Chapter 90: The Dormitory

However, the loudspeaker had only broadcast half of the announcement when the fat man pushed open the glass door and strolled back leisurely from outside.

After standing under the air conditioner for a while and enjoying the coolness, the fat man pushed the brand-new computer desk and computer under the desk and silently mouthed something to the monitor in the office.

The next second, the broadcast from the loudspeaker seemed to abruptly stop, and no actual punishment was announced for a long time. There was only a hissing sound, like someone pretending to have a bad signal when making a phone call.

The woman with glasses paused, her smile freezing on her face.

Why did the punishment announcements suddenly stop? Is the HR manager being hypocritical?

At this point, Fang Zhuo's live stream room had exploded with excitement. The audience included not only the players who had participated in the betting game, but also many curious passersby.

[Hello? Where's the HR manager? I think I can't hear you clearly.]

[So it turns out that spending 36,000 yuan can shut up HR, get them to take notes, and I've learned something new.]

[You've learned too many different things. Why don't you check your balance of ghost money first?]

[895 ghost coins remaining, so what? Who says I can't have sweet dreams?^^]

A notification popped up in Fang Zhuo's mind as well—

[Congratulations, player! Your live stream has received a small batch of trial streams and will be featured in both the Newcomer section and the Entertainment Live Stream section. Keep up the good work!]

[You have received 18 ghost coins as a reward. There are currently 192 people watching online. The next level of data package will be unlocked when there are more than 1,000 viewers.]

[Current player level: lv.1]

[Three Hell Coins have been automatically added to your betting pool; current odds are 1:87]

[That's pretty high odds, unfortunately, it means almost nobody's optimistic about you at the start, hehe]

[If you successfully complete the Huitong Design Company instance, you will receive 261 Hell Coins upon completion.]

Fang Zhuo's brain automatically filtered out this long string of notifications.

The amount is too small to make a ripple, and it doesn't interest me at all.

After a long day of high-pressure work, the original team of fifteen players was reduced to seven. Apart from the assistant clerk and the cleaner, everyone else had wounds so severe that the bone was almost visible.

The office was filled with painful groans and soft moans that night, interspersed with the rapid clicking of mouse.

Fang Zhuo clicked on the desktop out of boredom. In addition to the usual project folders, there was also an encrypted Spider Solitaire icon on the desktop.

It's unrealistic to expect players to master the work of a professional engineer in just one day, and the players sitting next to him clearly realized that there must be a key to winning the puzzle game.

This is a word game with only five lives. When all five pink hearts in the upper right corner of the computer screen at the next table turned gray, the player's face also quickly turned ashen.

With nothing else to do, Fang Zhuo started playing a simple game out of boredom. After he finished the game in fifteen minutes, a man who looked like a programmer and wore a mustard yellow plaid shirt quietly tapped him on the shoulder.

"Brother, I have two lives left. If you help me solve the mystery, I'll give you thirty ghost coins tomorrow. You can earn such a large sum of money in just a few tens of minutes. It's definitely not a loss for you."

...Thirty ghost coins? That's a lot.

It feels so unfamiliar; it's been a long time since anyone has tried to buy out his ten minutes for such a small amount.

Seeing that Fang Zhuo did not answer for a long time, the woman with glasses spoke first, and said to the programmer with a smile: "Don't make things difficult for him. Can't you see that he looks down on this little bit of compensation?"

She then turned to Fang Zhuo with a forced smile and said, "Right, boss?"

Fang Zhuo completely ignored her, but the eight-eyed fat man noticed the commotion.

After the regular performance review results were released at 11 p.m., the bespectacled woman received a three-minute punishment. Although it was only three minutes long, her screams filled the entire corridor, much more shrill than those of the others.

When she returned to the company, she only had three toes left on her right foot, and her expression was one of resentment and unwillingness.

It was already 11:30 when everyone finished their punishment. The players were finally able to take a short break from a day of intense work. The seven of them were divided into three dormitories.

As soon as the programmer strode into the dormitory, he couldn't help but cover his nose.

The environment here is even worse than the office before the renovation. Dust particles are visible under the dim lighting, the beds are covered with a thick layer of dust from who-knows-where, and there are dried-up insect and bird corpses on the edges of the mattresses. If there were no other choice, a normal person would not be able to live in this dormitory.

The dungeon rooms were mostly mixed-gender. The bespectacled woman stumbled and grabbed the programmer by the collar, whispering in his ear:

"I see you only have one life left in your puzzle game. I'll help you beat it tomorrow, and you'll have to do me a favor in return."

The programmer hesitated for a moment: "What?"

"Let's team up and kill that handsome guy later. Listen to me first. Only people who have run this kind of beginner dungeon less than three times can queue up for it. He probably just happened to find a treasure chest or something in another low-difficulty dungeon."

“There are many restrictions when using this kind of item to spend money. Not only is there a long cooldown period, but some items can only be used to purchase specific goods. The treasure chest can help him once, but it can't help him a second time.”

