“AAAAAGH, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” Liu Jiajia clutched her stomach in despair. “I’m gonna burst. I’m seriously gonna burst! My bladder is literally going to explode, AAAAAAH!”

“Stop talking about it.” Bai Zhihui’s eyes were filled with tears. “I’m begging you, please stop. I was doing okay until you said something, and now I can’t take it either.”

“AAAAAAAH…!”

Looking like a red-clad female ghost, Liu Jiajia clung to the sink and clawed frantically at the mirror.

“Why?! Why are we literally inside a bathroom, but can’t use the bathroom?! Why did I have to be stupid enough to look at this mirror?! AAAAAH, I’m dying, I’m actually going to die…”

In the depths of her despair, the hem of the “red-clad ghost’s” clothes accidentally snagged the faucet.

The handle shifted, and water came gushing out with a splash.

“Holy shit!” Bai Zhihui went pale and lunged forward to shut it off. “I must not hear that sound right now!”

“…”

But Liu Jiajia fell into deep thought.

“Say,” she said solemnly while staring at the sink, “do you think the drainpipe works?”

Bai Zhihui: “? What do you mean?”

“I mean…”

Expressionless, Liu Jiajia slowly stood up and planted both feet on the sink.

“Could you turn around and pretend nothing happened?”

Bai Zhihui: “…”

Understanding perfectly, Bai Zhihui turned around.

One second later…

Bai Zhihui covered her face in anguish.

“No! This place is covered in mirrors! What’s the point of me turning around?!”

“Then close your eyes! Cover your ears!”

“That still feels… wrong! What if… what if the drain doesn’t work?!”

“Then what am I supposed to do?!”

“I don’t know!”

“MY BLADDER IS GOING TO EXPLODE!!!”

“Stop saying that! Don’t think about it! Here! I’ll show you some spicy content!”

Liu Jiajia: “?”

The Liu Jiajia who was on the verge of a total breakdown immediately perked up.

With great dignity, she climbed back down from the sink.

“What kind of spicy content? Whose?”

The two heads immediately huddled together, happily consuming some much-needed spiritual nourishment.

Two seconds later…

Liu Jiajia: “Wait. The phone has a signal?”

Bai Zhihui: “Holy shit, you’re right! The phone has a signal! THEN WHY HAVEN’T WE CALLED 110?!”

The common sense they mysteriously lost returned in full force.

They both grabbed their phones and were just about to call the police when…

A strange squirming sound reached their ears.

The mirror in front of them suddenly began to warp, making a winding and writhing sound like a funhouse mirror.

Both girls jumped.

“What the hell is that?!”

“Is the mirror about to shatter?!”

Liu Jiajia and Bai Zhihui backed away in unison, staring in horror as the mirror twisted more and more violently.

Wrrrglglgl…

Every mirror around them seemed to be distorted by some unknown external force.

The surfaces that were once smooth and rigid were now being kneaded into all sorts of shapes like lumps of modeling clay.

In the funhouse-like reflection, the two girls could see their hands locked tightly together.

“We’re screwed! Is it going to explode?!”

“Help! Can anyone hear us?! HELP!”

“What do we do?! Should we turn our backs to the mirrors… AAAAAH NO, THAT’S WORSE! WE’LL GET IMPALED! IF THEY REALLY EXPLODE, THE SHARDS WILL GO STRAIGHT THROUGH US!”

“HELP! HELP!!!”

The two girls clung tightly to each other, trembling like leaves.

Then, in the next instant…

Poof!

As if it could no longer withstand the enormous pressure, every mirror warped to its absolute limit at the exact same moment.

The girls screamed, but the sharp and piercing pain they expected never came.

Instead, they felt an enormous force slam into them and violently shove them outward.

At the same time, a strange, hoarse voice echoed endlessly from every direction.

“BLEGH!”

“BLEEEEUGH!”

Liu Jiajia & Bai Zhihui: “???”

What the hell just threw up?

And why did the vomiting have reverb?!

Both girls stared blankly for a moment before slowly climbing off the floor.

“Holy shit! We’re back!” Liu Jiajia cried.

“Why are there so many people?!” Bai Zhihui stared in shock at the dozen or so equally bewildered women scattered across the floor around them.

“What happened?”

“We got out? I got out?”

“Wait, were you guys also…”

“That scared me to death, waaaah! I thought I was going to die! What the hell was that?! Mom, I wanna go home, waaaah…”

The bathroom was instantly filled with wails and howls.

