As expected, the company's first meltdown passed without much drama.
With Faust and Anna grinding away nonstop on Punishing Bird, the day's energy quota crept steadily upward—close enough now that you could practically see it filling.
Meanwhile, Zhou Zhuang finished unlocking all the dossiers for One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds and Punishing Bird. Watching the three of them produce energy so consistently, he finally grasped what real-world labor did differently from the game.
In reality, assignments had to be based on the employee themselves, not just "this is the correct work type."
Take Punishing Bird: even if an employee knew every rule, a moment of carelessness during the procedure could still provoke the Abnormality—and then the employee would get punished for real.
Which meant: careless staff could never be sent to Punishing Bird.
As for One Sin…
Whether in the game or in real life, it was the gold-standard newbie-friendly Abnormality.
High success rate for Communion
Helps soothe mental trauma
If you got a Good or Excellent, it could even ease the oppressive atmosphere in the whole department
And once an employee obtained its accessory, the worst result they'd get was basically "a Good that was one step away from Excellent."
Zhou Zhuang didn't know if that was luck or some hidden mechanic, but at least from what he saw, Lain's subsequent sessions were going extremely smoothly.
Still…
One Sin dealt mental damage.
Yet Lain's first time had looked so horrific Zhou Zhuang had almost doubted his own knowledge.
While thinking, Zhou Zhuang found himself appreciating how useful auto-management was.
If he was willing to accept the risk of human error, he could assign two trusted employees to an Abnormality and let them rotate through all allowed work options.
But then another question hit him:
Why did auto-management only unlock after the dossier was fully unlocked?
He couldn't figure it out—but the thought passed quickly.
If something wasn't solvable, burning brain cells on it was the fastest path to an unhappy life.
"Oh—right. We can make a full set of Punishing Bird's weapon and suit now. This is easy."
And he remembered something important:
E.G.O gear reduces damage from Abnormalities during work.
Which meant—if Sif wore E.G.O tomorrow, he might finally meet the safety threshold to work One Sin.
If Sif was still "hard to deal with," then… he'd have to be reassigned to logistics support for Faust and Anna.
Zhou Zhuang's head started hurting again.
And he couldn't just use LOB points to brute-force growth either.
Malkuth had mentioned it before: forcing stats like that was like building a house without laying a foundation—just propping it up with external supports.
A floating castle.
Worse, it could cause employees to develop a severe dependency on Enkephalin.
But then Zhou Zhuang's eyes lit up.
That method could be used for something else.
If he could find some truly vile criminals in the City, then when the "juicer" arrived, he could boost them with LOB, toss them in, and massively accelerate energy collection.
Wait…
Zhou Zhuang slapped his thigh.
"I'm a genius!"
The City never ran out of scum like that.
When needed, he could simply fish one out, force-feed them level-5 Courage, then feed them into the juicer.
Heh.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
He looked back to the monitors.
"…Huh?"
Why had the energy total suddenly dropped?
The bar that had been almost at quota had fallen by about a third.
That shouldn't happen—One Sin and Punishing Bird were being worked continuously, even with meltdown warnings.
Then Zhou Zhuang noticed it:
The meltdown level had already climbed to Level 4.
"Alright—when we hit quota again, we clock out immediately."
Hands flying, he queued the remaining Punishing Bird E.G.O R&D counts, then swapped to One Sin and placed orders for two sets of E.G.O.
And then, as One Sin and Punishing Bird's work cycles ended…
Day One's energy quota landed exactly on the line.
Zhou Zhuang opened the work overview and hit End Work.
With that click, the day was officially over.
"Ahhhhh—off work~!"
Zhou Zhuang stood up and stretched his stiff old back.
He checked the time.
"Two in the afternoon."
Not bad.
Only two hours of overtime.
He almost teared up at his own "charitable" management.
Then he looked at Angela, who had just stood up as well.
"Hey, Angela. Let's go eat together."
After two days at close range, Zhou Zhuang had gone from "I can't look at her" to:
Angela is basically my bro. What am I scared of?
Now he could look her in the eye normally.
"Yes, Manager," Angela replied—predictably.
If Zhou Zhuang made a suggestion, Angela would accept it.
"Let's go!"
He opened the door and waited while Angela neatly organized the files on her desk.
Watching her, Zhou Zhuang's gaze drifted to his own desk.
Should I clean mine up?
But that mountain of books was exactly like his student days.
He smirked.
Whoever had worked at this desk before… he'd keep it as-is.
After all, it was "the predecessor's legacy."
"Manager, we may depart," Angela said.
She stepped up beside him, holding two document envelopes.
Zhou Zhuang, ever the gentleman, let her exit first, then paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"Angela… should we lock the door?"
"Manager, that depends on your mood."
"My mood…?"
Zhou Zhuang repeated it, confused.
"Then I won't lock it. It's not like there's anything secret inside."
Then his curiosity kicked in.
"By the way, Angela—what are those two envelopes?"
"These are your work report and the Abnormality dossier archive."
"My work report and the Abnormality dossier archive…?"
Zhou Zhuang's head filled with question marks.
"Aren't I supposed to write my own work report?"
"Oh? So the Manager wishes to write the work report himself?"
Angela put on an apologetic expression, speaking in a tone of remorse.
"That is my mistake. I failed to consider this factor."
"Ah—no no no!"
Zhou Zhuang waved his hands so hard his head nearly shook off.
"I don't want to write that!"
But then he caught it.
That faint, almost invisible smile at the corner of Angela's mouth.
"…Hold on."
His expression flipped instantly.
"Angela, you're teasing your Manager!"
"Manager," Angela asked, winking one eye shut, "how will you punish me?"
"I—I'll punish you…"
Zhou Zhuang froze.
He couldn't actually threaten Angela with anything.
But then he had an idea.
"I will punish you by making you give me a credit card I can use in the City."
"…That's it?"
Angela's shoulders trembled slightly, like she'd been "terrified" by the severity of this punishment.
"Huh? That's not allowed?" Zhou Zhuang tilted his head blankly.
"It is, Manager. I accept the punishment."
Angela calmly pulled a pitch-black card from her pocket and handed it to him.
Zhou Zhuang took it, still looking a little dazed.
Something about this felt… off.
But Angela had already started walking, and Zhou Zhuang stuffed the card into his pocket and jogged to catch up.
....
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