—This was the first time Nan Zhi had witnessed a supernatural event with her own eyes in reality.
She pretended to stretch her body, turning her neck to get a closer look.
It was the hand of a middle-aged man, looking somewhat rough and pudgy.
The palm was twisted at an extremely bizarre angle, and at the break in the wrist, she could faintly see the grim white of bone.
Short, stubby fingers fumbled around, covering the lampshade like a prank, and the light flickered in response.
Amidst the complaints of her colleagues, it slowly dissipated into the air.
From its appearance to its disappearance, only a brief moment had passed.
It happened so fast that it almost felt like a hallucination.
She snapped back to reality, her mouse still hovering over the news report about the suicide:
【It is reported that a certain Mr. Chen is suspected of taking extreme measures due to excessive life pressure...
The head of the company, Mr. Wang, previously stated that Chen often made extreme remarks during work, such as being "very tired," "wanting to die," and "working too hard"...
Chen's colleagues also testified that he bore a great deal of pressure, and it is possible that this pressure was the culprit that led to his suicidal thoughts...
Here, the author calls upon everyone... to maintain a good mindset in life...
If you encounter similar situations, seek help from family and friends... or seek treatment from professional psychological counselors to relieve stress...
Municipal Psychological Counseling Hotline: 51872***
National China Psychological Crisis Intervention Center Rescue Hotline: 010-625****** 】
Even though all the important information was hidden behind pseudonyms, anyone determined enough could find the truth with a bit of digging.
“Chen Ping... let me think. What kind of wish would a ghost who has been dead for a year have?”
Nan Zhi leaned back, slowly resting against the back of her chair as her fingers tapped the desk.
She wasn't in a hurry to start the mission.
For one, this was a mission in reality.
In the game, she could respawn if she died, but if she died in reality, she was dead for good.
Secondly, she knew very little about this ghost named Chen Ping. Forget completing his wish—she didn't even know what he looked like.
The mission was to fulfill his wish.
How broad was the scope of this "wish"?
What if the other party's wish was something absurd like "ruling the Earth" or "resurrection"?
And what counted as completion?
To what extent did she need to go?
She had to think through all of this beforehand.
If this were in the game, Nan Zhi might have just charged in with her slaughtering knife.
She’d beat him up first, then ask what his wish was.
If the wish was too much, she’d beat him up again until he changed it.
If it wasn't too much and was within her power, she’d try her best to fulfill it.
If she couldn't win the fight, she’d just let him kill her, respawn, grind levels, increase her cultivation, and then come back to kill him.
She could respawn, after all.
But this was reality, so she had to plan ahead and scheme carefully.
Nan Zhi's gaze focused again; she already had a plan in mind.
...
...
During the holidays, the only happy part was the few days off.
Once people emerged from the laziness and happiness brought by the festival, they would find that what awaited them was not just an increased workload, but also a pile of unfinished zongzi.
Nan Zhi was no exception.
On the first day back, she had been reduced to eating zongzi for lunch.
To her surprise, everyone else in the office was in a similar boat.
As soon as noon hit, there was a line of people waiting to heat up zongzi in the microwave.
Fatty pork with salted egg yolk and meat floss, chestnut and pork, lotus seed paste, durian cheese lava taro paste, rose with white kidney bean and pine nut, sticky rice with honey dates and honey, spicy crawfish with cheese...
All sorts of scents tangled together in the small breakroom. It smelled like a giant stew.
“Man! This smell is way too strong.”
One male colleague couldn't stand the smell and pinched his nose as he opened a window for ventilation.
“Zongzi, more zongzi. My head hurts just looking at these things now.
It’s strange. These things are like tangyuan or dumplings—they only taste good on the actual day of the festival.
As soon as the holiday is over, I immediately lose interest. Why is that?”
“Right? I don't usually like zongzi either—they’re too sticky and get all over your hands—but I love them during the festival. I don't know why.”
Zhang Qiuyu held her lunch box and noticed Nan Zhi sitting at her desk munching on a zongzi. She asked curiously,
“Nan Zhi, don't you live alone? You still can't finish the zongzi at home?”
“The company gave out a gift box with six, and my family sent twelve from my hometown...”
Nan Zhi took a bite of a plain rice zongzi and said muffledly,
“Yesterday, a neighbor gave me three, and the landlord brought over two more.
The weather is hot now, so they won't last long in the fridge. I can't even give them away, so I have to hurry and finish them.”
“True.”
Zhang Qiuyu nodded in agreement.
“I told my mother-in-law not to wrap so many this year. She listened and only made one per person.
But then my parents made too many. Over twenty zongzi. It’ll take days just to eat them all. It’s a real headache.”
“My kid gets a headache just seeing zongzi now. He refuses to eat them no matter what.”
“That’s normal. Kids have so many snacks these days. Zongzi are very filling; after half of one, you can't eat anything else. Mine is the same...”
Other colleagues in the office chimed in, and the group chatted animatedly.
It was currently lunch break, so no one was working.
A group of people eating zongzi in the air conditioning with company didn't make the food seem so hard to swallow anymore.
“Holy crap! Big news! Big news!!!”
Someone from the office next door ran in drenched in sweat, their shout waking everyone from their mid-day drowsiness.
“The advertising company downstairs hired a master to perform a ritual to catch a ghost! Hurry and go look!!”
“What?!”
“For real?!”
“Didn't they already have someone look at the feng shui?”
“Damn! Is this for real? Is there really a ghost on the seventeenth floor?!”
“Must be fake. The property management definitely wouldn't allow it.”
The office exploded at this sensational news. The work group chat, which had been silent just moments ago, suddenly became lively, with notifications pinging incessantly.
“Of course it's real! I just went downstairs to deliver a document and saw it with my own eyes. How could it be fake?”
The messenger swore an oath.
“They said something about using the Yang energy of the Dragon Boat Festival to suppress the ghost, and using the collective human presence while there are many people to dissipate the resentment or whatever...
Anyway, I don't really get it, but there are so many people on the seventeenth floor right now that you can't even squeeze into the stairwell!”
Work life was naturally dull.
Now that there was such a spectacle to witness, no one wanted to miss it.
The entire office flocked to the stairwell like a group on a spring outing.
Nan Zhi and the others, taking advantage of their office being close to the floor below, didn't even take the elevator and just walked down the stairs. Sure enough, they smelled a heavy scent in the hallway.
—It smelled very much like burning incense in a temple.
The fire exit door was wide open, making it easy to see the situation on the seventeenth floor.
Mugwort and red strings were tied to the escape ladder, and dried willow branches hung at the entrance. A red cloth strip was tied to them, along with a Bagua mirror that was too dull to show a clear reflection.
The manager of the advertising company stood at the door, frowning as he burned things in an iron basin.
He was burning paper money, gold and silver ingots, and various funeral offerings like paper villas, paper cars, and paper horses.
The smell of printer ink, the cold draft of the air conditioning, the sweat of the crowd, and the smell of something burning all mixed together...
It was utterly bizarre.
Rate on N.U.
