ACIFITFDB – Chapter 2

Chapter 2: If the boss is dead, I don’t have to go to this damn job anymore…

“What’s going on? I think I just fell asleep and had a terrifying dream.”

“Me too! But I can’t remember the specifics. Oh, I’m covered in a cold sweat.”

“Same here. This is too bizarre, isn’t it? Could there be some kind of toxic gas in the office?”

“We haven’t opened the windows for ventilation in a long time, and they’re all closed. The central air is off too. Oh my god, did we just walk past the gates of hell? Quick, open the windows!”

The office descended into chaos. Some immediately opened the windows for ventilation, while others continued to discuss the matter. Most attributed the issue to the air quality, not suspecting anything supernatural.

Qin Xian closed his eyes, carefully sensing the surrounding atmosphere. It was normal; he found nothing.

Either this was the Real World, but the Real World was different from what he imagined. Or, this was an unusual Dungeon, one that even he couldn’t detect the strangeness of.

“Everyone, gather in the conference room within three minutes!”

“Everyone, gather in the conference room within three minutes!”

“Ev-ev-everyone, ev-ev-three… static… three minutes…”

The sudden, loud broadcast startled everyone.

“Is the broadcast broken?”

“Why is there a meeting right before quitting time again…”

“I’m done, you stupid %#%…”

Qin Xian’s expression turned grim.

What was happening? Was this a looping Dungeon? Or was the dream just a dream, and this was reality now?

He stood up with a composed face and was the first to head towards the conference room. As he brushed past a colleague, the person instinctively shivered, as if encountering something terrifying, and immediately made way for him.

Pushing open the conference room door, a foul odor assaulted his senses. General Manager Zhao’s corpse lay on the floor, already starting to decompose. It was unclear how long he had been dead there.

“Ah!! Someone’s dead!! General Manager Zhao is dead!!!”

Colleagues, drawn by the smell, let out screams upon witnessing the horrifying scene, throwing the office into disarray. Qin Xian took a few steps back and pulled out his phone to call the police.

The phone rang twice, and surprisingly, someone answered. The person on the other end spoke clearly, asked Qin Xian a few questions, and then solemnly stated that officers would be dispatched immediately, asking Qin Xian to secure the scene.

Seeing a colleague next to him raising their phone to call the police, he calmly said, “I’ve already called. Everyone, let’s go back to our desks. The police will be here soon.”

The colleagues looked at him. Most didn’t have a strong impression of Qin Xian, but his words seemed to possess a certain magic, an inherent fear and obedience that made people instinctively listen.

The group returned to the office. No one was typing on their keyboards anymore. Most people gathered in twos and threes, intensely discussing the death scene they had just witnessed. Some were furiously tapping on their phone screens, likely sharing this major event with friends, family, or netizens.

Compared to before, everyone’s expressions were now much more vivid, much more lifelike.

Qin Xian looked out the window. Below, sanitation workers were watering the flowerbeds, a young couple on the street shared a cup of bubble tea, and a delivery rider weaved nimbly through pedestrians on his electric scooter.

It was real, the kind of reality he hadn’t seen in two years, not at all like being in a Dungeon.

“Hey, who is he? Do we have anyone this handsome in our office?”

“It’s Qin Xian, it says so on his work ID.”

“I think I vaguely remember him, but he basically never talks… Is he really this good-looking? And he seems to have such a refined aura.”

“Sister Li, ask him for his WeChat later.”

“…No, no. I don’t know why, but I feel a bit scared looking at him…”

“You know what, you’re right. I feel a strange fear of him too.”

Qin Xian turned to look at them. The colleagues who had been chattering moments ago immediately turned their heads and changed the subject.

“Hey, the boss is dead, do we still have to come to work tomorrow…”

Most likely, I won’t have to come to this damn job anymore, Qin Xian thought boredly.

About ten minutes later, a team of police officers arrived and set up a cordon outside the conference room. Two officers entered the office to question them, asking who discovered the scene and when they last saw General Manager Zhao.

After the discovery of General Manager Zhao’s body, everything that followed proceeded without any anomalies.

Qin Xian looked out the window again. He still leaned towards this being the Real World, as Infinite Stream Dungeons usually didn’t have the option to call the police, and officers rarely showed up to handle cases.

He walked towards the police, tentatively saying, “Officers, we actually encountered something strange. Just now, our entire office fell asleep and had a terrible nightmare.”

The police officer abruptly looked up and asked, “Everyone fell asleep? What kind of nightmare did you have?”

“Yes, yes, we really fell asleep, maybe for about ten minutes.”

“I don’t remember the specifics of the nightmare, do you guys?”

Qin Xian: “I remember a little. I dreamed that General Manager Zhao called us to a meeting, but he turned into a monster covered in fat and wanted to kill us.”

