Day of Imprisonment

Toilet.

Luo Xi widened his eyes, listening intently to a guy in the next stall humming 'Für Elise,' wondering who could be so bored.

But just as he was about to get up, the guy who had been humming for at least two minutes stopped.

"Is he done?"

After a brief silence, the wooden partition of the next stall suddenly echoed with 'dong, dong, dong' knocking, as if someone was repeatedly tapping on the partition.

Luo Xi was stunned.

Is he out of paper?

If he needs paper, should I lend him some?

The knocking was rhythmic.

But it stopped quickly, followed by someone speaking in a low voice.

"6420664206"

The voice was very hushed.

As if afraid of being overheard.

"Ran into a lunatic."

Luo Xi immediately stood up and pushed the door open, walking out.

The action was smooth and swift.

He had seen news reports about mentally ill people grabbing handfuls of feces and throwing them at passersby. Some unlucky ones got hit directly, and even more unlucky ones got it smeared on their faces, with no recourse. You couldn't hit them, you couldn't scold them. Even if the police came, they could only try to send them home.

Can't afford to provoke them, so I'll just avoid them.

"Repeat, 6420664206. This world is fake, repeat. This world is fake..."

"64206 Chrysalis Project activated!"

From the next stall, the voice of the lunatic continued, gradually becoming louder and more urgent.

But after saying the last word 'activated,' there was a sudden silence.

Luo Xi washed his hands at the sink, his eyes constantly fixed on the toilet stall, afraid that the person inside would suddenly rush out.

"That's not right, this is the company, where would a lunatic come from?"

At this moment, he turned off the faucet, and the toilet fell silent.

He was stunned.

Then he quickly walked over and pushed open the stall door.

Bright and clean tiles, but the stall was empty.

Unexpectedly, Luo Xi didn't seem surprised at all, but rather acted as if it was commonplace, scratching his head and sighing.

"It's acting up again... I need to take my medicine quickly."

Luo Xi held an empty medicine bottle with no labels, his expression somewhat bewildered.

"When did I finish it? I remember there were still a few pills left."

He couldn't remember.

"Hiss~ Hoo~"

Taking a deep breath, Luo Xi rubbed his face with his hands.

"Missing one dose isn't a big deal. Occasional auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, and delusions aren't really a major problem. If I don't say anything, who would know I'm a lunatic?"

He was an optimistic person.

Mainly because the medicine for his condition could only be obtained from home. His mom got it from a designated hospital, and it couldn't be bought anywhere else.

"I'll deal with it after work."

Luo Xi took a sip of water, feeling much better than before.

At this moment, he was wearing the customer service representative's headset, sitting in a small work cubicle. On the desk inside the cubicle, besides a computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard, were some commonly used office supplies. A notebook and pen were neatly placed on one side, perfectly aligned and meticulous.

Various sticky notes were attached to both sides of the cubicle, some with notes and reminders. The positions of the labels were also parallel to each other, without the slightest deviation.

A standard customer service workstation.

The computer date showed today was Monday, July 29th.

This was a customer service outsourcing company, responsible for the telephone customer service business of several e-commerce platforms. Luo Xi joined the company a year ago as a customer service representative, with a base salary of two thousand, a performance bonus of two thousand two, and subsidies and overtime rewards. Like everyone else, he lived a simple, unglamorous, and miserable working life.

Simple but very 'fulfilling,' seemingly busy and boring, but actually quite tedious.

If it weren't for a meager salary that barely kept him alive, who would be trapped in such a small workstation answering phones during their prime years?

Luo Xi's fingers rapidly tapped on the keyboard, as if a pianist was playing 'Flight of the Bumblebee,' skillfully logging in his employee number and signing into the call system. Soon, the first call came in, a customer calling to inquire about a problem they encountered while shopping on a certain e-commerce platform.

"Hello, I want to complain. The refrigerator I bought stopped cooling after only a few days. What kind of * @ #! (mother's content) quality is this..."

Luo Xi said soothing words with a blank face and in a formulaic tone, then crossed his legs and swayed back and forth.

People who sit for long periods of time know that their legs become uncomfortable, and they always want to shake them or cross them.

At this moment, Luo Xi was crossing and shaking his legs, and accidentally kicked the network cable in his workstation.

This rarely happened, but it wasn't unheard of. It was the fault of the brain-dead person who designed the workstation, who actually put the network cable socket in a position where it could be kicked by raising a foot.

Luo Xi looked down and picked up the broken network cable head. At the same time, listening to the woman's incessant complaints in his headset, his expression suddenly froze.

"The network cable is broken, why hasn't the call been disconnected?"

