DSMC Chapter 93.1

After Yan Jiyun turned into a cat, he loafed around for a year. He didn’t expect that one day he would become a “corporate slave” again.

Even though this was just an instance world, the meetings and the leaders’ speeches felt extremely real.

This was a supervisor-level meeting of the zoo.

Yan Jiyun saw the high-spirited Vice Director presiding over the meeting on stage, but he did not see the Director.

Dr. Peng had been promoted to Veterinary Director, while Dr. Zhou had been stripped of his position. Why was he also attending the meeting?

The meeting was relatively casual; there was no rule that supervisors from the same department had to sit together.

Yan Jiyun chose to sit in the back row. He was just a player who had blended in. He didn’t dare to stand out in a meeting full of NPCs.

After Dr. Zhou deliberately acted as if he was very close to him, Dr. Peng seemed to intentionally distance himself from him.

Yan Jiyun didn’t particularly want to stick close to Dr. Peng either. He had climbed to this position on his own, not because of Dr. Peng.

He chose a seat in the last row, showing the humility of a newcomer. He didn’t want to attract attention.

Dr. Peng was now a key talent being groomed by the zoo and sat in the front. It seemed that he was currently highly favored by Director He.

Dr. Zhou came in behind them and, without hesitation, sat down next to Yan Jiyun.

“Congratulations, Xiao Jiang. You’ve only been here a short while and already got promoted.” Dr. Zhou looked at Yan Jiyun with a half-smile.

Yan Jiyun remained as calm as ever and deliberately said with pride, “It’s all thanks to my own hard work.”

Dr. Zhou adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and said softly, “Aren’t you curious why I can still come in to attend the meeting?”

Yan Jiyun didn’t want to dig a hole for himself and said innocently, “What?”

A trace of disappointment flashed in Dr. Zhou’s eyes. “Nothing. Come to my office for tea when you have time.”

After saying that, he stood up and walked out of the meeting room, not returning afterward.

So he came to the meeting just to invite him for tea?

Was this NPC obsessed with drinking tea or something?

Although the meeting was boring, Yan Jiyun still listened to the whole thing.

At the meeting, Vice Director He read out a list of personnel who had been punished, and all of them were Dr. Zhou’s people. Then she promoted Dr. Peng and others, including Yan Jiyun and several more staff members.

After his promotion, Dr. Peng no longer had last night’s cautiousness. Instead, there was a hint of pride in his brows and eyes.

Yan Jiyun felt that Dr. Peng was most likely not destined to be the protagonist, because protagonists were usually set up as beautiful, strong, and tragic. His promotion had been far too smooth.

Perhaps Dr. Peng was just an NPC who issued missions?

Since his rest period ended, there had been no more tasks related to Dr. Peng. Should he give up following Dr. Peng’s route?

The first crisis had been resolved. Did that mean the rioting animals would no longer going berserk?

The animals’ agitation had not been defined as Dr. Zhou’s doing. At the meeting, under the pretext that Dr. Zhou and others had violated zoo regulations, employees were demoted or fired. No one was handed over to the judicial authorities because of the animals’ agitation.

There was a reason the instance gave players five days to search for clues and solve the mystery. Yan Jiyun felt he might have only touched the tip of the iceberg regarding the truth of this instance.

That shouldn’t be the case. In this instance, aside from not having seen the Director, he had already met most of the important NPCs. He should be only one thin layer away from the truth.

What exactly was that layer?

From the slightly smug expression on Dr. Peng’s face just now, he confirmed one thing: Dr. Peng had merely wanted to expose Dr. Zhou’s experiments on animals in order to gain a promotion and raise. On the surface, the zoo’s first crisis had indeed been resolved. So what were the other crises?

Yan Jiyun didn’t like peeling onions, feeling like peeling never-ending layers that stung the eyes. At home, he used to treat his pooper-scooper’s onions like balls to push around. After all, “peel” and “push” were homophones in Chinese— “peel” was for eating, while “push” was for playing¹Both are bō; peel is 剥 while push is 拨. The latter means “pushing aside with hand/foot”. Not really “push the antonym of pull”.

He didn’t like peeling onions, but pushing them around brought him joy.

