'This job can give more meaning to my time, it can allow me to utilize my physical and psychological energy. It will allow me to come into contact with more people and things. It will allow me to gain more experience and realize my own value.'
At midnight, in a corner of the city shrouded in darkness, Han Fei stood inside the eerie convenience store with only 10 drops of HP left. With a professional smile on his face, he looked at the scarily thin worker before him.
"I'm really here to apply for a job."
The two stared at each other for a whole minute. Then the thin worker seemed to wake up from a dream. Part of his rationality returned to his one remaining eye.
His murky eyes moved, and he stopped mumbling those scary words that no one could understand. Instead, he said clearly, "This shop is not mine. If you want to work here, you need to get its approval."
"It?"
"Come with me."
The worker walked past the racks and led Han Fei to the innermost part of the convenience store. He opened a door and signaled for Han Fei to enter.
Faint light came from inside the room. Even though Han Fei was unwilling, he still walked in.
Behind the door was the convenience store's storeroom. It was filled with various items.
The worker was like a marionette. Most of the time, he had no thoughts of his own. His mind was muddled and his gait was uncoordinated. It felt like his body would fall apart at any moment.
"It's right here. If you can find it, it means that it has agreed to let you stay here." The worker's eye kept bouncing in its socket. It looked quite scary. "That candle is about to burn out, you'd better hurry."
Then he left, leaving Han Fei alone inside the storeroom.
'He's leaving already? He's not lying to me, is he? '
The storeroom was filled with various items. Han Fei had no idea what the worker wanted him to find. 'The real boss of this convenience store does not appear to be a' person 'but an item. Based on the worker's hint, I need to find it before the candle burns out.'
For the other residents of the cryptic world, it was very difficult to find an item without any clues. They did not even know what the item looked like or what it was used for. But Han Fei was different, he was a player. The system would automatically identify most of the items that he touched.
Without wasting any time, Han Fei reached for the lit candle on the candlestick.
"A pewter used to offer sacrifices to the dead."
The system's introduction was straightforward. The candle contained Yin energy, it was a special item but it was not what Han Fei was looking for.
Han Fei picked up his pace as he searched the warehouse. As time went by, the light from the candles dimmed and the room darkened.
The landlord's ring on his finger started to ring. Han Fei sensed something was wrong. Earlier, he thought the convenience store had everything but now that he was inside the storeroom, he realized the convenience store was a white goods store. The innermost racks were filled with items meant for the dead.
The scene before him was scary but considering the nature of Perfect Life, Han Fei was not too surprised.
Before the candle went out, Han Fei came to the last shelf. This shelf was located at the deepest part of the warehouse and it was filled with paper dolls.
Standing before the shelf, Han Fei felt like he was being stared at by many pairs of eyes. He gritted his teeth to touch the paper dolls.
The feeling of running his fingers across the paper was very strange. Every paper doll seemed to have a different temperature, as if there were different kinds of souls contained in their bodies.
Just as the candle flickered and was about to go out, Han Fei felt something that he had never felt before.
He stopped in his tracks in a daze and looked at the thing his fingers touched. The moment he raised his head, the candle in the room went out.
Just now, my fingers were clearly touching a paper doll, but the feeling that came from my fingertips felt like I was touching the skin of a living person. Its body was warm.
A sharp pain came from his wrist. Before Han Fei could react, a dim light appeared in the warehouse again. A new candle was lit on the candlestick.
This time, Han Fei could see clearly that the wax was carved with a grimace of pain. The wax in the room appeared to be made from the souls of wandering ghosts.
The warehouse door was pushed open. The single-eyed worker staggered to Han Fei's side. "It has agreed to let you stay."
Han Fei had a feeling the worker was used as a messenger. Most of the time, Han Fei's mind was in a state of chaos.
"Let me show you around the store." The single-eyed worker's voice was devoid of emotion. He led Han Fei around the storeroom and introduced the items to Han Fei. "You have to remember the location of these items. If the items outside have been sold out, you have to replenish the stock. If there is a new delivery, you have to be responsible for the inspection."
"New items? Will there be more deliveries here? "
"Everyone who enters the store is both a customer and an item." The worker paused for a long time before adding, "Most of the time, they are customers."
"Understood." Han Fei nodded.
