Working Records in a Weird World - 10

 

| WRIAWW | It Seems Like You Have a Good Relationship | 10

"What’s going on? The weird domain... disappeared?"

"Is this for real? It’s actually gone?"

This scene left everyone utterly dumbfounded.

Survivors who had struggled through the infinite space had heard of weird domains being layered on top of each other, of the most troublesome conceptual weird domains, and had even seen forum posts about top-tier experts teaming up to deal with weird’s that wielded weird domains with unparalleled skill.

But witnessing a weird voluntarily retract its own weird domain? That was a first.

Not to mention, given the current situation, this three-layered weird domain was something even A-level survivors found daunting.

Despite having the upper hand, it vanished right before everyone’s eyes. Could it be that the weird’s inside had lost its mind?

Unable to get an answer, Zong Le gave up on questioning and walked inside.

Concerned for the safety of the neighborhood, he moved quickly and soon arrived at the butcher’s doorstep.

"Huh? Why is the butcher’s door open?"

Zong Le raised his voice, "Brother, I’m coming in!"

To his surprise, the room was eerily quiet.

The chunks of meat that had been hanging from the ceiling were now neatly piled in a corner.

In the center of the living room, a large pot sat atop a roaring fire, the dark brown broth inside boiling violently, releasing an enticing aroma. The butcher, holding a massive iron ladle, was casually stirring the thick soup as if everything was perfectly normal.

"Brother Butcher, you’re fine? That’s a relief."

Zong Le sighed in relief, "By the way, did you see the group of people who barged in earlier? They’re my colleagues."

Hearing this, the butcher quickly pointed to the opposite side.

Zong Le turned around and, sure enough, saw a humanoid shadow slumped on the floor by the door, illuminated by the firelight.

Zuo Wenxuan, who had just entered the building, was startled and rushed forward to help the person up.

However, it wasn’t Qin Man but his lackey.

After laying the person back down, Zuo Wenxuan pointed his knife at the butcher, "Where are the others?!"

Seeing Zong Le’s gaze, the butcher quickly put down his cleaver and raised his hands, signaling his innocence.

In a muffled voice, he said, "I didn’t do anything. I’ve been standing here sharpening my knife. This guy suddenly screamed and barged in, then fainted when he saw me cutting meat."

Zuo Wenxuan was momentarily at a loss for how to react.

Though the butcher reeked of blood and looked like he had just come from a slaughter, there wasn’t much weird energy emanating from him, not enough to cross the threshold from an ordinary NPC to a weird.

The person lying on the floor was, as the butcher said, not dead or even injured—just scared into unconsciousness.

After all, a true weird that had killed would be surrounded by such dense weird energy that it couldn’t possibly suppress it to this extent.

Most importantly, a weird with a weird domain wouldn’t need to hide. They could have easily wiped everyone out the moment they stepped into the room.

Could it be that he was mistaken...? Was this just an NPC?

Zuo Wenxuan’s forehead throbbed faintly as he began to doubt his own judgment.

"Even though the weird domain has been retracted, there’s no telling when it might reappear, and there’s definitely more than one weird here. You’d better leave quickly."

After hastily uttering these words, he kicked open the tightly shut door of the neighboring room without looking back.

Judging from Zuo Wenxuan's demeanor, he wouldn't stop until he had searched every empty room in the building.

Wait, if he keeps kicking doors like this, wouldn't he soon reach his own apartment door?!

Zong Le's heart skipped a beat. He definitely didn't want to spend unnecessary money repairing his own door.

"No, I must find the person before he does!"

However, the situation on the third floor was even more shocking.

The door of Room 301 had already been damaged once, and now the entire door panel was missing. The floor was littered with shattered bricks and wood chips.

Seeing the mess, Zong Le was terrified.

Fortunately, the door of the child's apartment on the fifth floor was wide open, and the boy was sitting obediently on the steps, holding a ball, looking very well-behaved.

"Are you okay, Xiao Fu?"

"Brother!"

Upon seeing Zong Le, the boy looked up with a sweet smile, though his trembling hands betrayed his true feelings: "Just now, many people played with Xiao Fu. Xiao Fu was so happy and loved playing with everyone."

"Where are they now?"

"Didn't Xiao Fu ask Brother before if that person was Brother's friends? Brother said no, so I let him play with me, but he was so timid. We hadn't didn't even play with the ball that long before he got tired and fell asleep. I couldn't wake him up no matter how much I called."

Sure enough, through the room door, Zong Le saw Sun Ming sitting inside, snoring loudly.

"Oh, as long as you're okay. Do you know where Sister Liu is? Her house is empty."

The boy carefully chose his words, trying to deceive Zong Le. Seeing that Zong Le wasn't blaming him, he quickly and without hesitation sold out Liu Rouya: "Sister Liu is on the rooftop."

