Chapter 030

Under the relentless pressure of his colleagues’ interrogation, Secretary Huang finally buckled and confessed, detailing his misdeeds one by one.

From shutting down the elevators and stealing trade secrets to spreading rumors, everything he had done was for the sake of helping his girlfriend’s family business poach talent.

In all honesty, modern office workers were physically frail. If they had to climb dozens of floors on foot every day just to get to work, the daily commute alone would cost them half their lives. Several employees had resigned simply because they couldn’t stand the stairs, jumping ship to the Wang Corporation. It had been a massive success for the headhunters.

“But I don’t have the power to control the computers!”

Secretary Huang cried out, claiming he was being framed. “If I had those kinds of hacking skills, I would have just hacked the company network directly! Why would I need to pry open safes in the middle of the night?”

Everyone shuddered. “Then… then…”

Secretary Huang said, “Think about it! There were already rumors about this place being haunted long before I even met my girlfriend!”

Everyone: “…”

When they thought about it carefully, it seemed he was right!

As if in response to Secretary Huang’s words, the lights in the corridor outside suddenly began to flicker at an incredibly high frequency. The world pulsed between light and dark before their eyes. Employees out in the hallway shrieked in terror, huddling together and trembling.

Secretary Huang immediately struggled. “I’m not doing the lights!!”

Everyone: !!!

President Zhang pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at Qiao Man in a panic. “Little Master, didn’t you say there were no ghosts?”

Qiao Man looked at him with an innocent expression and said, “I said there were no ghosts here. I didn’t say there were no ghosts in the entire building.”

President Zhang: !!!

Master Ding rolled his eyes, too exhausted to even speak.

Lu Jianxing moved closer to his child and leaned down to pick him up, drawing warmth from the boy’s small, toasty body. “Where is the ghost?”

“Can’t you see him?” Qiao Man pointed toward the crowd outside the meeting room and said innocently, “He’s been watching from over there the whole time.”

Everyone: “…”

Countless people opened their mouths, but their screams were stuck in their throats, unable to make a sound.

Was there anything more terrifying than knowing a ghost was right beside you while you couldn’t see a thing? Many felt their hands and feet go cold. They wanted to lean on the colleagues next to them, yet feared they might accidentally grab a ghost instead.

Qiao Man took a piece of Talisman Paper from his backpack. The yellow paper ignited in his hand without a flame. A gust of yin wind blew through the room, making everyone shiver.

The talisman ash drifted on the wind toward a specific spot. Following the child’s gaze, the crowd saw a man in a plaid shirt and black-rimmed glasses gradually manifest among the onlookers outside the meeting room. His face was a sickly blue-white, and he cast no shadow at his feet. Noticing everyone’s eyes on him, the male ghost waved happily at them. “Hello! Hello!”

“You can finally see me! I was about to burst from holding it in.”

The male ghost spoke to Qiao Man with tears of gratitude. “Thank you, Little Master.”

Qiao Man pursed his lips, two sweet dimples appearing on his cheeks. “You’re welcome.”

Lu Jianxing was slightly taken aback. “You two have met before?”

Qiao Man: “Yes! When we first came in, he was over there playing with the light switches. He even helped hand me paper in the restroom.”

“It was only right, only right,” the male ghost said. “Little Master, I thought you couldn’t see me and was worrying about how to communicate with you. Did you see the words I wrote on the mirror earlier?”

Qiao Man tried hard to remember, but he had no impression of it. He was small and short, barely reaching the sink; there was no way he could see what was written on the mirror. Qiao Man said, “Next time, write it on the floor.”

The male ghost nodded repeatedly. “Okay, I’ll remember that.”

Listening to the conversation between the Master and the ghost, the people standing nearby didn’t dare move a muscle, their bodies drenched in cold sweat.

However, there were those brave enough to look. Soon, someone recognized the ghost’s identity from his familiar appearance and voice. “Ma Chengliang?”

The male ghost said excitedly, “It’s me!”

“You… aren’t you dead?”

The male ghost: “That’s right, I’m a ghost now!”

The executives in the meeting room were utterly confused, looking at one another. President Zhang asked, “Who is this? Do you know him?”

