Chapter 4: Don't Want Overtime (Part 2)
“Liu Siku, we found a new weird object after returning from Hedong Village. Please analyze it and put it into storage.”
Outside, the sky was gradually darkening. A burly man stood at the door, holding a box covered in Seals. It turned out to be a colleague from the Exploration Division.
More new work to do, Liu Sheng thought.
After delivering the items, her colleague quickly said goodbye, probably eager to get off work or afraid of facing Liu Sheng’s resentment about having to work overtime again.
Liu Sheng “smiled” as she saw her colleague off, then carefully placed the Sealed box containing the weird object on a special workbench in the room.
The moment it was placed, the Seal Formation on the workbench activated, preventing Guai Qi from leaking out during the operation.
Liu Sheng looked at the Seals on the surface of the box, which contained some basic information about the weird object:
【Number: 34576】
【Appearance: Approximately four inches and five fen long, two inches and two and a half fen wide, and just over two fen thick. The Materials are special; the front is smooth, seemingly polished crystal, while the rest is made of special metal with exquisite craftsmanship and almost no seams.】
【Effect: Unknown】
【Rank: Dangerous】
【Source: It was likely unearthed by He Jiaxing of Hedong Village while renovating his ancestral home. When the object was discovered later, his entire family had died in the house, suspected to be from overwork combined with lack of food and water, leading to heart failure.】
These were initial judgments written by the Exploration Division based on the on-site recovery of the weird object. More detailed analysis required a thorough analytical inspection using specialized analysis instruments.
Only after an analysis document was written could the weird objects be categorized and stored. If the analysis revealed that it exceeded the local containment Rank, it would need to be reported to the Weaving Bureau, so that their personnel could come down and handle it.
Originally, this work was not supposed to be done by Liu Sheng; she was only supposed to be a simple warehouse manager. The analysis work should have been the responsibility of the Alien Research Department, but Li County’s Alien Research Department originally had only one researcher. However, even this last remaining treasure applied to be transferred elsewhere last year, so Liu Sheng, the warehouse manager, was forced to take on the analysis work as well.
Of course, it was also because of this that Liu Sheng was able to write the article “Analysis of the Parsing Path of Artifact-Type weird objects.”
However, there was a big problem now.
Her analysis instrument was missing.
She was usually very careful and always returned things to their original place after use. Normally, such a loss of an important instrument would never happen to Liu Sheng.
Forget it. Since she couldn't find it, it must be God's will for her not to work overtime and go home early.
Liu Sheng yawned widely, deciding to stop working overtime today. If absolutely necessary, she would have to pay out of pocket tomorrow to buy Materials and make another analysis instrument. After using it for so long, she knew the structure of the analysis instrument produced by the Weaving Bureau.
She had to go home and sleep. She hadn't slept for over eighteen hours and was feeling a bit muddled.
She checked the time; it was already past Xushi (7-9 PM), long past dinner time. She didn't even feel hungry, but her parents at home would be worried waiting for her.
Liu Sheng quickly tidied up, locked the room, and started heading towards the subway.
The sky had completely darkened, with only the god's face spread across the sky emitting a faint glow, illuminating the streets somewhat, which had no streetlights or candlelight.
Perhaps because it was long past rush hour, there wasn't a single person on the street.
However, upon reaching the subway station, she finally saw people, even a crowd. Although the clock pointed to past ten at night, the subway was still packed with people. Liu Sheng's original thought of napping while standing the whole way had to be abandoned.
Back downstairs at her apartment building, Liu Sheng looked up and saw the lights on in her home. For some reason, she felt a little tired.
She dragged her weary body up six flights of stairs, took out her key, and opened the door. Her parents were sitting in the living room, waiting for her. The food on the table was covered with dishes to keep it warm, but it had already lost its heat. As soon as they saw her return, they quickly got up to take the food back to the kitchen to reheat it.
As Liu Sheng watched this scene, she suddenly felt as if another scene was overlapping in front of her eyes. She seemed to be in a simple brick house, dimly lit by candlelight.
