Chapter 62 Critical Region (14)
General Affairs Office, fifth floor.
I've been here a few times before and have eaten here. Overall, it feels like a fairly large and well-organized company cafeteria.
This cafeteria offers Chinese and Western cuisine, as well as different regional flavors from both the north and south, and local snacks. Most importantly, meals are free for company employees.
If it weren't for the fact that breakfast wasn't provided, and only lunch and dinner were served, Bai Ye would definitely consider this his dream cafeteria.
Now that the boy had control of the body, Bai Ye walked around and explained things, using the doll's limited field of vision.
After walking around for a while, I saw almost no one in the huge restaurant.
At the food stalls, every window was open, and all kinds of dishes were ready, emitting a wonderful aroma.
"It smells so good! I'm so hungry." The boy stood in front of a stall, almost unable to move. "Brother, can I get some to eat? You said it was free."
Bai Ye looked at the dish in front of him: stir-fried rice cakes with white crab and greens. It used swimming crabs as big as two hands, and the ingredients were plentiful. In a large iron plate, there were many crab claws as thick as three fingers.
"Big brother, I want to eat crab. I haven't had it in ages. You wouldn't believe it, the crabs sold in our school cafeteria are all tiny and dead."
The boy was pressed against one of the windows, his eyes unable to move.
"Don't eat yet," Bai Ye frowned.
The boy's face scrunched up. "Big brother, why not eat the free food? People need to eat, and if you don't eat, you'll get hungry. I'll lose my energy when I'm hungry, and that will really affect our mission."
As he spoke, the plate was brought over, and the ready-made tongs were right next to the large iron plate. The boy quickly filled the plate to the brim.
A small portion of them are rice cakes, but the vast majority are swimming crabs.
"Since we've already taken it, it's not unreasonable to take a little more."
The boy turned around, grabbed two more plates, and carefully selected his favorite dishes from several other windows.
Including but not limited to: braised pork belly, steamed yellow croaker, garlic shrimp balls, honeycomb tripe, stewed pig's trotters with soybeans...
In short, you have to try all the delicious dishes that you can't get at school here.
Finally, when they were getting the crayfish, Bai Ye stopped them, saying, "Put this back."
"Why?" the boy asked, puzzled. "Spicy crayfish is delicious, and it's absolutely amazing with an iced drink."
Bai Ye looked at the crayfish on the iron plate; their shells were a deep red color, and each one was tightly curled up. For some reason, it reminded him of that night when the four of them had dinner together.
I still vividly remember those crayfish crawling all over the ground, each one screaming in terror, crying out "Save me!"
Bai Ye felt nauseous at the sight of it and resolutely refused to let the thing enter her body. "Put it down, I'm allergic to crayfish."
Upon hearing this, the boy could only regretfully give up.
After finishing three large plates, I still couldn't stop thinking about the crayfish I hadn't gotten to eat.
Bai Ye, however, had already heard the commotion and reminded him, "Someone has entered the cafeteria."
"Is it time to eat?"
The boy glanced at the alarm clock hanging in the center of the cafeteria; the hands showed that it was exactly five o'clock in the afternoon.
"The people in your unit are really punctual for meals. But, brother, how do we investigate the cafeteria?"
Having eaten and drunk his fill, the boy's curiosity surged again. Looking at the Order Keepers who walked in through the door, he felt suspicious of each and every one of them.
"Brother, are they going to investigate again? Are they going to test everyone one by one?"
"No need, just clear the plates and put them away in the cleaning area. Find Aunt Yang who sweeps the floor there."
"Is it the Sweeping Monk?"
"...I used a prop, and the weird affinity is extremely high. Aunt Yang is usually a kind person. Go and get close to her and ask about the recent goods coming in and out of the cafeteria."
Bai Ye understood; his older brother wanted to sneak into the kitchen to investigate.
So they immediately took action. The boy, who was naturally outgoing and talkative, chatted enthusiastically with the cleaning lady, showing a warm and familiar feeling.
"Sister Yang, your skin is so well-maintained. Are you forty yet?"
"Oh, Xiaobai, you have such a sweet tongue. I'm almost fifty-five."
"I really can't tell, but I still have to call you Sister Yang. I felt a sense of kinship with you the moment I saw you. If you didn't say anything, who would have thought that Chef Qin and you are family? Chef Qin's knife skills are impeccable. He must have cut all the pork belly today. The slices are all evenly thin, which is why the chef can cook it so well and make it flavorful."
Aunt Yang's husband works as a kitchen helper; he is responsible for washing and chopping all the vegetables.
Especially meat dishes, all of which passed through his hands.
With knife skills like that, one's cooking skills must be pretty good.
"Xiaobai, I love hearing what you say. My husband just didn't have a master chef, otherwise, with his skills, he would have been a head chef long ago. But it's good now, after all these years of hard work, he's finally managing the inbound and outbound operations."
"Master Qin is diligent and meticulous, that's to be expected. By the way, Aunt Yang, with so many people from our unit going out on assignments lately, are we still getting this much food into the canteen every day?"
The boy pointed to the window, "I see that the dishes cooked at noon are the same as usual."
