Chapter 196: [Gold Medal Salesperson] Split Investigations
“So… do you guys want to investigate this? I don’t mind sharing the information with you.”
Bai Cha flashed a friendly, sincere smile.
[…]
[If I didn’t still remember what you looked like last night, I really would’ve believed you were a kind and friendly streamer.]
[Save me, I’m genuinely terrified every time I see the streamer smile now.]
The players exchanged glances with one another, feeling inevitably tempted by the proposal.
“Are you sure? The rewards given by an instance within an instance are usually pretty solid.”
Considering that clearing this instance had been entirely thanks to Bai Cha, everyone maintained a relatively friendly attitude, regardless of what they truly thought in their hearts.
“It doesn’t really matter—my exploration progress is bound to be a bit higher than yours anyway.”
That was undeniable.
Her identity was tied directly into the plotline, granting her an inherent advantage over them when it came to investigating.
Since she didn’t mind, everyone naturally welcomed the offer.
Their favorable impression of Bai Cha grew even stronger.
When discussing matters involving the game itself, standard NPCs would have relevant keywords filtered out, or what reached their ears would be automatically modified by the system.
Unless they happened to be special NPCs.
Regardless, the group didn’t bother hiding their conversation from Li Dao-peng. In fact, Li Dao-peng held zero attention to spare for what they were discussing anyway, frantically typing away to reply to messages.
Back when he was the boss, he couldn’t care less whether his employees encountered difficult, moronic customers.
Now that he was forced into after-sales duty, however, things were completely different.
After being subjected to yet another round of unreasonable harassment from a customer, Li Dao-peng failed to suppress a swear word.
“Wang Lei” immediately slammed a hand onto the desk.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?! How can you use profanity? You have to maintain patience and tolerance toward customers! They bought our products, so needing after-sales service is completely normal. No matter what the other party does, it’s no excuse for you to swear—understand?!”
Li Dao-peng’s face contorted wildly.
“I didn’t swear at the customer!”
“That’s no excuse either! If you can drop profanities here today, you’ll be throwing curse words at customers tomorrow!”
“Old Li, work hard! We’re doing all this for your own good—what a wonderful learning opportunity this is! You’d better treasure it!”
Li Dao-peng took a deep breath, swallowing his grievance as he resumed working.
The players kept their eyes on him for a little longer before exchanging glances.
Since they were embarking on investigating the instance, keeping watch over this boss was naturally out of the question; they had vented their frustration, and lingering here served no further purpose.
Under normal circumstances, an instance held a defined territorial boundary, and exceeding the activity radius of an instance was best avoided.
Otherwise, one risked becoming lost entirely.
Thus, they ultimately turned their gazes toward Bai Cha.
“How should we handle things next?”
Bai Cha said, “Let’s split up. I have a medical appointment record from a hospital on my end. If anyone is interested, you can go check things out there.”
“Although she is my mother in terms of my character’s identity, there are certain things that prove inconvenient for me to investigate personally instead.”
This was precisely why Bai Cha was willing to share the information.
On the surface, she was still Li Yun.
As Li Yun, how could she not know what her own mother was like? The moment she set out to investigate, the existing balance would be shattered.
Bai Cha forwarded the hospital appointment record straight into the group chat.
“Alright, a few of us can go check that out.”
“There’s also this.”
Bai Cha sent over the product photo of that blatantly fake Reincarnation Stone, along with the purchase link.
“This link has expired and the shop is closed, but it should serve as a solid lead. You can look into it as well—a group called the Reincarnation Cult seems to be involved behind it.”
“A cult…”
“Wang Lei” knitted his brows.
“Involving a cult usually implies a fairly high danger level!”
Saying that, this was a B9-rank instance after all; any sub-instance derived from it would share a similar rank, unlikely to fall much lower.
“So just do what you can within your limits. This company office should be reasonably safe. Keep in touch through the group chat, and let’s meet up here every morning to check in and exchange findings.”
After a moment’s thought, the group held no objections.
“Sounds good.”
This arrangement also allowed them to manage the families tied to their assigned roles.
After all, leaving the house to go to work served as an unassailable excuse.
Bai Cha then patted Li Dao-peng on the shoulder, startling him so badly he flinched hard—his ear was still swollen from earlier.
“Boss, work hard, okay? We’ll be coming to the company every day to check in for work, and we’ll be inspecting whether your complaint rate has dropped~”
Li Dao-peng: “…”
Fuck, can’t this group of people just quit and never come back?!
Yet he didn’t dare voice it out loud, as powers involving ghosts and spirits were at play.
“Boss, we’ll be taking our leave first. Work hard, and we’ll check your results for today when we come back tomorrow! We’ll buy you drinks later!”
“Wang Lei” stepped forward as well, giving his shoulder a firm pat.
Grit-toothed, Li Dao-peng watched the group depart.
He took a deep breath, knowing full well that things couldn’t be allowed to continue like this.
If these people kept treating him this way, he was going to be driven insane sooner or later.
With a dark, grim expression, Li Dao-peng closed the backend system after a moment, opened his contact list, and clicked on a profile picture.
Li Dao-peng: Hello, Master. I would like to know how one can acquire the ability to control ghosts and spirits?
The other party quickly sent a link over.
Li Dao-peng: Thank you!
Downstairs from the company building, Bai Cha stared at the surveillance feed displayed on her phone, a thoughtful glint in her eyes.
“This boss really isn’t staying honest!”
“Wang Lei” let out a cold sneer; the surveillance feed was his doing just now.
He held an item card that allowed him to randomly monitor an NPC.
Naturally, this surveillance couldn’t maintain continuous operation—if entities like ghosts were involved, it would fail and cut to black.
Using it on Li Dao-peng was perfectly suited, however.
Earlier, Bai Cha had mentioned returning to the company and dropped a message in the group chat asking if anyone could find a way to monitor the boss.
While they didn’t censor certain topics in front of NPCs, minimizing what NPCs overheard remained preferable whenever possible.
After all, who knew what filtered words sounded like to an NPC, and who could guarantee this specific NPC wasn’t special?
Letting him hear only what was safe to hear worked to everyone’s benefit.
Thus, “Wang Lei” had pulled out his item card right then and there.
“Looks like we can leave someone to investigate leads on the boss’s end too, since it branches directly out of this instance.”
Consequently, the ten players split into four teams.
Bai Cha was heading home alone.
Of the remaining nine players, three stayed behind to keep tabs on the boss, three headed to the hospital, and three set off to look into the Reincarnation Cult.
“Sis, stay safe out there!”
Since Bai Cha was acting alone, everyone expressed a word of concern.
It was rare to encounter such a generous person inside an instance—not only helping them clear the main run straight off, but sharing leads on the instance within an instance without reservation.
After all, even if investigating proved inconvenient on her end, she could have completely ignored those NPCs, investigating as much as she could before exiting the game directly, keeping all the rewards to herself.
Bai Cha offered them a beaming smile and waved her hand.
“You guys be careful too. Act within your limits, and exit if things look bad!”
The group dispersed in harmonious accord.
[…]
[They seem to trust the streamer completely now, huh.]
[If it were me, I’d trust her too…]
[The streamer wouldn’t set people up, right?]
[Hard to say, but setting up ghosts? Highly likely.]
[Pity the streamer doesn’t turn on the bullet chat—I really want to ask what her mindset was like back when she lost her memory!]
