ACIFITFDB – Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Help! Murder!

This punch directly cleared Lin Qizhi’s dazed expression, and his body quickly shrunk back to normal.

He clutched his aching jaw and curled up on the ground, taking a long time to speak.

With teary eyes, he said, “I’m sorry, Brother Qin. It’s my fault. But can you go a little lighter next time?”

Qin Xian asked, “You want a next time?”

Lin Qizhi shook his head frantically, “No, no, no, no!”

He got up from the ground, still holding his jaw, and tried to get closer to Qin Xian for a sense of security.

But Qin Xian shifted half a step to the side.

Lin Qizhi: Whimper.

It wasn’t that he was timid. As he regained his senses, the “colleagues” in the office, who had seemed like normal people, all stood up.

Just moments ago, they had had lifelike expressions on their faces. Now, there was only emptiness, like puppets.

“No shouting in the office…”

One of them slowly opened his mouth, and the others stiffly took a step forward, mumbling similar phrases.

“No slacking, deductions in performance points…”

“Two hundred deducted for each instance of idle chat…”

“The company doesn’t want people who are just lying around…”

Qin Xian turned to Lin Qizhi and said, “It seems you have a deep resentment towards work.”

Lin Qizhi chuckled awkwardly, “Our company has too much PUA, who would want to come to work? But why are you, a big shot, working at such a garbage company?”

Qin Xian didn’t reply.

Did he have a choice before? After graduating, he was inexperienced and unlucky enough to end up in such a terrible company, and he desperately needed money.

“Get something to defend yourself with. A reminder, although this is a dream, if you die, you’ll become an idiot in reality.”

Lin Qizhi’s scalp tingled, and he immediately prepared to crawl under the desk.

Qin Xian sneered, “Alright, alright, the dog has entered its cage itself. As long as the exit is blocked, you can catch it alive.”

Lin Qizhi immediately retracted his movement, but a colleague was already lunging at him. He screamed in fear and quickly ran around the desk.

Qin Xian couldn’t be bothered to manage him or protect him. He picked up a chair and staged a dramatic scene of office colleagues being beaten up.

Of course, it was him beating up everyone.

Regardless of whether they were familiar faces, Qin Xian swung a chair directly at their temples. His expression grew colder amidst the splashing blood.

While circling his colleagues, Lin Qizhi stole a glance and almost wet himself from fright.

The scene of Qin Xian slitting the general manager’s throat yesterday replayed, this time even more brutal. Looking at the bodies on the ground, Qin Xian was as cold as a murderer.

Fortunately, these “colleagues” didn’t maintain their human form for long. They grew ant-like limbs, their faces contorted like tangled skeins of thread, and their unknown vocal cords emitted sharp shrieks.

They swarmed forward but crashed into each other due to Qin Xian’s evasive maneuvers. The fleshy lines on their heads were scattered and tangled, resembling data cables haphazardly jumbled in a drawer.

Qin Xian stepped back and looked down. The countless lines on the ground suddenly shot up like snakes, lunging towards his neck and torso, attempting to bind him.

With so many lines attacking from all directions, it was impossible to avoid them.

These lines were soft and resilient, and physical attacks were ineffective. Unless something could cut them, or… fire.

Qin Xian quickly rushed to Lin Qizhi’s side and whispered, “Find sunscreen spray, air freshener, or alcohol.”

Before he could finish speaking, he abruptly flipped over a nearby table, pinning the charging ropes to the ground.

Qin Xian jumped up and stomped heavily on the table, urging, “Hurry!”

“Ahhh, who has these things?! Wait!!” Lin Qizhi scrambled towards his seat, pulled out two cans, and threw them at Qin Xian.

Qin Xian caught them and saw they were portable liquefied gas canisters for a portable stove. This was much more effective than sunscreen spray.

The office prohibited high-power electrical appliances and open flames, so it was unclear when Lin Qizhi had hidden them.

The table beneath his feet trembled, and Qin Xian’s weight was no longer enough to hold down the enemy.

He simply jumped away, and the lines under the table surged out furiously. Then, he was met by Qin Xian, who held up the liquefied gas canister and a lighter.

Qin Xian knocked open the safety buckle on the gas canister with his right hand, lit it, and hurled it towards the tangled mass.

With a boom, flames erupted, and the fire ignited the fleshy lines on contact. The lines began to melt and writhed incessantly.

“Low-level things indeed have many weaknesses,” Qin Xian cautiously stepped back and lit another gas canister, throwing it over.

The monsters in the flames struggled but still had the strength to resist, extending several lines stubbornly to entangle Qin Xian.

Qin Xian directly added fuel, scattering all the printed documents near the printer into the fire.

Lin Qizhi, following suit, flipped out all the reports, data, and bids and threw them into the fire, seemingly out of pure anger. A raging fire ignited in the middle of the office.

A thick, acrid stench immediately filled the air. Qin Xian said to Lin Qizhi, “Cover your nose and mouth, we need to go.”

With that, Qin Xian kicked open the office door and dragged Lin Qizhi out.

“Screech!!!” The monster roared and rolled towards the two like a ball of fire.

Lin Qizhi screamed, “Damn it, this thing is so hard to kill!!”

The next second, he, not fast enough, had his ankles entangled by the burning lines and was dragged on the ground, rolling twice, and was miserably pulled towards the fireball.

“Ahhh! Brother Qin, save me!!”

Qin Xian turned back, grabbed Lin Qizhi’s upper body in a “pulling radishes” motion, and then pulled with all his might.

Lin Qizhi screamed in pain, but his leg was successfully freed from the entanglement of the lines.