“President Zhang, he was an employee of our company. He worked in the IT department.” President Zhang’s assistant recognized him and explained in a low voice, “About a year ago, there was an accident in our company. An employee died suddenly at his workstation. It was this… this ghost.”

With the assistant’s reminder, President Zhang remembered.

A matter involving a human life was no small thing. An employee’s sudden death during work hours could damage a company’s image. Afterward, to appease the family, the company had provided a large amount of compensation.

But this employee’s soul hadn’t gone to reincarnation; he had been haunting the company instead. Thinking of the rampant ghost rumors circulating through the office, President Zhang broke into a cold sweat.

He glanced at the child watching the excitement and the backpack full of Talisman Paper. Estimating the sheer quantity of talismans in that bag, President Zhang suddenly felt a surge of confidence.

He stood next to Qiao Man and spoke up. “Xiao Ma, the company didn’t want this kind of accident to happen to you. After you passed away, we reached a settlement with your family. If you have any grievances or dissatisfaction, you can speak up, or you can tell us through a dream. Why stay in the office and play ghost to scare your colleagues?”

Recalling TV dramas he had seen, President Zhang speculated, “Could it be that you didn’t die of natural causes, but were murdered?”

Ma Chengliang shook his head. “No, I was just happy. I died of happiness.”

“Died of happiness?”

Ma Chengliang began to tell the story of his life.

He had been an ordinary programmer. Before his death, he had worked overtime for a week straight, keeping himself alive on nothing but coffee. He had finally finished his task and, in a moment of over-excitement, he had simply keeled over and died.

His office was on this very floor. As it turned out, for some reason, he hadn’t moved on to reincarnation after death, nor could he leave this floor. He had become a bound spirit¹ of the company.

He had seen everything regarding how the company handled his affairs. Knowing his family had received generous compensation, he held no grudges. It was just that being a bound spirit was boring. No one could see him, and he had no one to talk to. All he could do was press the light switches or make the faucets leak blood-colored water. Perhaps because he had been a programmer in life, he could even touch the computers…

“Wait a minute!”

Someone interrupted his narrative. “So, you’re the one who deleted my code?”

The male ghost admitted it candidly. “It was me.”

His former colleague nearly fainted from rage. “Ma Chengliang, I never offended you when you were alive. Why the hell did you delete my code?”

The programmer ghost snapped back, “I wanted to curse you out when I was alive! What kind of garbage were you writing? It was a mountain of bugs! I had to clean up your messes every few days.”

“…”

“What about my proposal then?” another person rushed forward, crying out in grief and indignation. “I had just finished writing that proposal, and you deleted it before I could even save it!”

The male ghost turned around, equally indignant. “Your proposal was trash. I didn’t approve!”

“…”

Someone nearby whispered, “What did you write?”

The employee who wrote the proposal said blankly, “I wrote a marketing plan for the product, hiring a celebrity spokesperson. Isn’t that what everyone does? What’s the problem?”

The male ghost: “There is a problem. I hate that male star.”

The person nearby whispered again, “Who did you pick?”

The employee said, “Lu Jianxing. He had a scandal before, but it was cleared up later. Right now, no one more famous than him is cheaper, and no one cheaper than him is more famous. I specifically compared all the stars on the market, and he’s the best value for the money. Isn’t that good?”

Qiao Man, who was enjoying the spectacle, slowly turned his head. “Ehhh-“

The mask-wearing Lu Jianxing: “…”

Lu Jianxing silently pushed the little head back.

“What about the company’s official website?” someone else asked. “Every night at midnight, the homepage turns into a ghost picture. Did you do that too?”

The male ghost admitted, “That’s right, I did that too.”

Now it was President Zhang’s turn to get anxious. “Didn’t you say you didn’t hold a grudge against the company? Why are you damaging the company’s image?”

“Who said I don’t have a grudge!” The male ghost was fuming. “Since I joined this company, it’s been 996² every single day. If I wasn’t working overtime, I was on my way to working overtime. I dropped dead at my workstation – are you saying you’re not at fault?!”