Prompted by his words, others suddenly recalled something.

“I think I also dreamed that General Manager Zhao became a monster! But then someone…”

Qin Xian: “Officers, could this be caused by some kind of hallucinogenic gas?”

A female officer subconsciously replied, “It shouldn’t be…”

Her colleague immediately interjected, “It’s possible. We’ll come back later to test the air quality here and see if there was any poisoning. Thank you for your cooperation with the investigation. Please provide your names and phone numbers. If the investigation requires further cooperation, please comply.”

Qin Xian observed the reactions of the two officers. It was clear they had some suspicions about the cause of the strange collective sleep. The police had initially treated the case as a normal death, but after he mentioned the strange occurrence in the office, the officers’ eyes showed a look of realization.

These police officers likely knew that there were things in this world that defied common sense.

Did the Real World always have these anomalies? Had he simply never encountered them before?

Qin Xian descended the stairs with a solemn expression. To test the reality of this world, he directly hailed a taxi and had it drive from the east side of the city to the west, then circled the outer ring road.

Under the taxi driver’s farewell, Qin Xian paid with a cold face. The fare was 350 yuan, and his bank account still had over 6,700 yuan.

Now, Qin Xian could roughly confirm that he had returned to reality. So far, he hadn’t encountered any Dungeon that could simulate such a large, complex, and real city, where every small detail, every person’s behavior, and even the ants crawling in the flowerbeds were normal and logically sound.

The so-called game Dungeons were actually just unique, bizarre domains. Some were as small as a building, while others could be as large as a small town or half a city.

Darkness had completely fallen. After a quick meal of beef noodles, Qin Xian slowly walked home along the street.

Although he was more likely in the Real World, the situation had become even more fantastical. Did the Real World itself contain anomalies? Had they appeared recently, or had they always existed?

The streetlights ahead flickered suddenly. Qin Xian stopped, frowning and staring warily ahead.

Passersby glanced at him curiously, then chuckled and walked under the flickering light.

The lights flickered twice more. Moths could be seen flying in the flashing light; there was nothing else unusual, just a simple short circuit.

Qin Xian frowned unhappily and continued forward.

His residence was in an old district. The road surface had been newly paved, but many other basic facilities and buildings were very old.

There were no elevators in these buildings, which were six stories high. Many windows were old casement windows, with ugly anti-theft bars installed outside.

Qin Xian stopped in front of a building, looking at the familiar place.

This was where he grew up. He used to have a warm family; his parents ran a small noodle shop nearby. But after he went to college, both of them passed away from illness, and now he lived alone.

“Heh,” Qin Xian chuckled.

Why was he reminiscing about the past so much today? It was quite melancholic.

As he raised his foot to go upstairs, he suddenly heard a faint whimper from the alley beside him. The light didn’t reach the alley; it was completely dark. Was it a small animal or an anomaly?

Qin Xian turned and walked into the alley. In the dim alley, he saw a curled-up black shadow.

Upon closer inspection, it was a black dog. There were some bloodstains on its body, its paw fur was matted with blood, and its thigh had a deep, bone-exposing tear.

I’m really being overly suspicious… He knelt on one knee, carefully observing the pitiful animal.

The dog lifted its eyelids and looked at him, then closed them again.

It seemed to be indifferent and wary, or perhaps just too weak.

“It’s quite pathetic, but I can’t take you in. Although I’d really like a dog, I can barely afford to feed myself right now.”

After all, he was going to be unemployed starting tomorrow.

The dog lifted its eyelids again and let out another soft whimper from its throat.

Qin Xian showed no expression. He stood up and turned to leave, not looking back even as the whimpering behind him grew more pathetic.

The black dog fell silent, its eyes fixed on Qin Xian’s retreating figure. A trace of blood flashed in its pupils. Wisps of black energy coalesced beneath it, forming a darkness blacker than shadow. The black dog slowly sank into this darkness, but before it could completely disappear, its ears twitched, and it immediately resumed its weak posture, lying in place.

Qin Xian’s figure reappeared at the alley entrance. This time, he held a disposable cup and knelt down, pouring the water directly into the dog’s mouth.

The dog’s clear black and white eyes moved to look at him and began to lap up the water. After drinking half the cup, Qin Xian placed the cup aside and stood up. “Alright, if you can drink water, you should be okay. There are many kind people around here. If you keep crying, someone will probably take you in.”

With that, he left completely without looking back. Upon returning home, he tiredly collapsed onto the sofa, closing his eyes and entering a state of half-sleep, half-wakefulness.

But after only about twenty minutes, his eyelashes trembled uneasily, and he opened his eyes. His gaze was clear, and he was no longer sleepy. This was a lingering effect of spending too much time in Infinite Stream worlds; he couldn’t achieve restful sleep.