“Brother Qin! My leg seems dislocated, ahhh!” Lin Qizhi cried out.

Qin Xian replied coldly and carried him down to the next floor, then jumped directly out of the opened stairwell window.

Lin Qizhi screamed, “Brother Qin!!! This is the third floor!!!”

Qin Xian’s voice was frighteningly calm, “This is a dream. Either you wake up, or you experience the feeling of falling to your death.”

Lin Qizhi couldn’t speak and screamed as he fell freely.

The next second, Lin Qizhi woke up in a sweat. He sat up abruptly and frantically felt himself all over.

No injuries, no monsters. He was in a tent, and Qin Xian, sitting beside him, also opened his eyes.

Lin Qizhi said blankly, “We… solved it just like that? Is it dead? Burnt to death?”

Qin Xian’s dark pupils quietly gazed at him.

Lin Qizhi nervously touched his arm and asked cautiously, “What’s wrong, Brother Qin? Didn’t we kill that ghost?”

But the next moment, Qin Xian, who was still sitting quietly, suddenly lunged forward. With immense strength, he knocked Lin Qizhi to the ground and his icy hands fiercely choked his neck.

Lin Qizhi instinctively grabbed Qin Xian’s wrist and struggled with all his might.

Qin Xian lowered his head. Beneath the shadow of his bangs, his eyes were calmly terrifying.

“Help, help me!” The feeling of suffocation made Lin Qizhi’s survival instinct surge. He reached out and clawed at the tent, his legs kicking wildly.

The commotion finally attracted the attention of others. A beam of flashlight cut into the tent, and a security guard abruptly pulled open the curtain.

Seeing the murder scene inside the tent, the security guard was startled and yelled, “What are you doing!? Stop it!! Do you want to kill someone!?”

Qin Xian ignored him and increased the pressure on his hands.

The security guard immediately took out a baton and lunged at Qin Xian, but was kicked to the ground by Qin Xian.

The commotion here alerted others. Two passersby also rushed over, screaming and raising their phones to call the police.

“Hello! 110!? There’s someone murdering here, the address is Bianjiang Park!”

“Let go! Do you know what you’re doing!?”

“Help! Someone is being murdered!!!”

The screams of passersby echoed in his ears. Lin Qizhi was also making his last struggles. His lips began to turn purple, and his expression was already somewhat dazed, but he still stared intently at Qin Xian with his eyes.

Qin Xian snorted coldly and said, “Stop acting. I won’t let go.”

Lin Qizhi’s expression changed, becoming sinister. The passersby beside him vanished in an instant.

“You… how did you know…?”

The eldritch entity squeezed out a few words.

Qin Xian smiled, “Dream within a dream is your usual trick. I haven’t fallen for it in a long time. Was it fun acting? Thank you for turning into Lin Qizhi’s appearance, it made him easier to kill.”

The eldritch entity panicked, struggling more violently, almost flipping Qin Xian over.

This strength was vastly different from before.

But Qin Xian didn’t give it a chance. He used a full ten-tenths of his strength and, with a “crunch,” snapped the neck of “Lin Qizhi.”

After a moment of dizziness, Qin Xian opened his eyes and saw the interior of the tent. He was still sitting on the ground, with Lin Qizhi sleeping beside him.

“Oh my god!” Lin Qizhi suddenly let out a loud yell and sat up.

He dazedly turned his head to see Qin Xian sitting beside him, then yelled again, pulling his blanket tighter and frantically scooting away on the ground until the tent bulged out significantly before stopping.

Seeing Qin Xian sitting there looking at him speechlessly, without moving, Lin Qizhi stammered, “Brother Qin, you… you’re amazing. You actually saw through the illusion created by that monster.”

Qin Xian replied, “It seems you felt everything that just happened.”

Lin Qizhi rubbed his phantomly painful neck and nodded cautiously, “Yes… As soon as I entered the dream, I felt like I was being sleep-paralyzed. I could see my body moving and speaking, but I couldn’t control it. Watching him approach you, I knew he must have possessed my body. I was extremely anxious, afraid you wouldn’t see through it and would be harmed by the monster. I didn’t expect…”

He paused, a little wronged, “Brother Qin, when did you figure it out? From the beginning?”

Qin Xian replied, “When we were in the tent. I didn’t have a weapon in my hand, so the best way was to strangle you. I’m truly sorry if I scared you.”

Although he said sorry, his tone didn’t convey any hint of it…

Lin Qizhi shivered again and took a moment to overcome his fear of Qin Xian, then obediently thanked him, “Brother Qin, thank you for saving me. How much do you want? Five hundred thousand? Don’t worry, even if I don’t have the money, I’ll borrow it for you!”

Qin Xian stood up and rubbed his leg, replying, “No need. Give me your salary for one month. Then, help me with something.”

“What is it? I’ll do my best!”

“If I have to go out for something, help me feed my dog at home.”

Lin Qizhi had recovered from his fear, and Qin Xian’s request moved him deeply. He saved his life and only asked for such a small reward, plus a favor between friends.

Brother Qin, although he sometimes seemed like a murderer, was actually a good person!

Lin Qizhi readily agreed, “No problem! I’ll definitely come to your place and provide the best service for your dog! Not only feeding, but I can also clean, brush, and walk the dog!”

Author’s Note:

———————-

Lin Qizhi: I can brush, feed, and walk the dog!

Tangyuan: I’ll bite you to death.

Explanation: When Qin Tangyuan is in its eldritch form (as a dog), the pronoun used is “it.” When in human form, it is “he.”