Chapter 22: I’m Not Human Anymore!
In the early morning, Yuan Zhu woke up after sleeping until late on the bed, experiencing unprecedented comfort. Sleep quality was explosively high, energy full and abundant, he couldn’t help but sigh: “What a vibrant young body!”
“What time is it now?”
Game Sprite came online synchronously: “9:30, Monday. Your younger brother has already gone to school.”
Yuan Zhu suddenly thought of a problem: “As my butler, you didn’t wake me up?”
Game Sprite retorted: “Why get up early on a full stomach? As part of your soul, I also have the right to enjoy sleeping in. Sleeping until full feels so good.”
Convinced, Yuan Zhu nodded in agreement, but still felt something was off?
“Wait, no! It’s Monday today, I still have to go to the Steam Factory to work, why didn’t you remind me?”
With the Working Spirit deeply ingrained in his bones, Yuan Zhu finally realized what was wrong. The blood of the roll king flowing in this physical body was calling him to go create output quickly!
Game Sprite refuted: “Calm down, don’t be swept away by working impulses. Use your rationality to think: after inheriting the Great Desolation Immortal Scripture, do you still want to continue living the overtime dog life of rolling to death?”
Yuan Zhu carefully considered his situation and shook his head: “My predecessor was also ambitious. He rolled insanely in the factory not just for that 1.5 times salary. Earning more was only a small factor; his fundamental purpose was to investigate the factory’s operating model, production technology difficulties, steam engine production line operation and maintenance, workshop production management scheduling, and even took over the accounts for free, just to figure out sales channels, material supply channels…”
Yuan Zhu kept flipping through his memory, then his eyes lit up: “I was so ambitious, wanting to replace the boss. After figuring all this out, find an opportunity to hire someone to take out the old Factory Director, let the factory teeter on the brink of collapse, then step forward to turn the tide, gradually erode equity until monopolizing the entire factory and becoming the big boss! Truly ambitious and full of ideas.”
After inheriting his predecessor’s memory fragments and physical body, current Yuan Zhu particularly approved of his predecessor’s dreams and actions. He also gained a deeper understanding of his own roll dog behavior.
Turns out I’m not a factory thief, but a nascent capitalist who deserves to be hanged even more! Mixing in the worker ranks, silently accumulating nutrients, waiting for abnormal development to break out of the cocoon and become a butterfly.
Although in current Yuan Zhu’s view, acquiring an outdated old Steam Factory (Lamp Factory) had no money-making prospects. But for a bottom-level native, daring to harbor such grand ambitions and actually taking action, overcoming several difficulties, indeed made him admire himself!
Game Sprite also browsed the predecessor’s memory and sighed: “The loss is due to insufficient vision. Even if he schemed to take over this outdated factory, he couldn’t become someone superior to others, at best living a moderately wealthy life, still bearing huge product sales pressure. But with the predecessor’s personality, after achieving this goal, he would inevitably continue rolling, using real commercial warfare means for capital expansion, until the day of backlash.”
Yuan Zhu deeply agreed; even without being caught in the sacrifice incident, with his predecessor’s ‘drive’ paired with ‘death-seeking degree’, he probably wouldn’t live past 30.
Game Sprite: “So do you still plan to go to the factory to work now?”
Yuan Zhu thought seriously, then shook his head: “No. The Lamp Factory job is too tiring and hard, and I don’t want to be a small Factory Director, trapping my infinite life in selling lamps. But this half month’s salary must be claimed back. Luckily, my predecessor was well-prepared and secretly collected evidence of the factory’s tax evasion. Originally planned for backstabbing, now it can be used to legally claim wages.”
…
Got up, washed up, changed into a set of his own clothes. The style was outdated with average materials, but very fitting, comfortable and pleasing to wear.
Admiring himself in the mirror, looking at those wine red eyeballs, Yuan Zhu gave himself an 8. The remaining 2 points were reserved for future development.
After eating the breakfast left by his younger brother, he pulled out the medical card from under the pillow and decided to go to the hospital first. Head to the Holy Light Demon Extermination Department to experience this world’s ‘righteous Holy Light’, and see what it feels like?
Cure demons if sick, strengthen body if not.
Packed his wallet, Yuan Zhu locked the door and left, heading to the nearest bus stop. Running claimed to be a 2.5-tier city, but in transportation facilities, it always caught Taixi’s leftovers.
As a global top-tier metropolis, the vehicles Taixi eliminates each year alone could let Running feast on leftovers to ecstasy. Not to mention widespread buses, even the subway has five lines, all transformed from old underground mines, a innate advantage.
As the price, Running had a nightmare-like complex and dangerous underground ecosystem. His first large mission joining Fire Fang was wearing a gas mask, frantically releasing poison in the subway tunnels. Using poisonous smoke to kill and drive away rampant goblins, big horned rats, crocodiles… and other dangerous creatures.
Local citizens, every time waiting for the subway, the carriage head upon arrival was always densely covered in fresh gruesome impact bloodstains.
Spent 5 cents to buy a bus ticket, Yuan Zhu found an empty seat and stared blankly at the scenery outside the window. Strands of black smoke rose from factory chimneys, gradually dispersing and blending into the gray-white mist over the city.
