High Energy QR Code

Chapter 110: Animal World

Xing Ye felt like he needed a mirror, now. He wanted to see what his own appearance looked like.

There weren't any mirrors on his desk, but the little mirror should be in his pocket. At the size of the bottle cap, the mirror had always come into the world somewhere on his body. In the hospital world, the mirror was placed in his hospital gown but was lost on the first day by the amnesiac Xing Ye.

He was currently wearing a checked shirt. Xing Ye patted his chest pocket and felt a mirror. He was about to take it out when he saw the hyena bare his teeth at the office staff and snarl, "There's still half an hour of work left! Put away your phones and get back to work. I'll take note of anyone slacking and assume you won't be coming back."

Xing Ye saw his work badge read Lu Xingfa, Deputy HR Manager, reporting to Ren Tingman.

Just a moment ago, Lu Xingfa was groveling at Ren Tingman's feet. Now, drool was dripping through his teeth as he stared at the employees like they were a big, juicy steak.

As the chairman of a listed company, Xing Ye naturally understood the meaning of a the term "corporate slave". Could this world be a representation of our hidden human nature?

No, it shouldn't be that simple.

To avoid attracting Hyena Lu's attention, Xing Ye opened a work document and started earnestly inputting the data.

He had already briefly observed everyone in the office and memorized their appearances and actions. After work, he would investigate further.

Hyena Lu passed by Xing Ye's desk and noticed the beautiful anime girl figurine on his desk. He grabbed it and glared at Xing Ye fiercely, "Don't bring items unrelated to work here!"

With that, he licked the figurine's face and left with it, satisfied.

He seemed to really like the beautiful anime figurine and even stole it. It was the same as robbery.

Xing Ye didn't care. After meeting Lu Mingze, who would care about handsome or pretty figurines? But making a life-sized body pillow of Lu Mingze wouldn't be bad... ahem. He was just brainstorming production plans for his company.

The material Ren Tingman gave him was very hard to decipher. The handwriting was beautiful, but it was mostly cursive and running script. Some strokes were missing or written rushed, making it impossible to convert using OCR software and required Xing Ye to guess the contents based on context.

Fortunately, Xing Ye had researched many manuscripts in college and had experience in this area. He managed to type up three pages before leaving work.

At 6 o'clock, Hyena Lu was the first to change clothes and run out of the office. The rest of the employees also stood up, clocked out, and left. Only Xing Ye and three other employees remained, reportedly to work overtime.

With fewer people around, Xing Ye finally took out the cosmetic mirror and whispered, "Are you there?"

The mirror did not respond. Could it have entered another mirror to play?

After he and the mirror met, they have always been together. Whenever he felt unsettled, touching the mirror in his pocket or bag always calmed Xing Ye down.

But this time, the mirror was not there. For the first time, Xing Ye felt a hint of worry, concerned about what dangers the mirror might face outside.

It would be nice if he could draw a QR code for communication next time. Xing Ye thought to himself.

In fact, Lu Mingze had already fought in many worlds in the game and could use his "Devastating Beautiful" initial skill, so it was hard hard for anyone to truly harm him. Xing Ye understood this, but he still couldn't help worrying.

Did caring for someone make one irrational? This was the first time Xing Ye had experienced such a feeling, but it actually wasn't bad. The feeling of having someone in his heart was quite nice.

He didn't go running to look for the mirror. He trusted Lu Mingze's judgement and understood care also required patience and restraint.

Xing Ye used the mirror without Lu Mingze to check his current appearance. He was an ant with two antennas of differing lengths. One was long and one was short, with the shorter one appearing to have been damaged.

A disabled ant. That was his appearance in this world.

After seeing his own appearance, Xing Ye finally took out his phone to read the system's introduction to this world.

However, the background information this time was only a few words: This world is unbearable, isn't it? Don't be afraid, there's worse to come.

Xing Ye: "..."

He put away his phone, set aside his work, and decided to look for other players.

At the very least, he needed to meet up with Cao Qian and Guan Ling first, to hear what they had encountered before starting to analyze this world.

He scrolled through the text messages and bank information on his phone. This body was indeed poor, with only a ten thousand yuan overdraft limit on the banking app and no bank card balance found. However, there was a balance of two thousand yuan in the bank account, which, according to the chat history, seemed to be earned from an online part-time job.

Xing Ye also confirmed that he was a senior college student. He was required to intern at this company for three months and was already in his second month.

Just as Xing Ye stood up, a fly nearby stared at him with its omnidirectional eyes, buzzing, "Where are you going? Manager Ren ordered you to work properly."

He didn't need the system's prompt to think the world was unbearable. Very few people observed flies closely. At a glance, they just looked like a black dot and most people found them unsanitary and noisy. But when a fly got magnified to the size of a person, Xing Ye could clearly see its shiny eyes, all the hairs on its legs, and its pincer-like mouth. The visual impact was comparable to a horror movie, and when that said fly was right in front of you, it was even worse.

