Chapter 9: The Work-Useless and the Workaholic
Pale moonlight filtered through heavy layers of tree shadows, casting faint white patches upon the ink-black ground. The desolate woods lining the road stood like silent sentinels, the damp traces of dew reflecting the silvery, shattered light of the moon.
A frantic, disorganized set of footsteps echoed through a corridor. The surroundings were pitch-black, save for the eerie, flickering neon green of a safety exit sign further ahead.
Almost there… I’m almost out…
The boy’s face was flushed a deep crimson. He panted heavily, one hand clutching his chest as if his heart might leap out of his ribs the moment he let go. Tears streamed down his face in shimmering trails.
Clang, clang, clang—
The sound from behind began to draw closer. It sounded like a blade or an axe scraping against the floor—a screeching noise that felt like needles piercing the ears, enough to drive one to madness.
“Don’t follow me… Don’t follow me! Aaaaah!” Panicked screams and bellows filled the air. The boy didn’t dare look back to see what kind of thing was walking there; his consciousness was reduced to nothing but the primal instinct to flee as an unfounded terror gnawed at his heart.
A pungent scent of paint saturated the endless corridor, instantly numbing his sense of smell.
“Heh heh~ wait for me~ I really want to play with you~”
Its voice was bizarre and grating, sounding metallic—as if its throat were stuffed full of thumbtacks.
The voice seemed to be chuckling eerily, or perhaps luring him, shifting from a strange excitement to a manic frenzy.
At some point, a relentless, icy wind began to draft through the corridor, carrying a chilling, supernatural aura that bored into the marrow of one’s bones, lingering there.
Suddenly, it felt as though something had hacked into his right leg. The boy collapsed onto his knees as cold, bright red blood splattered onto the ground with a rhythmic pitter-patter. The floor was wet and freezing.
A surge of agonizing pain erupted, stimulating every nerve, every bone, and every inch of skin.
The axe was swung upward with great force. A bolt of lightning tore across the sky, the flash turning the night into day and illuminating the creature’s face in an instant.
The boy’s pupils constricted violently. His face turned ashen as the suffocating pressure made it impossible to breathe. It felt as if a blood vessel in his chest had been severed. Just like that, he began to crawl away in a broken, mangled state…
The midnight bell slowly began to toll.
Heavy rain poured down upon the soil, falling endlessly and tirelessly, gathering into pools on the flat ground.
SNE Special Agency.
8:00 AM.
The moment Jiang Louqi stepped through the main doors, the first thing he saw was Ji Yuqing standing at the front desk, wiping and scrubbing everything in sight. Aside from him, no one else was there.
Jiang walked over and leaned against the desk, tilting his chin up slightly. “Xiao Ji, why are you the only one here? Where are the others?”
Hearing his voice, Ji Yuqing quickly turned around. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and answered truthfully, “Good morning, Director! Sister Su and the others haven’t arrived yet.”
“Haven’t arrived? What time is it? Did they sleep themselves to death?” Jiang Louqi pulled out his phone and dialed their numbers one by one. Aside from Zhou Jiayi, who was sensible enough to pick up, the others hung up on him immediately.
As a result, a groggy Zhou Jiayi was treated to a blistering lecture right at the start of his morning. He didn’t dare go back to sleep; instead, he practically bolted upright from his “deathbed,” quickly offering a few words of flattery: “Brother Jiang, I’m not sleeping! My mistake! I’ll be there immediately!”
Jiang Louqi didn’t care how much he wailed or begged for mercy on the other end of the line. He coldly dropped a demand for him to be at the office within five minutes before ruthlessly hitting the end-call button. In his irritation, he tossed the phone onto the front desk.
“Director Jiang, please don’t be angry. Let me pour you a glass of warm water. A glass of water in the morning is good for the stomach.”
Ji Yuqing put down the vacuum cleaner, took a disposable plastic cup to the water dispenser, and handed the warm water to the fuming man.
Jiang Louqi gripped the cup, feeling the warmth against his palm, but he didn’t drink. He looked at the wall clock in the lobby. “What time did you get here?”
“I arrived at seven.”
“So early? Sigh, a bunch of work-useless slackers mixed in with one workaholic.” At the thought of this, Jiang Louqi let out his daily sigh. He carried the cup toward the lobby and sat down on the sofa.
The leader is praising me, right? Ji Yuqing gave a satisfied smile and continued with his chores.
Sure enough, the moment the five-minute mark hit, Zhou Jiayi came sprinting in, panting for breath. He didn’t forget to check the time, patting his chest with a look of pure relief.
Before he could even start his brief rest, he was caught off guard by Jiang Louqi’s murderous gaze. He could only freeze his body and move like a crab—shuffling sideways step by step until he reached Ji Yuqing’s side. He jutted his chin toward the lobby and made a throat-slitting gesture. “Brother Jiang isn’t going to kill me, is he? My alarm didn’t go off today; you can’t blame me.”
“I think… he might.” Ji Yuqing shrugged helplessly, indicating that he couldn’t save him either.
Zhou Jiayi remained rooted at the front desk, not daring to go inside. The other colleagues eventually arrived late as well, each of them looking like the personification of the phrases “My life is mine to command, not the heavens'” and “I’m arrogant, what are you gonna do about it?”
If they weren’t being edgy or crazy, they wouldn’t be living up to their status as “heavy sentence criminals.”
