Chapter 9: “Never, Never Hurt the Fish.”

Chapter 9: "Absolutely, Under No Circumstances, Harm the Fish."

An hour later, Luo Shengle pulled her baseball cap lower and straightened the name tag on her chest, blending in inconspicuously through the corners of the aquarium as a staff member.

Please don’t notice me, don’t notice me…

She mentally chanted, yet at a turn, she was stopped by a blue-uniformed supervisor coming her way: "Hey, you there! Come help out."

Luo Shengle, who had been about to flee, hesitated. Turning and running wasn’t a long-term solution either, so she tugged her cap lower and obediently approached the manager, bracing for a lecture: "Section B is swamped with work, everyone else is overwhelmed, and you're just loafing around? What’s your name?"

Heart pounding with nerves, Luo Shengle let out a controlled breath, forcing herself to stay outwardly calm as she mumbled the name on the tag: "Lin Ye."

"Oh," the manager, seeing her bow her head deeply, took it as embarrassment at being caught slacking and didn’t suspect anything. "Lin Ye… you’re the new hire today? Since it’s your first day, I’ll let it slide. Work properly from now on."

Relieved to have gotten away with it, Luo Shengle nodded eagerly.

Incredible luck—the person she’d knocked out just happened to be a new employee on their first day, with no one familiar with their face or voice.

Was this bit of luck a blessing from Mr. Narrator?

Grateful and reverent, Luo Shengle glanced briefly at the nearby glass, not daring to linger or ponder the mysterious figure’s motives.

The manager, satisfied with her apparent remorse, didn’t press further. Checking her watch, she urged, "Hurry to the storage room and grab a few clean buckets, then take them to Zone B. Quick!"

With that, she hurried away as briskly as she’d arrived.

Fortunately, Luo Shengle had already memorized the aquarium’s layout. Finding the staff area wasn’t difficult, and she soon used her uniform to blend in, located the storage room, and set off with the buckets.

Meanwhile, Yi Fengchu sat at home, closely monitoring Luo Shengle’s every move.

Since Luo Shengle no longer carried her phone, he could only watch the scenario through any reflective surface.

In glass-lined corridors, he could see clearly, but in the passage connecting Zones A and B, where walls blocked the view, his perspective became limited.

Staring at the screen, he frowned. "Has your view always been this restricted in scenarios? It feels strangely distorted this time..."

"I’m not sure," the phone replied, unusually uncertain. "It’s as if some force—something similar to my own—is blocking my infiltration into this scenario."

"No wonder you flagged this as a troublesome scenario," Yi Fengchu mused.

His fingers tapped the screen rhythmically as he pondered.

Why had Luo Shengle coincidentally picked a new employee?

Occupied with survival in the perilous scenario, Luo Shengle didn't have the capacity to question it, optimistically attributing the "luck" to supernatural assistance.

But Yi Fengchu, in his role as Narrator, knew he’d done nothing—the phone’s direct influence in the amusement park scenario was minimal. The coincidence felt deliberate.

"Perhaps there are no coincidences, only inevitabilities," Yi Fengchu mused. "The manager never said there was only one new hire—it could’ve been a batch."

The manager’s casual attitude suggested she was used to streams of new hires joining the aquarium, only to vanish mysteriously, like kindling constantly fed to fire.

As for why staff changed so frequently, the answer was obvious: the aquarium itself was the problem.

"'The haze looming over the aquarium'... What exactly does it refer to?"

An intrigued smile curled Yi Fengchu’s lips.

As he pondered, Luo Shengle arrived at Zone B.

Earlier that afternoon, she’d seen it chained shut with thick locks, guarded by frequent patrols. Now, through sheer chance, the guards barely glanced at her, and the once-sealed entrance stood wide open for staff.

Stepping inside, the air grew thick—salty, damp, and a fishy stench filling her nose.

Her hands full with buckets, Luo Shengle subtly activated her Ability, wrapping herself in a thin membrane of fresh air.

Inside Zone B, more reflective surfaces appeared. In her periphery, silver words appeared, laced with curiosity: "To your senses, the scent here seems unpleasant?"

It felt as though she were being observed through glass, like a creature in a fishbowl.

Wait—wasn’t this just like her earlier observation of the fish?

Harmless creatures, whether idly circling or fighting for food, made for fascinating viewing, passing time effortlessly...

Was this how the enigmatic, benevolent higher being viewed players?

Pushing aside her musings, Luo Shengle gave a slight confirming nod, then surveyed her surroundings.

Compared to Zone A’s polished elegance, Zone B was rugged and crude. A cracked fluorescent light exposed dangling wires; dusty tarps in red, blue, and white lay piled against pitted concrete flooring.

