[Are you happy, Xiao Meng?]
The Light Orb leisurely circled around her, [Sun Zhen seems to have taken a liking to you, huh?]
“My colleagues all take a liking to me.”
Zhou Meng pressed the floor for her mission target in the elevator.
She had always tried to avoid the dark side of Eden Group before, but when there was no way to dodge it, she could only act calmly.
If she were a reader, Zhou Meng felt she might actually like Sun Zhen too… but reality was a bit different.
She had no intention of uncovering the secrets between Sun Zhen and Mikhail. As long as they could get along peacefully on the surface and maintain a sense of boundaries, that was enough.
[Oh…] The Light Orb stopped its smug circling, [Xiao Meng is amazing…]
“Am I?”
[I feel like you have this sense of being completely in control?]
“Hmm… after all, I’m a working adult.”
Zhou Meng’s fingers tugged at a strand of hair by her cheek.
The long commutes, the tedious work, sitting on the subway, swallowing down her own mediocrity bite by bite… Someone who had endured all that said lightly:
“Adults just have to be a little stronger.”
The elevator doors closed, reflecting her black, warm eyes.
…
The three missions in the manga world were still relatively stable.
…Except for the dance anime mission.
Zhou Meng really wanted to avoid thinking about the competition, but the news about the national championship she’d seen during the day reminded her anyway.
So-called expressiveness, in a sense, meant leaving an impression on the judges—something like that.
Even if your dance technique was superb, if you couldn’t get people to notice you or leave an impression, it meant nothing.
Ballroom dance was divided into Modern and Latin, also known as Ballroom Dancing—dancing on the ballroom floor.* (In more professional competition terminology, Ballroom specifically refers to Modern/Standard dance, while Latin specifically refers to Latin dance.)
It was the same during competitions. All competitors danced simultaneously on the floor, while several judges standing around the floor scored them…
In a single dance, multiple couples would be dancing on the floor at once.
Route conflicts, being blocked by others, or even couples colliding into each other—these were all things that could easily happen during a competition.
It was also perfectly normal for the audience and judges to be drawn to one dancer and not notice the others…
If you only had superb technique but couldn’t attract the audience’s attention, you could never win the championship.
‘Your dance… Huh? You were on the floor?’
Pale. In that kind of situation, no matter what you said, it was too pale.
You showed up but felt like you hadn’t shown up at all—that was what they called being a background character, right?
“So, I think we should prepare and practice other things first.”
[?] The Light Orb: [Like what?]
Zhou Meng snapped on her rubber gloves with a pop, then made a gesture of pressing both fists together and extending them forward: “Like this…”
The Light Orb vibrated: […Don’t practice the arrested pose on your own!!]
“That’s not good after all? Then how about this…”
She raised both hands above her head, spreading her fingers wide.
[The surrender pose is also a no.]
“Then…”
Zhou Meng wrapped both hands behind her head and crouched down.
[Stop.] The Light Orb: [I beg you. Please stop.]
“Okay.”
Overthinking was useless anyway—if she couldn’t complete the boss’s mission, she wouldn’t be able to keep this world going.
Zhou Meng stood up as if nothing had happened, pulled her mask tight, confirmed her protective suit, boots, gloves, and hair cap were all in order, and only then took out her keys.
“Eden Housekeeping, door-to-door service.”
Next was work time.
She would be working for Eden from three to five.
Zhou Meng turned the door lock.
“Phew…”
The moment she started working, Zhou Meng entered a professional state.
The door opened.
Zhou Meng had thought her heart had already turned cold as ice, that nothing could shake her anymore.
Until she saw the room burned pitch black, the wooden structures completely carbonized, black ash clinging to the walls like some kind of growing mold, suspicious burnt outlines still remaining on the floor, and a strange odor permeating the entire room… It was like a haunted spot from a horror movie where resentment never dissipated.
Zhou Meng: “…”
Her pupils slowly cleared from their unfocused state, then gradually shrank to pinpricks.
The Light Orb: [This… is way too much…]
The Light Orb was also shaken by this room radiating such ominous vibes.
Eden Group—might as well rename it the “Are You Dead Yet” Group.
Her phone buzzed at that moment.
Zhou Meng slowly opened the message interface, where a string of black default text appeared.
【Mikhail: This mission can be abandoned.】
The System circled around her: [Xiao Meng, let’s give up? It’s just a temporary mission anyway, even if you don’t succeed—]
“Mhm…” She responded without much meaning.
When the Light Orb’s electronic voice turned frantic, Zhou Meng seemed to calm down instead. She pulled off one glove, eyes fixed on the screen, and slowly typed on her phone:
[Zhou Meng: Leave it to me.]
Light Orb: [Xiao Meng?]
“It’s fine.”
Zhou Meng said softly.
