124 First Job

 

“The job can give more meaning to my life, and provide an outlet for my creative energy. It will also allow me to come into contact with more people and events, giving me more societal experience. Overall, it will be a valuable investment in myself.” At midnight, in the corner of the dark city, Han Fei stood inside the dim convenience store and attended a job interview with an impossibly lanky young man. “Please give me the job.”

The two looked at each other for more than a minute. As if someone had snapped his consciousness into being, the young man’s only eye rejuvenated with spirit. The murky iris moved in his head. Instead of repeating the same question like before, he uttered the following in unusual coherence, “I do not own this place. If you wish to work here, you need to earn its approval.”

“It?”

“Follow me.” The single-eyed worker walked down the racks and led Han Fei deeper into the store. He opened a door and signaled for Han Fei to enter it. The room was gloomy. Han Fei forced himself to go into it despite his unwillingness. The room turned out to be the store’s warehouse. It was stocked with many things. The only light source was a burning candle. Han Fei noticed that the worker was more like a marionette. Most of the time, he had no volition of his own. He walked in a very disjointed manner like his body was held up by invisible strings. “It is inside there, if you can find it, it means that you can stay.” The single eye pulsed inside the man’s head, it looked quite scary. “The candle won’t burn forever, you better hurry.” Then he turned and left Han Fei alone inside the warehouse.

‘He left just like that? He’s not even going to stay to watch over me?’ The warehouse was filled with items. Han Fei did not even know what he was supposed to look for. ‘The real boss of this place did not appear to be a ‘person’ but an object. Based on the worker’s hint, I’m supposed to find it before the candle burns out.’ For the natives of the cryptic world, finding something, especially without a clue would be impossible. However, it was different for Han Fei, he was a player, he could use the system to identify useful objects. Han Fei first reached for the candlestick.

“A white candle used in memorial of past loved ones.” The system introduction was direct. The candle contained Yin energy, it was a unique object but not what Han Fei was looking for. Han Fei proceeded to touch everything in the room. As time passed, the light dimmed as the candle slowly died out. The landlord’s ring also grew colder. Han Fei felt unsettled. After some rummaging, Han Fei realized the convenience store offered ‘convenience’ merely to the dead. The stock inside the warehouse was mostly paper objects normally burned for the dead. The situation was horrifying but considering the nature of Perfect Life, Han Fei eventually found things to be quite typical.

Holding the candle, Han Fei came to the last row of the warehouse. The shelf was lined with paper dolls. Standing before the shelf, Han Fei felt many eyes on him. He swallowed and reached out to touch the paper dolls. As his fingers brushed past the dolls, Han Fei frowned. They did not appear to be normal dolls. Each of the dolls had its own different ‘body’ temperatures as if they carried different souls. The candle flickered in the dark. Just as the light was about to be extinguished, Han Fei’s fingertip came across something that he had not felt before. Han Fei stopped moving and turned to see what he had touched. The moment he raised his eyes, the candlelight went out. ‘This whole shelf should be lined with paper dolls but this particular one did not have that papery touch like the others, if anything, it had the suppleness and warmth of human skin.’

A jolt of pain came from his wrist. Before Han Fei could react, the light returned. A new white candle rematerialized on the candlestick. This time Han Fei managed to see the candle in its entirety. The candle body was carved with a pained ghost face. The candle was made from wandering souls. Suddenly the warehouse door opened. The single-eyed worker stood teetering at the frame. He shuffled towards Han Fei, “It has agreed for you to stay.”

Han Fei felt the young man was more like a messenger. He had no mind of its own. “Come, I’ll show you around the shop.” The worker’s voice was devoid of emotion. He led Han Fei around the warehouse and showed Han Fei where each item was stocked. “You need to remember where these stocks are placed. If the merchandise outside is sold out, you need to restock them. If there’s a stock delivery, you’ll need to accept them and arrange them here.”

“Stock delivery? We’ll get stock delivery here?”

“Everyone that walks into the shop is our customer and our product.” The worker paused for a long time before he added, “Most of the time, they are customers.”

“Understood.” Han Fei nodded.

