The voice was mechanical and eerie, sounding like electronic synthesis, yet also like the hiss of some strange creature in a nightmare.
It made your skin crawl, like fingernails scraping across an iron plate. Just hearing it was enough to raise goosebumps.
Li Fan sobered up in an instant and immediately realized who was calling.
A call from the Cleaning Association!
It was very likely the mysterious president of the Cleaning Association!
From what he said, Li Fan hadn't carried out the raid on the Anomaly Bureau. Instead, by sheer coincidence, he had avoided the Anomaly Bureau's trap and earned the approval of the Cleaning Association's upper ranks?
Li Fan's throat bobbed as he swallowed, but he didn't speak.
At that moment, he was the Collector, a big shot!
Based on the information he'd gathered so far, the Cuckoo Project had been created by the Cleaning Association's upper ranks, and the Collector didn't approve of it. So now, more than ever, he had to keep his composure and maintain his mystique.
Silence.
Only the white noise from the phone and Li Fan's faint breathing could be heard.
At last, the voice came from the other end again. It was still eerie and cold, but this time it carried a hint of emotion:
"...shh...you still don't like to talk...shh...the Association misjudged things this time...shh-shh...you've been wronged...shh-shh...we'll give you ample compensation...shh..."
The other side had backed down!
The Cleaning Association's upper ranks—most likely its president—had backed down to the Collector!
Stay calm, stay calm. It all came down to keeping your emotions in check. A-Fan, you can do this!
Li Fan steadied himself and spoke in a slightly hoarse voice:
"...Everything is for the descent of the Lord of the Abyss."
Hearing Li Fan's words, the being on the other end of the phone seemed to relax as well, taking them as the Collector's expression of reconciliation and submission.
It immediately said the same thing:
"...Everything is for the descent of the Lord of the Abyss."
Then it hung up.
Li Fan couldn't help letting out a long breath.
His back was already soaked with cold sweat.
He had only said one sentence, but the whole exchange had felt like standing before a giant beast ready to devour him.
After all, that was very likely the president of the Cleaning Association—the foremost figure in the world's dark underworld!
He'd bluffed his way through.
It was a good start.
He just had no idea what this so-called "compensation" would be.
What kind of compensation would the Cleaning Association's upper ranks give the Collector?
Would they make him vice president?
But that wouldn't mean much to Li Fan right now. All he wanted was to clock in at three every afternoon, clock out at five, work diligently, and retire.
He stuffed the phone into his pocket and went back inside. Wu Qian and the rest of his coworkers were all dead drunk, with only Deputy Department Head Liu Dalong still relatively sober.
As soon as Li Fan came in, Liu Dalong raised his glass and tried to have another drink with him.
The two of them jostled around, drinking and chatting, and Li Fan got to know the Dissection Department better.
The Anomaly Bureau had only been established ten years ago. Everyone in the bureau had come from other lines of work, and the people who joined the Dissection Department were no exception.
Wu Qian had been a clerk at some government office, Liu Dalong had worked at a meat-packing plant, Ma Lihua had been a department store salesclerk, and so on.
They'd all been recruited after testing higher in mental strength than ordinary people.
Their mental strength was indeed above average, but nowhere near the standard for an Awakened. Stuck in an awkward middle ground, they'd all been assigned to the Support Center.
And since none of them was particularly fond of flattering the bosses, they'd all been kicked over to the Dissection Department to work as its dissectors.
They were almost doctors, too.
"Fan, our department head may be slippery as an eel, but I hear his mental strength is almost a hundred. With a bit more effort, he could become an Awakened."
Liu Dalong slurred as he chatted with Li Fan.
"Things were really slow in our department a few years back. The whole bureau was idle. Your uncle even set up a little butcher shop on the side. Let me tell you, it made a killing! Nothing like now, when we have to work two hours a day. I hear they're going to extend it to two and a half. Sigh..."
"Your uncle's a master butcher. Ever heard of Cook Ding carving up an ox? I can carve up a pig! You look a little scrawny, too. Come by my shop sometime, and I'll get you a few pairs of kidneys to build you up. Don't worry, they're all from our own pigs. They'll put some fire in you!"
"Hey, how can you drink so much? You're drinking enough for the whole department... You've got a liquor-digesting enzyme turned into a spirit or something..."
Liu Dalong collapsed.
