Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Crazy People Think Outside the Box

"So not only did you dream a rich auntie wanted to keep you, you also took a poodle for an older cousin..."

Pei Shuo laughed so hard he thumped the floor. "That's why you almost showed up late today? But why is the poodle your older cousin?"

"Because the poodle's five. One dog year equals seven human years—so he'd be thirty-five, older than me."

"Hahahahaha! Fair point!"

"You're killing me, Lin Jianyuan—how are you this funny even in your dreams!"

The office dissolved into a sea of laughter.

Lin Jianyuan glanced at his laughing coworkers, then turned to the wall beside them.

In just one weekend, the wall had been overrun with Eye Vines.

A dense mat of green leaves hid the crack in the wall; with their roots soaking in a vat of goji–chrysanthemum–cassia seed tea, the Eye Vines were thriving.

No one questioned why there were so many vines, and no one noticed the wall had split.

That didn't add up.

If they couldn't see the vines, how were they covering the crack?

If they could see the vines, how was no one puzzled by a whole swath appearing overnight?

The more Lin Jianyuan thought, the less it made sense. At last he smacked his forehead.

Almost forgot—I'm mentally ill!

What am I doing overthinking this? Did I take my meds today?

I actually hadn't.

He hurried to take his pills. Once they'd kicked in, he felt much clearer and started planning his day.

There wasn't much on his plate today—or rather, whenever that thought crossed Lin Jianyuan’s mind, the unexpected invariably followed.

"What?! Incense?!" Lin Jianyuan's incredulous outburst made the whole office look over.

Frowning, he got up to take the call in a corner. It was a long while before he came back.

He'd yanked off a bunch of Eye Vine leaves in the process.

"What is it, bro? Who's burning incense?" Pei Shuo gaped. "Don't tell me it's another bizarre ask from our client overlord? But why would they want you to go burn it?"

"They're not asking me to burn incense; they want incense-burning elements in the key visual," Lin Jianyuan said, mouth twitching. "There's that meme about young people choosing incense sticks over self-improvement—or even over clocking in... and that 'Yonghe Temple reads and replies at random' thing. Our client overlord loves it and wants us to play with it."

"But the client sells ergonomic chairs... how on earth do you tie incense to ergonomic chairs?!"

Lin Jianyuan drew a deep breath, shut his eyes to tamp down the anger. "Go pull some references. According to our client overlord's brief..."

Before he’d even finished giving instructions, Qin Shi let out a shriek: “Where’s the Wind Sprite data on OA? How is the stuff I put in the ‘Do-Not-Delete’ folder gone! The long-horizon analysis is due today—aaah!”

Wind Sprite was that same client from last time—the one with the square-faced Black Cat they’d nearly crossed.

Per routine, they had to compare user LTV across channels for the past month, calculate the amortization period on traffic costs, and track the brand search index over the last thirty days.

Data analysis was always Qin Shi’s turf.

The raw numbers could all be pulled from third-party platforms, but they were a mess in bulk; Qin Shi would clean and analyze them, then upload to the company’s shared drive for everyone to use.

Yesterday her computer died and went in for repairs; it still wasn’t back. She’d figured no one would touch anything on OA—yet now those files had vanished.

Lin Jianyuan, cool as ever: “Check the activity logs, see if you can restore. If not, go pull it from the third parties again. I’ll help you at lunch… Pei Shuo, what’s with that face? If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

Pei Shuo slowly set down the office landline, at a loss. “Wind Sprite’s liaison says their boss is flying to Europe this afternoon and wants the long-horizon report moved up to one p.m.…”

Lin Jianyuan: “…”

Qin Shi: “…”

Su Zhiwei: “Ah!”

The veins on Lin Jianyuan’s forehead popped. “What now!”

Su Zhiwei: “Cockroach! It ran over to Qin Shi’s side!”

Qin Shi: “Aaaaaah—”

Squelch! Lin Jianyuan crushed the snail-shaped squish toy in his fist!

Time froze; the cockroaches scuttling across the floor froze mid-crawl.

He charged over and stamped the roach to paste!

He let go of the squish toy; time lurched back to normal.

Just as he was about to make a victorious retreat, Qin Shi screamed and clamped a hand on him: “Don’t lift your foot! The antennae are still moving! Press harder—grind it a few more times!”

Lin Jianyuan: “…”

After several passes, the cockroach finally showed no vital signs—clinically dead.

He finally made it back to his desk, only to hear a soft, aggrieved whimpering.

He bristled on the spot and glared at the wall—then realized the crying wasn’t coming from the wall at all, but from the squish toy in his hand.

“H-how could you…” the squishy thief hiccuped through tears. “So you use the same tactics you use on roaches—on me! You think I’m a roach!”

Lin Jianyuan: @#$%@#!

He saw red. He yanked out the squish toy, slammed it to the floor, and stomped. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp!

Squish toy: “Aaah don’t—don’t! That’s the foot that just stepped on a cockroach—aaah my shell’s done for—help!”

As befits a stress-relief toy, it did its job: after he’d worked the squish toy over, Lin Jianyuan felt much better.

He dropped into his chair and plunged back into the lightless grind.

A low-pressure front settled over the office; keyboards rattled like gunfire, punctuated by such “glowing praise” as “dumbass,” “this shit’s cursed,” and “fuck this gig is literally unworkable.”

Pei Shuo had never seen anything like it; he tucked his big golden-retriever tail in tight, terrified one clumsy move would pour fuel on the fire.

Lin Jianyuan’s brow was knotted; he was locked in.

While negotiating with the client on the ergonomic-chair project about pushing the deadline back, he was also paging through materials on burning incense and Yonghe Temple.

