"This job can give more meaning to time, allow me to exert my mental and physical energy, expose me to more people and events, help me accumulate more experience, and enable me to realize my own value."
At midnight, Han Fei stood in the creepy convenience store shrouded by darkness in a dimly lit corner of the city, with only ten drops of blood remaining. He wore a professional smile as he looked at the frighteningly thin store clerk in front of him.
"I really am here for the interview."
They locked eyes, and after a full minute, the gaunt clerk seemed to suddenly awaken from a dream, some semblance of sanity returning to his remaining eye.
The murky eye moved within its socket, and the clerk stopped muttering the terrible, incomprehensible words. Instead, he clearly stated a few words, "This store isn’t mine. If you want to work here, you need its approval."
The one-eyed clerk moved past the shelves, leading Han Fei to the deepest part of the convenience store and opened a door, signaling Han Fei to enter.
Faint light radiated from inside the room. Although Han Fei was somewhat reluctant, he still went in.
Behind the door was the convenience store’s warehouse, filled with various items.
The one-eyed clerk acted like a puppet on strings. Most of the time, he was devoid of his own thoughts, his mind muddled, and his walk uncoordinated, as if his body could fall apart at any moment.
"It’s in here. If you can find it, it means it agrees for you to stay," said the one-eyed clerk, his eye constantly twitching in its socket, a rather scary sight, "That candle is about to burn out; you’d better hurry."
After speaking, he left Han Fei alone and locked in the warehouse.
"He’s gone? Could he be deceiving me?"
The convenience store’s warehouse was filled with various items, and Han Fei didn’t know what the clerk was asking him to find: "The true owner of this convenience store doesn’t seem to be a ’person,’ but rather an item. According to the clerk’s hint, I need to find it before the candle finishes burning."
For other inhabitants of the Deep World, searching for something without any clues was very difficult; they didn’t know what the object looked like or its purpose, but Han Fei was different–he was a player, and the system would automatically identify most items he touched.
Without wasting time, Han Fei first reached for the burning candle on the candlestick.
"A White Wax candle used to commemorate dead souls."
The system’s description was straightforward. The candle contained dark energy and was a special item, however, not the one Han Fei was looking for.
Picking up the pace, Han Fei touched item after item in the warehouse. As time went on, the light from the candle weakened, and the room grew noticeably darker.
Alarms started going off from the ring on his finger. Han Fei had a bad feeling. He initially thought the convenience store had everything like a White Goods Store, but it was only after delving deeper into the storage room that he discovered everything there was for the deceased.
The scene before him was terrifying, but considering the nature of the game "Perfect Life," Han Fei wasn’t too surprised.
Before the candle went out, Han Fei arrived at the last row of shelves, which were filled with paper dolls and located at the deepest part of the warehouse.
Standing in front of the shelf, Han Fei felt as if he were being stared at by numerous eyes. He braced himself and touched the paper dolls.
The sensation of his fingers sliding over paper was peculiar. Each Paperman seemed to have a different temperature, as if harboring various souls within.
Just as the candle flickered near extinguishment, Han Fei felt a sensation from his fingertips like no other.
He stopped in his tracks, looking at what his fingers had just touched. At the moment he looked up, the candlelight in the room was extinguished.
"The sensation I felt from my fingertips was as if I had touched living human skin, although I had clearly touched a paper doll. Its body was warm."
A sharp pain suddenly shot through his wrist, and before Han Fei could react, a dim light reappeared in the warehouse, igniting a new White Wax candle atop the candlestick.
This time, Han Fei could clearly see the candle. The fully intact White Wax was engraved with a pained Ghost Face, and it seemed the candles in the room were made from Lonely Ghosts.
The warehouse door opened, and the one-eyed clerk moved shakily, taking a few steps to reach Han Fei’s side, "It agrees for you to stay."
Han Fei always felt the one-eyed clerk was merely a messenger; his thinking was muddled most of the time.
"I’ll start by acquainting you with the store," said the one-eyed clerk in a tone devoid of any emotion. He led Han Fei through the storeroom, introducing him to the various sections, "You need to remember the location of these goods. If the merchandise outside is sold out, you have to replenish it promptly, and if any new goods arrive, you will be responsible for receiving them."
"New goods arrive? Does anyone actually deliver goods here?"
"Every person who enters the store is both a customer and merchandise," the one-eyed clerk said after a long pause, then added, "Most of the time, they are customers."
"Understood," Han Fei nodded.
