Chapter 932

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Protagonist:

Shen Yao

Just as the seven were about to leave, the remaining nine also came running over one after another, speaking all at once to say they wanted to rent rooms too.

The auntie in charge of renting shook her hair, repeated what she had said before, then led a crowd upstairs, saying they could stay in whichever room they liked as long as they paid enough, but she had to state one thing in advance: "Once you choose a room, you can't change it afterward, so you'd better take it seriously."

As soon as she finished speaking, someone couldn't help but ask, "Is there anything special about this place?"

The male speaker had red hair, brown eyes, a tall figure with long limbs, and sharp facial features—clearly not characteristic of Shen Yao's side.

Hearing this, the auntie shook the keys pinched in her hand and gave him a meaningful look, saying, "Nothing much, it's just that Changbai Apartment is special; everyone who moves in has some unspeakable secrets. After choosing your rooms, go rest."

She turned and went upstairs with a thumping sound, not caring whether others could understand her; she did things according to her own ideas and trajectory, and even if others were unhappy, they could only endure it.

"Hurry up and follow," Shen Yao said to Wei Cheng and the others, then quickly caught up with them.

Because Changbai Apartment was old, even with nine floors there was no elevator; while walking in the stairwell, they could see all sorts of messy advertisements posted around. The auntie didn't care and kept walking forward until they stopped at the corner of the third floor.

The string of keys in her hand finally came in handy; she opened two of the doors, revealing four bare rooms with only beds and wardrobes taking up more than half the space, making those who saw it feel oppressed and uncomfortable.

"Quad rooms, do you want them?" The auntie first looked at Wei Cheng and his two companions, then turned to look at the few people opposite them.

Those being looked at exchanged glances. Ah? This is a quad room? Even though they had mentally prepared themselves, who wouldn't collapse upon seeing a quad room worse than a school dormitory?

At least the other two standing with Wei Cheng hesitated a bit. Quad rooms were half the price of double rooms and even cheaper than single rooms. Although they didn't have many instance coins, they could grit their teeth and afford double rooms. Besides, the person showing them the rooms had said that once a room was chosen, it couldn't be changed. For the next half month, could they really live here?

Wei Cheng said in a deep voice, "What do you mean? Unwilling?"

Qian Dong nodded, "Zhao Botao and I will take a double room. The conditions in a quad room are too terrible. I'm afraid I won't be able to endure the survival conditions in a quad room for half a month and will regret it halfway."

"Yeah, we're not willing to do it midway for now; we'd definitely screw you over then," Zhao Botao said to be on the safe side. They thought it was better to separate from the start so that no matter what, everyone would have room to cooperate. After all, in a survival instance, one more friend is more useful than one more enemy. Who would want to guard against outsiders while also fighting their own people? It's not like they had nothing better to do.

Wei Cheng:...

To be honest, although he felt a bit uncomfortable inside, it was to his advantage that Qian Dong and Zhao Botao could speak so directly right now.

Turning around, he said he still wanted a quad room. "This one then, I think it's fine."

Wei Cheng made the decision on the spot and paid the rent for half a month as well. Instance coins could be withdrawn or directly deducted in instances where they were needed, so there was no need to worry about not receiving payment.

The auntie nodded in satisfaction, looked at the others, and pointed to an extra quad room, asking, "Anyone else?"

After asking three times in a row, finally two more people nodded and said they wanted one, but they didn't have money right now. What about the rent?

What about it?

"It's fine. Someone will come to collect the rent. You can stay for now."

The auntie took the keys off the key ring and handed them out according to the number of people. Incidentally, only they had one key each; if lost, they could only blame their own bad luck.

"Blame our own bad luck? What if we can't get into the room? Won't you help?" Someone still liked to talk nonsense, making people wonder if they didn't have brains, actually comparing everything in the instance to reality.

Shen Yao couldn't be bothered to listen to such talk. She thought to herself that the auntie who showed them the rooms definitely wouldn't reveal more information. In fact, this NPC was a bit unpopular, speaking as if following a fixed program.

From the time they went upstairs to choosing rooms, others would more or less have some emotions. If it were another more human-like NPC, they would surely ask, but this person had no such program at all. Even the few expressions on her face switched back and forth.

"We only recognize keys, not people. Remember, don't lose your keys."

She repeated it once more, then left the third floor and went up to the fourth floor along the stairs beside them.