Lizard Manager Ren and Hyena Lu were at least visually acceptable to humans, since many people keep cats, dogs, and some reptiles as pets. However, no one kept flies.

When human behaviors are directly displayed in the form of animals, the environment would feel nauseating. It was even more disturbing when you yourself was an ant.

But Xing Ye felt okay; he knew this was a monster world and everyone was like this. Everything would be fine after he left the world, so it was still acceptable.

Such things would not be able to shake Xing Ye's heart. If this was supposed to be his weakness, the system underestimated him too much.

Xing Ye looked directly at Housefly Liao's eyes and said calmly, "I'm going to the washroom.

"Oh," Housefly Liao said, "Then bring me a cup of coffee on your way back."

Why would a company's water dispenser be next to the restroom? Xing Ye frowned. He neither refused nor agreed and just silently walked out of the office.

Leaving the large office, Xing Ye discovered he was in a large office building, and his company occupied just one floor of it. He worked for an advertising company. The handwritten materials given by Lizard Manager Ren were for a product in its startup phase, notes from the client about their desired characteristics in the advertisement and reference materials.

The materials were disorganized, with bits recorded one day and others the next. It was completely unnecessary to print everything out. As his colleagues said, it would be better to skim through, select the needed materials, and then input them onto the computer to organize. Lizard Manager Ren was simply bullying him, an ant.

Xing Ye stood in front of the restroom mirror and carefully observed his two antennae. One of them seemed to have been deliberately cut off by someone.

An ant's antennae were its receivers to perceive the external world. Losing one must be a significant blow. Did someone seriously injure the original owner of the body?

Just then, a sound came from the women's restroom. Xing Ye turned to see an ant dressed in a janitor's uniform coming out. It was a cleaning lady.

The cleaning lady was also a worker ant. She was much shorter than Xing Ye, and wore a mask and gloves. If not for the pair of ant eyes and antennae, Xing Ye wouldn't have recognized what animal she was at first glance.

But when she saw Xing Ye's ant face, she clearly got scared. She stepped back with her mop in hand and clenched her hands.

When Xing Ye saw Lizard Manager Ren, he immediately had the thought to strike first, but restrained himself and controlled his instinct to attack. Later, he found that the people in the office seemed to take the lizard's appearance in stride, indicating it was the norm in this world.

But this cleaning ant was different. She was clearly on guard against him. Approaching her would likely lead to an attack, and furthermore, her attack stance was all too familiar.

Xing Ye drew a pattern on his chest. It was their team's secret signal.

The cleaning ant drew one as well, visibly relieved, then took off her mask and said, "Are you Xing Ye or Guan Ling? I'm Cao Qian."

Xing Ye, looking at her constantly moving ant mouth and awkwardly shifted his gaze away. He answered, "I'm Xing Ye. You might want to look in the mirror."

Cao Qian seemed to notice the mirror for the first time. She looked at her own appearance and jumped, taking a while before saying, "Are we in an insect world? Are we all worker ants?"

"No," Xing Ye said, "We've been in this world for about 50 minutes. Haven't you seen the other people in this world?"

Cao Qian shook her head, "I've been fighting a cockroach monster. It was eating garbage in the restroom- it made me feel sick watching. I hid in a restroom stall, observed it for a while, and after finding it had no special abilities, I knocked it down. But it should be alive; I stuffed its head into the toilet bowl. Something that ugly shouldn't scare people by coming out!"

Cao Qian rarely spoke so much at once. It looked like she was truly scared.

Xing Ye had an ominous premonition and asked, "The cockroach monster you encountered, how big was it, and was it wearing clothes?"

Cao Qian said, "It wore a skirt, had thin legs in high heels, and was about 165cm tall..."

Her voice grew quieter as she spoke. She looked at her and Xing Ye's ant faces in the mirror before timidly asking, "That cockroach monster... was it a person?"

Xing Ye nodded.

Cao Qian was about to rush back into the bathroom but Xing Ye pulled her back, whispering, "You were wearing a mask earlier, right?"

"Yes," Cao Qian also whispered, "I was hiding in the restroom stall. The cockroach monster probably didn't see me. And I knocked her out quickly, so... it should be okay, right?"

"You're quick in combat, I've always trusted you in that regard. Since you think she didn't see you, then she likely only saw your janitor uniform at most, making it hard to identify you. And she's knocked out for now, so she won't wake up immediately," Xing Ye said. "Just pull her head out of the toilet so she doesn't suffocate, and leave her in the stall for others to find."

Cao Qian complied, covering her head as she carefully entered the women's restroom.

Xing Ye sighed at his reflection in the mirror. The little mirror was terrified of insects. What if Lu Mingze wouldn't be able to accept Xing Ye's appearance? They hadn't made contact yet. The little mirror wouldn't be hiding somewhere in this world, crying because of the bugs, would he?