Chapter 97: Rules
Gao Ming ran into the break room and shut the door. The newbies from Li San all moved to the wall and looked at him with alert.
“I live at Li Jing Apartments. It was suddenly sealed up by the police without explanation. I was denied entry into Building 2. When I wanted to buy something to eat at Min Long Street, I saw this supermarket being sealed up. I was curious, so I came to look.” Gao Ming seemed to be lost. “I didn’t think I entered the supermarket, but when I came to, I was already in here.”
“Curiosity kills the cat.” Zhu Suisui said seriously, “You’ve been dragged into an anomaly. This is a ghost world!”
Gao Ming looked at Zhu Suisui. Her face seemed to overlap with Qin Tian’s face. She said the same thing as Qin Tian said back then. She was the guide provided by fate to tell Gao Ming about the anomaly.
“Normal people will find this hard to accept.” Zhu Suisui consoled Gao Ming. “It’s normal to be afraid, but we still have hope.”
“Yes. Don’t give up.” The other bespectacled newbie was kind too. “Captain Bai Xiao is very experienced, and he is with us. He is a very impressive person.”
“If that’s the case, why did he abandon you?” Gao Ming knew Bai Xiao better than anyone there. He killed Bai Xiao last time.
“The captain will not abandon us. He just went to scout the way.” The shortest investigator was dissatisfied. “New investigators learning manual. The experienced investigators follow the rules. Only the most experienced investigators can discover new rules. Our team captain is one of the most experienced investigators.”
“Where is him now?” Gao Ming was more curious about that.
“One of the newbies was named. Captain Bai and a few seniors went with him.”
“Named? What do you mean?” Gao Ming heard this strange term.
“Don’t ask so many questions. Just follow the rules.” Zhu Suisui didn’t have a black band. She took out a paper and pen. She wrote down the rules for Gao Ming. “Put away your curiosity. Don’t challenge anything…” Zhu Suisui was only halfway through when static came from the intercom in the breakroom. All the newbies stopped breathing as they stared at the intercom on the table.
A few seconds later, an intermittent voice came through. It sounded like a baby trying to speak, “Open the lockers before you. Put on the clothes inside. You have one minute.” The newbies started to move. Rules were everything, that was the ideal injected in them on their first day.
He opened the locker, and the smell of mildew wafted out. Gao Ming realised there were no clothes in his locker but a picture of two kids.
“No clothes?”
He looked at the others. All the investigators changed into the supermarket uniform at the fastest speed. All the uniforms had numbers on them. Most uniforms were dark green. Two were blue, and one was red.
“Quick!” Zhu Suisui urged Gao Ming, “Do you want to die?”
“There’s no clothes in my locker.” Gao Ming put the picture away silently.
“Wear mine!” Zhu Suisui removed her uniform. “Quick! We have no time.”
“The rules wanted us to take the clothes out from the locker before us and put them on. If I wear yours, it won’t count.” Before Gao Ming could stop her, Zhu Suisui shoved the clothes to her. “How come I didn’t realise how tempestuous you were before?”
Time passed quickly. Gao Ming and Zhu Suisui wore clothes from other lockers. Zhu Suisui put on the red uniform that no one wanted.
The static came again. The voice became more fluent. “Workers working on Monday to Wednesday, you need to leave the breakroom in the next minute.”
The voice disappeared. Gao Ming looked at his uniform. He found a work table in his pocket. It was filled with crosses. Only Mondays were circled. “Look at your pocket. You should find a work table.”
With Gao Ming’s reminder, everyone checked their pockets. There were seven of them, and each of them represented one day of the week. Zhu Suisui’s red uniform had the Wednesday work shift. The bespectacled, polite investigator had the blue uniform and the Tuesday work shift.
“Damn. This is my fault.” Zhu Suisui felt sorry when she saw the day on the work table in her original uniform. “You have to stay calm when we’re out. Follow the rules. Do everything no matter how absurd it is.”
The three in different coloured uniforms walked out. The supermarket was only so big, but Bai Xiao and the rest had disappeared.
“I have a feeling of being watched. The cameras are like eyes. Since we’re out here, should we check out the surveillance room?” Gao Ming realised the lights in the place were darker. His heart raced. God in his heartroom felt the danger. “Don’t move around randomly and do unnecessary things.” Zhui Suisui whispered as sweat slid down her face.
“Okay.” Gao Ming slowly moved to the cashier.
“Why would you say that while doing another thing? I’m not kidding with you!” Zhu Suisui held her axe as she moved through the shelves. She looked scary.
“Wait.” The bespectacled newbie grabbed Zhu Suisui’s shoulders and pointed at the monitor. “Why is there a 15-minute countdown on it?”
There was nothing else on the monitor but the countdown.
“We are wearing the worker uniforms, and we just left the breakroom. It should be time for us to work.” Gao Ming came to the cashier opened the computer, and read the info on it. “This is not right! The work table on here is different from the ones in our uniforms.”
The black-and-white work table wrote down the things the supermarket employees had to complete. Gao Ming compared the two and read out, “The time on this computer is 22:45. We need to deal with the expired food, vegetables and fruits before 23:00. Other than that, we need to clear the inventory, restock the shelves and then… find the corpses of two kids and deal with them?”
Gao Ming was sure that he read it right.
Zhu Suisui and the newbie were stunned. The investigation centre told them to follow the rules but the rules were unusual at the supermarket.
“Are there corpses hidden?”
Gao Ming thought about it. He pushed away the other two and ran to the frozen food aisle.
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