The white curtains, yellowed with age, the walls spotted with mold, a cramped and dim room.
The scent of a woman's body mixed with the blooming fragrance of heather.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock..."
Accompanied by the dripping sound of an old faucet in the toilet, Qiu Tu slowly woke up.
He opened his weary eyes, shook his dizzy, aching head, and surveyed the room he was in.
In the tiny seven-square-meter room filled with clutter, there was an old wooden bed.
A slender woman with skin white as snow slept soundly on the bed, completely naked.
Looking at the woman, Qiu Tu's mind automatically conjured her identity.
The mistress of Director Yan Chen of the Xinjie City Investigation Bureau.
Qiu Tu shook his aching head again...
A Second-Class Investigator at Xinjie City Investigation Bureau... a confidant of Director Yan Chen.
His primary duty was...
To ensure the safety of this mistress!
Qiu Tu suddenly sat up, looking at his own body, which was also bare, his face full of shock.
Wasn't he at an explosion at the company? How did he become an investigator?
Did he... travel through time?
Standing in front of a dirty sink, Qiu Tu, his face wet, looked at his own reflection in the broken mirror and roughly figured out everything before him.
He had indeed traveled through time.
Travelled to this somewhat chaotic, bloody world.
An unexpected cataclysm had devastated most nations, caused mutations in species, abandoned cities, scarcity of food, and obliteration of civilization, replaced by endless chaos, the law of the jungle, and survival of the fittest...
After the cataclysm, the world was in chaos for decades before civilization began to regrow anew.
With the joint efforts of several powerful figures, humanity slowly established the Eight Great Shelters, gradually restoring the order of the pre-disaster world, giving humanity new hope.
The Xinjie City where Qiu Tu was located was not part of the Eight Great Shelters, but a Planning Area.
That is, the areas situated between the Sanctuaries and the Disaster Zone, prepared for the next steps in reconstruction.
There was no comprehensive law here, no strict rules to adhere to, only the most basic law of the wild.
Although middle and high-level management personnel from the various shelters were arranged to manage these areas, they were only tasked with preventing these areas from falling into major turmoil; as for other aspects, they didn't interfere at all.
This resulted in every high-level manager being a Local Tyrant with great power over their respective Planning Area, decreeing life or death at will...
And Qiu Tu's immediate superior, Investigation Bureau Chief Yan Chen of Xinjie City, was one of the high-level managers sent by the shelter, one of the Three Giants in Xinjie City, holding all the power of the Xinjie City Investigation Bureau.
As for Qiu Tu himself, he was Yan Chen's lackey, a mid-level investigator in Xinjie City, specially tasked with doing Yan's dirty work.
Such as killing, collecting taxes, and... ensuring the safety of mistresses.
Well... that protection went all the way to the bed...
Wiping his face, Qiu Tu recalled the last memories of his predecessor in his mind.
In the memory, after an intense encounter with Yan Chen's mistress, the predecessor fell asleep; and while sleeping, he suddenly felt his heart contract sharply, in pain.
The past life was jolted awake, straining to open his eyes, only to be met with ringing ears and vertigo that came hand in hand. His strength dwindled further and further until his consciousness vanished entirely. That was when Qiu Tu took over his identity.
'Was it a sudden illness?'
Reflecting on the previous life's memory of death, Qiu Tu was a bit puzzled.
But he didn't delve deeper into it, after all, sleeping with the Investigation Bureau Chief's woman, dying sooner or later didn't seem to make much of a difference.
In an era where the death toll was uncertain each day, having offended such a significant figure, he was lucky to have been sacked and sank into the sewer the very next day.
If the bigshot was vengeful or psychologically twisted, it was expected for Qiu Tu to be maimed into a specter and haunted for life without death.
'It's a bit thrilling...'
With that thought, Qiu Tu lifted his head to face the very cause of all troubles—the handsome face in the mirror. A radiant smile suddenly spread across his face,
'But... it's already much better than my previous life.'
In his past life, Qiu Tu was deceived by friends and sold off to Northern Myanmar, beaten and insulted every day, too scared to close his eyes at night for fear of being buried alive or having his organs harvested the next day.
So in that environment, he "turned to the dark side" and voluntarily "joined" a tele-scamming group, becoming a specter himself.
Swindling, slashing, killing. He climbed up the ranks step by step, and then... sent each and every person who had deceived and insulted him in the past to hell.
Afterwards, he continued to climb, reaching the management level of the group, and then... At the group's celebratory banquet, he wrapped himself in explosives and blew up the entire syndicate, including the mastermind behind it all, to kingdom come.
Recalling his last years in his previous life, from the moment he was conned into going to Northern Myanmar, he had only death on his path. Compliance meant death, resistance meant death, scheming was death, and lonely revenge was also death.
Now, though dangerous, there was at least a chance at life!
After all, according to the memory of his former self, Bureau Chief Yan Chen did trust his predecessor quite a bit.
As long as Qiu Tu didn't give himself away moving forward, he shouldn't be in danger... right?
And at this moment, as Qiu Tu was lost in thought.
Suddenly, "buzz buzz..." the sound of the Communicator vibrating stirred the air in the cramped toilet.
Hearing the vibration, Qiu Tu glanced at the old Communicator with physical buttons atop the washbasin.
The Communicator's low-resolution yellow-green screen displayed three characters: Director Yan.
Even though he had already braced himself for anything, Qiu Tu's heartbeat still surged at the sight of that name.
He took a deep breath, pressed down the astonishment in his heart, and silently reminded himself to remain calm, the Bureau Chief knew nothing, and if he could just appear a bit more composed, there should be no problem.
However, just as he thought this, suddenly, his vision flashed.
The next second, row after row of prompts also appeared in his sight.
'Crisis Intuition activated! Generating Crisis Report!'
'Your direct superior, Xinjie City Investigation Bureau Chief Yan Chen, is communicating with you.'
'He is suspicious and brutal by nature.'
'Before contacting you, he has already communicated with other confidants and found out that you and his mistress Qin Shuman intentionally dismissed others, spending 4.5 hours alone outside without a third person's company, and have not returned to this moment.'
'Qin Shuman's maid has also secretly informed him that in the past two days, you and Qin Shuman have been flirting relentlessly.'
'He is now extremely angry and has started to doubt your loyalty.'
'However, the cunning and calculated he does not plan to startle the snake in the grass but instead intends to test you.'
'You have only two minutes.'
'If within two minutes, you fail to regain his trust, then by tomorrow, your and Qin Shuman's bodies will be found in the sewers of Xinjie City. You know that with his power, you can't escape.'
'Now, the 2-minute countdown begins.'
As the prompts ended, a sandglass-shaped countdown icon slowly appeared in the upper left corner of his vision....