"Even if he's incredibly skilled, he definitely doesn't have more than three defensive items on him. Before coming in, I bought a walkthrough from Huitong Design Company at a high price. There's a knock-on attack and defense mechanism here at midnight, and the boss will change. We'll just push him out then."

"No, no, I was brought in to help Xin Zui, I've never killed anyone..."

The programmer's expression shifted under the bespectacled woman's disapproving glances, and he finally asked tentatively, "So, where exactly do we get our benefits?"

The woman with glasses said, "The treasure chest is mine, the cash on him is yours, and I'll give you an extra fifty ghost coins after you get the props."

The programmer nodded: "Deal."

Fang Zhuo had just entered the room when he was met with complete silence from the two people.

The room was filled with a tense atmosphere, as if a conflict could erupt at any moment. He walked nonchalantly to the only relatively clean wardrobe in the dormitory and leaned against it, browsing the documents he had received from the tattooed man.

He only needed three hours of sleep, and looking at the programmer next to him yawning and seemingly deep in thought, he just wanted to laugh.

Before entering the endless dungeon world, he had already accumulated 100 stamina points, giving him the ability to fight against higher-level dungeon bosses. Ordinary players and mini-bosses had little chance of harming him.

He uses money to solve problems simply because he's too lazy to fight in real life every time. Why waste his energy to fight himself when small things can be solved with money?

He still doesn't know why the plot of this dimension has shifted, so it's inconvenient to directly kill the dungeon boss and attract unnecessary attention. Using money to solve the problem is the easiest and simplest method.

At 11:59, after a day of intense intimidation and work, most players were now fast asleep.

As the clock struck twelve, a soft nursery rhyme drifted from outside the door: "The moonlight seeks the stairs, the shadow climbs the door. A little voice softly calls out a name."

"Open the door, open the door, I have candy stars. Little hands want to turn them, the golden lock is shiny and bright. First call for Dad and Mom, then come and recognize your relatives. If there is no response, the fairy will open the door to listen..."

Heavy snoring could already be heard from some of the dorm rooms, while no one in the other two dorm rooms noticed that countless short, dark figures had slipped into the rooms.

The shadows were hazy, their edges like those of a poorly optimized game, resembling the outlines of something you see when you wake up without your glasses on.

One by one, dark shadows crawled on the ground, like underdeveloped salamanders, with only their heads showing sharp little white teeth, the tips of which were still stained with blood.

The moment the shadowy figures approached the bed, their greedy saliva dripped onto the player's face.

"Ah!!!" A terrified scream echoed down the corridor. The tattooed man in the next dormitory was awakened by the scream and was shocked to find a whole set of fine white teeth shoved into his face.

The moment the shout rang out, the doorknob on Fang Zhuo's dormitory was also turning slightly.

The woman with glasses gave him a wink, and the programmer immediately tried to push Fang Zhuo out through the crack in the open door.

The woman with glasses' pupils dilated slightly.

After killing a player, the dungeon boss can only get a small portion of the cash and cannot take over the items from the player.

If this attack succeeds, she can go out at 1 a.m. and find a treasure chest. Even if it's not a treasure chest, it will definitely be a money-related item of equal quality.

In an infinite dungeon where ghost money can buy everything, this is an incredibly rare and powerful existence.

She's about to become rich; she's really making a fortune.

However, the programmer was a bit too unhelpful; his push didn't actually push her out, and instead, she watched helplessly as the crack in the door widened.

If this continues, those small, dark figures will soon enter the dormitory. She was injured during the day and has no chance of escaping unscathed.

The woman with glasses quickly ran to the door, trying to help the programmer push the person away.

The person wasn't pushed, but the door was completely opened by the creature outside.

Those dark shadows had scarlet eyes, but instead of black pupils, their eyeballs had white, empty holes. Glistening saliva clung to their mouths. Although they called themselves "elves," their appearance was anything but.

Although the woman with glasses considered herself quite brave, she still let out a short scream when she was face-to-face with such a creature.

At this moment, the speed at which the comments in Fang Zhuo's live stream refreshed also gradually increased.

[Currently, all items related to ghost money on the market have a cooldown period of more than 24 hours... Forget it, this handsome guy is probably done for.]

[His teammates are so clueless! If it were me, I would have given up immediately. Serving as a lackey for a pro player makes clearing levels so fast. Now look what happened, they all ended up dying together.]

[Her guess was actually reasonable; it was just a matter of a tiny bit of luck to pull it off. Can you honestly say you wouldn't be envious if such a prop were right in front of you?]

[Anyway, I'm envious and want to snatch it and have it^^]

[I usually love watching the treasure chest item series streams. If the raid wipes, all the items will be taken back by the official team... Another one less streamer to watch while eating, so sad.]

The bespectacled woman's heart sank, and she tried to pull the handsome guy over to shield her from the boss's first attack.

Even if everyone has to die together, she hopes she can die a little slower.

However, the next second, she saw the shadowy figure suddenly stop moving.

The handsome guy in front of her pulled out a handful of 100-yuan ghost money notes from somewhere, placed them in front of her, and teased the dark figure like he was playing with a child: "Do you recognize him?"