The rooftop of Building 4 had been locked for a long time and was not open to the public. In fact, the lock had been added by the security guard, Old Wang, after Zong Le saved Liu Rouya from attempting suicide last time.

Now, with time running out and no time to fetch the keys, Zong Le could only silently repent in his heart for his act of vandalism.

"Snap."

The ten-kilogram iron lock in his hands seemed as fragile as a piece of paper, easily twisted and broken, then falling heavily to the ground with a dull thud.

Zong Le pushed open the rooftop door and quickly spotted the neatly lying figures in the corner.

"One, two... all accounted for!"

Strangely enough, when he had just come up, he had clearly seen many black threads entangled around these survivors. But in the few steps it took to walk over, those black threads began to tremble and quickly crawled away, disappearing.

Clearly, this scene couldn't be explained by common sense.

"So there really are evil weird in our building!"

Thinking back to the weird aura he felt when entering the building, Zong Le grew worried.

However, this concern soon vanished.

Because he spent three seconds carefully recalling his experience standing in the weird domain.

The other senior survivors were all on high alert, even though the weird domain had already dissipated, they still hesitated to step into Building 4. But for Zong Le, who had personally experienced the overlapping weird domains, aside from the temperature dropping a few degrees, there was nothing particularly special.

Although it might sound impolite, those weird's didn't seem very strong.

He felt he could probably take them on.

"I wonder where Sister Liu is now. I hope she hasn't been targeted by a weird. No, I need to hurry and get these people downstairs first, then go look for her. I must ensure the safety of the neighborhood."

With that thought, Zong Le grabbed the collars of the two survivors on the ground and swiftly made his way downstairs.

Fortunately, he was fast enough. As he brought Sun Ming down, he happened to see Zuo Wenxuan coming out of Room 301. The latter's lips were tightly pressed together, his mental state as a worker stretched to the limit, looking utterly lost and hopeless without finding his boss.

After searching two rooms, especially Room 301, which still had a strong residue of weird energy, but finding no trace of anyone, Zuo Wenxuan had already prepared for the worst.

"Senior Zuo, I've brought these guys here!"

To keep his door intact, Zong Le directly threw the three people into the center of the hallway, lining them up.

Zuo Wenxuan's vision blurred, and he saw Qin Man lying in the middle, eyes closed and unconscious. During the time he was missing, Qin Man had clearly gone through something—his eyes were blackened, swollen like a pig's head, and his face was disfigured.

"Young Master Qin!" Zuo Wenxuan hurried over to check his breathing.

Fortunately, although Qin Man looked terrible, with thick weird energy and curses lingering on him, he was still alive.

Not bad, he's still breathing.

Zuo Wenxuan's heart, which had been hanging high, finally settled: "Where did you find them?"

"They were just lying on the rooftop. I went up, pushed the door open, and saw them."

This D-level guy had quite the guts, going all out for the reward. What if he had run into a B-level weird ? That would've been a one-way ticket to the grave.

Given the urgency of the situation, Zuo Wenxuan didn't have time to dwell on the slight oddity.

He pulled Qin Man up: "There's no time to waste. I need to take Young Master Qin back for treatment immediately."

"Thank you for stepping up to help this time. Once we return to the Infinite Space and confirm that Young Master Qin is safe, the logistics department of the Watchtower's Guild will contact you to issue your reward."

With that, Zuo Wenxuan jumped straight out of the window. Judging by his frantic demeanor, he was probably willing to give up the overall mission reward and even face the main system's punishment to get Qin Man back to the Infinite Space for treatment.

Zong Le leaned on the windowsill and looked outside.

"Young Master Qin is safe? That's great."

"Alright, since there's nothing else we need to do here, let's go back and continue with our mission."

"Yeah, let's go."

The other survivors, seeing that everyone had been rescued, quickly dispersed, clearly wanting to stay as far away from Building 4 as possible.

After all, this side task wasn't assigned to them. Who knew if the weird domain would restore itself after being removed?

Within minutes, most of the people were gone. Only Yu Anlian remained, holding a notebook and circling Building 4, muttering to herself: "What's going on? How did the overlapping weird domain just disappear like that..."

Zong Le withdrew his gaze and suddenly heard a faint noise from upstairs.

A fierce battle was raging in the empty room on the fifth floor.

"Heh heh heh heh..."

Liu Rouya, disheveled, crawled out of the drainage channel from the rooftop, her long nails leaving terrifying claw marks on the floor.

She let out a chilling laugh, her black hair surging like countless deadly threads, surrounding the weird child who tried to escape upon seeing the situation.

"Bang!"

The human head ball he threw shattered upon impact.

"Xiao Fu's ball!" the weird child exclaimed in shock.

"Sister Liu, you can't blame Xiao Fu for this."