Under the candlelight were a middle-aged man and woman dressed in ancient clothing. Their faces were both unfamiliar and familiar. They brought dishes from the kitchen, sat down at a wooden table, and smiled as they looked at her. There were three sets of bowls and chopsticks on the table.
The man was placing a large piece of trotters into the bowl in front of the empty seat, while the woman looked at her with loving eyes and asked, “Sheng’er, your father made your favorite trotters soup. Come sit down and eat.”
Is this… my mother?
No, my mom isn't like this.
Liu Sheng felt a bit confused.
“Sheng’er, what’s wrong?” The woman saw her standing still and not responding, and a look of loss and sadness flashed across her face.
Sheng’er? Who is that?
“Yi Yu, what’s wrong?” Her mother’s voice came from her ear, sounding a bit distant.
“You just came back and you’re already spacing out! Come over and help!”
Yi Yu blinked. She was back in the brightly lit living room. Everything she had just seen seemed like a fleeting illusion.
“Nothing, Mom. Just a little tired.” She forced a faint smile.
“Mom, Dad, didn’t I tell you not to wait for me to come home to eat next time?”
Her mother glared at her and said, “How can that be? You come home so late, are you going to cook for yourself? If you don’t cook, you’ll just eat takeout again. I’ve told you, takeout isn’t nutritious and it’s unhygienic. You already ate takeout for lunch, are you going to eat it again tonight? Do you know your cousin back in your hometown, it’s all because he ate too much takeout…”
“I’m so hungry, Mom! Let’s eat!” Yi Yu quickly interrupted her mother’s nagging, urging her parents to sit down and eat.
“It’s your fault too. As soon as the child comes home, you start nagging. She’s already working overtime so late every day,” her father said impatiently.
“Overtime? Who doesn’t work overtime now? It’s good to have a job, how many people are unemployed! Moreover, Xiaoyu is now in Guosheng Group, how many people envy her for that!”
Her mother raised her voice, it was unusually sharp and a bit grating.
“For so many years, have you ever taken care of the child? Every day you come home, all you know is to eat, watch TV, and sleep! If it weren’t for me, how could Xiaoyu have gotten into Qing University, and how could she have gotten into Guosheng Group?”
Her father was choked into silence. He snorted and buried his head in his rice.
It had always been like this: her father was a hands-off manager, and her mother had no choice but to manage all the household affairs, becoming more irritable the more she managed. As a result, her father then complained that her mother was too strong-willed, and she was always forced to be at the center of their arguments.
Before, they argued about her studies; now it was about her work.
“Mom, Guosheng Group isn’t that great either… A lot of colleagues have resigned recently…” Yi Yu softly retorted. Low pay, too much work, and leaders who loved to stir up trouble. She had already left work early today, but with such long-term overtime and staying up late, many people were breaking down. Last week, a manager even died suddenly. It would be strange not to run away.
But her mother immediately exploded upon hearing this: “Resign? You’re not thinking of resigning again, are you? I think you’ve been complaining about being tired every day with some ulterior motive. People who resign are fools. No matter what, Guosheng Group is an old established enterprise, directly under the Federal Government. That’s an iron rice bowl!”
Her face was somewhat distorted, and her bloodshot eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets.
“We put in a lot of effort to get you in there! What good is being a Qing University graduate if you don’t have connections to get into Guosheng Group? Don’t be stupid!”
Her mother’s voice was filled with anxiety and dissatisfaction. Although her father didn’t speak, he also had a look of disappointment and disapproval. Yi Yu felt an inexplicable oppression and didn’t want to say anything more.
She had lost her appetite as well. She ate a few bites and then put down her chopsticks. Looking up, she saw that her parents had stopped eating at some point and were quietly staring at her, their frozen eyes filled with hatred, as if they weren’t looking at their daughter.
Yi Yu was horrified, feeling that the living room had become somewhat cold and a thick darkness was surging from the corner of the room.
This must be an illusion, she shook her head. When she looked again, the living room lights were still bright, the chill had dissipated, and her parents were eating with their heads down.
“Dad, Mom, I’m done eating. You two take your time.”
Yi Yu, feeling uneasy, quickly finished her meal and hurried back to her room.