There were more empty rooms here, and not only quad rooms but also double rooms and even single rooms.

But because the number four wasn't very auspicious, no one chose them. Helpless, after asking several times with no response, the auntie could only continue holding her keys and go upstairs.

Fifth floor, sixth floor... eighth floor, until the last empty room was brought out. All fifteen people present had their own chosen residences.

Among them, Wei Cheng and two people from Other Worlds lived in the quad room on the third floor. Shen Yao, Feng Jingjing, and Tian Ying, three people, lived on the fifth floor. The sixth and seventh floors had the most people, four each. The eighth floor had only one person choosing, and it was a double room.

Shen Yao's instance coins were down to double digits. If nothing unexpected happened, she needed to find an opportunity to make money.

"Miss Shen, please wait a moment," just as Shen Yao was planning to use this time to return to her room and organize the relevant information, Wei Cheng suddenly called out to her.

Not only Shen Yao, but also Qian Dong and the other four. Among them, Feng Jingjing was a bit annoyed. "Wouldn't it be better to go back and organize our own information first, then exchange with each other? At this time, no one can possibly collect information in time. What's the use of you calling out?"

Tian Ying beside her heard this and quickly reached out to tug on Feng Jingjing's sleeve, signaling her to speak less. Offending Wei Cheng was not wise.

Unfortunately, Feng Jingjing didn't think so. She felt Wei Cheng wasn't as powerful as he initially appeared, including what could be seen from the renting and subsequent behaviors.

Since that was the case, Feng Jingjing had no reason to always put the other party first. Equal trade was more reliable.

Qian Dong, Zhao Botao, and Feng Jingjing had more or less the same idea at this time. Especially since the two of them had rented double rooms, they were temporary allies. Compared to Wei Cheng living in the quad room on the third floor, they living on the sixth floor would definitely be easier to cooperate with.

Wei Cheng:...

However, the simple alliance collapsed in an instant. Shen Yao stood to the side with her arms crossed, watching. She neither interjected nor responded, just observed the expressions on the five people's faces to infer whether the emotions they were showing were truly genuine.

"We are all compatriots. There's no need to form enmity," Wei Cheng said in a sincere tone. But the effect of such words in the instance was close to zero.

No one bought Wei Cheng's account. Feng Jingjing took Tian Ying and left first. Qian Dong and Zhao Botao followed closely with an excuse. Only Shen Yao and Wei Cheng were left, exchanging glances. Finally, they could only temporarily disperse and contact each other later.

Although Wei Cheng was very gentlemanly in letting Shen Yao go first and appeared apologetic throughout, Shen Yao could still feel Wei Cheng's inner anxiety and urgency. Yo-ho, this was the result of wanting to be the eldest brother and getting backfired. Not every instance had people buying your account, and not every instance's players were so easy to deceive.

Bang—

Closing the room door, looking at the small room of barely thirty square meters before her, Shen Yao walked to the made bed and sat down.

A normal single bed, with a table, chairs, and wardrobe beside it. No kitchen, no bathroom. These were all shared, located on both sides of the corridor, and needed to be shared with the neighbors on the entire floor.

"Host, hahahaha, really interesting. That guy named Wei Cheng plans to take revenge on you."

It was said not to bully the young and poor. Sooner or later, she would show others some color.

Shen Yao rested her chin on her hand, her fingers curling to lightly tap the tabletop in front of her. "System, can I view the memories related to this body?"

Most people entering an instance had a certain role. The instance would set up a background on that character. Shen Yao's name in Changbai Apartment remained unchanged, but her instance ID card showed her contact information and position: Advisor at Mingzhu Technology Company.

Mingzhu Technology Company... When she came in, she had seen the floors around Changbai Apartment that had been stripped down. They were cordoned off, with the roar of machines coming from inside, and flyers were being distributed. The top headline was Mingzhu Real Estate's latest work—new property development officially on sale.

Mingzhu Real Estate and Mingzhu Technology here should be the same company. The boss inside first relied on Mingzhu Real Estate, then created Mingzhu Technology. And Shen Yao was an advisor at Mingzhu Technology Company. What was this advisor's job? To recruit easy-to-deceive people into the company to be free leeks.

"Host, the relevant memories are all fake. However, Host's identity is somewhat special."

Mingzhu Technology Company recently also opened Mingzhu Medical Device Company, and the boss arranged quite a few advisors into Mingzhu Medical Device Company to work.