Liu Jiajia and Bai Zhihui looked at each other, then they got up without hesitation.

The other women subconsciously turned to look at them.

The two girls’ legs were trembling. Their bodies shook as they clutched their stomachs.

BANG!

They kicked open the nearest stall doors.

BANG!

Then slammed them shut behind themselves.

Their movements were so perfectly synchronized that the two bangs practically merged into one.

Everyone else: “?”

The women still sitting on the floor finally remembered why they came to the bathroom in the first place.

In an instant, everyone shot upright and rushed to the stalls at top speed.

…

Lin Jianyuan was also “vomited” out.

And because the bronze imprint on his body was still active, he retained the physical properties of rigid collision.

Thus, when he was spat out through the mirror over the sink…

he bounced around the bathroom several times like a marble.

All the men: “???”

Everyone was stunned by this sudden performance.

Then again, compared with being trapped inside an endless expanse of mirrors just moments earlier, this strange human pinball somehow didn’t seem that outrageous…

The bouncing left Lin Jianyuan so dizzy that his head was spinning.

He also nearly pissed himself.

“I…”

Dizzy and disoriented, Lin Jianyuan struggled to his feet, braced himself against the wall, and staggered toward a urinal.

As he relieved himself, he cursed through gritted teeth.

“F*** your uncle…”

Damn it.

He was way too dizzy.

He couldn’t even steady his aim.

The hand holding the gun wouldn’t stop shaking.

Everyone else: “???”

So who exactly was this guy?

And who the hell was he even cursing?

Whatever.

Not important.

What was important was that his actions reminded everyone else of something.

The rest of the men immediately got up as well, rapidly claimed their respective territories, and began attending to one of life’s most essential matters.

…

Ahhh.

Relief.

Finally, sweet relief!

After finishing his important business, the first thing Lin Jianyuan did upon leaving the bathroom was call the bureau chief.

“Hello, Chief…”

His head was still spinning, and internally, he cursed that unknown dumbass Aberrant another ten thousand times.

“I ran into a dumbass Aberrant at the XX sales office. Send someone over to clean up, quick. There are a lot of people here right now…”

It hurt. Waaah, it hurt so much.

The Mirror Abyss fled for its life.

Even now, it still couldn’t understand what just happened.

That man looked completely ordinary! Painfully, unbelievably ordinary!

Sure, he was carrying one of the bureau’s mobile terminals, but he himself looked so weak!

It wasn’t that the Mirror Abyss had never encountered people from the bureau before.

But this time… it seemed to have bitten off more than it could chew.

Waaah… It hurt… It hurt so much!

Its stomach hurt! That plain, unremarkable human did something inside its belly, and now it felt like its entire body was splitting apart from the inside!

It hurt! It hurt so much!

It hurt so badly that it vomited out every human it absorbed! Even the food it just swallowed came spraying back out with them!

Waaah… It hurt… Blegh, bleeeugh…

No. It still hurt so much to the point that I want to throw up…

The Mirror Abyss fled madly.

Because its body could totally reflect everything in its surroundings, it was invisible to human eyes.

Fortunately, there were plenty of people inside the sales office.

It desperately slithered through the crowd, hoping to grab another bite from someone as it passed.

And yet… It couldn’t eat any of them.

Its diet was rather particular.

The people around it were feeling shock, fear, curiosity, and all sorts of other emotions… but it was not the one thing on its menu.

Waaah, I'm so hungry. It hurt. My belly hurt so much!

Not long ago, its body split into several pieces and secretly hid itself in every mirror in every bathroom.

Now, all the pieces were together again, and the pain and hunger all erupted at once.

Starving and hurting, it finally reached its limit.

Like a snake, it slithered toward the entrance of the sales office. The lavish sales office gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.

“Wow, this angle is perfect.”

A girl with immaculate makeup adjusted her phone and tripod, then took two steps backward.

Watching the video frame on her screen, she flashed a dazzling smile.

Yay! Food! Food! Food!

So hungry, so hungry, so hungry, so hungry.

It hurts, waaaah… So hungry.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, so hungry, it hurts, so hungry, so hungry…

So… hungry…

The Mirror Abyss could no longer care about anything else. Overjoyed, it charged straight into the phone camera.

The lens pointed toward the girl and bright sunlight glinted across its smooth glass surface.

“Huh?”

The girl suddenly noticed something.

Surprised, she blinked. Then blinked again.

Why did she suddenly look prettier? Was it the lighting?

She forgot to bring her reflector, but somehow the natural light today was hitting perfectly?

