Chapter 14: The Accident in the Cafeteria and the Ominous Omen

The debilitating exhaustion came quickly and went just as fast—within a blink, all the heaviness and discomfort vanished from her body. Lin Xiao steadied her breath, maintaining a composed expression like the other employees around her as she picked up her tray, quietly stepping back two paces, then activated [Piercing Insight].

The enhanced [Piercing Insight] allowed Lin Xiao to detect subtler fluctuations in people's qi color with greater acuity. She quickly found a clear thread among the crowd—whenever those temporary employees scanned their cards to pay, the color of the lines representing their near-future fate would turn dim and murky, as though some ill-omened haze had quietly attached itself to them the moment payment was confirmed.

Lin Xiao had wanted to observe a bit longer to gather more intelligence, but after merely three seconds, her eyes began to burn and sting, and her vision rapidly blurred.

Within the Nesda Campus, both Lin Xiao's cognitive abilities and skill endurance were being noticeably suppressed.

Forced to interrupt [Piercing Insight], a shadow flickered across the bottom of Lin Xiao's eyes. She calmly carried her food back to her seat. After a while, Wang Ruofei also returned with her tray.

Though they had queued at different windows, the breakfast they brought back looked identical—nothing but a gray, paste-like substance.

Wang Ruofei stared at the contents of her plate, swallowing hard as if she had just made an enormous decision: "...Well, at least it's not synthetic paste."

Lin Xiao stirred the mush inside her meal box with a spoon, offering a candid evaluation: "Not much better."

She paused, then added: "This trip has really improved my tolerance for school cafeterias."

—As a second-tier city, even residents of Sanye's Outer City preferred ordinary food in their daily lives; synthetic paste was mostly the choice of Xiangyang Welfare Home and shelters, or supplies shipped to third-tier cities. Fortunately, Sanye had always had a decent number of welfare institutions, so synthetic paste never lacked for buyers.

Wang Ruofei gazed at her breakfast before her, but hunger in her belly finally won out. She took a small sip.

"No flavor at all. Feels like expired rice gruel that's been sitting for ages."

Lin Xiao took a sip too, then offered a measured comment: "Truly memorable. It has single-handedly added another entry to humanity's dietary blacklist."

Just as the two of them were eating with stoic resignation, a few sharp cracks suddenly echoed from nearby.

Lin Xiao turned to look and saw a temporary employee knock over his tray.

That employee's complexion was ghastly, his cheeks deeply sunken, his entire person emanating a thick, pathological gauntness. Food paste splattered onto his shoe uppers; furious, he hurled the spoon in his hand violently to the ground, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, his eyes slightly reddening.

Many of the trainee employees were drawn to the commotion, instinctively looking up. But the next instant, the hanging lamp above that temporary employee swayed twice without warning, its lampshade cracking down the middle and plummeting straight down.

"—Squelch!"

Perhaps the lamp had fallen too quickly, or perhaps the angle was particularly treacherous—the broken tip of the lamp pierced through that employee's skull as effortlessly as cutting into tofu, then emerged from the back of his neck.

"Plop, plop-plop-plop."

One drop, two drops, three drops. Scarlet and milky-white fluid gushed ceaselessly from the wound, spreading rapidly across the floor.

Wang Ruofei: "..."

She deeply resented how quickly she had turned her head, accidentally taking in every bit of that horrific scene. Wang Ruofei hastily averted her gaze, bending over and dry heaving twice, feeling she had completely lost her appetite for breakfast: "What just happened?"

Lin Xiao lowered her eyes, then spoke quietly: "Before the accident, he knocked over his tray. That should count as refusing the food provided by the cafeteria."

The broadcast had demanded they fill their stomachs; merely going through the motions of getting food did not constitute fulfilling the objective.

Her voice was so faint it was almost a murmur to herself, and Wang Ruofei couldn't hear it clearly. Just as the latter was about to ask for clarification, a cold, familiar voice rang out over the cafeteria speakers:

"An accident has occurred in Cafeteria Three. All employees are requested to finish their meals within one minute and leave the cafeteria. Repeat: an accident has occurred in Cafeteria Three..."

Considering the cautionary example was still gurgling blood onto the floor, Lin Xiao decided not to neglect her meal too much. She simply drank a couple of mouthfuls of the taste-agnostic food paste, then joined Wang Ruofei in returning their trays to the collection area.

As they walked out of the cafeteria, Lin Xiao made a point of observing the condition of the other temporary employees.

Most wore expressions of fear, while a few remained impassive, as though the death just moments ago was merely an unremarkable footnote in a regular workday.

Lin Xiao guessed that most people here, like Wang Ruofei, could indeed feel fear and knew that death was something terrible—but their own thought processes had developed obvious gaps, unable to produce the correct conclusion that "someone died in the Nesda Group's cafeteria, so everyone should hurry out of this unsafe area and report the situation to the outside."

She believed that if this group truly had nothing to do with the dungeon, the school would definitely pull all trainee employees back to campus before the situation deteriorated further, once they learned what had happened in the campus.

—After all, no matter how severe the job market might be, with Xin University's educational philosophy, they would never go so far as to trade students' lives in a desperate one-for-one exchange.

Wang Ruofei, just recovered from the shock, stumbled to the open space in front of the cafeteria. She stared blankly at the ground for a moment before speaking again, her composure much restored: "What do we do next? Go directly to Purification Workshop One for a tour?"