Windows sealed shut for ages left the air stagnant, the stifling heat and stench soon beading sweat on Luo Shengle’s forehead.

In a way, the aquarium’s claim that Zone B was closed for renovations wasn’t entirely false—no visitor would willingly enter this half-finished construction zone.

Using her elbow to wipe sweat, Luo Shengle maneuvered around scattered debris, spotting groups of staff in black uniforms bustling around rows of tanks.

Some checked oxygen rods and tank functions; others stood on ladders, feeding fish; one took notes as they examined fry.

Ignoring the environment, it was an orderly, efficient workspace.

A worker hurried over to Luo Shengle, thrusting a long bamboo pole with a net into her hands. "Newbie? Start simple—scoop out the rotten plants."

Pausing, they added sternly, "Remember: absolutely, under no circumstances, harm the fish. They’re invaluable assets."

Confused but compliant, Luo Shengle accepted the pole, enduring the intensifying stench as she copied the others' movements, carefully skimming dead plants into a bucket.

Looking into the tank, she noted the fish here were even stranger than Zone A’s. The one before her was nearly three feet long, with two stubby, curled human legs jutting from its tail, skin wrinkled and pallid from prolonged soaking.

Fighting down disgust, Luo Shengle maneuvered the pole carefully to avoid the creature.

Luckily, it lethargically curled in a corner, easing her task.

From Yi Fengchu’s perspective, these "fish" were far more horrifying.

The "leg-fish" was a monstrous hybrid—a swollen, pale human upper body fused at the abdomen with half a fish body. Each fin flick stirred the scales and fleshy growths at the junction.

Human flesh nourished the "fish’s" growth—likely the origin of many Zone A specimens. What he saw now was the mid-process.

He also understood why the leg-fish seemed docile: no matter how it flapped, it couldn’t free itself from the bloated body anchoring it to the corner.

Worse, the corpse-like form retained a shred of consciousness.

Eyes fixed upward from the tank’s depths, its mouth opened and closed mutely, as if pleading silently to Luo Shengle for help.

But Luo Shengle couldn't see any of this. She remained focused on skimming the algae, her gaze unconsciously meeting the eyes at the bottom of the tank several times, only to unknowingly shift her sight away just as a flicker of hope appeared in them...

Perhaps noticing Yi Fengchu's attention to the person at the tank's bottom, the phone interjected, "The moment the fish grew from his abdomen, he was already dead. What's pleading for help now is merely a corpse retaining a shred of consciousness."

"In this current scenario, the only regular player you can save is your senior."

Yi Fengchu went quiet for a beat, ultimately choosing not to reveal the truth about the "fish" to Luo Shengle for now.

He judged that the staff's warning—"Absolutely must not harm the fish"—was clearly a critical rule.

If Luo Shengle were to learn that what she was facing were the corpses of former players, she might freak out and make a fatal mistake.

For now, it was better to let her believe the "fish" were just fish.

While diligently skimming the weeds, Luo Shengle listened intently to the conversations among the other staff.

These workers behaved as if they saw nothing unusual about the grotesque fish, carrying out their routines—changing water, checking oxygen levels and pressure, feeding—even expressing concern:

"This fish ate so little today and moved sluggishly. Is it sick?"

Another worker came over to look and said reassuringly, "No, it's perfectly healthy."

"..."

On the other side of the screen, Yi Fengchu glanced at the eight-eyed fish growing from a corpse's forehead in front of the two workers, his face unreadable.

Then, the phone suddenly gave a chilling laugh, its usually emotionless mechanical voice tinged with mockery. "Someone's about to have bad luck."

Yi Fengchu switched his view to an overhead angle and spotted an employee leaning over a tank to feed the fish. The worker's foot seemed to slip slightly, and his hand instinctively reached into the water for support, his nails scratching a shallow mark on the scaleless fish.

The noise was loud enough—the ladder's edge scraped against the concrete floor, the screeching sound echoing through Hall B.

Only then did Luo Shengle suddenly notice the surroundings had grown eerily quiet. Following the noise, she saw nearly everyone had stopped working, staring blankly at the employee who had made the mistake.

The worker under scrutiny showed no alarm. Calmly, he made a public apology for his error before flashing a bright smile:

"...So, to make up for my mistake, I'll take full responsibility and ensure it never happens again."

With that, he took two steps back and suddenly slammed his forehead against the fish tank—once, twice, again and again...

"Boom! Boom! Boom..."

Amid Luo Shengle's frozen expression, after several loud impacts, the worker's body went limp, slumping down the glass. His face was barely recognizable, fused to the glass in a bloody mess as droplets of blood trickled to the floor, staining it red.

Two employees stepped forward voluntarily, lifting his corpse and tossing it into an empty tank, remarking hopefully, "Wonderful. We can cultivate even more fish now."