Her smile grew even brighter. She was just about to press the record button when…

A figure flashed in front of her!

SMACK!

Someone smashed her phone onto the ground, and the tripod toppled with it.

“?!!!”

The girl’s eyes went huge.

She stared at the man in front of her in complete disbelief.

“Y-you, you, you! What are you doing?!”

She lunged at him angrily.

“Why did you smash my phone?! What is wrong with you?!”

She tugged at the man furiously.

He looked utterly impatient, and his face was filled with irritation while he rapidly muttered something into his own phone.

Mixed among the rapid-fire mumbling were several extremely agitated phrases.

“Send someone over here right now. Things are getting out of hand. This thing can even survive inside a phone camera… I’ll reimburse you! How much was it?! Stop pulling, you’re gonna rip my button off! I’ll pay you double! Stop crying, damn it! Triple, okay?! … Damn it, I can’t take this anymore. There was a girl here who almost just got… Okay! Stop crying already!!! I’ll pay for the tripod too!!! … No, she’s fine, I saved her… Why is she STILL crying?? Damn, then I… you… Do you follow celebrities?! Do you know Shi Shaoning?! Want an autographed photo?! Shi Shaoning! The guy who acted in that… that whatever-it-was drama!”

The girl cried uncontrollably, but the moment she heard the name Shi Shaoning, she abruptly hiccupped.

“The Tale of the Black Hairpin?” she asked timidly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” The man in the white shirt rolled his eyes. “That whatever-hairpin thing! Anyway, yes, Shi Shaoning! Are you a fan? If you’re not, that’s fine too! I’ll ask him if he knows any other celebrities! Or just tell me who you stan! Can you please stop crying? I’m begging you!”

“I do! I do, I do, I do!”

The girl immediately sucked back her tears and sniffles.

Frantically wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she could barely contain her excitement.

“Really? You really know Shi Shaoning? Are you his friend? Are you a celebrity too?”

“…”

The man hesitated for a moment.

Then immediately said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, we’re filming one of those reality-show challenge programs. We’ve got hidden cameras around here… Don’t bother looking, you won’t find them. The PD is basically invisible. Even I can’t find him. Damn, the production team is seriously trying to kill me, I swear, let me tell you…”

“So… you knocked my phone away because you’re filming?” the girl asked cautiously. “Was it part of your mission?”

The man: “.”

The man: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was my mission. You’re really smart. See? Isn’t this production team insane? Anyway, add me on WeChat later, and I’ll send you the money. Three times the price of the phone and tripod combined… Please, girl, stop crying already. You’re making my head hurt.”

“I-I-I’m not crying anymore.”

Her tears instantly turned into a smile.

She glanced around, then asked with a slightly bashful expression,

“Um… is Shi Shaoning filming the show with you too? Are you teammates?”

“Shi Shaoning? Shi Shaoning is away on a business trip…”

The man answered in the gaps between rapidly speaking into his phone.

The girl: “Huh?”

The man suddenly realized what he said and hurriedly waved his hand.

“No. Wait. Hold on, I’m a little busy right now…”

“Oh, okay.”

The girl obediently stood to the side.

The man finished one phone call, squeezed in enough time to exchange WeChat contacts with her, then immediately dialed another number.

“Hello, Captain Shi, are you busy? It’s Lin Jianyuan. Damn, I need an emergency favor. Do you have any autographed photos or something…”

The girl excitedly called from beside him,

“Photocards! Photocards are fine too! Photocards!”

The man: “…Photocards are fine too! Signed ones!”

Whoever was on the other end said something.

The man gave the girl an “OK” gesture.

Then, lowering his voice as he continued the call, he hurried back inside the sales office.

…

Oh my god. What kind of insane luck was this today?

The girl watched the white-shirted man disappear into the sales office and wondered who he was.

A rookie who just debuted? Or just a regular person participating in the show?

Thinking about it carefully… he was actually pretty handsome.

Sure, he seemed bad-tempered and impatient, but underneath that, he was actually such a nice and gentle person!

And that whole vibe he had… like a living human being who was already spiritually half-dead from corporate slavery… was so funny.

Hahahahaha.

Is this the charm of a corporate-slave BETA?

The girl thought of the Shi Shaoning selfcest ship she was into the night before…

“Tsundere Cool-Guy A × Irritable Corporate-Slave Catboy B.”

The corners of her mouth began rising uncontrollably as a blissful blush spread across her cheeks.

Wuhu!

My luck is amazing today!

I'm so happy!