-1-

Six o'clock in the morning.

On the way to work.

Miss X's hands and feet are cold.

...Why on earth would the subsystem have to adjust the environment to such a realistic winter? Even after death, I still have to feel the cold...

I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have stopped exercising when I died, thinking, "I'm going to die, so it doesn't matter anymore." As a result, my appearance and physique remain at the moment of death. Even after becoming a ghost, I still carry the cold and dampness left by the winter ice cola. It's enough...

Are carelessness and laziness flaws that must be overcome regardless of life or death... wuwuwu...

-2-

But I'm so sorry, I'd rather be a lazy bum than die.

Miss X exhaled a breath of hot air onto her hands, but before the heat even touched her palms, it quickly turned into white mist and dissipated.

Come on, X, just ten minutes walk and we can pop into a heated convenience store and spend the whole day there...

——The manager of the convenience store in the maintenance department could only cheer himself up with a bitter face.

The way system employees go to work is very simple, just walking.

Although different departments are distributed in different areas of the system world - the cross-country bicycle competition that Mr. P had previously signed up for was in MN18 area - the subsystem has built streets inside and outside these areas that can be used for space jumping.

Just walk through a few nodes and you can reach your job.

No matter where they are or where they go, every employee in the system world only needs to walk to work in 30 minutes at most.

This was a spatial road design that was precisely calculated during renovation decades ago, and it made the traffic subsystem manager extremely proud.

By the way, when the subsystem engineer was designing the road, he had some communication with P from the Horrible Maintenance Department and received help from an angel.

-3-

There is nothing Ms. M can do about her daily complaints about the main system being garbage, because her subordinates are more capable than the system.

-4-

Moreover, the spatial locations of staff dormitories will be automatically distributed around the employees' departments, which makes travel more convenient.

“Only thirty minutes’ walk at most” is just in theory. In reality, almost every employee only needs to walk twenty minutes to get to work.

Because Mr. P, a clerk, did not find a young and healthy dead person to calculate his walking speed at work, but he specifically referred to the walking speed of a colleague with arthritis to design the duration.

He even set up various unmanned breakfast shops and hot drink vending machines along the roads where spatial data flows, so that some people who have difficulty getting up in the morning can have breakfast before going to work.

He is an angel.

-5-

Every time Mr. P was thanked by his colleagues for this, he would humbly say, "That's not the case. I just want to make things convenient for myself," which touched his colleagues even more.

...But Mr. P was telling the truth. He set those rules just because he didn't want to make breakfast for Miss M.

Although they lived and worked together, he and his boss, who was always late and left early, had completely different working hours.

It was rare for Ms. M to get out of bed and be taken to the office by her subordinates to punch in on time. She would either be late yawning or show up in the office early.

In the latter case, it is usually because she stayed up all night at a nightclub and simply slept at her workplace.

Or maybe she was just having fun with someone, had a morning surprise planned for someone, and was already setting a trap.

This means that if Mr. P wants to prepare breakfast for his boss, he must catch her first.

-6-

Although she has been going to nightclubs less and less frequently in recent years and staying in bed more and more...

But it is not easy to catch a boss who can hide in a delivery box.

Even if you stay in bed, you don't know where she will curl up in the quilt——

Mr. P, who is committed to keeping a distance from his boss, usually does not lift the quilt. He often takes pictures through the quilt for half an hour but fails to capture his boss inside. After finally finding out that there are all kinds of pillows under the quilt, he turns around and finds that his boss is hiding in his closet.

"Please don't stay in your subordinate's closet, Miss M."

"Yawn...noise...*close the cabinet door*..."

If I go to look for her, she will definitely not be in bed. If I don’t go to look for her, she will definitely stay in bed and sleep.

...Ms. M is a Schrödinger-like existence, and Mr. P confirmed this.

He gave up trying to get her to get up for breakfast and instead prepared breakfast in advance and put it on the table.

-7-

But I was still forced by my late boss several times——

"What? Toast again? Isn't French toast also toast?"

"The omelet you made today is cold and tastes terrible. Please heat it up before you leave next time."