"Host, you are not here, even your name is not on Mingzhu Technology Company's personnel record," the system, although constantly complained about as a half-baked thing, is still very authoritative in investigation.

In just a few minutes' time, the system had already sent over all the inside and outside information about Shen Yao; the most suspicious during this period was Mingzhu Technology Company — logically speaking, with Shen Yao's income, she fundamentally did not need to move into Changbai Apartment, but for some unknown means Mingzhu Technology Company employed, it caused Shen Yao to have no choice but to move in.

"For this body, it would definitely be life-threatening before she would choose to obey the company's arrangement."

Mingzhu Technology Company previously had illegal activities, but most were small-scale; only as Mingzhu Real Estate's scale grew bigger and bigger, and Mingzhu added a medical device company, alongside the constant expansion there were also missing persons cases.

Shen Yao raised her hand and pinched her chin, "Of the fifteen who entered, more or less all have some connection to Mingzhu; among them Wei Cheng is Mingzhu Medical Device Company's security guard, Qian Dong and Zhao Botao are staff who joined Mingzhu Medical Device Company, just graduated from university; Tian Ying and Feng Jingjing are the HR personnel responsible for Mingzhu Medical Device Company's recruitment matters; and I, the title of Mingzhu Technology Company advisor unchanged, also have to work part-time as Mingzhu Medical Device Company's sales, one person doing two jobs' work," afraid of not dying fast enough.

This is only those six people; the remaining nine people are more or less the same — whether at Mingzhu Technology Company or at Mingzhu Medical Device Company, in the end they all gather at Mingzhu Medical Device Company.

Of course, their current state is resting; they do not need to go to Mingzhu Medical Device Company to work again, but they are still Mingzhu Medical Device Company's employees.

Shen Yao drooped her eyes, turning over the card proof in her hand; then, as if performing a magic trick, she went out for a moment and carried back a particularly heavy suitcase; opening it revealed a laptop; she logged in and conveniently checked her work's residual content.

The system was surprised, "How does Host know her luggage is at the dormitory office?"

"How can moving house have no luggage? When getting off the bus earlier it was a bit rushed, then busy with renting a house; once everyone calms down, they will definitely think of the luggage problem," and inside this is the clue they need most; no matter how careless, they would think of ways to get it back.

The recycle bin was very clean, but Shen Yao discovered a few unopened private letters in the email's trash bin; they should have been set to spam interception; she decisively treated all of these as spam emails.

Opening them one by one to check the relevant content, Shen Yao quickly discovered the controversy over her own identity; she rapidly browsed through these files and then deleted them; Shen Yao stood up, laughed, and turned out the notebook placed in the secret compartment; on it were mostly numbers, few words for explanation.

But Shen Yao could still clearly see the meaning represented by the numbers, especially combining the spam emails she just deleted; the stripped-bare truth was shocking.

System:...

Playing this big? Could it be a ghost seeking revenge?

Shen Yao was surprised yet not surprised about this; after all, the real estate industry's heat is real, but it cools down just as fast; Mingzhu Technology Company is a new high-tech company that rose after real estate; it is said that internal researchers discovered a substance that can increase energy without any side effects, which brought massive income.

Later Mingzhu Technology Company grew hotter and hotter, constantly producing various high-tech products; because high-tech products and medicine have an inseparable relationship, Mingzhu Technology Company later opened Mingzhu Medical Device Company — that is the company they are currently in.

"System, pay attention to all residents of the entire Changbai Apartment, focus on the dormitory manager and surrounding neighbors," Shen Yao closed the notebook, then stood up, came to the bedside, lay down, and closed her eyes, using this to integrate the relevant information she obtained, to see if she could break the deadlock from another place.

Human trafficking, organ transplant, smuggling... Mingzhu Company does all the most profitable businesses in the criminal law, and she is an accomplice who knew but did not report, instead cooperating with corruption.

Now the matter is about to be exposed; these people are the scapegoats pushed out; half a month's time is the final public deadline.

Tsk tsk tsk

Is this the value of a survival instance?

Shen Yao calmed her mind, constantly thinking of one method after another and rejecting them, back and forth many times, until spiritual exhaustion made her listless before she found a method that was not bad.

"Passive is no good; still have to take the initiative to attack," turning her head to look at the window outside that had not yet darkened, Shen Yao decided to make a trip to Mingzhu Technology Company, to find her superior for a private talk before her vacation.