Chapter 168: Assimilation

Just before clocking off work that evening, Nalan tracked down Linglan and let her know she’d managed to squeeze out about three more job openings after all — though she’d need to work out the details with her friends herself.

Lily of the Valley agreed readily enough and made her way back to the castle.

She and Tong Yin hadn’t crossed paths in nearly two days by that point, mostly because Tong Yin had been sent off somewhere far from the castle grounds, and Linglan herself had been kept busy enough that she’d had little energy left over for much else once she finally got back each night.

As a result, quite a bit had slipped past unnoticed between the two of them.

With Linglan’s help, one friend was placed as a clown NPC somewhere in the park, another became the female ghost NPC haunting "The Vengeful Mother," and a third landed a spot working in one of the park’s restaurants.

Once she’d watched them each change into their new work uniforms, Linglan prepared to lead the three of them off toward their assigned posts.

Along the way, she asked them their names almost offhandedly, then added, just as casually, "You should probably think about changing them, though — your original names don’t really suit things here."

"Huh? Wait, I actually have to change my name?"

"Yes. I changed mine too, you know. I go by Linglan now." She held up her own badge to show them, and sure enough, "Linglan" was printed clearly across it.

In that moment, she remained entirely unaware of just how strangely self-assured her own tone had sounded.

She’d completely forgotten that Nalan had originally turned down the very idea of a name change when she’d first suggested it herself.

She’d also forgotten that her employee badge had originally come to her blank — no photo, no name printed on it at all.

She couldn’t recall exactly when or how the information had actually appeared on the card in the first place.

As far as her memory currently served her, the change on her badge had simply always seemed perfectly ordinary.

After mulling it over briefly, the three of them went along with Linglan’s suggestion and each picked out a name for themselves on the spot, though privately, among themselves, they still stuck to using their real names as always.

Little by little, Linglan began to lose track of the fact that this was ever supposed to be just a part-time job. Somewhere along the way, she felt as though she’d quietly forgotten something else entirely too — though she couldn’t quite say what.

One day, Tong Yin sent her a message saying she had the day off and wanted to invite her out for a walk together.

Lily of the Valley happened to be off that same day as well, so she agreed without hesitation.

But the moment Tong Yin actually laid eyes on her, something about her expression turned strange, unsettling Linglan more than she expected. "What’s wrong with you? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Didn’t you say you had the day off today? So why are you still wearing your work uniform and badge?"

Tong Yin pointed first at her clothes, then at the badge pinned to her chest.

Then, as though something had just occurred to her, she snatched up Linglan’s employee card for a closer look. "Wait — why doesn’t your actual name appear anywhere on this thing?"

"Oh, that? Nalan mentioned we should all come up with stage names, just to make things easier for scheduling and management purposes. That’s how I ended up with Linglan."

Lily of the Valley offered the explanation lightly, without much thought behind it.

Tong Yin’s brow furrowed. She’d run into a green vest herself once, pushing the same idea of a name change — but after refusing several times in a row, the attendant had eventually dropped the matter entirely.

"You didn’t push back on it at all?"

"Why would I need to push back?" Linglan gave her an odd look, finding the question itself a little strange. They worked here now, after all — naturally, that meant following the rules the workplace laid out.

Tong Yin couldn’t shake the feeling that something about Linglan felt subtly different lately — as though she’d changed somehow, and yet, at the same time, seemed entirely unchanged too.

Setting the topic aside for the moment, the two of them wandered around the park together for a while. Before finally parting ways, Tong Yin turned to her and asked, "Ruoling — do you still remember who we really are?"

"Of course I remember."

"Ruoling, listen — we’re all going to be fine. We’ll find our way back home eventually, I promise."

Linglan found the remark oddly puzzling, unsure why Tong Yin would suddenly bring up something so out of nowhere.

Wasn’t this already home, though?

Still, Tong Yin was her dear friend, and Linglan certainly wasn’t about to argue with her over something so trivial.

She simply smiled and nodded along.

