Chief Li, you're famous again!

"Hello, Chief Li."

"You're back, Chief Li? That was a long business trip!"

"Chief Li... huh, he headed straight for the Technical Team as soon as he got back. He really loves his work."

Li Qing, who supposedly "loved his work," returned to the Division One building and made a beeline for the Technical Team leader's office without a glance to either side.

He knocked three times, waited three seconds, then pushed the door straight open.

"Hee hee hee..."

"Heh heh heh..."

Two figures were huddled in front of a computer screen, apparently oblivious to Li Qing's arrival.

"Chief Li looks pretty good on camera. We should trick him into filming Division One's next promotional video!"

"That might be a little difficult, but..."

"Not happening."

Li Qing spoke flatly.

The two figures plotting at full volume froze.

The standing figure turned around first, speaking in an electronic female voice. "Hi~ Chief Li, you're back?"

She was a... female body dressed in high heels and a fitted white skirt suit.

That description was necessary because above her neck, where her head should have been, there was only a monitor.

The monitor flickered twice, displaying a pretty woman's face in heavy makeup. An enthusiastic voice came from the speaker beside it. "Long time no see~"

Li Qing nodded politely. "Long time no see, Miaomiao."

-Miaomiao, head of Division One's Logistics Team, was likewise one of the twenty S-rank administrators in the Death Instance world.

"Uh-oh," Miaomiao said, playing with the blond curls on her screen. "Chief Li looks ready for battle, Boss Zhang."

Only then did Zhang Qin, leader of the Technical Team, turn around in his swivel chair, the corners of his mouth twitching guiltily. "Haha, did the mission go smoothly?"

Li Qing looked up at his screen, which showed him dressed in red, drinking blood wine with Gong Yao. "As you can see, not smoothly at all," he said coldly.

He placed the Chip on Zhang Qin's desk and pulled up a chair. "After you updated the GM Admin Backend, I was identified as a player the moment I entered the dungeon instance, and I lost some of my administrator permissions. That made the mission take sixty percent longer than expected."

One look at his posture told Zhang Qin that Li Qing wouldn't leave without an explanation this time. He couldn't help wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Well, luckily, most of your administrator permissions still worked..."

Li Qing: "..."

Zhang Qin hurried to salvage the situation. "But don't worry! This time, I, Zhang Qin, will put the entire Technical Team to work fixing your admin backend!"

Li Qing gave a noncommittal "Mm," then said, "Can you check the other administrators' admin backends? This bug keeps recurring on mine."

Zhang Qin opened the Technology Department's admin backend, and the ID numbers of every Maintenance Team administrator appeared on the screen.

Some numbers were green, others gray.

"Green means there are no problems, and gray means the admin backend isn't currently active. Take a look, Chief Li?"

Li Qing checked. "Yes, the Maintenance Team members whose backends are inactive are all on leave right now."

"Don't worry. Their permissions aren't as high-level as yours, and they all use older versions of the admin backend. They've been running steadily for two years, so there won't be any problems. It's just that your permissions involve more features that need development... ahem."

Never one to pass up a chance to stir things up, Miaomiao said, "Oh, so you gave our Chief Li an unstable version?"

Zhang Qin didn't dare make a sound.

After a moment of silence, Li Qing said, "I'll give an accurate account of this in my work report. Please cooperate with the subsequent investigation, Chief Zhang."

Zhang Qin said, "Of course, of course..."

Miaomiao smiled and slipped an arm around Li Qing's shoulders. "All right, you're finally off work, so let's stop talking shop. Chief Li, haven't you heard? You're famous!"

Li Qing: ???

Holding the edges of her head, Miaomiao chuckled. "You actually teamed up with my favorite player! Gong Yao, of all people! The moment you appeared in his livestream, the internet was flooded with discussions about you!"

Li Qing: "..."

He cast another reproachful look at Zhang Qin. If the admin backend hadn't malfunctioned, he wouldn't have been forced to show his face in Gong Yao's livestream for days.

Zhang Qin gave a dry laugh. "Oh, haha, look, it wasn't entirely a bad thing. While you were on-screen, Gong Yao's livestream reached peak popularity. Even the higher-ups noticed!"

Miaomiao said, "That's right. They even sent the boss a message praising you, saying you'd created value for the livestream system or something... and then I got dragged off to a meeting at the Death Instance System headquarters. The topic was 'Encouraging employees to provide value to the livestream system without exposing their identities'..."

Li Qing: "..."

Miaomiao said, "Honestly, what was that supposed to mean? Haven't I provided enough value to the livestream system? The gifts I've sent in Gong Yao's livestream should put me in the top ten, at least!"

This time, even Zhang Qin fell silent along with Li Qing.

Li Qing said, "Staff should keep their distance from the livestream system and avoid exposing themselves to the public. I agree with Zhang Qin on that."

Zhang Qin said, "...That may be true, but judging by how you behaved in Gong Yao's livestream, you were actually quite cautious, Chief Li. You know every department is trying to outdo the others in performance these days. Empowerment! You understand empowerment, right?"

Li Qing: "?"

Zhang Qin said, "That face of yours can empower Division One's stagnant work! That face is our Division One's performance, Chief Li! Sometimes administrators need to be flexible!"

Miaomiao said, "Exactly! Just look at how many points Gong Yao's livestream earns in a day, then convert that into our 'energy points.' Isn't that more than you'd earn working overtime for a month?"

Li Qing: ...

Although Li Qing was saving money, he certainly wasn't the sort to sell his good looks for energy points and Division One's performance figures.

Besides, the players hated the Death Instance System so deeply that he wasn't about to jump into that fire himself.

He firmly refused Zhang Qin, then remembered something else. "While I was in the dungeon instance, I sent a request asking you to investigate a player named Wan Yingjun, but it ended up being forwarded to Division One. What happened there?"

Zhang Qin thought for a moment. "Oh, right, that did happen. But I only received a notification. Look-"

He opened his admin backend records.

"I didn't even get to see what it said before a notification told me it had been forwarded to the Central Processing Desk. Is there a problem?"

Li Qing slowly shook his head. "The reply from above said there was no problem and told me not to interfere with the player..."

But wasn't that the biggest problem of all?

"I see..." Zhang Qin moved his cursor away from the message and looked at Li Qing. "Then there's no problem."

Li Qing said, "But I think..."

"Then there's no problem," Zhang Qin repeated. This usually rather spineless man now spoke with a firmness that brooked no argument, leaving Li Qing momentarily stunned.

Beside them, Miaomiao examined her fresh manicure and said with a careless smile, "Little Li Qing, if the higher-ups don't want you investigating something, then don't. It didn't interfere with your work anyway, did it?"

Li Qing was silent for a moment. "All right."

Zhang Qin immediately reverted to his usual demeanor. "That's the spirit! That's workplace wisdom! Back when I started this enterprise alongside the Main God, what kept a founding contributor like me alive all these years was..."

Li Qing interrupted his rambling. "Can you look into someone else for me?"

Zhang Qin's face fell. "Who now?"

Li Qing looked at his screen, streams of green data reflected in his clear, icy eyes.

"Gong Yao."