lost.

"Eat it. Just one bite," he coaxed.

Somehow, his words held a strange allure, and the employee instinctively opened his mouth, reaching toward the arm.

"I order you: Don't eat!" Lin Tu arrived just in time, shouting.

"Oh, our player is here," the creature said with a grin. "What, does the player want to be a savior? Save these people? Think you're clever enough to stop everything?"

Seeing that her order had taken effect and the employee had stopped, Lin Tu breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the monster. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The creature laughed heartily. "You've been guessing and still don't know who we are? Maybe I'm also a player."

"Impossible," Yi Ying said from behind Lin Tu. "Players are comrades who fight disasters together. They're definitely not scum like you!"

The creature wasn't provoked in the slightest. Grinning, he said, "Do you actually enjoy everything in the disaster? Have you never felt resentment about it? The gods! That damned god! Why did he throw us into disasters and make us suffer? He should compensate us—compensate us with power. You just haven't yet tasted the boundless joy that power brings. When you do, you'll become just like me."

Lin Tu ignored his rambling. "Are you stalling for time?"

She quickly pulled out her phone. Sure enough, there were several other people, just like him, leisurely leading other employees toward the restroom.

Lin Tu knew that only she, as Chief of the Design Department, could command employees not to eat human flesh. The other players couldn't stop them...

"Kill the employees," Lin Tu said, pausing briefly, then speaking into her phone. "Only the dead won't eat human flesh."

As she spoke, the monster across from her burst into laughter, as if he'd discovered something amusing.

As Lin Tu had ordered, the employees were quickly killed one by one.

Lin Tu looked at the monster again. "What's your purpose?"

"Simple—power. Forget the gods, forget the so-called mastermind. We players are the protagonists of this world! You'll understand one day," he laughed. "And for now, you can't stop me!"

Suddenly, a wave of inexplicable hallucination washed over Lin Tu, making the monster's arm before her seem exceptionally delicious.

"Delicious! Delicious!" Lin Tu took a bite of her snack and looked up, only to see the monster chewing on his own arm with gusto. "I was just teasing you. You didn't forget, did you? My body is also one of the employees."