Chapter 40: Born Human
After the meal, Jiang Si stood up to return to the hotel; he still had matters to attend to. Hai Di stood up as well. “I’ll drive you.”
“Sure.”
When the two stepped out again, the light rain outside had stopped. Night had completely fallen, and from near to far, everything was lively with brilliant lights.
The car sped all the way to the hotel entrance. After getting out, Jiang Si didn’t leave immediately. He knocked on the car window, signaling Hai Di to roll it down. Bending over, he said, “Go back and rest well. I don’t want to have to take you in again because you died from overwork.”
From the moment they met, Jiang Si had noticed the weariness in Hai Di’s eyes. Even while talking, his eyes would close involuntarily.
Hai Di had indeed been working around the clock to handle the backlog of work. He hadn’t expected it to be so obvious. He couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll remember that.”
“Go on then. Goodbye.” Jiang Si waved.
“Goodbye.”
Jiang Si borrowed two blank sheets of A4 paper from the front desk. Back in his room, he repeated the steps from the daytime, folding the paper into identical shapes and lighting them.
The paper ash drifted up and down in the air, condensing into a human shape. The figure stretched longer and longer until it revealed the complete form of a normal person.
“…” The second Jiang Si locked eyes with it, he immediately understood its intentions. With quick hands and sharp eyes, he stuffed a ball of paper into its wide-open mouth, stopping the howl before it could escape.
“Shut up!” Jiang Si warned. “Scream again, and I’ll lock you up forever.”
“Understood?”
Lou Qilei didn’t react. He stared blankly at Jiang Si, whimpering constantly through the gag.
“…” Jiang Si wisely chose to ask Shen Hu for help. He called him, explained the situation, and asked if there was a way to restore the ghost’s sanity.
Shen Hu pondered for a moment, found a video recorded during a ritual ceremony, and sent it to Jiang Si, telling him to play it on speaker several times.
Jiang Si followed the instructions. The empty hotel room filled with the sound of Daoist chanting, which was particularly soul-shaking in the night. Fortunately, it wasn’t rest time yet, so no one knocked on the door to complain.
It wasn’t until Jiang Si finished washing up that Lou Qilei, who was squatting on the floor, returned to normal. Specifically, he still stared blankly at people, but a bit of intelligence had returned to his eyesâhe no longer looked like he wanted to take a bite out of everyone he saw.
“Better?” Jiang Si squatted down halfway, pulled the paper out of the ghost’s mouth, and threw it in the trash.
Lou Qilei took a long time to react before speaking. “I’ve seen you. You’re the one under Ge Kai.”
“Looks like it worked.” Jiang Si turned off the video and asked seriously, “Tell me, how did you die?”
For ghosts, especially vengeful spirits, asking the cause of death is a major taboo. If one isn’t careful, they could be killed in retaliation to serve as a replacement.
Jiang Si knew this, but he simply didn’t care. Seeing signs of Lou Qilei’s eyes turning red, he slapped a palm onto the ghost’s Shenting acupoint to stabilize his consciousness and force him to answer honestly.
“…I remember, I think I was working overtimeâ” Lou Qilei shivered, sinking into memory.
After waiting a long time without hearing the second half of the sentence, Jiang Si asked curiously, “That’s it?”
“I don’t remember.” Lou Qilei fell silent. “I only remember I was the last person to leave. I finished writing the proposal, went out the door, and then entered the elevatorâ”
Lou Qilei muttered repeatedly, “I entered the elevator, entered the elevator… and then, then…”
The memory unfolded with his words. The clock’s hands spun backward, and time regressed to a week ago.
For a media company, time is money. The company’s break schedule had shifted from the daily “996” (9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week) with one day off a week, to a “Big and Small Week” systemâone day off every two weeks, totaling two days off a month.
In a sense, people are like soaked sponges. It looks like they’ve been squeezed to the bottom, but if you press a little harder, there’s always more water. This method of extraction has a nice name in the workplace: “Elastic Working Hours”âspecifically meaning work hours aren’t guaranteed, rest time isn’t guaranteed, and the total workload isn’t guaranteed.
For Lou Qilei, rest wasn’t just about relaxing; more importantly, it was time to take care of his sick daughter.
But in the boss’s eyes, a sick daughter became the leash to control him. If he was even slightly disobedient, they could use firing him as a threat to remove his ability to struggle.
Lou Qilei was successfully controlled, working himself dizzy with overtime every day. For him, only risking his life with work could earn the medical fees for his daughter. In other words, he was paving his daughter’s road with his own life.
The leadership still felt it wasn’t enough. They threw the newly negotiated contract at Lou Qilei, giving it a fancy name: You are a veteran of the company; I’m at ease if you handle it.
Lou Qilei’s plan to visit his daughter was thrown into disarray. He summoned his courage to knock on the office door. At that time, the leader was leaning back in his chair, holding a cup of hot tea, looking at him in surprise.
“Is something wrong?”
“…Boss, I wanted to talk about this proposal. I had things to do this week. Can the proposal be given to someone elseâ” Under the leader’s gentle gaze, Lou Qilei’s voice grew quieter and quieter.
