“Someone’s here!”
“Don’t mess around. The person on lookout clearly said she went back.”
“Then it must be someone else. Otherwise, why is this coffee still hot? It was clearly just brewed!” one person said, pointing at the coffee cup, his finger still trembling.
“Impossible. The person on lookout didn’t say she met anyone today, and no one else entered this office…”
“Is it because the fog was too thick to see clearly?”
“P-possibly.”
Finding a plausible reason, everyone quickly comforted themselves.
“Whoever’s hiding inside, come out!” Cheng Fei stepped forward and shouted.
“Get out! We know you’re in here!”
They yelled loudly, trying to scare the person inside out, and also to embolden themselves.
Whoosh—
Faint footsteps suddenly darted past. They immediately looked around but couldn't catch sight of any moving figure.
This office was becoming increasingly eerie…
“Ah!” someone suddenly cried out, startling everyone.
“What the! What are you doing! You scared the hell out of me!”
“No, something just ran past my feet and seemed to have scurried under the sofa,” the person who cried out pointed towards the sofa.
Everyone followed his gaze: “…It must be that woman’s cat or dog or something.”
“That’s not right, she never kept any pets…” someone said faintly.
Everyone fell silent.
“Then it’s just a wild animal that snuck in. Don’t make a fuss and scare yourselves. It ran under the sofa, right? I’ll catch it for you!” Cheng Fei grunted, boldly stepping forward.
He crouched down and looked under the sofa.
Immediately, he widened his eyes.
Unbelievable!
There was a perfectly shaped Toast under the sofa!
Why would there be a Toast under the sofa? Is that woman so wasteful with food? This Toast looks so good, what a pity! Is it still edible? Why is there such a perfect Toast…
Cheng Fei’s mind fell into a bizarre loop of random thoughts.
“Fei Ge! Fei Ge!”
Only when he was roused by his subordinate did he belatedly get up: “What is it!?”
“Under the sofa… what’s there? You’ve been staring blankly for three minutes…” Everyone was genuinely a little scared. Strange things had been happening frequently since they entered!
“What’s there to be afraid of!” Cheng Fei said loudly: “It’s just a Toast!”
“Toast?”
Everyone was full of questions.
Oh~, so it’s a Toast.
No!
Why is there a Toast under the sofa? And why can Fei Ge lie on the ground staring at the Toast under the sofa for three minutes!?
“Don’t believe me? Go see for yourselves.” Cheng Fei pointed under the sofa.
His closest subordinate took the lead, lay down, and then also froze.
The others, seeing this, urged each other on, all lay down, and all froze.
A group of people lay by the sofa, looking through the gap. For some reason, they remained in that posture, bottoms up, staring inside, lost in a daze.
“What are you staring blankly at! This is unacceptable! Get up!” Cheng Fei waited for a long time, seeing them acting like idiots, he couldn’t bear to watch and called them up.
Everyone got up, looked at each other, then hesitated to speak, and finally said nothing.
“This Toast isn’t right. How could we have stared at it for so long?”
“Yeah, could it be… an Illusion?”
This guess made everyone’s eyes light up.
Phantasms are good. Phantasms are valuable. Even the most worthless Phantasms can sell for a good price on the black market.
“If it really is a Phantasms… that’s too stupid, a Toast that makes people stare at it? Hahaha.”
After confirming it was just a Toast and potentially a way for them to earn a profit, the atmosphere immediately livened up.
Cheng Fei grunted twice and again crawled down, preparing to retrieve the Toast.
But when he peered in, he found that the perfect Toast was gone.
Cheng Fei was startled and quickly examined it closely: “It’s gone!”
“What?”
Everyone scrambled to search but found nothing.
Cheng Fei frowned and reached his hand under the sofa to grope around…
Crack!
“Ah!” A scream burst out.
Everyone looked on in horror, seeing Cheng Fei trying desperately to pull his hand out from under the sofa, but it seemed to be held tightly by something, completely unable to break free.
The sound of bones being crushed emanated, sending shivers down their spines.
“Save me! Pull me out!” Cheng Fei’s voice was quite miserable, and some of the more timid subordinates directly turned and ran.
But there were also reliable ones who stepped forward, grabbed him, and dragged him out.
Snap!
Finally, with combined efforts, they managed to pull him out.
However, Cheng Fei’s forearm, which had been under the sofa, was gone.
He was breaking out in a cold sweat, clutching the wound of his severed arm and screaming incessantly, blood gushing out. Everyone looked at his state, then at the underside of the sofa. Blood was flowing out from under the sofa, accompanied by a faint chewing sound.
There’s a monster under the sofa!
“Run! Run!”
Drip, drip—
A strange ringing sound emitted. Someone looked over in response and found it was a black and gold coffee machine inside the office. Its red indicator light was flashing, and its structure had changed; a machine gun had extended from it.
Tat-tat-tat!
Several people were hit and fell to the ground on the spot, unable to get up. The others no longer cared about anything else, scrambling and crawling to escape from the Zero One Office.
Cheng Fei was the last one left behind. He couldn’t move because of the intense pain and blurred consciousness, and blood loss made his vision darken.
In this situation, he heard footsteps.
He saw a pair of legs emerge from the nearby shadows and stop beside him.
He looked up in disbelief at a blurry figure, emanating a strong black aura, its face only a dark vortex from which black fluid flowed outwards.
This figure was holding the coffee he had seen on the coffee table earlier, sipping it slowly. Even though Cheng Fei couldn’t see the other’s face, he could feel the mockery emanating from that vortex.
This… this is…
An Illusion.
“Oh?” A blurred, heavily distorted voice, like from an old radio, seemed surprised, “You can see me?”
I can’t see you.
Cheng Fei wanted to say that, but he no longer had the strength. He just looked in horror at the bottomless black vortex. Perhaps because of his injuries, or perhaps because of fear, he was powerless to react. On this foggy night, only crushing despair awaited him.
The Illusion had targeted him.
“It seems you also have some ‘talent,’ just a little… unrefined. Oh well, we’ll make do.”
As the words fell.
Cheng Fei’s body went limp and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
The Toast, dragging a severed arm, wiggled its backside out from under the sofa. The swallowing was in its final stage, the limp palm still dangling outside, and after a few more chews, it was completely swallowed.
“Awoo!” How dare they call the perfect Toast-sama stupid! They’re tired of living!
“Awoo?”
Hmm, where’s Fan Laoda?
The Toast looked around, unable to find Zheng Fan for a moment.
Suddenly, Cheng Fei’s body moved.
The Toast was alert.
He can still move?
The shadow, gradually lengthening under the light from the streetlamp outside, was only one, yet its outline was completely different from Cheng Fei’s. On his face, a mixture of sweat and tears, black tear-like patterns spread, and then a pair of grayish-white eyes suddenly opened.
“A body completely belonging to me…” “Cheng Fei” laughed, the voice coming from his mouth was also only one: Zheng Fan’s voice.
The Toast watched this scene in shock.
Watching “Cheng Fei” slowly rise from the ground, like some terrifying entity that had completely broken free from its cage and gained liberation, about to bring endless… to this world…
Thud!
The “Demon Lord’s” body suddenly went limp and slipped, falling flat on the ground.
“Damn it! What a useless body! I can’t exert any strength at all! You’re the worst host I’ve ever possessed!”
Then Zheng Fan’s exasperated voice was heard, face down on the floor, cursing.
Toast: “…”
Alright, it’s still the Fan Laoda it knows.