"Who would deliberately open the steamer? I can't find the buns to eat because you didn't take them out and put them on the plate. What? You have to put them on the steamer to heat them? That's your problem—"

"By the way, Xiao P, the steamed buns you steamed are all frozen buns from the supermarket, right? They're not fresh at all. You really don't know how to make anything other than toast. Since you claim that your cooking skills are improving, can you get up early and fry some dough sticks or make some tofu pudding?"

"Little P is so stupid"

...If making tofu pudding is as difficult as cooking, would there still be so many people buying tofu pudding specifically to eat?

The requirements for frying dough sticks are even more outrageous. Kneading dough is a more advanced culinary skill. Even serious chefs sometimes can't knead dough properly... He needs to practice hard for at least a few more decades...

But the boss doesn't care.

-8-

After being pushed several times, Mr. P said: "You can buy it yourself. Buy your own breakfast. I'll leave the change on the table."

Ms. M: “But there’s no breakfast shop on the way to work…”

Mr. P: “I just negotiated with the subsystem and now it’s available.”

Ms. M: “…”

Mr. P: "And I've redesigned my route to work. If you sleep late, you can stop taking my car and just walk."

Ms. M: “…”

-9-

——To sum up, this is the real reason why angels bless all employees’ commute to work.

I don’t want to make breakfast for my boss anymore, and I don’t want to catch my elusive boss to take her to work anymore.

"I just want to make things easier for myself," the angel's honest words are often not believed.

-10-

Oh, but ever since Mr. P bought a pink cat blanket a few years ago, Miss M automatically appears in his passenger seat.

She still likes the air conditioning in the car, the passenger seat cushion, the pink cat blanket and the guitar sound from Xiao P's car stereo.

-11-

Mr. P's taste in music is really good, almost inversely proportional to his cooking skills - no, far, far better than his cooking skills.

Every time, sitting in his car, Miss M could hear music she had never heard before.

She loves dancing and humming, so of course she also loves music and is very picky about it.

After listening to so many songs over the years, the only ones she remembered and would hum when she was in a good mood were the theme songs of her favorite plots.

For example, "Castle in the Sky" and "Cardcaptor Sakura".

No pure music without any background story can capture Miss M's ears in a second.

But she just inexplicably liked every one of those unknown songs in Xiao P's car stereo.

Even though those songs don't have lyrics.

But every time he asked Xiao P where the music in the car came from, he never answered, but just asked her to sit down and fasten her seat belt.

-12-

"I won't get into a car accident, Xiao P. Even if a dump truck hits me in a second, I can jump out the window and land safely before your car is destroyed."

"Really? Then can you guarantee that you can successfully avoid it even if you take me with you?"

"Why bring Little P along? I've never seen Little P get hit by a dump truck and die in such a funny way. Ah, you could remove your airbag before you jump away!"

“…”

"So, Xiao P, tell me quickly, tell me, tell me, where does your car music come from..."

-13-

Mr. P said calmly, "I didn't ask you to sit still to prevent a car accident. I just asked you to stop shaking my right hand and grabbing my arm. Humans didn't invent the driver's seat so that the passenger could crawl over and grab it while talking."

Miss M let out a long "ah".

"What's the big deal? Even if I were to hang onto Little P's shoulders, your hands would be steady! Keep going, Little P. The boss believes in you!"

"Thank you, but I don't believe it. Please take a seat."

-14-

...Well, whatever.

Whether it was for breakfast or a ride, she had to insist on asking for a ride. It would only take a few more attempts for Little P, who would always refuse her as usual. Miss M didn't mind the trouble.

Besides, what's wrong with having your own subordinates take more advantage of you?

-15-

"Eight more minutes... Only eight more minutes to walk... Ugh, it's so cold."

At this moment, Miss X, who was walking alone on her way to work, muttered, "I really want to see an angel... At this time, I wonder if I can meet an angel on my way to work."

Don't get me wrong, Miss X's desire to see angels on her way to work wasn't because of any special feelings. All the employees in the maintenance department liked to see angels on their way to work.

Heal the soul, recharge quickly, and hope to see an angel on the way to work, just like the feeling of wanting to pet a golden retriever before work.

Moreover, Angel has provided physical assistance to his colleagues more than once: Miss X, who is afraid of cold, has accepted the hot soy milk from his hands more than once, and in the summer she even ate the ice cream shared by Angel.

