Chapter 378: Awful Time Loop

“Don’t question the company’s judgment. The company is doing this for your own good! Get back to your post! Think about your mortgage, think about your car loan, think about…”

“Shut up. I’ve already sold my body, I’m not about to sell my mind too. Where’s my workstation?”

“…You dare defy a superior? You’re fired!”

“Oh, alright then. Goodbye, I’m out.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Duan Fei felt the world before him twist and distort.

When he came to his senses, he found himself sitting on a toilet.

Before he could even react, that familiar voice sounded in his ear: “Employee 9521, you have exceeded the three-minute time limit for bathroom use. Your meal allowance for today has been revoked.”

“Didn’t you just fire me?” Duan Fei shouted in disbelief. “You’re so young. Life must’ve been pretty tough for you all these years. After all, a brainless twit like you must get discriminated against a lot.”

“…You’re fired.”

The world twisted again, and everything dissolved into Chaos.

Before the world went completely dark, Duan Fei quickly glanced down at his phone and memorized the time: 8:05 PM.

When his vision cleared again, Duan Fei found that the time on his phone had rolled back to 8:04 PM.

‘So that’s it. Getting fired causes time to reverse, rewinding to this exact moment,’ he thought. ‘No wonder they said this instance has a Spiritual Shock. Who would want to work in such a soul-crushing corporate hellscape?’

The real world Duan Fei came from was an era where labor laws were strictly enforced. No one could work more than six hours a day, three days a week, and they were free to do whatever they wanted with the rest of their time.

Therefore, the Labor Security Bureau would absolutely love a company that still had people working at eight o’clock at night.

They’d fine the boss into bankruptcy, or they’d start walking backward for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, to clear this instance, Duan Fei couldn’t get fired. That meant he had to keep his tail between his legs and behave.

“Employee 9521, you have exceeded the three-minute time limit for bathroom use. Your meal allowance for today has been revoked.”

Hearing this for the third time, Duan Fei was about to give a perfunctory reply, but his mouth opened of its own accord. “Seriously? Are you addicted to acting like everyone’s dad? How about tomorrow I spend five bucks on a bedpan and stuff you in it? Would that work for you?”

“…You…”

“I’m fired, right? Well, I quit. See ya!”

After time rewound again, Duan Fei immediately bolted out of the restroom, leaving before the voice could even speak.

Walking down the hallway, Duan Fei immediately opened his Attributes panel and began testing his Talent.

Based on his previous abnormal behavior, Duan Fei quickly figured out what this instance’s Talent Effect was.

“Your control over your true thoughts is Zero.”

In simple terms, it meant Duan Fei would involuntarily speak his true thoughts out loud.

This was a devastating blow for Duan Fei.

To test the scope of his “true thoughts,” he deliberately walked up to the ugliest female employee he could find.

He tried his best to filter his internal thoughts, but as he looked at her, he smiled and said, “How did your father manage to break the species barrier and find your mother in a zoo cage?”

He had tried so hard to make his true thoughts more tactful, but it seemed completely useless.

The female employee, having been insulted to her face, stared blankly at Duan Fei before bursting into loud sobs.

Her three-hundred-and-thirty-pound body charged away like a tank, an unfinished banana tossed aside.

A nearby employee looked at Duan Fei and earnestly gave him a thumbs-up.

After the female employee stormed into the manager’s office, the manager’s voice blared over the loudspeaker: “Employee 9521, you have maliciously harassed another employee, causing irreparable damage to the company’s reputation. You’re fired.”

“Damn it!”

As the world began to twist, Duan Fei was already sprinting at full speed, and he burst into the manager’s office.

Right in front of the manager, Duan Fei raised a Crowbar. In one swift motion, he brought it down, splattering the manager’s blood across the room.

Glaring at the trembling three-hundred-pound-plus woman, Duan Fei snarled, “What are you looking at, you fat hag!”

“Don’t kill me!” she cried.

“Shut up and get out!”

Perhaps because the order hadn’t been officially issued yet, Duan Fei noticed the distortion around him had faded. Time hadn’t reset.

Kicking the bald manager’s corpse aside, Duan Fei sat down in the blood-stained chair. He wiped the blood off the computer monitor and saw his own termination order on the screen.

If the manager had just pressed Enter a little faster, the termination order would have been issued, and time would have reset for him.

‘In other words, as long as I kill the manager before I get fired, everything should be fine, right?’

But the logic of this instance was more intricate than he had imagined.

Within minutes, sirens wailed outside. A large number of Law Enforcers appeared and surrounded the company building layer by layer.

Then, another manager’s voice announced, “Employee 9521, for the premeditated murder of a company manager, you are fired.”

“Fine, fire me. But what was the point of calling the Law Enforcers?”

When the distortion ended, Duan Fei appeared in the restroom once again.

Quickly flushing the toilet and leaving, Duan Fei walked down the hallway, filled with the clatter of keyboards, and slowly made his way to his workstation.

In the last loop, he had used the manager’s computer to find his workstation, job responsibilities, salary, and other information.

Based on the information he had, there was absolutely no room for error in this instance.

The slightest mistake would lead to the same outcome: getting fired, which meant starting over.

On top of that, he was forced to speak only the truth. This instance was incredibly hostile to him in his current state.

‘But… isn’t this great?’

‘The higher the difficulty, the more satisfying the victory.’

Filled with this newfound excitement, Duan Fei walked toward his workstation, ready to officially begin his attempt to clear the instance.