“Sigh, if there are difficulties, bring them up. The company is everyone’s second family; there’s nothing you can’t say.” The leader put down his cup, his face encouraging. Lou Qilei felt a sudden surge of joy, thinking this might work.
But the leader’s tone shifted. “How about this? Go ask the others if anyone is willing to take it over. As long as someone is willing, I have no problem with it.”
Before Lou Qilei could express his gratitude, he heard him continue, “However, I recall you have two interns under you, right? And Little Zhang, he’s quite good. He could handle a lot of things right after joining the company. I see some of your style from back in the day in him… Hahahaha.”
It was like a bucket of ice water poured over his head. Lou Qilei stared blankly, seeing the coldness flash through the smiling eyes of the leader. It seemed that if he really handed this proposal over, he wouldn’t need to come to work next week either.
After a moment of silence, Lou Qilei said, “No need, Boss. I can do it. No need to trouble others.”
The leader praised him again, “Look at you. As expected of a company veteran, you just have a stronger sense of responsibility than those young people.”
Lou Qilei walked out of the office, looking at the circle of colleagues who were all younger than him. He suddenly realized that in the leader’s eyes, perhaps his only merit was being easy to control.
Since he couldn’t resist, he could only try to finish early to make time to see his daughter.
That night, he stayed at the company to work overtime, sleeping on his desk when he got sleepy. It wasn’t until the next morning, when a colleague woke him up, that he groggily went to the bathroom to wash up. Looking at the haggard, barely human middle-aged man in the mirror, Lou Qilei smiled bitterly. Just as he splashed water on his face, an itch rose in his throat.
He coughed violently. In the clear sink water, threads of red blood floated.
Lou Qilei walked into the office again to ask for leave. “I’m not feeling well physically. I want to go to the hospital for a checkup.”
This time, his attitude was firmer than before.
The leader frowned. “Little Lou, I’m not trying to lecture you. You’re getting older; having some minor aches and pains is normal. You have to learn to overcome them, understand? Just think of it as doing it for the company and persist a little longer. When the time comes, I’ll definitely approve your leave.”
Lou Qilei wanted to say something more, but the leader impatiently waved him away.
Before the door even closed, he clearly heard the leader curse, “Lazy donkey taking a sh*tâso many damn excuses. Acts like working is going to kill him. If he doesn’t want to work, he should get the hell out early. There are plenty of people who will do it.”
That sentence was unmistakably directed at him.
Lou Qilei knew it well, but he was no longer young. He didn’t have hot-blooded passion anymore. All he could do was close the door, return to his workstation as if nothing had happened, turn on his computer, and continue working.
That day, he pulled another all-nighter. He finished work only when the sky was fully bright. He turned off the computer, planning to go downstairs to buy some breakfast.
He arrived at the elevator. His body, having gone without sleep for a day and a night, was exhausted to the limit. His eyelids were dry and heavy, as if glued with superglue; he couldn’t keep them open no matter what.
When the elevator doors opened, he stepped into the abyss without even looking.
“It seems that’s what happened.” Lou Qilei finished speaking slowly, his stiff gaze moving to look at Jiang Si.
“Was I wrong? I worked so hard every day, dedicating my best time and energy entirely to the company. I created so much value for them. But why did no one come to save me? Why? Is it just because I’m old? Because I’m older and can’t compare to those young people who can stay up all night working, so they erase my past contributions? What gives them the right to treat me like this!”
“I have dignity too! I’m not trash to be thrown away after use; I’m a living, breathing human being!”
“I still have a daughter. My daughter is still in the hospital waiting for me to visit her. How could I just die like this? If I die, what will happen to my daughter?”
The grievances held back for years found an outlet at this moment, surging out like a broken dam.
He squatted on the ground, bending his spine into a startling arc. Clearly, nothing was on top of him, yet it looked as if he was crushed under a mountain weighing a thousand pounds.
Polished by years of reality, even his crying was subconsciously suppressedâmuffled and stifled.
He held his head and wept bitterly for a long time. Only when the sound faded bit by bit did Jiang Si stand up and say, “What’s the use of crying to me? Even if you cry your heart out here, the people who need to know still won’t hear it.”
Lou Qilei looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Is your boss Qin Zhansheng?”
“Yes.”
For a split second, Lou Qilei thought he saw wrong. Jiang Si’s expression changed dramatically, instantly becoming extremely ugly. After a moment, he scoffed, “So it’s him.”
“You’ve dealt with him?” Lou Qilei was confused. Jiang Si wasn’t in the same department; how would he know his leader?
“I’ve dealt with him, alright,” Jiang Si said. ” literally. I beat him up.”
“…Huh?”
As he said this, Jiang Si even rubbed his wrist. “Looks like I went too easy on him.”
Lou Qilei didn’t understand. Jiang Si had no intention of explaining. He picked up a piece of white paper, folded it into a paper effigy, and told him to possess it. “Tomorrow, I’ll handle something first, then we’ll go to the hospital to see your daughter.”
Hearing this, Lou Qilei thanked this unfamiliar former colleague profusely. Amidst his gratitude, a sense of unreality arose. “Why are you helping me?”
“Maybe because I was exploited like that too.”
The difference was, Jiang Si was alone, with no pressure holding him back.
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