"You have to be responsible for the store's internal hygiene. Many customers will leave the store a mess. You have to ensure that the store is clean, or at least on the surface, that it looks clean. That way, the customers will have the desire to buy." The worker pointed at the labels on the shelves. "None of the items in the store have a price tag but they all have a hidden price."
"What do you mean by hidden price?"
"We categorize the customers into 7 categories based on the strength of their lingering spirit: Slightly Regretful, Very Regretful, Extremely Regretful. Regretful customers are the most common. Their body parts are not expensive. Even those with Extremely Regretful Customers will not be able to sell their body parts for a high price." The worker was explaining the value of the items but from Han Fei's perspective, it sounded like he was explaining the power level of this world's Specters.
"The ones who charge more than the regretful customers are the resentful customers. These resentful customers usually pretend to be the same as the regretful customers. They all maintain their human forms. But when these resentment spirits are in danger, they will reveal their true form. They will morph into various monsters. The value of resentment is related to their body size. We categorize them into small, medium and large categories based on their size. "
The worker's words reminded Han Fei of Little Eight. Normally, Little Eight appeared like a harmless child but when all the human jigsaw victims merged together, she would morph into a giant red demon.
"Resentment spirits are very dangerous but they are also very rare. If you run into a small or medium lingering spirit, you can try to trade with them. If you run into a large lingering spirit, try to lure it into the warehouse. "
"Senior, didn't you say we categorize the customers into 7 categories? At the very most, there are only six types. "
"A small number of resentment spirits will morph into pure hatred. We call these customers Resentment. If you run into a Resentment spirit and are lucky enough to survive, you can go to the warehouse to find it. It will tell you what to do."
The price of the items in this store was very strange. Everything was priced according to the customer's body parts. For example, the candy at the entrance, the price of one candy was equivalent to the eyeball of the Regretful Customer; the paper doll at the deepest part of the shelf was equivalent to the head of a small lingering spirit.
With such a bloody and straightforward price tag, it was no wonder they did not dare to write down the price directly.
After introducing the customer's body value and the items inside the warehouse, the worker asked Han Fei again. To his surprise, Han Fei was able to answer all the questions so easily. With just one glance, he memorized the name and location of all the items.
"Senior, I think I heard a song last night, is it Resentment …" Han Fei barely managed to mention it before he was glared at by the worker.
"Above Resentment, there are no customers. If you don't want to die without knowing why, then don't talk about these things. " The worker started to introduce the racks outside to Han Fei. He taught Han Fei how to use the various tools inside the store and then led Han Fei into the staff breakroom.
"This is where we change shifts. The pictures on the wall are of our former colleagues."
After the worker said that, Han Fei lifted his head to look. Pictures with their faces scrawled out in red practically covered the walls.
"Look here." When Han Fei turned around, the worker pressed the button on his camera. A picture soon popped out from the old-fashioned camera. "From now on, your picture will be pasted here as well. Hmm?"
Holding Han Fei's picture, the worker's expression changed for the first time.
"What's wrong?"
"Why can't the camera capture you?" The worker handed the picture back to Han Fei. There was nothing in the picture.
Han Fei was confused. Could it be that the camera could only capture ghosts?
He glanced at the camera. There was a ghost eye hidden inside the lens.
"Why don't you try again?" This time Han Fei activated the ghost tattoo on his body. He allowed the Yin energy of the unfortunate ghost on the 8th floor to cover his body.
The worker took another picture. This time, there was a human figure in the picture. However, the figure was blurry and it looked completely different from Han Fei.
"That's all." The worker took out a paper doll the size of a palm from the drawer. Then he pinned the paper doll and the picture on the wall. "If anything goes missing in the store, you'll have to pay for it. Other than that, I have no other request."
"I wish to be a temporary worker. If something happens to me in the future, how am I supposed to leave?" Han Fei gathered his courage to ask.
"Leave?" The worker's eyes kept darting around. Black lines popped out from his body. The lines pierced into his blood vessels and heart. An unimaginable pain surged through him. He collapsed to the ground and started to vomit. Paper scraps escaped from his lips.
After a long time, the one-eyed worker returned to normal. His brain seemed to be muddled again, and his remaining eye looked cloudy. "What did you ask me?"
"It's nothing. I told you that I will work hard to help my boss achieve financial freedom."
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