His thoughts also drifted away.
He didn’t plan to continue the Steam Factory job. Not only was it hard work, it took up a lot of his time, just for that little wages, really lacking motivation.
As for the ambition to usurp the Factory Director’s seat and go further to become a big boss, current Yuan Zhu no longer cared. Bearing the Great Desolation Immortal Scripture, his starting point surpassed how many natives? Becoming a supernatural being, doing evil (crossed out), doing as he pleases was the new dream.
The urgent task was to familiarize himself with his own power, figure out Du Ling’s Supernatural System, find opportunities to integrate into it, keeping their styles consistent.
On the contrary, Fire Fang’s cleaner work could continue. This company had special channels, whether official organizations or Justice Faction on the surface; or grey area illegal supernaturals, underground circles’ demons and heretics… all could be contacted.
This was a path to contact, even learn and master Supernatural Knowledge.
He himself, due to being involved in the sacrifice, was taken by the Security Bureau for investigation. If returning to Fire Fang, he might be arranged for secret work he couldn’t contact before.
So, this job needed to be kept, even consider turning permanent.
Finally, he had a underground black boxing part-time job.
Yuan Zhu couldn’t help but sigh, his predecessor was really rolling; young and already holding multiple jobs, not only paid his younger brother’s tuition, but also had five thousand rounds in fixed savings at Taixi Bank.
Five thousand! That’s what an ordinary family struggles five years without eating or drinking to save. He only scraped together a thousand bills from touching corpses at the sacrifice site. This scoundrel was too good at rolling!
Three thousand of the five thousand deposit was earned by his predecessor from underground boxing matches.
Yuan Zhu did black boxing, besides earning that little appearance fee, also intentionally honing his own fighting and combat abilities.
He debuted underground at 17, mixed for 14 months so far, fought over 50 matches. Record checkable: 17 wins, 22 draws, 13 losses. In the old urban area Underground Boxing Ring, he had some fame, style known for steadiness, specializing in worldly wisdom.
To make money, Yuan Zhu frequently competed to gain exposure, but had few fanatic fans supporting. Half a year ago, relying on frequent exposure, he smoothly evolved into a ‘power measurement unit’, used to boost newcomers or experts’ status.
Predecessor’s boxing technique was solid, style steady and not aggressive. Never risked KO, focused on defense throughout, pursuing point victories. Every match dragged to the last round, aiming to hone technique and gain experience.
This turtle flow fighting style hardly excited the audience, but had to admit in this old urban area, he was a rare breed with the most standard technique and decent strength.
Gradually, he became a measurement tool for other boxers’ strength, a gatekeeper. No one liked watching his matches, but everyone liked watching people beat him, to show opponents’ true level.
Beating him symbolized strength, viewership increased, gambling on boxing stakes rose, boss was happy. Being beaten by him meant limited strength, labeled weak chicken. Drawing with him meant potential type, worth developing.
Yuan Zhu relied on this ‘steady gatekeeper’ persona to privately take fixed match orders, staging a delightful fake boxing match, escorting opponents to the strong list. Or hard-fought draws, letting newcomers quickly rise, becoming new potential stars.
Underground black boxing had no fairness anyway. Relying on his ‘power unit’ persona, he easily made money without too serious injuries, living nicely. Even started part-time coaching, scripting ‘fake match scripts’ for opponents.
After flipping through these memories, Yuan Zhu couldn’t help sighing that his predecessor threw away all shame to make money. Young and already summed up a traffic playbook, charging high prices for newcomers’ ‘rise package’, using himself as a raft to highlight newcomers or veterans’ strength, without a shred of fighter dignity.
The underground boxing gym boss also appreciated Yuan Zhu’s shamelessness. Intentionally pulling him in to organize larger scale, more systematic fake boxing arrangements, even leaning towards WWE-style hot-blooded scripts.
Because after evolving for over a year, Yuan Zhu gradually shed the turtle label. His recent fake match scripts were fought extra ‘fiercely’, very good at stirring audience emotions.
In making money, Yuan Zhu had some talent!
Now it seemed, that black boxing boss had keen eyes, also a man with ideas, already taking on some marginalized regular matches.
Unfortunately, Yuan Zhu had no interest in becoming a ‘performance fake boxing fighter’; bigger dream was still usurping the Steam Factory, black fake boxing was just an evil side hustle for extra cash.
“Can’t bear to look!”
After seeing his predecessor’s years of struggle history (shameless money-making history), Yuan Zhu felt his Earth life was all lived on a dog. No wonder Game Sprite thought if he didn’t absorb predecessor’s soul essence to shift personality, he couldn’t mix in Du Ling at all.
Such a scoundrel ambitious youth still rolling at the bottom. To achieve something in this class-solidified backward era, he couldn’t just be human, had to be more scoundrel!
Unknowingly, the steam bus had entered the city center urban area, two stops’ walk from City Second Hospital. So he decisively got off and merged into the crowd…
Monthly ticket, recommendation, collection, comments… give whatever you have, come one come all.