"You’re also in charge of the store’s cleanliness. Many customers will make a mess inside, so you must ensure it stays clean and tidy—at least it should appear very clean on the surface. That way, customers will be inclined to make purchases." The one-eyed clerk pointed to the labels on the warehouse shelves, "All items in the store do not have their prices marked, but they all have an implicit price."
"What do you mean by implicit price?"
"We simply classify the customers who come into the store based on the intensity of their obsessions into seven categories: slight regret, considerable regret, extreme regret. Those with regrets are the most common; their body parts are not highly priced, and even those with extreme regret in their hearts do not fetch a high price." The one-eyed clerk was imparting knowledge about the value of goods, but to Han Fei, it sounded more like an explanation of the strength levels of the fierce ghosts in this world.
"Customer prices steeply escalate from those with regrets to those with grudges. These customers with grudges usually disguise themselves just like those with regrets, maintaining a human form. But when those grudges encounter danger, they will reveal their true bodies, transforming into all sorts of monsters. The value of a grudge is related to its size; we categorize them into small, medium, and large scale based on their body size."
These words from the one-eyed clerk reminded Han Fei of Little Eight, who normally behaved like a harmless child, but when all the victims of the Human-body Puzzle fused together, she would turn into a Blood-colored Evil Ghost of enormous size.
"Grudges are dangerous but also very rare. If you encounter a small or medium-scaled grudge, you can try to make a transaction with it. If you come across a large-scaled grudge, then you must find a way to lure it into the warehouse."
"Senior, didn’t you mention earlier that customers are divided into seven categories? All counted, that only makes six."
"A very small number of grudges will transform into pure Hatred. We refer to these customers briefly as Hatred. If you encounter Hatred and are lucky enough to survive, then you can find it in the storeroom and let it tell you what to do."
The pricing of goods in this store was highly bizarre, with all items priced according to body parts of customers. For instance, the Candy at the entrance was priced equivalent to the eyeball of a customer harboring regret, whereas the Paperman at the far end of the shelf was priced the same as a small-scaled Grudge’s head.
Such bloody and straightforward pricing was no wonder they dared not to write the prices directly on the products.
After finishing the introduction of customer’s intrinsic value and the goods in the storeroom, the one-eyed clerk quizzed Han Fei, who to his surprise, answered fluently. He had memorized the names and locations of all the goods after just one look.
"Senior, last night, it seemed like a Gesheng resounded, was that... Hatred?" Han Fei had barely started his question when he was sharply glared at by the clerk.
"Above Hatred, there are no longer customers. That level is called ’unspeakable.’ If you don’t want to die inexplicably, then do not speak of these things." The one-eyed clerk resumed introducing the shelves outside, taught Han Fei how to use various tools in the store, and then led him into the employee preparation room.
"This is where we hand over shifts. The photos on the wall are of our former colleagues."
After saying this, Han Fei looked up and saw a wall nearly plastered with photos, the faces of which had been scribbled over in red.
"Look here." As Han Fei turned around, the one-eyed clerk pressed the shutter of the camera in his hand. A photo quickly ejected from the old camera: "Your photo will also be posted here in the future. Huh?"
Holding Han Fei’s photo, the one-eyed clerk’s expression changed for the first time.
"Why can’t the camera capture you?" The one-eyed clerk handed the photo to Han Fei, which showed nothing at all.
Han Fei also found it strange. Could it be that this camera could only photograph ghosts?
He glanced at the camera, which hid a Ghost Eye within its lens.
"How about we try again?" This time Han Fei activated the Ghost Pattern on his body and let the Dark Energy from the unfortunate ghost on the eighth floor permeate his own body.
The one-eyed clerk took another shot, and this time a figure appeared in the photo, though it was blurred and looked completely different from Han Fei.
"Let’s just go with this." The one-eyed clerk took out a palm-sized Paperman from the drawer and pinned the photo and the Paperman together on the wall, "If anything gets lost in the store, then it will be up to you to compensate. Other than that, there are no more requirements."
"I intended to be a temporary worker, so what should I do if I need to leave later?" Han Fei mustered the courage to ask.
"Leave?" The one-eyed clerk’s eye began to dart around as black lines emerged all over his body, which pierced straight into his veins and heart, an unimaginable pain suddenly manifested, and he violently threw himself onto the ground, vomiting countless scraps of paper.
It took a long while for the one-eyed clerk to recover. His mind seemed foggy again, and the remaining eye appeared somewhat clouded, "What did you just ask me?"
"Nothing important, I said I will work hard in hopes of our boss achieving financial freedom soon."