At the same time, he was coaching Pei Shuo on how to set up the conference room for the afternoon.

"Who’s free!" Jiang Chen’s voice came down imperiously from the second floor. "Go downstairs and grab a package for me!"

"No!!!" everyone bellowed in unison.

Startled, Jiang Chen turned back toward his office, grumbling, "It only takes a few minutes to grab a package..."

Lin Jianyuan suddenly looked up. "Boss Jiang!"

Jiang Chen jumped again, his voice a little shaky as he tried to sound composed: "What?"

"Do you have the long-term analysis for Wind Sprite? It should’ve been sent to you on the OA system for review." As soon as Lin Jianyuan said it, Qin Shi got it.

Right! If Jiang Chen had opened it, there might be a copy saved on his computer!

"Oh, yeah, I do," Jiang Chen said. "I downloaded it yesterday."

We’re saved!

Qin Shi’s face lit up; she snatched a USB drive and dashed into Jiang Chen’s office.

A few minutes later she barreled back, face thunderous, muttering "fuck, fuck, fuck."

Lin Jianyuan: "What, you couldn’t find it?"

Qin Shi: "Couldn’t find it is the least of it!!! Can you fucking believe this—Jiang Chen was showing off, switched the system language to English, then with his shitty eyesight read delete as download—fuck!!! He’s the one who deleted my file! What a fucking idiot!!!"

Lin Jianyuan: "..."

Everyone: "..."

Case closed. A chorus of relieved "fuck"s rippled through the room.

Lin Jianyuan drew a deep breath and started directing: "Pei Shuo, can you use SPSS? Good. Go help her with the charts—I'll come write the analysis with you in a bit..."

All hell broke loose. The whole day his ass might as well have been glued to his chair; every time he went to stand, something cut him off and he’d sink back down for another round with no end in sight.

"Fuck! I'm about to burst!" Run ragged, Qin Shi stopped caring about appearances, grabbed a pack of tissues, and bolted for the restroom.

Lin Jianyuan hadn’t had water or used the bathroom all day either. He was just about to stand and stretch when he looked up and saw a few strands of red thread drift past his eyes.

"?" Lin Jianyuan froze.

The other ends of the red threads were attached to Qin Shi. As she ran for the restroom, those slender, seemingly living lines vanished in a blink.

He couldn’t help rubbing his eyes.

Hallucinating again?

He slumped back wearily—crack—the chair’s backrest reclined.

He could hear his lumbar vertebrae clicking and popping.

"Hey, want coffee?" Pei Shuo yawned and held out her phone. "My treat. I'm dead on my feet—haaah—"

Dead tired himself, Lin Jianyuan straightened to take her phone—when his spine gave another crack.

At the same time, he felt something catch at his back.

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

He turned his head, puzzled—only for the pull at his back to tighten, all but wrenching him hard against the chair!

"Bro, what's wrong?" Pei Shuo noticed the look on his face and couldn't help asking.

Lin Jianyuan: "My ass went numb."

"Same here." Pei Shuo stood, squinted, and had a long, luxurious stretch.

Trailing from his ass were two thin, long red threads.

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

Lin Jianyuan narrowed his eyes, suspicious. He wasn’t seeing things—there were two inexplicable red threads trailing from Pei Shuo’s backside.

Thin, long red lines, each stuck into a cheek.

Staring at the male intern’s butt felt wrong, so he yanked his gaze away to the other culprit—the black seat of the office chair.

The mesh seat looked perfectly normal.

Yet the instant Pei Shuo stood, his movement hitched.

Clearly, those two red threads were tugging at him too.

"Finally noticed, did you~"

Squishy thief flashed an evil grin. "Heh heh, I'll tell you: this thing's called [Blood Thread]. It's a C-class Aberrant~ Not nearly as all-natural and harmless as [Eye Vines]. Let's see how you deal with this..."

Snip!

Lin Jianyuan grabbed the scissors and put a backhanded cut into his own back.

"Wait—hold up?" squish toy panicked, leaping down to bounce frantically on his knee. "Don't cut! These are your lifelines too! If you sever them, that life force won't come back!"

"This thing is sucking my life force?"

At that, Lin Jianyuan went snip-snip even faster.

With a cut-the-Gordian-knot flurry, his back finally came free of the chair.

With more room to move, he twisted around. Sure enough, countless short, blood-red filaments trailed from his back.

Their other ends had been snipped; the remnants wavered like sea anemones, as if they’d latch back on the instant they touched the chair.

He gave them a glance and bent to keep cutting the ones under his butt.

"Y-you!" squishy thief prodded him with its feelers in a panic. "Why are you in such a rush! You didn’t even ask me! Cutting [Blood Thread] straight off is bad for your body!"

"That's nothing." Lin Jianyuan snorted. "I'm still clocking into this fucking job—you think I'm scared of this?"

Squish toy: "..."

Fair point.

Is there anything that could shave years off your life faster than going to work? No!

Dropping the scissors, Lin Jianyuan stood—and only then noticed Pei Shuo watching him, anxiety written all over his face.

"Bro, what were you just saying? Something’s sucking your life force?"

His eyes all but spelled out: Oh god, are you having another episode? Please go lie down!

Lin Jianyuan glanced back at the chair, then at the screen—incense offerings at Yonghe Temple—and a light bulb went off.

"Fuck!" He yanked the office chair over and plopped back down, a grin tugging at his mouth. "Damn right this is my line of work—my brain is a beast!"

Pei Shuo: "???"

Wait, how did we switch topics that fast?

Is this that legendary thing—crazy people make the wildest leaps???