The calls here were accessed through the network, and Luo Xi had been here for so long that he naturally knew this. But what was going on now?

Holding the broken network cable connector in his hand, listening to the complaining voice in his headset, he was momentarily dazed.

"I need to take my medicine quickly!"

Luo Xi was sick.

The authoritative hospital's diagnosis was severe schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, delusions, auditory hallucinations, and visual hallucinations...

He forgot when he got the disease, but he had to rely on medication to suppress it, otherwise he would experience symptoms of auditory and visual hallucinations. For example, at this moment, Luo Xi went to the water room to get water. The water in the water dispenser had turned into bright red blood at some point, smelling terribly fishy and foul; the female customer service representative in the next workstation was clearly not plugged into a power source, but she was busy in front of the screen; from the innermost locker in the changing room, there would be ear-piercing sounds of fingernails scratching the metal door panels; when looking in the mirror, the 'self' in the mirror would curse at him...

Luo Xi pretended not to see it, not to hear it, and had become accustomed to any such abnormal things.

But continuing like this was not a good thing.

He immediately found the on-duty supervisor, Liu Mao.

"Brother Mao, I need to take some time off!"

"What's wrong? This is peak call time, none of our group can leave. We have to maintain the connection rate target."

"No, I'm a little uncomfortable. I forgot to bring my medicine when I left home, I need to go home and get it!"

"What's wrong? How come I don't know?"

"Old problem, uh, stomach ache, stomach medicine..." Luo Xi lied.

After all, mental illness was not a good thing. He had never told anyone at work, and the medicine bottle he brought had no labels, also for fear of people discovering clues.

This kind of thing easily leads to discrimination.

Luo Xi was also a person who cared about his reputation.

"Stomach ache, huh? It's okay, I have this problem too, I have medicine with me, I'll give you two pills. This is imported medicine, it works well."

"..."

"Like this, you go back to your workstation first, I'll get you the medicine, rest for a while and quickly sign into the system. The call volume is high now, if the target is not completed, not to mention you, my performance bonus will also be deducted."

After speaking, he patted Luo Xi on the shoulder and turned to get the medicine.

"Hey~"

Luo Xi sat back at his workstation feeling dizzy, took a deep breath, and rubbed his face vigorously again, then patted it very hard.

He just waited for a while, but Liu Mao didn't come to deliver the medicine.

Luo Xi shook his head, deciding to ignore the strange things happening and focus on taking calls from customers while wearing his headset.

It seemed that everything was returning to normal.

At that moment, his phone vibrated. Luo Xi set his system login status to "Away" and checked his phone. It was his mom calling.

He got up and answered the phone in the hallway.

"Son, you forgot the medicine I prepared for you this morning, didn't you? Honestly, you never let me rest easy. Are you out of medicine over there?"

His mom's voice was full of energy.

"It's okay, I can just skip a couple of doses. It's not a big deal," Luo Xi always reported good news and not bad, not wanting his mom to worry.

"Son, do you think I don't know you? You never say anything even when you're feeling unwell... Don't worry, I'll find a delivery guy to send it over to you. You, this child... You didn't see anything strange, did you?"

"No, Mom, don't worry. I still had one pill left, and I already took it. I was just worried that I wouldn't have any to take at noon." This was a white lie, to prevent his mother from worrying, and even more to prevent her endless nagging.

"Alright, be careful, and remember to answer the delivery guy's call!"

After a round of nagging, she hung up the phone.

He felt relieved now.

After a while, the delivery guy called. He was a very energetic young man who delivered the medicine directly to the door. Luo Xi went to pick it up, but he didn't have time to take it because the dizzy feeling he had before disappeared, and he didn't see any more illusions. It seemed that he could skip taking the medicine for now.

"Then I'll take it during the lunch break."

Morning, ten o'clock sharp.

"Where's Mao-ge?"

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A female colleague wearing a white shirt uniform came over and asked Luo Xi.

Her name was Wu Rui, and she was also a customer service representative.

"I don't know. Do you need him for something?" Luo Xi shook his head, thinking that the guy was a liar, saying he'd get stomach medicine but he disappeared without a trace.

So unreliable.

"Yes, I need to ask him for leave." Wu Rui had a very sweet appearance, the petite and cute type, with big, expressive eyes, and she knew how to put on makeup and dress up. There were many admirers in the company.

"Ask for leave? Heh heh, I'd say it's unlikely."

Before Luo Xi could finish speaking, a scream suddenly came from the locker room.

The sound was shrill.

"Something happened?"

"What's going on?"

