Chapter 597 Onboarding
To be honest, Luo Neng's agreement to Yu Sheng wasn't surprising, but her quick agreement was somewhat unexpected—he had originally thought he would have to argue with this elven lady for at least an hour, discussing everything from treatment and rules to the hostel's "corporate culture," since, in essence, he had pissed off their space station and then dragged her here to work for free. At home, Eileen had been nagging him about how rude he was…
As a result, Luo didn't even let him finish his planned bluff.
"...You're quite decisive," Yu Sheng muttered, unable to contain his frustration at how smoothly things were going. "Aren't you worried this might be a trap?"
“Well, at least I’ve jumped from a deep pit to a shallow one,” Luo said, quite optimistically. “Isn’t that better than being imprisoned for a long time? Besides, my situation might turn into a death sentence any day—if I can get a position here with you, at least it means I don’t have to worry about being secretly executed at any time.”
Yu Sheng immediately understood the other party's logic.
For a prisoner of war who is trapped in a difficult situation with no choice in his own life and a bleak future, being assigned a task—even a difficult one—is far better than not being assigned one at all. Even if he is really assigned to jump into a pit, at least he has something to fill the pit.
"Being worthless" is the most dangerous state a person can be in, and Luo is well aware of this, especially since she comes from the Black Dot Group, a place where competition is ruthless and order is cold, and that place has long taught her this rule.
Of course, Yu Sheng had reservations about Luo's claim that he "jumped from a deep pit to a shallow pit".
She'll one day miss the days when she and Rapunzel would huddle in the grass and eat psionic mushrooms.
Just as Yu Sheng was feeling this way, Baili Qing noticed the hesitation in Luo's eyes and the way he seemed to want to say something. She coughed twice and said, "Ahem, do you have something to say?"
"May I make a small request?" Luo glanced at Baili Qing, then at Yu Sheng—her theoretical new boss. "Of course, it's fine if you don't agree..."
“Go ahead and say it,” Yu Sheng said, almost laughing. “You’ve never been this polite when you were locked up. Why are you being so cautious now?”
“Back then, we were just giving up, but now we’ve seen hope again,” Luo said, a little embarrassed. Then she adjusted her expression. “What I mean is, don’t I still have a security detail that’s being held by the Secret Service? The team that ran over when Boundary Bridge opened the rift in this building… Could you release them too?”
At this point, perhaps worried that the request was a bit excessive, she quickly explained, "You see, I'm just one person. I can't possibly take over the entire Blackrock Station by myself, can I? Some members of my guard unit can serve as maintenance personnel for the space station. Besides, you mentioned having me run research projects, which can't be done by one person alone. Running a pioneering laboratory requires an entire technical team. I also need to recruit people and contact any other surviving subordinates. All of this requires help..."
As she spoke, she seemed to become increasingly guilty, her voice growing softer and softer. Finally, she simply shrugged and looked at Yu Sheng with a resigned air.
Honestly, Yu Shengzhen never expected that the first thing this "black-spotted warlord" thought of when facing the dawn of freedom was to get his subordinates out of trouble.
After all, Baili Qing had told him that the Black Dot Group operated under extremely ruthless rules, and there was no warmth or affection to speak of within that vast technological and commercial empire.
"I didn't expect you to care so much about your subordinates," Yu Sheng said casually, stroking his chin.
“They’ve been with me for many years,” Luo said in a low voice, “and if they hadn’t risked their lives to rush out of the lab to report the situation, you wouldn’t have been able to quickly grasp the situation inside the Rift Lab. They deserve credit too…”
“Don’t worry, they’re on the release list themselves,” Baili Qing, who had been watching silently from the side, finally spoke up. “They will go back to Blackstone Station with you—from now on, you will both be under the management of the Life Management Department.”
Luo's eyes lit up immediately. She glanced at Baili Qing in disbelief, but quickly realized that this expressionless man wouldn't joke like that, so she turned to Yu Sheng and said, "Then..."
"Then there's no problem, right?" Yu Sheng looked at the blonde elf in front of him with a smile. "Can we sign the contract now?"
“That’s fine,” Luo nodded quickly. “Give me the contract, I’ll sign it right away.”
Yu Sheng waved his hand: "Why sign that thing? Our hostel has its own rules, which are much more binding than a contract."
Upon hearing this, Luo was about to speak out of curiosity when she saw Yu Sheng suddenly pull a small knife out of his pocket. He then used the knife to cut his hand, and blood quickly gushed out of the wound, which was controlled by an invisible force to condense into a sphere, trembling and floating in mid-air.
Yu Sheng controlled the blood droplets to float in front of Luo: "Drink it, this is your destiny."
Luo's face turned pale instantly—pale even more so than when she had seen the border through the large hole in the dome of Black Stone Station. Cold sweat poured down her forehead: "Wait, wait...you didn't say this! What does this mean?!"
