Chapter 1: The Strange Recruitment

Recruitment —— Unconventional Affairs Handler

Position: Unconventional Affairs Handler

Number of Positions: One

Requirements: 1. Bold, meticulous, responsible, patient, and free from various "mental demons."

2. No "gossiper" has ever resided in your mouth, and no "curiosity demon" has ever resided in your mind.

3. No "lazy beast" has ever parasitized your body.

Compensation: Three taels of silver per month, meals and accommodation provided, two days off per week (under normal circumstances), one month of annual leave (under normal circumstances).

Job Description: This job primarily involves night shifts and frequent long-term business trips.

Those who believe they meet the requirements and are interested in this position are invited to bring their resumes to the Nine Li Mansion Witch Department Affairs Co., Ltd. for an interview.

Application Deadline: The day after tomorrow

Contact Person: Mr. Shan

Address: No. 415 Bilu Road

After reading this strange recruitment notice, Yiyun carefully finished and muttered to himself, "Another attention-grabbing, mysterious recruitment. It's just a gimmick, even turning a job ad into something like this."

He leaned back and lay on the slightly dirty and messy bed: "I've been unemployed for over a month. Why is it so hard to find a job? It's because last month, I accidentally saw the receptionist and the boss chatting in the office, and I got fired."

That previous job, with its meager salary, was just enough to cover his daily expenses. Every time he spent the last penny in his pocket, he would sigh, "These private company bosses are like gods of economics, fully aware of prices and able to accurately control the salary they give you, making it just enough to live on without starving, but leaving you with no savings."

The result was: once you started working there, you wouldn't think about quitting because the period of unemployment would make life completely unsustainable.

Now, he was in such a vacuum period, and he couldn't bring himself to ask his family for support. He could only stay in this less than twenty square meter room, which felt like a cold storage in winter and an oven in summer, and struggle on.

"I must find a job quickly. Sigh, words like 'mortgage slave' have become a dream I can't even dare to think about." He got up from the bed and continued to frantically send resumes online.

After sending dozens of resumes, he turned off the second-hand laptop and lay down to try to sleep. With only two bowls of instant noodles a day, sleeping was undoubtedly a necessary way to save money.

He dozed off for a while but was too hungry to bear it. He looked at the clock: 1:00 AM. If he wasn't so hungry, he wouldn't have gotten up so 'early'.

He made a bowl of instant noodles and turned on the computer. This old machine, bought from a second-hand market, was an outdated model that took nearly ten minutes to boot up.

Finally, the computer booted up, and he could eat his instant noodles. As he ate, he checked the results of the resumes he had sent, but none of them had received an interview invitation.

Bored, he clicked around and opened the joke-like recruitment notice again. "Using silver to pay wages, these boring marketers sure have a wild imagination." He glanced at the application deadline: tomorrow. "Oh? This joke company is quite responsible, updating the time in the middle of the night." He found it both amusing and helpless, and subconsciously memorized the address: No. 415 Bilu Road.

After finishing the instant noodles, he quickly turned off the computer and went back to bed, determined to conserve the energy from that bowl of noodles.

The sky suddenly changed, lightning flashed, and thunder roared. A loud noise was followed by a heavy downpour.

"Ah!" Yiyun jumped up from the bed. The leftover soup from the instant noodles he had eaten last night had spilled all over his feet. He lifted the smelly blanket and saw his wet feet and the instant noodle cup on his big toe, feeling extremely depressed: "No wonder I dreamed of standing in the rain during a heavy storm."

"Is there a heavy storm, but what about the changing sky and the lightning and thunder?" he thought.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" A loud knocking on the door was followed by the landlord's fierce voice: "Yiyun, stop pretending! I heard the noise! If you don't open the door, I'll break it down! The cost of the broken door will be on you!"

He had planned to continue pretending he wasn't home, but hearing this, he quickly shouted, "Ah, I just woke up, let me get dressed!"

He jumped out of bed, put on his slippers, and hurried to open the door. The slippery feeling from the instant noodle soup on his feet was quite uncomfortable. As soon as he opened the door, the landlord's fat body squeezed in, and he shouted in a hoarse voice, "You haven't paid rent for a month, Yiyun!"

He put on a pleading smile, "I'll definitely pay it all this month, I promise."

The landlord snorted, "If you don't pay it by tomorrow, you'll have to move out. My house is in high demand. College graduates and migrant workers are all looking for places to live." The landlord looked around, confirming there was nothing to offset the rent, gave Yiyun a disdainful look, and squeezed out the door.

"Ai, landlord..." Yiyun quickly adjusted his voice to a pitiful tone, preparing to plead.

"What are you shouting for? There's nothing to talk about. Honestly, renting to you college graduates is worse than renting to migrant workers!" the landlord said, turning back.

