126 The Company I Can't Leave (Part 4)
◎Isn't she dead?◎
Zhu Ning's first reaction was to look at the sheep-headed people in the stands. They didn't even show any special expression when they saw Cardboard Box being killed.
Their eyes were dull, and hundreds of rectangular pupils looked at the podium in unison, as if the dead were not one of their kind.
The tiny terror of the group is magnified in an instant, and you can easily infer your own fate. Even if it is you who dies one day, they will just look at your corpse with an expressionless face.
Guangming clapped his hands vigorously. "I declare this performance appraisal meeting a complete success!"
The sheep-headed people below applauded. After the applause ended, they stood up together and lined up to leave the meeting room.
Zhu Ning watched them leave expressionlessly, thinking that since he was one of them, he should go with them.
Snap——
"Toilet paper," Guangming clapped his fat, oily hands. "How is it?"
Zhu Ning: "What's going on?"
Guangming looked at Zhu Ning with interest and asked, "Were you scared by the cardboard box?"
Zhu Ning: "No."
She had seen many corpses and murders, so if she was frightened by anything, it was indifference.
Guangming was very satisfied with Zhu Ning's performance. "Excellent! You've adapted quickly. I'll give you a chance to show your skills. Help with the boxes."
After Guangming said this, he left, leaving Zhu Ning alone in the conference room. Guangming asked her to help deal with the body?
Isn't this some kind of ritual for every new person joining the company?
After the meeting, Xiwang, pushing a cart, smiled upon seeing Zhu Ning. "Roll of paper, are you adapting to the company culture?"
Zhu Ning: "Not bad."
Xiwang smiled. Zhu Ning was truly a good employee. He walked over to the body in the cardboard box and felt the carotid artery, confirming she was dead. "What a shame. She was about to report on her job as a regular employee, and she'd been preparing for it for a long time."
Zhu Ning asked, "She's been here for three months?"
"A little over two months, but less than three months," Hope deftly removed the cardboard box's work badge and took her door card, then sighed, "I have another name."
Zhu Ning clenched his fist. Names are recycled. The names of dead people will be left to the next new person. Zhu Ning must not be the first toilet paper roll.
Hope: "Come and help."
Coincidentally, Zhu Ning is a member of a professional corpse collection team. He comes to the contaminated area to work and actually has to collect corpses.
Zhu Ning and Xiwang together lifted the body onto the cart. Cardboard's body was very soft, and because she had died not long ago, her body temperature could still be felt. Her eyes were wide open, a miserable sight as if she had died with her eyes open.
Zhu Ning helped her close her eyes easily.
Seeing Zhu Ning's action, Wang Xi frowned and said, "Don't make unnecessary movements."
Zhu Ning had no choice but to withdraw his hand and push the cart. The cardboard box with its eyes closed was bouncing up and down in the basket.
Hoping to lead the way for her, Zhu Ning asked, "What was her original name?"
"Original name?" Hope's footsteps suddenly stopped. They had just walked into the corridor, and Hope only left her with his back.
After Zhu Ning asked this question, there was silence. Silence is also powerful. It implies that you asked the wrong question and did the wrong thing.
Wang Xiwang turned around and looked at Zhu Ning with one of his rectangular eyes. "Here's a piece of advice for you: don't ask for people's real names here."
Asking for original names is a taboo here, but it's not written in the employee handbook.
Zhu Ning didn't ask any more questions. She pushed the cart and followed Xiwang.
Hope took her into the elevator and pressed the button for the basement.
She was very familiar with this road. She saw the conveyor belt again. This was the road she had walked on when she had dinner before.
Where should I take her? The cafeteria?
But hope led her to the other direction of the conveyor belt, where it was pitch black, with a flickering blue light and a sign on the door saying "Storage Freezer".
"This way." Hope opened the door.
Zhu Ning frowned when she saw the scene behind the door. She had helped in the kitchen of a hot pot restaurant before, but this freezer was even more terrifying, full of corpses.