Seeing no way out, the weird child hurriedly defended himself: "Since he asked, Xiao Fu had no choice but to tell the truth."

However, Liu Rouya had no intention of listening to any explanations.

Just as the black hair was about to crush the weird child, heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from the windowsill.

"It's so noisy..." The butcher appeared, holding a meat cleaver, his eyes glowing crimson behind the mask.

"If it weren't for you two useless idiots, such a perfect hunting opportunity today wouldn't have been ruined!"

Room 302 had been vacant for a long time, and before this, the three weird beings had hunted separately without interfering with each other.

But ever since the owner of this empty house returned, the three of them hadn't had a single peaceful day.

Weird beings possess senses far superior to humans and adhere strictly to the law of the jungle—survival of the fittest.

At first, Zong Le didn't show any signs of his true power, and the other weird beings thought he was easy to bully, so they secretly plotted a hunting plan.

However, that very night, while he was sleeping in his room, he inadvertently released a trace of his aura. In an instant, the other three weird beings felt as if they had been plunged into an icy abyss, crushed to the ground by an overwhelming force, they trembled uncontrollably until dawn, not daring to move an inch.

Even though Zong Le was friendly and always greeted others with a smile.

The kinder he appeared, the more terrifying he seemed in the eyes of the weird beings. That gentle smile was nothing but a terrifying disguise, beneath which lay mountains of corpses and rivers of blood far beyond what the three of them combined could ever imagine.

'A being of this level is able to perfectly conceal his power—how horrifying!'

'If 302 detects anything unusual, he'll annihilate us as easily as crushing an ant!'

From then on, this became an unspoken understanding among the three weird beings.

To avoid disturbing this slumbering devil, the weird beings had been on their best behavior for months, not daring to hunt even once. Today, they finally encountered a group of prey that had practically walked into their hands.

The pent-up madness of the past few months erupted, only for the devil to return midway. They had no choice but to retract their weird domain, as if they were being strangled by the back of their necks.

"Useless, you're all useless! Go die, just die!"

"If it weren't for Sister Liu craving for a blood feast, Xiao Fu wouldn't have been exposed."

"Hehehe..."

The three weird beings were seething with anger, each blaming the others for dragging them down. Some hurled the most venomous insults at each other, one remained silent but attacked with deadly intent, while the other waited for an opportunity to strike back.

For a moment, chaos reigned in the house, weird energy swirled wildly.

But all of this came to an abrupt halt with the sound of knocking.

Knock, knock, knock.

The ordinary knocking sounded like a death sentence to the three weird beings.

A young man's clear voice rang out from outside the door: "Is anyone in here?"

Strangely, after he knocked, the noise inside disappeared.

Zong Le, puzzled, waited for a while but received no response. He then simply turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

"Ah, Sister Liu, Brother Butcher, Xiao Fu, you're all here."

As the door opened, the interior was shrouded in darkness.

With his excellent night vision, he could easily spot the figures in this uninhabited house.

They were all huddled in the farthest corners of the room—one hiding in the wardrobe, another pressed against the wall, and one simply lying on the bed. Each of them was doing their utmost to minimize their presence, appearing extremely autistic and clearly not wanting to be discovered.

"Are you guys playing hide-and-seek?"

Zong Le was pleasantly surprised. "I was actually planning to introduce the three of you to each other, but it seems you already know one another!"

The weirds: "......"

The weakest among them, the weird child reluctantly stepped forward and forced a smile. "Haha, yeah, we’re just playing hide-and-seek. After all, we’re neighbors. Xiao Fu likes to go to Butcher Brother’s place to buy delicious meat soup and play with Sister Liu."

"Looks like you all get along really well! That’s even better!"

Zong Le immediately felt that the success rate of his plan had just increased by several notches.

The weirds, however, felt a sense of foreboding, but none of them dared to speak up.

"Here’s the thing," Zong Le continued, "I’ve received everyone’s happiness surveys, and based on your past experiences and future aspirations, I think there’s only one way to improve the overall happiness index of our four buildings."

"And that is—reforming families!"

The butcher, who was no longer young, unmarried, and suffering from a facial condition that made him reluctant to show his true face; Sister Liu, lonely and often contemplating suicide, with burn scars on her face and long hair covering it; and Xiao Fu, who had lost both parents and needed love and companionship. 

If these three could get to know each other and come together, wouldn’t they make a perfect, happy family of three?!

Zong Le, who had come up with this idea, thought he was a genius.

But he had clearly overlooked the feelings of the weirds.

Then again, did they dare to refuse?

Three minutes later, Zong Le was satisfied to hear the system notification.

[B-level mission ‘Ankang Community Resident Happiness Index Survey’ (segmented) completed]

[Team mission evaluation: Good]

[Personal mission evaluation: Pass]

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