Lu Lei calmly pulled out his tactical kit: one bottle, two bottles... ten bottles, twenty bottles...

This morning, Lu Lei's sales were still at the bottom, with only twenty-odd bottles. But now he took out more than a hundred bottles in one go, bringing his total sales to 126 bottles, and he jumped straight to first place.

"Why are you all looking at me like that? I've been saving this up for the past few days, and I like to hand it all in at once on the last day." Noticing the suspicious looks from everyone, Lu Lei, though unsure of what had happened, still offered an explanation.

Everyone witnessed her coming in from outside, and for a moment no one suspected that she was behind it.

Li Feng and Li Rong also started collecting the slime. Li Feng's ranking was already high, so she stopped when she reached 114 bottles. The rest were added to Li Rong's account, which brought the total to 113 bottles, surpassing Dong Er's.

The performance rankings have been updated, and the top three have changed from Dong Er, Hong Mao, and Zhao Yu to Lu Lei, Li Feng, and Li Rong.

The people who destroyed the seedlings in winter were dumbfounded.

She could barely understand Lu Lei's performance, but what was with Li Feng and Li Rong suddenly appearing out of nowhere?

What exactly happened in the factory after she left?

Why did Li Feng and Li Rong produce so much slime? Why did everyone produce almost nothing today?

"Has no one turned in the slime?" the supervisor asked again.

Dong Huimiao was so anxious that she stood on tiptoe, wishing she could scrape some more slime off the insect treasure right now. Suddenly, someone touched her left hand, and Qian Rui stuffed a combat pack into her hand.

When the seedlings were opened during the winter, there were ten bottles of slime inside.

Although she didn't understand why Qian Rui wanted to help her, she couldn't worry about that now. The important thing was to quickly get the data and improve her ranking.

With these ten bottles of slime, the rankings changed again: Lu Lei 126, Dong Er 122, Li Feng 114.

"It seems everyone has run out of mucus, so I hereby announce..."

The announcement of the promotions was interrupted when Li Feng whispered something in the supervisor's ear, causing the rankings to change again.

"I hereby announce that the candidates for promotion in this round are Lu Lei, Dong Er, and Li Rong. Congratulations! You will be purification workers from now on. You can rest well tonight, have a physical examination tomorrow, and officially start work the day after tomorrow. Colleagues who are not promoted should not be discouraged. You will be reorganized with people from other branches and participate in the next round of assessments."

After the supervisor finished explaining all the precautions and paid the day's wages to a very small number of people, he ordered the patrol team to disperse the crowd and reorganize the breeding room.

On her way out of the factory, Dong Huimiao found Qian Rui and returned the combat kit: "Why...why did you help me?"

"For no reason, I just find you pleasing to the eye." The subtext is that she doesn't like Li Feng.

Qian Rui sneered: "I just can't stand some people who are neither human nor monster themselves, yet they insist on dragging others down to hell. However, I never expected that such an inhuman thing would actually do something human in the end."

That's right, the reason she helped Dong destroy the seedlings was simply because she disliked Li Feng.

As for the excess slime, she planned to leave it behind to continue disgusting Zhao Yu in the next round.

On the other side, Li Rong was arguing with Li Feng.

Throughout their collaboration, Li Rong had always taken on a supporting role. She couldn't understand why Li Feng would give her the better opportunities instead of keeping them for himself.

Li Feng glanced at Li Rong, then quickly looked down again: "Your face... you can't touch the insect anymore, it will be corroded by the slime. I... hope the work of the purification worker can reduce the harm to you."

Li Feng stammered, "If... if you can't hold on anymore, you don't need to save up Blue for me anymore. I can live a good life on my own."

"Smack—"

The slap landed on Li Feng's smooth face, causing a red mark to quickly swell up on her cheek.

If Li Feng had this awareness before entering the Heavenly God Temple, Li Rong wouldn't have been so desperate and disappointed...

But now, it's all too late.

The factory's harvesters, suspended by Blue, were almost completely incapacitated. Yet, as a semi-outsider, she could clearly sense the malice lurking within the factory.

The factory exists for far more than just the purpose of producing Blue. If it were only for producing Blue, why would it condone the unscrupulous competition among the gatherers, since every life lost in the competition represents labor?

The fact that the manager doesn't care about the losses caused by competition suggests that he wants more than just motivating everyone to work; there's something else, something more dangerous.

Li Rong didn't tell Li Feng these thoughts; it was too late to say anything now, and Li Feng wouldn't listen.

...

The rooms assigned to the newly promoted purification workers were in the opposite direction from the collection workers' dormitory. The rooms had fifteen beds, with separate beds for men and women, separated by curtains.

These are just temporary rooms; rooms will be officially assigned to everyone after the medical check-ups are completed the next day.

Lu Lei took a bed and then left the room.

On the other side of the curtain, Dong Huimiao was secretly glancing at Lu Lei's movements when she was suddenly patted on the shoulder.

"Hey, your lover?"

Dong Huimiao shoved him away and hissed, "Get out!"

He ran out of the room and followed Lu Lei at a distance, returning to the breeding room with her.

The first round of assessments has ended, and the arrangements for the next round haven't been released yet, so no one is working overtime in the breeding room. What is Lu Lei doing here?

Dong Huimiao stood at the factory gate and watched as Lu Lei touched the workbench, and soon a dark figure appeared on the workbench.

This dark shape was very strange. It did not attack Lu Lei, nor did it show any craving for the slime. Instead, it huddled on the workbench, curled up in a ball, and kept wriggling.

Just as the seedlings were puzzled by the winter destruction, the shadow slowly faded in color, grew longer in shape, and even grew limbs and a head.

It actually took on a human form!

The shadowy figure only maintained its human form for two or three seconds before disappearing.

Dong Huimiao was really curious, and without caring that Lu Lei had discovered that he was following her, he quickly ran over.

The ground was still the same stained area, but there was neither the slime left by the dead shadow nor the dried glue representing the shadow's corpse.

"What did you do?" Dong Huimiao asked.

"Although we've collaborated before, we're still competitors now. Isn't that right?"

Winter destroyed the seedlings, leaving them speechless.

“However…” Lu Lei drawled, “if you can do me a favor, I’ll tell you.”

"What kind of help?"