President Zhang broke into a cold sweat. “Well, this…”

“When I signed on, we agreed on two days off a week. After a few months, it changed to a ‘big and small week³‘ schedule. I was working six days a week, and even team-building events took up my rest days! And another thing – you only reimburse taxi fares if we work until nine. Does leaving at eight not count as overtime?!”

President Zhang’s sweat fell like rain. “The big and small weeks… that’s how it is everywhere else. We aren’t the only ones!”

Qiao Man’s little head turned the other way. “Hmph-“

Under his gaze, President Zhang wiped his sweat frantically. “We’ll change it! We’ll change everything! Starting this week, the whole company is moving to a two-day weekend!”

A small cheer erupted from the crowd. For a moment, the male ghost seemed bolstered by a surge of merit; his pale, ghostly face even regained a hint of color.

“Even so, you shouldn’t have played ghost to scare people,” President Zhang complained. “Now the company is full of haunting rumors. Everyone is terrified, and it’s taken a serious toll on the mental health of our other employees!”

“Hold on!” The male ghost raised a hand, signaling he had something to say. “Those rumors in the company – aside from the things Secretary Huang did – weren’t all my doing.”

What did he mean by “not all his doing”?

President Zhang turned pale with fright. “You mean… there are others?!”

“For example, I wasn’t the one stealing the toilet paper in the restrooms.”

The male ghost drifted through the crowd and plucked out an employee from the onlookers, glaring fiercely. “It was this guy from the marketing department. He steals toilet paper every day, not even sparing the ‘haunted’ stalls. Every time the paper went missing, you all blamed me. I’m a ghost! I don’t even use the bathroom! Why would I steal toilet paper?”

The identified marketing employee lowered his head sharply and tried to hide behind the crowd.

“And this one!” The male ghost drifted through the crowd again and pulled out a female employee who was covering her face. “She’s always hiding in the stairwell singing. She’s completely tone-deaf, off-key from start to finish. All those rumors about ghostly wailing in the building? That was her.”

“That one over there in the yellow shirt – he moves the furniture and decorations whenever no one’s looking, and that got blamed on me too.”

The employee in yellow explained softly, “They were crooked. I have a bit of OCD.”

The male ghost continued, “And your delivery orders that go missing every day? It’s actually the guy in blue stealing them.”

The male ghost: “That guy in the black shirt? His wife hit him and left a handprint, but he was too embarrassed to admit it, so he told everyone I slapped him!”

The male ghost: “Oh, and that guy over there – he wanted attention so badly that last time he insisted I’d groped his butt in the men’s room…”

The male ghost walked from one end of the corridor to the other. Every person he pointed out guiltily looked away, not daring to meet his eyes.

A ghost in the office was terrifying, but the employees who added fuel to the fire of the haunting rumors were even more chilling.

President Zhang: “…”

President Zhang: “…………”

What kind of “hidden dragons and crouching phoenixes⁴” had he hired into his company?!

By the time the accusations ended, President Zhang was numb. Any sense of dread or fear had completely left him.

He looked at Qiao Man with a deadpan expression. “Little Master, given the situation, is there a solution? He can’t stay in the office forever. It’s causing a lot of trouble for our employees’ daily lives.”

The male ghost drifted back, his face full of anticipation as well. “Little Master, can I leave this place?”

Being a bound spirit was incredibly boring.

Except for today, no one could usually see him or talk to him. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he could only play pranks. But pranks lost their charm after a while. His former colleagues had grown so used to them that they could continue working without blinking even when the lightbulbs flickered eerily.

Fewer people had resigned because of his pranks than had fled after Secretary Huang broke the elevator!

Qiao Man nodded. “There is a way.”

Lu Jianxing caught the underlying meaning. “You can’t do it?”

“My Master never taught me how to catch ghosts,” Qiao Man said with a troubled look. “I only know how to blast them into soul-shattered oblivion. I can’t actually catch them at all.”

Lu Jianxing: “…”

The crowd: “…”

The programmer ghost: “…???”

The programmer ghost: !!!

In the corner, Master Ding’s eyes widened. “Heh… Heh!”

Translator’s Notes