Just as Su Wu had expected, bringing the unlit Black Candle directly into reality was a surefire way to get himself killed.
He abandoned the idea.
Leaving the simulator, Su Wu relaxed and leaned back against the backrest.
His eyes flickered as he recalled everything he had experienced in the previous simulation.
One of the rewards at the end this time was "clearing out the Trapped Corpses of the Trapped Corpse Fiend." That reward was quite generous.
But the reward wasn't the most important thing.
What mattered most was that clearing out the Trapped Corpses really did temporarily rob the Trapped Corpse Fiend of its ability to kill.
Back then, I released most of the power within the Fiend Hand in one burst. The Corpse Buddha Ghost Hand instantly grew enormous and swept away all the Trapped Corpses.
That method was simple, direct, and effective.
Aside from that, instantly wiping out more than two hundred Trapped Corpses would require a weapon of mass destruction-fire could set large numbers of them alight, but it couldn't kill them instantly.
So could I use that move in reality too, making the ghost hand grow enormous?
Could I simply sweep away all the Trapped Corpses?
The pitch-black arm felt around in the darkness for a pen, its ten fingers constantly shifting the barrel.
After repeatedly flinging the pen away and picking it back up, he finally managed to make it spin and dance between the ten pitch-black fingers.
Watching the pen whirl between his fingertips, Su Wu settled on a conclusion. The main reason unleashing most of the Fiend Hand's power to enlarge it completely drains my vitality is that my compatibility with it is too low.
If my compatibility reached 50%, using this move again should leave me severely injured, but I wouldn't die immediately.
At 70% compatibility, perhaps it would only drastically shorten my lifespan without leaving any obvious injuries.
At 100% compatibility, the damage from using this move would definitely be minimal.
So before I can use this move, I still need to raise my compatibility with the Fiend Hand—to at least 70%!
He brought up the Fiend Hand's detailed information panel.
He looked at the final entry.
Compatibility with the host: 26.8%.
His compatibility had previously been 26.7%. Just now, after he had spun the pen with the Fiend Hand while thinking, that number had risen by 0.1%!
This proved that enduring pain wasn't the only way to improve his compatibility with the Fiend Hand. Even targeted everyday training could increase it!
However small the increase, it was still an increase!
Su Wu immediately got up, walked into the living room, and took a box out from beneath the coffee table.
Returning to his room and sitting down, he opened the box. Inside were several balls of yarn and a pair of knitting needles.
Don't ask why a normal single man had such things at home.
Sitting in the darkness, Su Wu awkwardly began knitting a sweater, his left hand working together with the Fiend Hand.
The 15th.
Office Building No. 9, Dayu Bay, Mingzhou.
The lingering glow of sunset shone through the windows into the office of Boyu Company's boss.
Huang Zhicheng sat stiffly behind the large, reddish-brown solid-wood desk.
He was nearly thirty, and his hairline had already receded badly. Even sitting with his back straight, he couldn't hide the spare tire beneath his clothes.
Opposite him sat Lin Guangyuan, the owner of Boyu Company. Already in his forties, he was still tall and straight-backed, his hair meticulously groomed. He looked sharp and poised, and far younger than Huang Zhicheng.
Lin Guangyuan pushed a document toward Huang Zhicheng and smiled kindly. "Zhicheng, you've been with us from the company's founding right through to when it finally started finding its feet. You've also made tremendous contributions to the company.
"This is an Equity Incentive Agreement. Go ahead and sign it.
"It's the company's way of recognizing your work!"
An Equity Incentive Agreement?!
When his boss had suddenly summoned him to the office, Huang Zhicheng had been deeply apprehensive.
At his age, being called in for a private talk with a superior or the boss rarely ended well.
He hadn't expected such good fortune.
His fingers trembled slightly as he opened the folder before him. Sure enough, he saw the words "Equity Agreement" printed in black on the white A4 paper.
Perhaps he was simply too excited, but the words looked somewhat blurred.
For an instant, the black characters seemed to turn into writhing human figures.
Huang Zhicheng blinked hard, and the writing on the paper returned to normal.
Now even more certain that he had imagined it, he stopped hesitating, turned past the cover, and read through the contract's clauses one by one.
Thump, thump! Thump, thump!
He heard his own heart pounding.
The black characters on the paper turned into tangles of thread, twisting and knotting together as they slowly traced out a black hole.
On the other side of that hole, Lin Guangyuan watched him with a smile. "Zhiyou, if everything looks all right, go ahead and sign the agreement."
"Yes, yes!"
As though waking from a dream, Huang Zhicheng hurriedly turned to the contract's final pages, took the pen his boss handed him, and solemnly wrote his name on the signature line.
Red ink spread across the paper.
A chill rose from the soles of Huang Zhicheng's feet, swiftly driving the blood throughout his body toward his right hand-and into the pen clutched in it.
The blood-red stain spread farther and farther across the page until it gradually covered the entire sheet.
Soaked in that bloody color, the black characters began to writhe, turning into human figures struggling and howling in a river of blood.
"You signed this contract of your own free will, selling everything you have to me as a package."
"In payment, I grant you the right to work for me without pay forever."
"The contract is now in effect."
As Lin Guangyuan finished speaking, great quantities of blood-red vapor poured from Huang Zhicheng's eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, streaming into the folder before him.
In Huang Zhicheng's eyes, every struggling figure in the river of blood on the page reached out to seize him-
In an instant, those hands caught him and dragged him bodily into the river of blood!
Inside the office.
An ordinary blue folder lay quietly on the desk.
Huang Zhicheng, who should have been sitting in the chair, had vanished. Only his clothes remained in a heap on the seat.
A pair of withered hands covered in age spots emerged from the suit sleeves and picked up the folder.
Lin Guangyuan, seated in the executive chair, had become terribly old in that brief instant.
It was as though he had suddenly transformed from a shrewd, capable man in his prime into a decrepit elder with wrinkled skin and white hair.
But as he opened the folder, a blood-red current immediately rushed out and poured into his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. His vigor and appearance instantly became youthful again, leaving him looking far younger than before!
There was no trace of the Equity Incentive Agreement inside the folder.
Only a dark-red page remained, made of something resembling leather.
It was covered in twisted writing that no ordinary person could understand.
Only the final line was comprehensible to an ordinary person.
It was a number: 500.
"Another five hundred people, and I'll finally be free..." Lin Guangyuan's voice relaxed slightly.
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