Lin Xiao had been considering this question as well.

Following the broadcast's instructions would clearly trigger bad outcomes—the ominous energy from picking up the meal was evidence enough. But wanting to act freely? The fate of the spoon-hurling temporary employee had already demonstrated quite effectively that this path was impassable.

Unlike the elevator dungeon last time, where all reliable clues were concentrated in a limited area, the Nesda Campus covered an enormous expanse. It would be difficult to search for sufficient information in a short time.

Lin Xiao suppressed the impulse to move randomly throughout the campus. "Since there's no better option, let's follow the broadcast's instructions and check out the workshop first."

Wang Ruofei glanced at her roommate, privately thinking that even if Lin Xiao never found a job, she didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about further developing her career at the company.

With that thought, Wang Ruofei felt a moment of daze—a vague notion rose in her heart. When had she started viewing the Nesda Campus as "her company"?

Lin Xiao was deep in contemplation. The dungeon hadn't directly killed all the temporary employees; instead, it required them to perform different activities in stages. There was clearly something worth investigating further in this approach.

She just didn't yet understand what that reason was.

Towering trees, grown for who knew how many years, crowded together. Their twisted trunks rubbed against and merged with one another; the thousands upon thousands of leaves on their branches threatened to overwhelm human vision.

Purification Workshop One, like Cafeteria Three, was hidden deep within the campus's verdant jungle.

After locating Workshop One following the directional signs, Lin Xiao didn't rush inside. Instead, she tilted her head up and stood at the entrance, reading the notice posted above it.

The notice was concise, easily scanned at a glance—

"Before entering the workshop, employees must go to the changing room to change into work clothes."

The instructions were clear, with no extraneous remarks and not a single odd wording. Even though Lin Xiao had steeled herself to be vigilant, she could only comply with the requirement and head to the changing room first.

The men's and women's changing rooms were located on the left and right sides of the Purification Workshop entrance, respectively. Clean work clothes had already been prepared, conveniently available for trainee employees to collect by the set. These work clothes were nearly pure white, remarkably thin, and meant to be slipped on over one's regular clothing. After Lin Xiao put hers on, she could even see the color of her clothes underneath through the fabric. She noticed the hem wasn't very roomy; after putting it on, she could only walk in small steps.

Lin Xiao suspected the work clothes were designed to restrict their movement speed.

Forced to walk slowly, the two of them ventured into the workshop interior. Midway through, they encountered the five male students from Xin University they had seen earlier in the cafeteria.

Lin Xiao casually called out to one of them, getting straight to the point: "Hey, question for you—did anyone die in your dorm area last night?"

That student's face, aside from having a slightly dull gaze, had been fairly normal. He stood with both hands stuffed in his pockets, leaning casually to one side with a rather casual air. But upon hearing Lin Xiao's question, his previously relaxed expression was gradually replaced by terror, and his voice began to tremble: "Night, death... yes, there were several dead people yesterday..."

Lin Xiao pressed her lips together, suddenly feeling a chill crawl into her heart. Before the young man could fully shake himself loose from that terror, she pressed the question:

"Were there many deaths on your side?"

The boy shook his head in panic. "I don't know..."

His pupils quivered violently, worm-like streaks of blood crawling across the whites of his eyes. It was as if he had recalled some horrifying image; his reason stood right on the edge of collapse.

The cold clinging to Lin Xiao's body grew denser and denser. She could feel her heart beginning to tighten unnaturally, so she forcibly pulled the conversation away from death.

"Looks like the tour is about to start. Shall we go together?"

The topic switch was abrupt, but no one around her, Wang Ruofei included, found it strange.

The bloodshotness in the student's eyes stopped spreading. After thinking for a moment, he nodded to Lin Xiao, his tone returning to normal.

"All right. Let's hurry."

Once the discussion of what had happened last night ended, the chill around Lin Xiao gradually began to recede.

The boy returned to his original group. The other four, though not the ones Lin Xiao had called to, had been standing quietly nearby the whole time, waiting for their companion instead of leaving without him.

Something flickered in Lin Xiao's eyes.

There were five boys in total.

An odd number.

And a dorm room housed two people.

Lin Xiao lifted her head and looked ahead.

The fifth student walking in front kept a certain distance from the others. While Lin Xiao had been questioning the others, he had stood there expressionlessly the whole time, his eyes black and dull, without the slightest spark of life.

Those dead, spiritless eyes had been looking at Lin Xiao all along. And with how sensitive she was to being watched, the fact that she had not noticed him immediately felt like discovering a worm hidden deep inside fruit only after half the flesh had already been eaten away.

Their eyes met. Lin Xiao tugged the corners of her mouth up into a cold smile.

"..."

The fifth boy was the first to look away.

Wang Ruofei had known Lin Xiao the longest. She always felt that, although Lin Xiao was smiling, there was no trace of laughter in her eyes. If the two of them met alone in some deserted corner, it would be enough to make a stranger think about calling the administration bureau for help.

She watched her roommate for a while, then her gaze drifted forward again, and a trace of restlessness surfaced on her face.

Wang Ruofei was curious about the cleaning workshop. That curiosity quietly became a seed, taking root in her heart and feeding on her patience and calm.

Lin Xiao's heart sank little by little.

Even Wang Ruofei, who retained far more common sense than the male student before them, was continuing to deteriorate despite appearing normal on the surface.

The Nesda campus was absolutely not a place fit for ordinary human beings to remain in.