"Those stationed here also need to eat. I heard that someone is specially packing and delivering food to them. With so many people at six posts, the canteen has been running around the clock these past two days..."
"I see. Well, Master Qin and the others will have to work hard."
"Sigh, you can tell. I was woken up in the middle of the night because they said a batch of fresh goods had just been delivered..."
Bai Ye overheard the boy chatting with Aunt Yang and initially didn't take it seriously, always thinking that the young man had no real skills.
But the more I listened, the more surprised I became. It turned out the boy had been planning this all along. Was he already gathering information by wandering around each window before the meal, asking me all sorts of questions?
Also, how can this kid be so shameless? He's gone from calling her "Sister Yang" to "Big Sister Yang."
Before anyone could react, the boy called out "Sister Yang" again, and Aunt Yang across from him smiled so hard that the wrinkles on her face almost squeezed together.
"Xiao Bai, wait a minute, I'll go to Lao Qin's place and get you two fresh items, they're really good stuff."
Aunt Yang whispered mysteriously as she leaned closer. The boy was flattered and quickly waved his hand, "This is not right, it's against the rules."
“What’s wrong with the rules? It doesn’t matter who eats it. I heard from Lao Qin that those fresh goods are incredibly valuable.”
"It's so valuable? If we take it, will Master Qin be worried?"
"No way!" Aunt Yang waved her hand, even smugly. "Fresh goods have to be processed first, and it still depends on Lao Qin's knife skills. The higher-ups approve of it, and we can get some kickbacks on the side."
Aunt Yang went to the kitchen storage room and came back a short while later carrying out a box. The box was black, and it was impossible to see what was inside.
"Xiaobai, take this." Aunt Yang handed it over directly.
The boy accepted the gift, thanked him generously, and said, "Aunt Yang, when I get paid, I'll treat you and Master Qin to a meal."
The two talked for a while longer before the boy left the cafeteria.
After exiting the door and turning right, the boy walked all the way to the restroom at the end. He looked around to make sure no one was there, then slipped into one of the toilet stalls.
"Brother, you seem very nervous about what's in here."
If Bai Ye hadn't urged him, the boy would have wanted to take the box and leave the building first, opening it only after returning to his residence.
However, the voice in his mind was urgent and wouldn't let him leave the fifth floor.
"Big brother, can I open it now?"
Bai Ye suppressed his emotions and responded.
When the box was opened, a blast of icy cold air rushed out. Upon closer inspection, half of the box was filled with ice cubes.
The boy used his hands to turn over the ice blocks and searched for a while before finally finding two seafood-like creatures inside.
"Clams?" The boy was greatly disappointed. "That's all? There are plenty of those in my world. You can buy three or four pounds for a hundred yuan."
Bai Ye, however, kept his eyes fixed on the two seashells in front of him. After the boy opened the box, he used watermelon seeds on them.
In an instant, a torrent of thoughts and feelings burst forth.
How did I get here? Why did I turn into a seafood? I'm a human! I'm a human!
Help! Help me! Someone please help me...
[Damn Gray Shadow, you lied to me! What about sending sinners to the eighteen levels of hell? This is hell! I want to go back! I want to go back!]
They are the truly evil ones, the most sinful, far more despicable than those others.
The boy stirred the two seashells, which rolled twice in the ice, and then suddenly fell silent.
But after a few seconds, the two shells suddenly aligned.
"Were you also arrested?"
Where are we? Where have we been taken? Are they going to eat us?
I don't know, I can't see, I just hear some noises outside, and it's a bit cold all around.
I can't see either, am I blind?
"You...are you human?" Bai Ye asked with difficulty.
He couldn't stand it any longer and interrupted the two seashells' discussion, asking, "Are you from that world?"
Who? Who's speaking?
I heard it too! Who's speaking?
Unable to move, Bai Ye could only tell the boy, "Take out the two seashells and place them in your palm."
"What? Eat it raw?"
"What are you talking about? They might be innocent victims."
"ah?!"
The boy was dumbfounded, never expecting that the innocent would appear in such a way.
Once Baiye and the shells were able to communicate effectively and Baiye listened to more of their inner thoughts, their identities were fully confirmed.
These seashells are invisible objects salvaged from the bottom of the cliffs on the edge of Liudaokou city.
They died with resentment, lured by the gray phantom, and in order to make the criminals pay the price, they themselves fell into despair.
The so-called Six Passes are not barriers to prevent evil from entering the city. On the contrary, they are natural pools that nurture these invisible creatures.
These things were lured in from various worlds, locked under cliffs, and subjected to all sorts of trials and battles. When they were truly "fattened up," it was precisely at this moment that evil and good were most clearly distinguished.
Remove evil and leave only goodness.
And this pure goodness is their greatest tonic.
"How did you know?" Even after hearing the inner voice, Bai Ye still harbored a sliver of doubt.
[Strange] methods are always full of traps.
One of the seashells scoffed, "You're one of those 'order keepers' they're talking about, aren't you? Have you ever eaten crayfish?"
"What?"
“Those crayfish are the source of evil.”
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