"20, 21, 22..."
Milton Clyde, manager of Branch No. 9.
He held a notebook as he walked through the second-floor corridor, checking the room numbers against the information in the notebook.
Branch No. 9 had already received twenty-two Ghost Residents. The next would be the twenty-third, which meant that one more mission would bring Branch No. 9 its own Four-Star Promotion.
The enormous number of Ghost Residents was not a good thing for Clyde, but a form of pressure in reverse.
Looking at the numbers in his notebook, he felt an inexplicable sense of dread. He had no way of knowing how many more subsequent missions he could survive with his own abilities.
Wei Jiande followed behind him without a word. He was around fifty years old and possessed a maturity utterly different from Clyde's.
His dark face was expressionless, and the downward turn of his mouth gave him a cold, No Trespassing for the Living look.
Wei Jiande, the "Old Wei" who had appeared several times in Branch No. 9, had been appointed Vice Branch Manager after Clyde became manager.
"Gu Xingjian is dead. Old Huang has fallen apart. We're in a bad situation. Since you've become the manager, you have to carry the burden."
Wei Jiande's voice was cold when he said this. It was simply his nature, not because he held any hostility toward Clyde.
How could Clyde not understand that reality? Yet all he could do was laugh bitterly to himself.
Now, Gu Xingjian's memorial portrait hung in the entrance hall on the first floor, suspended alongside those of the previous seven branch managers.
Even if Clyde could barely believe it, Gu Xingjian really was dead, and Branch No. 9 had changed hands. That was reality.
After the Sixth Manager Mission, Huang Banxian seemed to have