Su Qian had intended to go over and offer an explanation, but the telephone on the desk rang abruptly. All the excuses she had been preparing during her commute vanished into thin air.
Jiang Louqi pressed the receiver to his ear and gave a slight nod. “Yangcheng No. 2 Middle School? Fine, I understand. We’ll head over now.”
Just as he stood up, he nearly collided head-on with the group who had been eavesdropping. His feigned anger had been replaced by a calm, steady gaze. “To work, comrades. Xiao Zhou, Head & Shoulders, follow me.”
Xino Griffith had already grown indifferent to that cursed nickname “Head & Shoulders.” He didn’t even bother correcting his foul-mouthed boss. He simply pointed an index finger toward the sunlight outside. “Director Jiang, I’m afraid I cannot go out with you. I only do night shifts. I’m sorry!”
“Always so much trouble with you. Fine, Su Qian will come. The rest of you stay behind to watch the house.”
Jiang Louqi grabbed his phone and started walking, but stopped after a few steps. He truly couldn’t stand the sight of the bird’s nest on Zhou Jiayi’s head. “That… Student Xiao Zhou. If you don’t comb that hair, it’s going to fly away. Don’t embarrass the agency.”
Zhou Jiayi immediately pressed down on his unruly, sticking-up cowlick. “Understood! Brother Jiang, I’d sooner lose my face than the agency’s face!”
Su Qian found his frantic fumbling hilarious. she pulled a pink comb out of her handbag. “Here, use this little comb.”
“I love you, Sister Su!” Zhou Jiayi had been worrying about the messy bird’s nest he hadn’t had time to fix; now the trouble was finally solved.
Jiang Louqi shot him a disdainful look, his expression bright as he teased, “Exclusive for ‘tough guys’?”
“Hmph, I’m a handsome big boy, not a tough guy.” Zhou Jiayi returned the comb to Su Qian, humming an unknown tune under his breath.
Su Qian looked around alertly and quickened her pace. “By the way, Director, who was the person on the phone just now?”
“He said he was a student from No. 2 Middle School. Said there’s something ‘unclean’ in the school—apparently someone died today, so they wanted us to take a look.”
After saying that, Jiang Louqi pulled a piece of Doublemint gum from his pocket, tore off the wrapper, and began to chew. “The body is over by the back mountain. I’m familiar with that place.”
Zhou Jiayi was in no mood to hear about the case. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and was feeling dizzy from hunger. A mortal’s body really did burn through energy fast. Seeing Jiang Louqi eating something, he leaned in eagerly. “Brother Jiang, what are you eating? I want some too!”
“Here, take it.” Jiang Louqi stuffed the torn wrapper into his hand. “That was the last piece. Wanting a piece of my ass, more like.”
Zhou Jiayi crumpled the wrapper into a ball. At this point, everything he looked at resembled a chicken burger. “Ugh, hungry… want food…”
Jiang Louqi was always a master at making a bad situation worse. “Serves you right. Who told you not to get up early and eat? If you starve to death, don’t expect a payout.”
“I have a meat floss cake here; you can have it.” Su Qian couldn’t stand listening to his whining for the whole trip, so she took pity on him and gave him her only snack.
Zhou Jiayi inhaled the cake, offering muffled, grateful words through a mouthful of food. “Sister Su, you’re simply too good! Once I get my… salary, I’ll treat you to… to KFC Crazy Thursday!”
Jiang Louqi had, after all, attended high school at Yangcheng No. 2 Middle School. Even now, he had vivid memories of how many stinking ditches were in the school and which walls were the easiest to climb over. Finding a small back mountain was no trouble at all.
After weaving through a few small paths, the three of them arrived at the back mountain of No. 2 Middle School. The area had already been cordoned off by local police with yellow tape. A large crowd of teachers and students had gathered to watch the commotion, their faces ashen as they whispered among themselves.
Jiang Louqi lowered his body and squeezed through. He completely ignored the two officers trying to stop him, lifting the police tape and sauntering into the scene before heading straight toward where the body lay.
Translator’s Note:
- Work-Useless (工作廢): A slang term for someone who is incompetent at their job or just a total slacker. Jiang Louqi uses it to describe his eccentric employees.
- Head & Shoulders (海飛絲): This is a joke about Xino Griffith’s red hair. In China, “Head & Shoulders” (the shampoo brand) is often associated with the color red in old advertisements, or it’s just a common teasing nickname for people with flashy hair colors.
- “My life is mine to command…” (我命由我不由天): A very famous line from Chinese cultivation novels and the movie Nezha. It means taking control of one’s own destiny against all odds. Here, it’s used ironically to describe the employees’ stubborn, arrogant attitudes.
- KFC Crazy Thursday (瘋狂星期四): A massive internet meme in China. Every Thursday, KFC has deep discounts, leading to “Crazy Thursday” copy-pasted stories (vme50) that always end with someone asking for 50 RMB to buy chicken. Zhou Jiayi is a total internet addict, so of course he uses this meme!
- Meat Floss Cake (肉松餅): A popular Chinese snack made of fluffy, dried shredded meat (usually pork) inside a pastry. It’s salty-sweet and very filling!
- Yangcheng No. 2 Middle School: In China, high schools are often named by their number (No. 1, No. 2, etc.). “Middle School” usually refers to both middle and high school combined.
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