——Besides, as Miss U from the Love Maintenance Department found out.

Different from his gentle aura at work, Angel is not a guy who fits the keyword of "gentle and steady" in his private time.

When he first started working, his colleagues had some stereotypes about him.

For example, "When an angel is at the beach, he will lie on a beach chair, hide in the shadows and read quietly."

Another example is "Angels would wear black coats and old-fashioned leather shoes and walk slowly down the street on their way to work in winter."

But in fact, angels will indulge in running wildly on the beach, digging holes, playing volleyball and building sand castles.

When a typhoon comes, he will even happily rush into the sea to chase the typhoon and surf all day long, with his golden hair floating in the waves.

...Stereotypes are not good. I still remember the shattered filters of my colleagues who traveled with the Angel Department for the first time.

-16-

Later, my colleagues got better and it was perfect after they re-established the filter. They immediately formed a group to buy a frisbee to play frisbee throwing with the angels.

The angel who had just returned from building a sand castle immediately nodded in agreement.

Then the colleagues happily took out the frisbee and motioned for the angel to run farther to catch it, and then M saw it.

And then nothing happened to my colleagues.

-17-

A few minutes later, Miss M picked up the blood-stained frisbee again and asked Mr. P with a smile if she could try to catch it with her mouth.

Mr. P: "I'm not a dog, Ms. M."

But he caught it with his hand and carefully wiped the blood off the Frisbee when handing it back.

After wiping the blood off, he turned around and saw that Miss M had already kicked over the sand castle he had built and even stepped on the collapsed spire.

Sweet smile.

Mr. P: “…”

-18-

At that moment, Mr. P also had an idea of ​​how to throw the frisbee over.

Don't expect your boss to catch it, just hope it hits her.

...But he predicted that he would die before the frisbee hit his boss, so he had to walk over and flip the clean frisbee upside down on Miss M's head.

"Please be good."

Miss M smiled, raised her sandy foot, and kicked his calf hard.

"You shut up and put your sun jacket on now. Or I'll continue destroying your sand castle."

Mr. P: “…”

Mr. P doesn't understand why you need to wear a sun-protective jacket when you can just wear swimming trunks when playing on the beach.

But he understood his boss's anger from the force on his calf, and put on the sun-protective jacket that could completely cover his skin color.

-19-

…In short, don’t believe the stereotypes about angels.

Angels don't walk elegantly down the street in black coats when they go to work in winter.

He hardly walks at all; he prefers a skateboard.

The angel who works alone never drives. He rides a skateboard with headphones on and carries a blue backpack that seems to be filled with snacks and drinks instead of yesterday's unfinished complaint reports.

Wearing a hoodie and jeans, with a backpack on his back, no one would think that he is a worker who is oppressed by his boss every day.

It was a very bright scene, the silver wheels of the skateboard pressed against the blue light, and the white headphones were buckled on the blonde hair—

If you run into an angel on a skateboard wearing headphones before work, and watch him jump around in all sorts of flashing, darting light spots, traversing the fluctuating space with his skateboard, and when he sees you, he turns his head, smiles, and waves, saying good morning...

That really made the whole day happy.

【So youthful】

Every colleague would think the same thing.

...That's right, Angel is so reliable at work that they always easily forget that he is also the youngest undead in the maintenance department.

The kid had only been dead for 49 years, and no one would even give him alcohol at a dinner party.

Since the angels were able to face M with such a cheerful and bright attitude, and since the angels would continue to skateboard to work with full energy even during their daily overtime work, their dejection of "not wanting to get up early for work" seemed to have disappeared.

...Their boss is not M, how lucky they are.

Angels can smile so beautifully even though they have M as their boss, so why should they remain gloomy?

-20-

"What a fake smile."

——In the entire system world, only M would evaluate Angel in this way.

But she is a psychopath and everyone ignores her.

-twenty one-

Meeting an angel on your way to work can really boost your happiness for the whole day.

Miss X, who went to work in a depressed mood today, also hoped to meet an angel.

Seeing how cold she was, the angel would surely be concerned and hand her some hot soy milk.

"...If I can't find an angel...it would be nice if I could bump into a car and let it rub against me..."