"You..." He was furious inside: "What reality, huh? If I hadn't been harmed by that damn university, I would be a seasoned, skilled migrant worker!" He felt bitter: "Now I have to envy migrant workers, how pathetic!"

He quickly checked the responses to his resumes on the slow computer. To his surprise, there were two interview invitations.

He noted down the addresses, quickly tidied up, and grabbed a few resumes before heading out.

"What a lousy company, a scam job! It's just a disguised pyramid scheme." After the second interview, Yiyun sat on the roadside, cursing under his breath.

The first company he interviewed at in the morning was a training center. To work there, you had to pay for three months of training, which was just another way to recruit students. The second company was a cosmetics sales job, where you had to buy a bunch of cosmetics first, and then sell them to get promoted, just like a pyramid scheme. There were titles like "Gold Salesperson" and "Silver Salesperson," and he was forced to listen to a morning of brainwashing.

He stood up, picked up the crumpled resume he had been sitting on. He was hungry and exhausted, and his stomach was rumbling. Despite not having eaten anything, he felt a strong urge to use the bathroom. Thinking of the landlord's face, he didn't dare go back. He looked up and saw a street sign: "Bilu Road."

"Oh, the address on that strange recruitment notice is No. 415 Bilu Road, so it must be nearby. I'll go check it out. If there really is such a company, I'll forget about the interview and use this resume to get a chance to use the bathroom. It's a waste not to use it."

He smoothed out the crumpled resume and started looking for "No. 415 Bilu Road."

Following the road, he found that No. 414 was a noodle shop, and No. 416 was a lottery station, but there was no No. 415. The urge to use the bathroom grew stronger. He had to stand with his legs crossed, thinking, "I should have just spent the fifty cents and used a public toilet!"

"Hey, young man." He heard an old voice. Turning around, he saw an old man with silver-white hair and a ruddy complexion standing there, smiling at him: "Young man, why are you pacing around like an ant on a hot pan?"

"Old sir, I'm looking for No. 415 Bilu Road." He was puzzled: "I didn't see this old man before. It's as if he suddenly appeared from the ground."

"What are you looking for No. 415 for?"

"I'm going there for an interview."

The old man looked Yiyun up and down and pointed behind him: "See that alley? Go down that alley, and keep walking until the end. That's No. 415 Bilu Road."

Following the old man's finger, Yiyun noticed a narrow gap between the noodle shop and the lottery station. He pointed at the narrow gap, hardly believing it: "That's an alley? What a scam."

The old man nodded: "Hehe, young man, good luck." The old man then went into the lottery station.

Yiyun took a deep breath, held it, and walked to the narrow gap: "What a scam, calling this an alley!" The urge to use the bathroom felt like a dam about to burst. He thought: "The old man looks kind, he probably wouldn't lie." He stepped into the narrow alley without hesitation.

The alley, though only about half a meter wide, was wide enough for his thin frame. However, the narrowness made him instinctively turn sideways.

He stepped in sideways and walked a few steps. A clear feeling arose: "This alley seems funnel-shaped, narrow at the entrance and getting wider as you go in."

After walking about ten steps, the alley became quite spacious. Two large willow trees were planted symmetrically on both sides. From these two willow trees, every few steps, there were two more large trees planted symmetrically. The dense shade made the alley feel cool and deep. After walking for a while, the trees on both sides grew to be as thick as four or five people could encircle, and an ancient-looking courtyard appeared before him.

The courtyard faced him with a dark red door. On the door was a small copper plaque: "No. 415 Bilu Road." To the right of the door hung a vertical sign with black letters on a white background: "Nine Li Mansion Witch Department Affairs Co., Ltd."

He rubbed his eyes, feeling surprised: "There really is a company hidden so deeply." His stomach growled, and he felt a tightness in his lower abdomen. He couldn't hold it any longer; using the bathroom was now a matter of urgency.

He took another deep breath, straightened his resume, and tidied his clothes. He knocked on the small door.

"Damn! What a hassle, coming to bother me during the day. Can't a person live in peace?" A grumbling voice came as the small door slowly opened. It sounded like someone who had been sleeping deeply and was suddenly woken up.

"Hey? It's a person. Ah! Damn! I can't talk, I can't talk." The voice, which had just woken up, was suddenly surprised and then stopped.

He stepped into the small door and looked inside, but saw no one. He was puzzled: "Why is no one here? What was that voice?"

Inside the small door was a quaint little courtyard. The ground was paved with green stone slabs, and moss grew in the cracks between the slabs. In the center of the courtyard was a large white porcelain jar, with a single lonely lotus flower floating in it. Behind the large porcelain jar was an ancient wooden building. At first glance, it could easily be mistaken for a small temple if not for its three stories.

"Is anyone here?" He hesitated, stepped into the courtyard, and called out. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the lotus flower seemed to tremble, giving him a strange feeling of being watched.

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The page turned, and an ad began.

The page turned, and the ad ended.