Aside from her burning eyelids still twitching, her expression and tone carried a kind of airy tranquility:
“I’ll just work a little overtime… it’ll be done soon.”
She pulled out a new pair of rubber gloves, slipped them over her fingers unhurriedly, and twisted her wrists—a motion that made the Light Orb fall silent at once.
Her booted feet stepped forward, and with a calm expression, Zhou Meng trod over the charred debris on the floor and walked into the burnt room.
Though this was a bit on the extreme side, she had used fire plenty of times herself.
Bloodstains, flames, clear water, grease.
She had come into contact with all of these.
Just like a sorceress.
Zhou Meng surveyed the situation, set her toolbox down in a cleaner spot, and located the bathroom.
Could the bathroom still be used?
After pushing the door open, the bathroom was in much better shape than the living room.
She turned on the faucet—no water came out.
…No water was to be expected, given how wrecked the place was.
At least it didn’t look like it was about to collapse. It was the kind of property that could still be used once cleaned up.
…As long as one had the nerve.
Zhou Meng searched around and found a usable water supply in the apartment building’s common area.
She connected the hose, dragged the long rubber tubing along, and with “clap, clap” sounds, stepped back to the scene in her tall boots.
For a room burnt to this extent, soap and mops alone wouldn’t cut it, but at least they could be used to clean the tiles. As for the other plastic items, cabinets, decorations, and leather goods, she could scrub them with nano sponges and cleaning agents.
Zhou Meng touched the wall with her gloved fingers, looking at the black soot that had fully adhered to it, and murmured:
“For the walls, I’ll have to scrape it off and reapply the plaster…”
[This is already in renovation territory, you know.] The Light Orb said. [Are you getting more and more knowledgeable about everything…? Are you really okay? What happened while I wasn’t around?]
“Hm…? Nothing really.” Zhou Meng said, pulling a few scrapers and wall putty from her toolbox, gripping the handles to feel them out. “Just a bit of experience living alone.”
[Light Orb: …Is that so.] …Since when does living alone teach you how to clean up fire and bloodshed scenes?
It observed Zhou Meng. Between her mask and cap, her eyes—because she was wearing goggles—looked very dark in the light coming through the window. There was no trace of excess fear in them, only a slight redness at the corners, as if she were running a fever.
Hot.
Her face and body were heating up, and the thumping of her heart was so clear, beat after beat.
Was it because the pressure was too much?
“Huff… huff…”
She wore her mask, and the room was so utterly silent that the only sounds were the crunch of charred debris under her boots, the scraping of the scraper against the walls, and the somewhat muffled breathing from behind her mask.
But her mind was clear.
Zhou Meng calmly gripped the scraper and peeled off the carbonized residue stuck to the wall.
The black soot trembled, dispersing and falling through the air, as if it would clog one’s nose and mouth.
Working in a space like this was intensely oppressive, both physically and mentally.
But she was very good at enduring pressure.
She always had been.
No matter how unreasonable the demand, she could display extraordinary endurance.
Zhou Meng applied some force, gradually removing the black marks and filling in the white wall putty.
…
…In the early hours of the morning.
She set down the screwdriver, pressed the switch she had repaired, and the electric light flickered on, illuminating the room brightly.
The fire scene that had been thick with black smoke was now a clean, bright room. The glossy floor reflected the incandescent light, and the air carried a faint scent of cleaning agents and fragrance.
That kind of smell made one want to breathe in deeply.
But in reality, the air still contained suspended aerosols like dust and bacteria.
Zhou Meng smiled, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and let out a long breath.
“So tired. Killed it all day.”
Light Orb: […]
With that faint hint of madness, Zhou Meng smiled, picked up the bag from the ground, and walked out of the room.
By the time she came downstairs, Sun Zhen was indeed already waiting there.
She didn’t know what he had gone off to do in the meantime, but as she approached, the tall young man was eating french fries in the car.
“Oh.”
The moment she appeared, Sun Zhen seemed to sense her presence and looked up, a fry pinched between his fingers, smiling at her: “You’re fast, expert.”
“Did I interrupt something of yours?” Zhou Meng still hadn’t taken off her mask, only her eyes visible.
“Don’t worry—” Sun Zhen opened the door for her. “I work fast.”
Zhou Meng tossed the bag in, and the young man caught it one-handed without blinking, tossing it into the back seat.
She pulled off her rubber gloves and yanked off her hair cap. The hair she had tied up that morning had already loosened, and with that tug, it tumbled down completely. The heat from cleaning the house had brought out a sheen of damp sweat, sticking a few strands of jet-black hair to her pale face.
A bead of sweat clung to her forehead, then slowly rolled down.
Zhou Meng lowered her gaze and met the eyes of Sun Zhen, who had inexplicably fallen silent.
“…I’m a little hot.”
She said it airily, her dark eyes bright:
“Would you keep me company and get something to drink with me, Xiao Zhen?”