Qin Xian was accustomed to it and took out his phone to search for discussions about supernatural events. He browsed through various bizarre rumors, but nothing stood out.

However, when he switched to searching for news, he found some strange things.

The first news item was about a school suicide incident that shocked the nation, sparking widespread online discussion and several trending topics. Amidst discussions about academic pressure and school bullying, a few comments caught Qin Xian’s attention.

[Netizen 1: My classmate is from that school. He said the school is haunted. When he was going back after evening study, he saw a ghost hand holding the top student’s hand and leading him upstairs, then pushing him off the roof.]

The ghost hand mentioned in this comment was similar to a common type of weak anomaly in Infinite Stream worlds.

He clicked on the replies to this comment; several IP addresses from the same province agreed.

The second news item that caught Qin Xian’s attention was a bus fire.

Although the police stated the cause of the fire was under investigation, a considerable number of people claimed they watched the entire bus suddenly become engulfed in flames.

The photos of the bus wreckage showed no signs of a large explosion. The sudden engulfment in flames did not align with normal natural laws.

Then there was a gas explosion in a new residential complex, a serial killer in the city, and multiple disappearances.

These news stories were all from the past two months. Many netizens lamented that major accidents had become more frequent recently. Could something be wrong with the Real World?

Qin Xian put away his phone and closed his eyes, attempting to activate the abilities he had gained in that world, just like in a Dungeon. When he returned to the Real World, he had tried, and nothing had changed. He seemed to have completely reverted to being an ordinary person.

But just now, he had a subtle feeling.

Qin Xian’s closed eyes snapped open, his irises turning a brilliant golden color.

This was one of the skills he had acquired in the Infinite Stream world, called “Insight.” It allowed him to see the true nature of things and to perceive the pollution aura emitted by anomalies, thus locating them. Moreover, this ability could only be shielded, not deceived; if he could see it, it was real.

It sounded very useful, but he only had one use per day, lasting only a few seconds. Exceeding the limit would cause immense strain on his eyes, potentially leading to blindness.

The world before him remained unchanged. According to the “Insight” ability, this would largely prove that this world was not fake.

His eyeballs began to sting intensely. Qin Xian endured the pain and walked to the window to gaze into the distance, still finding nothing.

The pain became unbearable, and he could only close his eyes. When he opened them again, they had returned to their original deep brown color.

Qin Xian stood by the bed, frowning in thought.

His skill had been reactivated, but his other abilities had not fully returned. For now, only Insight was usable.

And the answer given by Insight was that this was indeed the Real World.

This was truly bizarre. Had he been living in an unreal world for over twenty years? Or was there an even more terrifying possibility?

Qin Xian thought with a dark expression: the grotesque and sinister Main God might not be so kind as to send him back so easily. Could it be that he brought some “dirty things” back with him?

Qin Xian’s fingers tightened on the windowsill, his fingertips turning white from the force.

He didn’t want to become a sinner who brought doom to the world.

“Wuwu…”

The familiar whimpering sound came from downstairs again. Qin Xian looked down. The stray dog was still curled up in place, no one had taken it in, and its cries had grown even weaker.

Qin Xian frowned, looking down.

He didn’t know what this dog had experienced, if it had been abused. But he knew that pets that died tragically from abuse were most likely to attract anomalies or become anomalies themselves. This could lead to other casualties, and he should intervene.

He immediately turned around, rummaged through his wardrobe, found a clean bath towel, and went downstairs.

The black dog in the alley was still lying in the same spot. Perhaps out of extreme weakness or fear, its tail was pressed motionless against the ground. Even upon seeing Qin Xian again, it merely opened its eyes indifferently and watched him quietly.

Qin Xian squatted down and carefully covered the dog with the towel.

As if sensing that a human was trying to help it, the stray dog didn’t move and was obediently wrapped and picked up.

The smell of blood mixed with the dog’s scent and other odors assaulted his nose. Qin Xian wrinkled his nose slightly. “Tsk, you’re really dirty. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a bath right now.”

The dog remained silent, showing no reaction. But one couldn’t expect a dog to understand human speech and respond.

Qin Xian carried it upstairs and placed it on the balcony.

There was no other choice; the smell was too strong. Since it was spring and the weather was neither too hot nor too cold, leaving it on the balcony wouldn’t be a problem.

Next, he took out the first-aid kit at home, found some expired disinfectant, bandages, and gauze, and simply and skillfully cleaned and disinfected the dog’s wounds, then bandaged them.

“There, it’s just a fractured leg. And a few open wounds. You probably don’t need to go to a pet hospital. Even if you did, I couldn’t afford it. If you’re still alive tomorrow morning, I’ll keep you for now.” Qin Xian patted the dog’s head, turned, and went back into his room, closing the balcony door.