Once the door closed, Yi Yu felt a strange sense of relief.
Outside, it was quiet, as if no one was there.
In the eerie, solidified silence, a sudden “ding-dong, ding-dong” sounded. It was a message on Yi Yu’s phone.
Yi Yu knew roughly what the message was. She didn’t want to look at it at all, just sitting quietly on the edge of the bed.
She hadn’t turned on the room light. In the darkness, only the phone screen, lying on the bed, was lit, constantly popping up message notifications with each “ding-dong”: 【You have received a group message】. The flickering messages cast a faint glow.
Knock, knock. The door was knocked.
“Xiaoyu, is your leader looking for you? Check your messages quickly, don’t delay things.” Her mother’s voice sounded from outside the door.
Yi Yu remained silent.
The knocking became more urgent and much louder, turning from knocks to bangs.
“Xiaoyu, you’re the only one left! Reply to your leader quickly!”
The tone not only conveyed a command but also a deep, bottomless indifference, as if it wasn't her mother, but something else speaking in her mother's voice.
Yi Yu’s heart pounded like a drum. She fumbled for her cold phone, and as soon as she unlocked the screen, she saw over fifty unread messages in her work group. A string of 【Received】 scrolled by, and at the top was a message from her project team leader:
【@Everyone, urgent notice: The Group leaders held a meeting today and severely criticized our project progress for being seriously behind. Everyone return to work immediately for overtime!! Reply if received.】
No one questioned, no one objected, only over fifty mechanical replies — 【Received】.
Yi Yu quickly scanned through them. Indeed, she was the only one who hadn't replied yet.
She trembled as she typed 【Received】, but just as she was about to hit send, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
She didn't want to. She had been working for thirty-five consecutive days, over twelve hours each day, on call, without a single day off.
She had truly been too obedient for too long.
Every day, her family kept telling her how good a stable job was. Her leader would throw proposals in her face and say, “If you don’t want to do it, there are plenty of people outside who do.” When she scrolled through her phone during breaks, she would see news of college students unable to find jobs. Everything was suffocating her.
She kept telling herself to just endure until retirement, that she'd only get a pension if she stuck it out. But she felt like she couldn't last.
She was truly tired.
A surging, burning flame ignited in her heart. Yi Yu deleted the words in the chat box, typed two characters, and immediately sent them.
This action seemed to drain all her strength. She threw her phone on the bed and lay down on her back.
The brightly lit phone screen displayed her reply: 【No.】.
After sending those two words, she felt a sense of relief she had never experienced before, as if a heavy burden had been lifted. But along with it came an even stronger feeling of unease and fear.
There were no more messages in the group. It seemed everyone was startled by those two words and had quieted down.
The sounds outside the door had stopped at some point.
The entire world seemed to be left with only a deadly silence.
In this deadly silence, Yi Yu’s heartbeat became the only sound, each beat echoing in the darkness.
However, at that moment, a stronger fear crept in, followed by violent banging on the door, as if something was trying to force its way in.
At the same time, Yi Yu’s phone suddenly vibrated wildly and rang with a rapid “ding-dong ding-dong.” She frantically got up and looked at the phone screen. A series of 【You’re dead】 scrolled across, the exact same four characters, but from everyone in the group.
The moment she read the message, Yi Yu felt a chill rise from the soles of her feet, and her entire body almost stiffened on the bed.
At this moment, an irresistible force finally opened the room door, and a cold wind mixed with unknown fear surged into the room.
The last thing she saw was her mother’s distorted face and the cold glint of a knife.
The phone was knocked onto the blood-soaked floor during the struggle, still emitting ominous notification sounds. The lit screen illuminated the head of the girl on the bed, which hung down to the floor because her neck was almost severed. Her wide-open eyes were filled with unwillingness.
(#^.^#)
I wonder how many people realized in the middle that the female lead had already…
Yes, the worldview of this story is not purely an ancient setting. As the synopsis says: This is a strange world of 【Sci-Fi + Xuanhuan】, where the female lead will gradually grow and explore the truth of the world.
Hope you will like this kind of story!