“A blood-donation ceremony,” Yu Sheng said with a serious expression, “is a procedure that all hostels have to go through when recruiting new staff.”
Luo stared at Baili Qing for a long time, then suddenly turned to her and said, "Didn't you say you weren't involved in dark psionic energy?!"
“少废话——这个比黑灵能好使多了，”于生说着，突然上前在洛的肩膀上拍了一把，趁对方扭头一愣神的瞬间就把血珠直接弹到了她嘴里——其实授血不一定需要仪式对象把血喝下去，但这一套流程搞了这么多次之后他已经形成了自己的习惯，觉得这样更有仪式感，“别乱动，别抵触啊，很快就好，你抗拒的话反而可能会难受，搞不好露娜还会把你的灵魂拖进旷野里揍一顿。”
Luo instinctively clutched his neck, and upon hearing this, several elements instantly came to mind: a secret society disguised as a righteous organization, dark psychic rituals using blood as a medium, and a cursed eternal mark—and if he resisted, his soul would be extracted and he would be tortured (referring to being dragged into a cathedral by a village girl saintess, beaten while being muttered to)...
After a long period of utter despair and mental contemplation, she didn't feel any curse taking effect on her. If she had to say, she felt that the blood droplet from earlier was quite melt-in-your-mouth and even a little sweet...
"That's... all done?" Luo looked down at himself in confusion, then looked up at Yu Sheng and Baili Qing. After holding it in for a while, he finally couldn't help but ask, "No, is this how you 'righteous people' do things now? When we were fighting in the city, I felt that those 'kids' and those few who claimed to be 'righteous cultivators' were all weird... They've all been through this too?"
Upon hearing this, Baili Qing awkwardly took a half-step to the side, her face expressionless: "A hotel is a hotel, and the Special Operations Bureau is the Special Operations Bureau. We are conducting a legal and open recruitment process..."
“What we’re doing isn’t illegal,” Yu Sheng quickly said, then waved his hand at Luo. “Explaining the whole story would be a bit complicated. You can ask the long-haired princess or Mo Ran about it later. Anyway, that ritual was safe and harmless. Its main purpose was to establish a connection between you and me. As long as you don’t intentionally kill yourself, you can even pretend it doesn’t exist. By the way—your guards also have to go through this process.”
Luo blinked, her expression suddenly becoming somewhat subtle.
There's a feeling that I want to be a good boss, but I also have a vague feeling that I've led my long-term employees into a fire pit.
But it was too late for her to say anything at that point.
A dozen minutes later, in a large office near the medical area, the "laboratory guard" that had been detained by the Secret Service was brought before Yu Sheng and Luo.
The group consisted of dozens of Algrid elves, slender and elegant handsome men and beautiful women. They wore gray-blue prison uniforms, and their complexions were not bad. There were no signs of torture or abuse on their bodies, but they were prisoners after all. They were not aware of the situation when they were suddenly summoned, so they were obviously uneasy when they came in.
Then, as soon as they entered, they saw Luo standing with Yu Sheng and Baili Qing.
A look of astonishment appeared on everyone's face.
The captain of the guard was a tall male Algred elf with short, light blond hair. He was clearly better at judgment than the other guard members. Almost instantly, the captain of the guard deduced something from the atmosphere and details of the scene.
My boss doesn't look like a prisoner.
Although she looked a little nervous, embarrassed, awkward, and had an air of having been tricked, a prisoner wouldn't stand so casually next to the Secret Service director, and there was no sign of her psionic energy being suppressed.
Alright, our boss has voted.
The captain of the guard relaxed, first glancing at Baili Qing beside him, then bowing his head to greet Luo: "Boss."
Yu Sheng exchanged a glance with Luo, who coughed twice and stepped forward: "Ahem, are you all... alright?"
"It's fine," the captain of the guard nodded. "The food is good, and they haven't made things difficult for us."
“Well, I’ll get straight to the point,” Luo sighed softly and pointed at Yu Sheng, “In short, this is the new ‘big boss’.”
A small commotion broke out among the dozens of guards; some were surprised, some were bewildered, but about a dozen people, including the guard captain, remained calm. The situation was within their expectations—the boss had indeed surrendered.
The only surprise was that the boss didn't vote for the Secret Service, but for that "Angel Hunter," but it's pretty much the same, since both are considered to have turned from darkness to light.
No one stepped forward to voice any objections, since the Guards were not loyal to the Black Dot Group, but to Locke himself.
They were the true "direct troops" of a notorious warlord.
When Yu Sheng saw that things were going even more smoothly than he had imagined, he was quite pleased, and his movements of stabbing his arm with the knife became even smoother.
The stench of blood filled the office, and drops of blood slowly drifted down to each guard soldier.
With a stiff expression, Luo explained to his subordinates, "Don't resist, this is... part of the onboarding process."
The captain of the guard, who had just relaxed for a moment, tensed up again instantly: "...?"
Wait, what did the boss invest in?
(End of this chapter)
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