“You’ll have to handle the cleanliness inside the shop as well. Most of our customers are messy shoppers, so you need to ensure that the shop is spick and span… at least on the surface so that the customers would be more willing to buy.” The worker pointed at the label on the warehouse shelves. “None of our products are priced but they have their own hidden pricing.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Simply put, our customers can be separated into 7 different kinds. Our most common customers are the Animated Regrets, their body parts are not that valuable no matter how deep the regret in their hearts is. They range from Animated Slight Regret, Animated Deep Regret, Animated Extreme Regret.” The worker was explaining to Han Fei the basic business knowledge but in Han Fei’s ears, he was basically delineating the strength of the ghosts in this world. “A more valuable customer is the Lingering Spirit. These Lingering Spirits normally appear no different from Animated Regret, they retain a human appearance. But when they run into danger, they’ll reveal their true form and turn into various monsters. The value of Lingering Spirit is related to their size. We order them accordingly as Small Lingering Spirit, Medium Lingering Spirit and Large Lingering Spirit.”

What the worker said reminded Han Fei of Little Eight. Normally Little Eight appeared like a harmless little girl but when she pieced together with the other victims, she’d morph into a large red spectre. “Lingering Spirits are very dangerous but also extremely rare. If you run into small and medium lingering spirits, you can try negotiating with them. If you run into a large lingering spirit, do everything you can to lure it into the warehouse.”

“Senior, didn’t you say there are 7 types of customers? So far, you’ve only mentioned 6 types.”

“Extremely small number of Lingering Spirits may evolve into Pure Hatred. If you run into those, and somehow manage to survive, you need to go into the warehouse to find it, it will tell you what to do.”

The pricing of the items at this shop was very strange. All the items were priced according to the customer’s body parts. For example, the candy near the door, one of them equaled one eyeball of an Animated Regret; while each of the paper dolls deep inside the warehouse would cost the head of a Small Lingering Spirit. With such gory pricing, it was little wonder that they were not listed out at the store front. After introducing the pricing and the items on sale, the worker did an impromptu test with Han Fei. To his surprise, Han Fei answered it perfectly. With just a glance, Han Fei had memorized the pricing and the location of all the merchandise.

“Senior, I believe I heard someone singing yesterday night, was that a Pure Hatred…” Han Fei began but before he could finish, he was glared by the young man. This was the first time Han Fei detected emotion from him. “We do not serve any customer beyond Pure Hatred. If you do not wish to die, then you’d never raise that issue ever again.” The worker then reverted to his insipid self as he continued to teach Han Fei how to use the tools available at the shop. Then he led Han Fei into the staff breakroom. “This is where we change shifts. The pictures on the wall belong to our former colleagues.”

Han Fei lifted his head to look and he saw portraits of individuals which had been drawn out with red markers filling up the wall.

“Look over here.” When Han Fei turned around, the worker already raised a camera to snap a picture of Han Fei. A picture soon rolled out from the digital camera. “Your picture will be placed up there too. Hmm?”

Holding Han Fei’s picture, the worker’s face colored with a rare expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“How come you don’t show on the picture?” The worker handed the picture to Han Fei, the picture was empty. Han Fei was confused too. ‘Is it because the camera can only capture ghosts?’ He glanced at the camera, an eyeball was screwed at the spot where the camera lens should be.

“Perhaps it was warming up earlier, how about you give it another try?” Han Fei activated his ghost tattoo and had the poor soul from the 8th floor landing spread all over his body. The worker snapped the picture again and this time a shadow did appear on the picture. However, the face was still blurred and the body size did not match Han Fei either.

“This’ll do.” The worker pulled out a paper doll the size of a palm out from the drawer. Then he pinned the doll along with ‘Han Fei’s’ picture on the wall. “If there’s any loss in the shop while you’re on duty, you’re responsible to pay for it. Other than that, there are no rules.”

“I’m planning to do this as a temp. How can I leave should I decide to quit?” Han Fei summoned the courage to ask.

“Quit?” The single eye pulsed dangerously. Black threads snaked out from the worker’s body, they pierced into his bloodstream and heart. His face grimaced with pain. He doubled over and started to vomit. Shredded paper coughed out from his throat. After a long time, the worker finally returned to normal. His mind was dazed. His single eye looked around blurrily. “What did you ask me earlier?”

“Nothing, I just said I will work hard so that our boss can reach financial freedom as soon as possible.”