Someone immediately ran over, and Luo Xi followed. Several people were already gathered at the entrance of the men's locker room, all looking inside with terrified expressions.

Luo Xi and Wu Rui squeezed through to take a look.

The floor of the men's locker room was now covered in blood. Following the trail of blood, they found that blood was seeping out of the innermost locker.

"I just came in to change clothes and found blood all over the floor. It scared me to death." The speaker was Gao Shengjie, one of the few male employees here, like Luo Xi, a rather effeminate man.

It was said that he had been working here for four years, and privately, people said that Lao Gao had been influenced by the numerous female magnetic fields here, which had made him become like this.

However, in Luo Xi's opinion, the other party's effeminate energy was inherent and had nothing to do with the environment.

The next moment, Gao Shengjie widened his eyes and pointed at the innermost locker, his eyeballs almost popping out.

Creak!

The locker door that was seeping blood slowly opened.

Then everyone saw that the small locker was almost filled with flesh and blood. It was a person, folded and forced inside, and you could even clearly see the broken limbs and shattered bones sticking out from the skin.

Everyone who saw this scene was terrified.

Dumbfounded.

"It's... it's Mao... Mao-ge..."

"What's going on?"

The bloody person in the locker was Liu Mao. At this moment, an extremely terrifying thing happened.

Liu Mao, who was obviously a corpse in the locker, suddenly opened his eyes, his eyes filled with resentment, and reached out to grab the edge of the locker and began to climb out.

It's no exaggeration to say that this scene was like a sharp blade, easily cutting off everyone's reason and completely releasing the fear in their hearts.

Only one person reacted differently from the others.

Luo Xi.

At this time, he was not afraid.

Because in his opinion, this was just a hallucination caused by not taking his medicine, which happened often in the past.

"If I had known, I should have taken the medicine." He just watched with a calm expression as Liu Mao, with his twisted limbs and covered in blood, crawled out of the locker, then shook his head and sighed.

Liu Mao, who crawled out of the locker, was covered in blood, his limbs twisted, his eyes wide open, revealing an indescribable resentment.

The next moment, he pounced over.

Screams rose and fell, and people scattered and fled as if they were crazy, away from the locker room. At this moment, Mao-ge was a flood and a beast.

Some with little courage collapsed on the ground crying for their mothers, their crotches wet.

Luo Xi was dragged away by Wu Rui.

"What are you standing there for, scared silly? Run!"

The woman pulled Luo Xi and ran quickly.

The work area was in complete chaos.

"Damn it, I can't open the door."

The work area on this floor was already in chaos. Some people wanted to run, but found that the door to get out could not be opened at all.

It seemed to be locked.

There were entrances on the east and west sides of the work area, electronic locks, which could only be opened with a card, but now nothing worked.

It was locked by the system.

"Oh my dear mother!" A customer service girl was so nervous that she burst out in her local dialect, crying and shouting as she slammed on the door, but it was a fire door and could not be smashed open at all.

The glass was explosion-proof and thickened.

Looking back, Mao-ge had already rushed out of the locker room, and, surprisingly, he was climbing along the wall to the ceiling, the blood dripping down like rain. The next moment, he pounced on the nearest person, directly twisting the other person's neck one hundred and eighty degrees. The sound of the neck bone breaking was transmitted to everyone's ears, arousing the fear in their hearts and submerging reason.

Faced with this scene, even the greatest courage was useless.

"If we can't open the door, then jump out the window!"

"Jump your mother, this is the twenty-third floor."

"Wuwuwu, I haven't married yet, I don't want to die..."

"Hide, hide quickly, call the police!"

"Wuwu, help, Mao-ge is climbing over..."

Wu Rui pulled Luo Xi and hid under the cubicle of the innermost workstation in the front row.

"Hide in here!"

Luo Xi looked at Wu Rui strangely.

He had felt strange since just now.

"No, Miss Wu, are you also sick?"

Luo Xi looked at Wu Rui with anticipation.

"..."

"No, it's not just you. Everyone else seems to be acting strangely too. It's impossible for everyone to be sick at the same time. Strange, can they all see it... I don't understand."

Luo Xi suddenly realized that this didn't seem to be his hallucination.

If it was, why were the others acting like they had seen a ghost? Could it be that the others also saw Mao-ge, who was covered in blood and whose bones were broken, yet he could still crawl on the ground like a spider, as if he was a vengeful ghost?

Wasn't this a hallucination that only I could see?

"Perhaps, things will get better after taking the medicine."

Just then.

Pa da!

A drop of blood dripped on Luo Xi's hand.

He looked up and saw Mao-ge, with his face covered in blood, leaning down from the table above, looking at him with a strange smile.

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