Encounter

After casually fiddling with the fine-grade pistol with its silver-white casing for a while, Wang Zhifan tossed it into his personal storage space.

He then wrapped the rare-grade black Iron Mountain Sash around his waist. It looked like a good fit, resembling a somewhat narrow belt and not drawing any attention at all. He quickly decided to wear this piece of physical damage-reduction equipment even in everyday life.

Lastly, he picked up the yellow gemstone ring—the fine-grade Unyielding Ring—and tried it on. He soon discovered that it had a certain adaptive quality; it fit on any of his fingers without issue.

"This ring looks a little too conspicuous. I'd better not wear it normally and only take it out when I'm injured someday."

After thinking it over, Wang Zhifan decided to keep as low a profile as possible and not wear the yellow gemstone ring in daily life. He tossed it into his personal storage space as well.

After dealing with his newly acquired rewards, he began pondering something that puzzled him: why had he been forcibly thrown into a Punishment Instance in the previous dungeon? The opponents in that Punishment Instance had not been weak either, which meant that the unknown great existence that created these dungeons considered his violation fairly serious.

"First, my punishment definitely had nothing to do with that bespectacled, short, fat teammate who died first. He got trampled to death by the wild boar entirely because he suddenly ran away and triggered the dungeon mechanism himself."

"Then it probably wasn't because I chopped off that trench-coated guy's hand. He was already raising his gun to threaten me before I cut him. That was absolutely self-defense."

"Putting it all together, the most likely reason I was punished was that I deliberately stood beside the trench-coated guy with the severed hand and lured the wild boar into trampling him to death? Did I violate some rule against deliberately setting up teammates? But we were already hostile toward each other by then. Was screwing him over once really that serious? These dungeons are way too strict about player behavior... Looks like if I ever fall out with a teammate in the future, I should just kill them with one slash when they make a move, so I don't accidentally end up in a Punishment Instance later."

Some mechanisms of player dungeons were explained outright within the dungeons, while others had to be explored and summarized by the players themselves. Even though Wang Zhifan possessed all the memories of the original owner lurking on player forums, he had still made some mistakes. But a setback made one wiser; he certainly would not casually violate the rules again and suffer through a Punishment Instance.

After roughly reviewing the lessons from the previous dungeon, Wang Zhifan planned to play on his laptop and rest for a while, then go out for lunch at noon.

But shortly after turning on his computer and browsing the player forums, he suddenly noticed that it was already past ten in the morning. That reminded him of the interview he had scheduled yesterday.

"Crap, I almost forgot I have an interview at eleven. That place isn't close—I need to leave right now."

Since Wang Zhifan cared quite a bit about finding stable employment to solve his financial problems, he hurried out of his shabby rented room before long and caught a bus.

About an hour later, a few minutes after eleven, he finally arrived at an inconspicuous place in the western outskirts of Dongjiang City. In a small industrial park there, he found his destination: a game company on the seventh floor of an old building.

Just as Wang Zhifan had expected, the game company was very small. It had the overall feel of a tiny studio, and the salary it offered was fairly low. Probably only someone urgently looking for work like him would consider it.

What Wang Zhifan had not expected, however, was that while he felt that coming to this company was beneath him, the company did not see it that way. After he arrived, they made him wait nearly half an hour on the grounds that the boss was in a meeting. Only then did they send an HR representative to perfunctorily chat with him, ask a bunch of miscellaneous questions, and finally tell him to go home and wait for notification.

"Damn it, this tiny company isn't even in a hurry to hire anyone. They called me here just to jerk me around. That HR probably wanted to pad their work records."

The moment Wang Zhifan left the industrial park, he could not help grumbling inwardly. Before transmigrating, he had also been a working adult with some experience in society. He knew that this interview had almost certainly gone nowhere and had merely wasted several hours of his time and energy.

Feeling rather speechless, he walked along the street outside the industrial park toward the nearest bus stop. At the same time, he considered whether he truly needed to keep applying everywhere. Perhaps occasionally selling some equipment, like when he had sold bullets on Tianhua Street before, would be enough to get by.

"Someone should be willing to buy the ordinary-grade pistol in my personal storage space, but it definitely won't fetch much... None of the other equipment can be sold for now."

While thinking about how to make a little money, Wang Zhifan reached the bus stop. It was an utterly inconspicuous little stop in the western outskirts of Dongjiang City, and aside from him, only one or two people were waiting for a bus.

The bus had yet to arrive, so, somewhat bored, he lowered his head and played on his phone. But after a short while, he sensed someone pulling a suitcase in his direction and drawing closer. He raised his head and glanced over.

"So it really is you. I thought I might have mistaken someone else just now."

Standing beside Wang Zhifan was a girl wearing a white baseball cap, with neat, ear-length light brown hair. Her features were exquisitely pretty, and paired with a white short-sleeved top and blue-green jeans, she looked fashionable and energetic. As she pulled her suitcase, she looked at Wang Zhifan with a somewhat surprised expression and spoke.

"Chu Wei?"

Wang Zhifan was also rather surprised. He could not help calling her name, after all, he had joined this girl in fighting Ash Domain monsters on a bus just yesterday, and they had later been taken to the station together. He had not expected to run into her again so soon.

"Yes. If I remember correctly, your name is Wang Zhifan?"

Seeing that the young man before her recognized her, the girl raised her chin slightly and stared at him. Her bright eyes blinked beneath the brim of her white cap.

"Yeah... Where are you headed?"

Wang Zhifan then asked why she was dragging a suitcase around.

"I'm moving. I'm moving into the dormitory today."

The girl named Chu Wei promptly explained.

"You joined the Administration that quickly?"

Wang Zhifan immediately asked in reflex, because he remembered that when he had left the station yesterday, she seemed to have been in an interview.

"Yes."

Chu Wei immediately nodded.

"The Administration is seriously short-handed right now, so a lot of the hiring procedures have been simplified."

"Then congratulations. You've got yourself an iron rice bowl."

Once he confirmed that she had indeed joined the Special Administration Bureau, Wang Zhifan could not honestly say he felt no envy. But he was not the kind of person who liked being constrained too much either, so his congratulations were sincere.