It is difficult to buy a car in the system world, and even if you buy it, you don’t have much chance to use it.

Because the cars here don't consume gasoline, but wages - what a joke, which ordinary employee can afford a means of transportation that uses wages as fuel?

Therefore, the main system does not stipulate any qualifications for buying a car. In theory, anyone can buy one - but in reality, only the salaries of department heads can afford the car.

The head of the maintenance department is Miss R, but her superior, Ms. M, is too poor to buy a car, and R doesn't dare to buy one either.

She was afraid that M would kill her if he was unhappy with her.

And there are not many opportunities to use the car, it's only a twenty-minute walk at most.

-twenty two-

As a result, now, Angel has become the only employee in the entire maintenance department who has a car - just kidding, he is number one on the income list, that's no exaggeration, he can even afford to drive the train to work.

Angel just has a very good temper and is used to keeping a low profile.

Moreover, he really likes to use skateboards for transportation. He bought a car only to make it convenient to pick up and drop off his boss. He would never drive if it wasn't to pick up his boss.

I'll recommend the store with the best discounts to colleagues who want to stock up, help them search for coupons when I see them ordering takeout, gently point out the best value for money when asked which product to buy, and always click on any discount group buy offers forwarded by colleagues...

He is so angelic that his colleagues basically forget that he is actually the highest earner every once in a while.

That second-highest-earning purchasing manager is showing off his wealth to the extreme. Humph, he's nowhere near as good as the angel in our department...

...I really want to meet an angel...or even a car...

Miss X sniffed and felt that her nose was running from the cold.

-twenty three-

"senior?"

A car suddenly stopped in front of her, and the blonde angel rolled down the window: "Senior, why are you so cold... Come on in, I'm driving today, and I have heating and air conditioning. I'll take you to work."

Miss X: “…”

It's an angel.

It's an angel!

Miss X nodded very touchedly, ran over and opened the car door.

Ms. M in the car door: "X, you are not allowed to sit in the passenger seat."

Miss X quickly closed the car door.

Miss X opened the car door again.

-twenty four-

Ms. M in the passenger seat: "Hey, the air conditioning is coming in. ...Or do you want to steal the passenger seat from me, huh?"

Miss X: “…”

Ms. X: "I, I, I still don't need it..."

Mr. P: "It's okay, come on in the car, senior. The car is well heated, so you won't be freezing like you are now."

Ms. M: "Don't waste time, you still have one chance to open the car door and let in the air conditioning. This is the last time, X."

Miss X: “…”

-25-

Three minutes later, Miss X quietly slipped into the back seat of the car.

After all, she didn't want to experience "opening the car door for the last time" at all.

The car was well heated and the angel in the driver's seat was very comforting, except for M who was sitting in the passenger seat.

…And M happened to be sitting in the passenger seat! Why! Why!

Miss X gradually lost the physical chill, but she began to feel the coldness on a psychological level.

Shivering.

Mask of pain.

She! Not at all! Meet M on the way to work!

The angel driving the car will definitely bring his boss with him... Why did I forget just now? Aaaaaaaaaa!

Mr. P was a little confused. "Still cold, Senior? Your face is like this."

Ms. M: "Don't worry about it, little P.X's face has always been like this."

X·Mask of Pain·It's not always like this·Miss: "..."

-26-

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, P..."

"If it's still cold, how about a cup of hot soy milk, Senior? It's on the drink holder, and no one's drinking it."

"Oh, okay... Thank you, P..."

Miss X shivered as she picked up the soy milk. The warm and sweet taste of the hot soy milk had a somewhat calming effect on her.

"It's delicious...P, which breakfast shop did you buy it from?"

Mr. P smiled. "I didn't buy it. I ground it fresh this morning. Miss M was complaining about not putting enough sugar in and was just about to throw it all away. It just so happened that Senior showed up. It's never good to waste food."

Miss X: “…”

Miss X raised her head tremblingly, and Miss M's gaze in the rearview mirror was gloomy.

-27-

Miss X put down the soy milk tremblingly.

...After a while, he picked it up again tremblingly.

-28-

Anyway, I am going to die... before I die... this is Angel's freshly ground soy milk.

Miss M looked at the rearview mirror and said, "Tsk."