The corpses were piled up like mountains, with goat-headed men piled on top of each other. Because of the cold, a thick layer of white frost had formed on their eyelashes and hair.
"Toilet paper?" Hope called her, "Just put it here."
Zhu Ning felt like a criminal helping to dispose of corpses. She numbly lifted the cart, and the corpse in the cardboard box fell onto the pile of corpses with a bang.
All the sheep were reserved for meat, and Zhu Ning was one of them. Zhu Ning asked, "What is this?"
Hope's voice sounds indifferent, "Even if I die, I can still create value for the company."
I hope it's not stated explicitly, but there are only two uses for corpses: one is to use them as stored meat, and the other is to use them as some kind of material.
This is truly a model of not letting go even if it means death, and squeezing the employee dry to the bone. No wonder the employees eat in the cafeteria for free. This is a complete cycle.
Zhu Ning's spirit value dropped only once after entering this polluted area, and the loss was not much. There were no ghosts here, but it was very depressing.
Hope looked at Zhu Ning again and said, "You don't seem afraid."
Collecting corpses is a test and training for new employees, to determine whether you are qualified to join the company's big family.
At this time, the new employees will collapse. They will want to leave with horror and say they want to quit immediately.
But Zhu Ning didn't do that. She just came to dispose of the body with an expressionless face.
Zhu Ning: "Because I want to be an excellent employee."
Why does the system make Zhu Ning an excellent employee? Because the last one in performance will die.
Here, only those with high performance appraisals have a say, and perhaps only outstanding employees can leave.
She suspected that Hope was the person who could give her performance review, and that leaving a good impression on him would help her achieve her goals.
Hope smiled, "You're really ambitious."
"Let's go, it's so cold." Zhu Ning wanted to close the door. At the moment of closing the door, he saw the body in the cardboard box lying under the pile of corpses with his eyes wide open.
Zhu Ning frowned. She had clearly closed the cardboard box's eyes just now, so why did it open again?
Hoping to take her back, they retraced their steps. As the elevator ascended step by step, Zhu Ning quickly asked, "How is the performance appraisal calculated?"
She had to figure out the rules of this place.
Hope: "It's divided into four sections: your work performance, my daily attendance, department manager's rating, and colleagues' rating."
I really hope to have the right to rate Zhu Ning.
Zhu Ning seemed to be lost in thought, so the cardboard box might not necessarily represent a real problem at work. For example, if all her colleagues were ostracizing her, her performance would also be at the bottom.
If they were to do it intentionally, they would choose one person to die every week, and everyone would choose the same person following some tacit understanding.
So if Zhu Ning wants to become an excellent employee, he only needs to complete one of the links.
Hope: "If you get an outstanding employee, you can break the rules in the employee handbook."
Sure enough, excellent employees and other employees are two different species.
With a ding-dong sound, the elevator reached the 19th floor.
I hope to open the office door and say, "The time is perfect. It's 2:30 pm now. You can go back and continue to adapt. If you have any questions, you can ask me."
Zhu Ning walked into the office area again. It was crowded with sheep-headed people. Some of them would look up at her when they heard the sound, and then start typing again.
Guangming was waiting in the office. When he saw Zhu Ning, he gave an exaggerated smile, "Our newcomer is back! I'm very optimistic about you!"
Zhu Ning had a forced smile on her face. If there was a character favorability factor here, she should have gained some favorability from Guangming by collecting the corpses just now.
Guangming said, "What a pity for the cardboard box. The work is not finished yet."
So when a coworker dies, the supervisor’s first reaction is that the work is unfinished?
"You weren't here just now, so we discussed it." Guangming put his arm around Zhu Ning's shoulders. She wanted to refuse but failed, so she was forced to listen to Guangming. "You're very capable, and we all have high hopes for you. Her task is now yours. I'll take you to her workstation. Her client resources and information will all be yours."
Guangming's tone of voice was similar to, how about this, I found a good project for you.
So it’s not necessarily that the cardboard box’s performance is poor, but rather that this place is bullying the weak. They push the most difficult customers to the weakest sheep to save themselves from disaster.