He simply couldn't keep up with Li Fan.
Straightening his clothes, Li Fan looked at his coworkers sprawled around the room. He thought back to the miserable time he'd been force-fed drinks by his boss when he first started a short-lived job in the public sector in his previous life, and a heartfelt sense of satisfaction welled up inside him.
It seemed his greatest talent right now was drinking.
Did that count as an Awakened ability?
After everyone had sobered up a little, Li Fan called a few cars and sent all his coworkers home before returning to his dormitory.
Looking around the familiar yet unfamiliar dorm room, Li Fan decided that tonight he would do just one thing: turn the place upside down and search it thoroughly to see if the former Collector had left anything behind.
He urgently needed anything that could keep him alive.
Desperately!
The next day, after spending the whole night rummaging through his dorm room, Li Fan slept until one in the afternoon before getting up.
He ate something, then tidied up the room.
After a whole night of searching, he had found only a black notebook and an antique-looking bronze key.
The notebook was completely blank.
The key was ordinary too, without the slightest unusual feature. It just had a few seal-script characters engraved on it.
Li Fan threaded a cord through it and wore it around his neck.
He changed into a uniform somewhat like a protective suit and headed to work.
The Dissection Department's offices were in a three-story building tucked away in a remote corner of the Anomaly Bureau compound, separate from the Support Center's building.
Li Fan arrived at the department at three. To his surprise, that counted as early; a few coworkers were late.
Zhang Hongbing, who had been assigned to show Li Fan the ropes, was punctual. As soon as he saw Li Fan, he took him around the office building to get him familiar with the place.
The third floor had the staff dormitories and a gym. They were generally used for lunch breaks and exercise, but since everyone started work at three in the afternoon, nobody took naps there. The rooms were covered in cobwebs.
The second floor was everyone's workspace. It was where they handled things like organizing files and forwarding documents.
The first floor had the Equipment Room and various Dissection Rooms. That was where they mainly dissected anomalously infected subjects.
There were also three basement levels, including a storage room for anomalous items, a morgue, and formalin tanks.
They were mainly used to store the infected corpses and various anomalous items.
"The most important place in the Dissection Department is actually the Equipment Room. We can't start dissecting an anomalously infected subject until we've made sure all the equipment is in place and everything's completely safe."
Zhang Hongbing held up a heavy protective suit and spoke to Li Fan in a serious tone.
"Even if the infected subjects have already been disinfected layer by layer by other departments and should basically be safe, nobody can guarantee that they're completely harmless. So we have to take precautions."
"No one can enter the Dissection Room without a protective suit. That's the department head's rule: work comes second, safety first."
Li Fan nodded and took the suit, inspecting it carefully. He found that it wasn't quite like an ordinary protective suit. Not only did it have a radio communication device, but the visor had clearly been specially treated as well.
He immediately recognized it as the "anomaly-proof suit" he'd learned about in training, designed mainly to protect against anomalous infection.
Zhang Hongbing then knocked on a cabinet beside them and said:
"The Dissection Department also has weapons. This is the gun cabinet. There's another one in the duty room, just to make absolutely sure we're covered."
"Also, even though our work schedule is pretty relaxed, we still have to assign someone to stand watch every day. The main job is to keep an eye on the bodies in the basement and make sure nothing goes wrong."
Li Fan asked curiously:
"What could go wrong with corpses?"
Zhang Hongbing glanced around, then lowered his voice:
"It's mainly to keep the freaks from the Investigation Division away. You don't know this, but some of those people have worked so long they've gone crazy. Last year, one of them even snuck into the morgue in the middle of the night to look for a female corpse. Ugh, I can't even talk about it..."
Li Fan shuddered, a chill running through him.
"Good grief, what a pervert!"
Zhang Hongbing nodded.
"When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back. Stick around long enough and you'll understand. Since today's your first day, you can get familiar with the routine. You're on duty tonight."
"Sure, Doctor Zhang. No problem." Li Fan nodded.
He checked the time. It was already four fifty. Time to clock out.
Just then, Ke Ke's voice rang out:
"Engineer Zhang, the Investigation Division sent over an infected subject. They want us to check whether there's any infection left inside."
Zhang Hongbing nodded. "All right. Xiao Li and I will go take a look."
Then he turned to Li Fan and said, "Put on your protective suit. We're going to cut open a corpse."
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