Lie Huo Jiao Chou

ndle these situations?”

When he turned around, he saw the three people behind him.

In addition to him, there were three people in the Aftermath Department, two women and one man.
The one who spoke earlier was a highly experienced middle-aged woman in her fifties, wearing stylish and beautiful “Teddy curls” and a knitted cardigan in a deathly Barbie pink color, with a row of lace edging on the collar revealing the autumn clothes, which looked rather exquisite.

The male colleague next to her was even more exquisite, wearing a suit and leather shoes, shining brightly.
Although his hairline was pitiful, he still carefully applied hair gel and neatly fixed the hollow headband on his crown, which looked like a row of barcodes from afar.

There was also a chubby young girl who either feared the heat or feared strangers, with a thin layer of sweat on her forehead.
When the new boss turned to look at her, she became so nervous that she nearly ripped her pants.

Xuan Ji suddenly felt exhausted because he had to single-handedly raise the department's average appearance, and he felt very tired.

“Hello, Director, my name is Bi Chunsheng.
I'm a few years older than you, so you can just call me Lao Bi.” The woman with glasses spoke first.
“Don't worry, we all have a basic office process – we talk to each person one by one, and if there's nothing serious, we just deceive them…well, we console them a bit.
For those who have severe psychological trauma, we occasionally use some 'props,' but it's not complicated, and you'll know when you see them.
Finally, be sure to check their phones and computers, especially things that can connect to the internet, to make sure there are no traces left online.
You can let Qianru – that little girl named Ping Qianru – handle that.
Young people these days are very good at using computers.
When our office printer breaks down, we go to her to fix it.”

It turned out that the girl who was picking at her pants was named “Ping Qianru.” The girl herself was as introverted as the seam of her pants, and she was startled by being called out.
She hung her head, showing a fair hairpin to Xuan Ji as if she couldn't bear to look at him.

Xuan Ji wanted to say something, but his mind was blanked by this mourning head.
He had no choice but to smack his lips and force out a friendly smile.

“There is one more thing you need to focus on,” Xiao Zheng looked at his watch and interrupted their department's internal icebreaking ceremony.
“When we received the report, it said that there were five trapped tourists.
The search and rescue team initially detected signs of life from five people in the cave.
But, for some reason, they pulled out six people in the end, an extra one that nobody knows where it came from.”

Several people from the Aftermath Department looked at Director Xiao with confusion.

“The trapped people were originally two groups of individuals who happened to meet during their escape.
Both groups thought that the extra person was with the other group, so no one paid attention to it.
One of the groups was trespassing in the scenic area to film, and their equipment was not turned off at the time.
The whole process was recorded,” Xiao Zheng continued, “After investigating the video, we found that all of the footage of this person was blurry, meaning that only his voice was recorded from start to finish.”

’

As he spoke, he opened another video on his computer.
In the video, a man in the corner of the frame seemed to melt into the light, with only an overexposed, blurry outline visible.

The outline said, “I'm tired of living the 9-to-5 life, so I came out to wander around.”

Although only his voice was heard, it seemed that the person speaking was smiling, with a relaxed tone and a warm and friendly voice that made people feel good just listening to him.

Bi Chunsheng thought for a moment and said, “At the time, we were escaping for our lives, and this person seemed a bit too calm.”

Xiao Zheng shook his head.
“No, the problem is here.”

As he spoke, he played several other audio clips.

The first clip was a crisp female voice that sounded young.
The girl seemed to be talking to the camera, saying, “Okay, we're in now.
Let's just wander around here for a bit.”

The second clip was a deep male voice.
“Tourism is just going from a place where you're tired of living to a place where others are tired of living.
Now, there's traffic on holidays when people go out.
I think it's better to lie on the couch and watch others run around.
Today, we're responsible for traveling and taking you all around.
Don't forget to give us a thumbs-up if you're having a good time, bros.”

The third clip was from another man with a slightly hoarse voice.
“I don't think it's that difficult.
Everyone has their own difficulties, right? Is the 9-to-5 life not hard? Of course it is.
At least we're free.”

Xiao Zheng said, “Three of the trapped people were live-streaming before they were in danger.
These are recordings of them chatting with their audience.
It may not be obvious when listening to the complete sentences, but I'll show you…”

“I can tell,” Xuan Ji rubbed her chin.
“This mysterious figure cut out words from what others said and pieced them together to make a sentence.”

’

Bi Chunsheng's glasses slipped down from his nose.
“Are you saying he learned how to talk from other people?”

“Not just learned,” Xiao Zheng first clipped out the four words “wander around” from the young woman's statement, and then played the audio of the mysterious man saying the same phrase.
It wasn't very clear in the context of the sentence, and one could easily miss it, but when played separately, it gave people goosebumps.

“Speech speed, tone, pauses, and…”

As for me…

I'm tired of the nine-to-five routine…

So I came out to wander around…

“Pay close attention to this person.
It's about time for you to set off.” Xiao Zheng said, glanced at Xuan Ji, “Let me know when you come back.
From now on, we're colleagues.
Let's have a meal together.”

Xiao Zheng was probably going to explain to Xuan Ji why he had been tricked into joining the Aftermath Department.

Xuan Ji smiled and teased him, “You're inviting us? That's not very generous of you, Director Xiao.
Why are you so stingy? If you're treating us, you should invite everyone in our department.”

Bi Chunsheng and the male colleague were both old hands at this, immediately joining in the act and saying they wanted to seize the opportunity to share the wealth.

“Don't try to fool us with cafeteria food.
If you're treating us, take us to a place we can't afford to go on our own.
Oh, and before we eat, let's get some work done,” Xuan Ji copied the weird video onto her phone.
“By the way, what's this 'mosaic' guy's name?”

“Oh…
he calls himself 'Sheng Lingyuan'.”