Zhu Ning is the weak one who has just been chosen.
Guangming: "Copying the data is a bit troublesome. You should work at her workstation for now."
Zhu Ning was led to another seat, also next to the window, in the innermost corner of the last row.
This is the workstation where Dead Cardboard was working. It was piled with drawings and some unfinished documents. She was still working hard until the second before the performance meeting.
Guangming led the man here and didn't leave, as if waiting for Zhu Ning to speak. Zhu Ning said: "Thank you for your appreciation, boss."
Guangming laughed and said, "You have quite a personality, I like that. You always ask your colleagues more about your work."
Guangming greeted the sheep-headed people next door and asked them to take good care of the toilet paper.
Several colleagues smiled and said yes, but their faces quickly turned serious after Guangming left.
Zhu Ning took a deep breath and sat down at the cardboard box workstation. The girl at this position had just died.
To be a good employee, you have to work.
Zhu Ning sighed, feeling that if she continued working like this, she might become depressed. Why did she often go to work in polluted areas?
This job is even worse than that of a cashier at a hotpot restaurant.
The cardboard table was a little messy, and Zhu Ning sorted it out while looking for clues.
With a loud bang, Zhu Ning accidentally dropped the folder, and her first reaction was to bend down to pick it up.
Before she raised her head, she suddenly found something under the table.
There were scratches all over the back of the table, as if someone had scratched them with fingernails, and there were even bloodstains on them.
The longest scratch was twenty centimeters long.
But this posture is hard to imagine. If there are scratches on the table, it usually means there has been a fight, or someone wants to drag you away by force, and the table will be scratched while struggling.
But why the back of the table?
Cardboard was working overtime while scratching the table with his fingers? How much resentment must one have to scratch so deeply?
Zhu Ning's fingers traced the scratches. Was there blood? She instinctively traced the scratches with her fingers.
A table is usually hard. Even if it is scratched, the inside should still be hard, but Zhu Ning felt soft.
It seemed that what she touched was not the table, but... meat?
Is this workstation alive?
Zhu Ning remained bent over to look at the scratches, and unexpectedly caught a glimpse of a shadow from the corner of his eye. The workstation was narrow, and there was no partition between the workstation and the work area, so if someone lowered their head, they would see more than a dozen pairs of feet.
But she saw a person, a goat-headed man squatting in the middle of the workstation opposite her.
The goat-headed man was wearing a black suit and squatted between the legs of his colleague opposite him. He squatted under his workstation as if he had folded himself up, with his head buried in his knees.
She kept muttering something with her head down, her tone a little crazy. Zhu Ning couldn't understand anything, but he felt that this person looked very familiar.
What's this? Is the colleague stressed out and hiding under his desk to vent?
Zhu Ning was just about to ask the other person what was wrong and if he needed a tissue.
Suddenly, the sheep-headed man raised his head, and Zhu Ning felt a chill on his back as soon as he took a look.
Cardboard, this person is a cardboard.
Zhu Ning had just taken her body and pushed it into the cafeteria freezer with her own hands. She could even remember the temperature of the cardboard box.
Isn't she dead? Why is she here?
When Cardboard Box saw Zhu Ning, he showed a terrified expression, as if he had seen a ghost, and his eyes widened.
Zhu Ning was in a stalemate with her and still couldn't figure out what was going on. The cardboard box was clearly the ghost, so why was she scared when she saw him?
But Cardboard seemed to have made up her mind. She took a deep breath, took out a pair of scissors from behind, pointed the tip of the knife at Zhu Ning, and pounced on Zhu Ning.
With a crackling sound——
Zhu Ning's first reaction was to step back. She was now skilled enough to prevent the opponent from touching her at all, but her dodging movement hit the chair, making a noise.
The unusual sound seemed too abrupt amid the sound of keyboard typing, and everyone turned to look at her.
Especially Zhu Ning's deskmate, she frowned and glared at her, probably because she thought Zhu Ning was annoying.