With that, the two of them went their separate ways.

Not long after, the clown NPC approached Linglan out of nowhere. "Lan Ruoling, have you seen Cheng Lin anywhere? I sent him a message earlier, but he never got back to me."

"A message? What kind of message did you send him?"

"I haven’t seen him around, no." Linglan shook her head. She’d been stuck at the visitor center the entire day without stepping out once, so she genuinely had no idea what might be going on elsewhere in the park.

The clown NPC’s expression grew increasingly grim. Something had been feeling off to him lately, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what. He’d tried reaching out to Linglan as well, but she hadn’t responded either.

He had no choice but to track someone down in person at the visitor center instead.

Slowly, suspicion began creeping in. When he finally located the restaurant where Cheng Lin was supposedly working, sure enough, there he was.

He pressed Cheng Lin about the unanswered messages, but Cheng Lin simply brushed him off, insisting he had no idea what nonsense the clown was even talking about.

Pulling Cheng Lin aside into a quiet corner, the clown NPC tested him further and discovered, to his growing alarm, that Cheng Lin genuinely seemed to have forgotten who he really was. In his own memory now, he was simply a native of this place, through and through.

He had no recollection whatsoever of anything resembling a personal panel or a system.

All of it appeared to have vanished from Cheng Lin’s memory entirely, as though it had never existed at all.

The realization hit the clown NPC hard, and his thoughts immediately jumped to what he’d heard about Suzuran — who also hadn’t responded to any of his messages lately either.

So... becoming a staff member here comes with a price. You get assimilated, don’t you?

They forgot where they’d originally come from. They forgot who they truly were. And yet, somehow, they still remembered each other, at least for now...

Unable to fully accept what he was piecing together, the clown NPC bolted. He skipped the rest of his shift entirely, rushed back to his room, and tried desperately to yank the name tag hanging from his neck free.

No matter how hard he pulled or tugged at it, the tag simply wouldn’t come loose.

Panic set in fast. He was terrified of forgetting his own identity — of forgetting where home even was — just like poor Cheng Lin already had.

Grabbing a pair of scissors, he tried cutting through the cord instead, but that didn’t work either. Left with no other option, he resorted to scratching out and destroying the information printed directly on the badge itself.

That, at least, actually worked. The moment he’d slashed through his own printed name, clarity seemed to rush back into his mind at once.

But it was only a partial victory.

He realized, with a sinking feeling, that once the name tag had been put on in the first place, there was truly no way to ever fully remove it again.

Wait — there’s still Tong Yin, and the female ghost NPC too. He needed to track both of them down immediately, just in case there was something else about all this he’d overlooked.

When he finally found the female ghost NPC, his heart sank — she was already exactly like Cheng Lin, memory and all.

Desperate now, the clown NPC rushed to find Tong Yin next, only to discover, with relief, that she was still perfectly herself — unaffected, her memories intact, her personal panel and system still fully functioning as normal.

After talking it through together, the two of them finally arrived at a conclusion.

The names etched onto each employee badge were slowly, quietly convincing their wearers that they truly belonged here — gradually erasing any memory of who they’d once been before arriving.

Tong Yin, having flatly refused to adopt a new name from the very start, had remained entirely unaffected by the whole process, and was able to remove her own badge with ease.

The clown NPC, meanwhile, was consumed by fear — terrified of forgetting his beloved wife and children waiting for him back on Earth. He couldn’t let himself forget them. He wouldn’t. They were still out there waiting for his return.

He fled in a blind panic. Tong Yin tried to chase after him, but a group of fellow green vests pulled her aside, reminding her she had a performance scheduled shortly.

Worried that drawing attention might tip off the green vests that something was wrong, she forced herself to stay quiet and go along with it for now.

Once the performance finally wrapped up, Tong Yin rushed straight off to find Linglan, determined to finally explain everything behind her strange behavior from before.

But by then, Lily of the Valley’s personal panel had already vanished completely, long gone without a trace.