Zhu Ning wanted to explain, but when she looked under the desk, the cardboard box squatting under the desk had disappeared, and there was only a pair of feet of the colleague opposite her.
It seemed like she had just imagined it.
So her behavior was no different from being crazy in the eyes of her colleagues. Well, her colleague's favorability was gone.
Zhu Ning sat back in his seat holding the folder. He always felt a chill under the table, as if there was someone hiding there, ready to touch his ankle at any time.
Zhu Ning glanced at the time. After going through the process of joining the company, attending meetings and disposing of the body, it was not even three o'clock yet. It was indeed a part-time job. She had never felt that a day was so long.
What did I just see? A ghost? Or another cardboard box?
It seemed like there was... another time and space in this company. From time to time, the two time and space would overlap and merge. At the moment of fusion, Zhu Ning could see another world.
It was like she had seen herself twice, and like she had picked up two identical pens.
To summarize the information I received, the scratches under the table are suspected to be caused by Cardboard venting his anger while working overtime. The specific reason is unknown.
Or maybe there were scratches left by a monster. If it was a monster, it would have been crawling backwards.
Second, assuming the cardboard box Zhu Ning just saw actually existed in the past, what was the cardboard box doing under the desk? Was it venting stress? Hiding from monsters? Or was it a form of coworker bullying?
Combined with the frightened expression on Cardboard's face just now, it seemed that not only Zhu Ning saw her, but she also saw herself.
Zhu Ning must find a way to figure out what happened to the cardboard box. The contaminated area is an alienation of the real world, and she may encounter the same thing.
Zhu Ning opened the computer in the cardboard box and found that the modification plan had been revised to 31 versions. What kind of annoying client was this that made so many changes?
She also took a special look at each plan. She was very meticulous and careful in her work. Judging from the mechanical knowledge Zhu Ning had just acquired, these mechanical drawings were at least of upper-middle quality.
Why are customers dissatisfied?
Zhu Ning began to modify the drawings left on the cardboard box. When her neck felt a little sore, the clock showed six o'clock and it was time to get off work.
But even though it was already time to get off work, no one moved.
Everyone eats on time when it's time to eat, but no one leaves work on time and is still typing away on their keyboards.
Zhu Ning wanted to be an excellent employee and didn't want to be the first troublemaker to leave work. At eight o'clock in the evening, someone finally started working. Zhu Ning stood up as well. When she left, most of the employees were still working overtime.
Zhu Ning followed the Sheep-Headed Man to punch out and then walked downstairs. The other Sheep-Headed Man dragged their tired bodies through the gate and left the company.
Zhu Ning hesitated for a while at the door of the building. The name of this polluted area was the company that could not be left. Was it really impossible for Zhu Ning to leave?
The glass door on the first floor opened from both sides. Zhu Ning stepped out carefully. There were no problems and no monsters were triggered.
She came out?
It was still dark outside. The moment I walked out, I felt relieved and breathed the air of freedom.
At this moment, you are your true self, and the inexplicable burden that was previously weighing on you disappears in an instant.
She was liberated.
Zhu Ning walked down the stairs and felt unprecedentedly light. She was surrounded by sheep-headed people and she seemed to have completely integrated into this environment.
She walked faster and faster, and when she reached the open space in the center, suddenly, her happiness came to an abrupt end.
She heard a loud bang.
It was a very familiar sound, one she had heard over and over again more than ten or twenty times: the sound of corpses hitting the ground, bones and flesh shattering, and brains and blood exploding.
Zhu Ning stiffened his neck and slowly turned around, only to see a black corpse lying on the ground with dark red blood slowly flowing out.
This polluted area was filled with white sheep-headed people, and he was the only black one. His black helmet was broken, revealing Zhu Ning's bloody face.
She...committed suicide?
The author has something to say:
I don't know if it's a side effect of my illness, but I've recently started to get bloated. It feels like there's a little person sitting at the bottom of my stomach, blowing up a balloon. The balloon is getting bigger and bigger, until it hits the inner wall of my stomach and is about to burst...
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