Perhaps Dr. Zhou was the key figure in this instance.

The reason? Dr. Zhou’s reason for using the zoo to conduct experiments!

Why was he experimenting on animals?

He needed to find out the reason behind it. There had to be a very important motive.

Family affection, friendship, love. Among the three, which could it be? Or perhaps there was another factor: obsessive ambition.

Yan Jiyun thought it over again. Ambition didn’t seem right either. If he were truly ambitious, why would he stay here as an inconspicuous veterinarian?

He needed to go to the HR department. He had to find files related to Dr. Zhou.

No wonder there was nothing to find in the finance office. He had made assumptions from the start. What was truly useful to players was the HR department next door to finance.

As soon as the meeting ended, Yan Jiyun set his sights on the HR supervisor.

After his promotion, Dr. Peng was being flattered by everyone. Yan Jiyun, who didn’t flatter him, was already about to be forgotten in a corner.

Of course, Yan Jiyun wasn’t interested in NPCs who had nothing left to dig up either. It was all just mutual exploitation!

What he was thinking about now was how to enter the HR department later to search for Dr. Zhou’s files.

Yan Jiyun had come yesterday, but now no NPC regarded him as the person who had come for an interview. Each of them treated him as Supervisor Jiang, who had been promoted shortly after arriving.

The meeting room was on the third floor; HR was on the second floor.

He deliberately made a trip to the restroom on the third floor. After everyone in the meeting room had left, he seized the opportunity to go to the HR department on the second floor.

There were about four HR employees. They recruited for different positions every day, with people constantly coming and going. However, those coming for interviews were all unfamiliar NPC faces. The HR NPCs were busy conducting interviews in various small meeting rooms. At this time of day, it was interview time, and the HR office was empty.

Yan Jiyun could enter HR for various reasons. He was just looking up some information, not stealing anything, so there was no need to completely avoid people.

He glanced at the nameplates on the desks and found the HR supervisor’s seat.

The last HR staff remaining in the office went out for an interview. Yan Jiyun told her he was looking for the HR supervisor. Seeing that he was at supervisor level, she treated him politely.

“Then you can wait inside. She’ll be back after finishing the interview.”

“Alright.”

Upstairs, Yan Jiyun had just heard that the HR supervisor had hurried off to conduct an interview.

Personnel files should be stored together with contracts. Each employee should have a file folder belonging to them.

Yan Jiyun scanned the office. There were filing cabinets, but not enough to hold hundreds of employee records At most they contained office supplies. So the personnel files should be in the inner room.

He tried to push the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

He took a key from the supervisor’s pen holder, inserted it directly, and unlocked the door.

One advantage of this instance was that it didn’t set obstacles for players in places like this. Like the previous finance office, where the password had been written directly on the calendar. Here it was even more blatant; the key was placed right in the pen holder.

This suggested that the information was probably just auxiliary, or perhaps the system believed no player could reach this point, so it didn’t matter if the key was left in the most obvious spot.

Hearing someone enter outside, Yan Jiyun slipped into the file room one step ahead.

The file room was probably rarely ventilated. It’s stuffy and full of dust.

Yan Jiyun covered his nose with his hand and opened the filing cabinets. They were all locked, so he just had to unlock them one by one.

Each shelf held several files. There were far more than a hundred here. Searching through them one by one would actually waste a lot of time.

After confirming that no one was passing by outside, Yan Jiyun slipped out of the file room and turned on the HR supervisor’s computer.

During the meeting earlier, he had seen the HR supervisor dressed impeccably, yet her computer desktop was a complete mess, cluttered with files and folders.

He suspected the desktop might be meant to confuse players, so he searched directly in other storage drives or the toolbar.

Sure enough, he found a zoo-specific HR management system.

He clicked in, and the HR supervisor’s account logged in automatically.

The interface displayed various information the HR supervisor could access, as well as the processes she needed to handle.

He never expected the game to be made so meticulously. This software’s functions were no different from those in a real company.

After browsing for a while, Yan Jiyun located the personnel records section.

[Search: Zhou Yiqun.]

[Search result: You do not have permission to view this employee’s file information.]

What was going on???

Then who had permission to view his file information?

Dr. Zhou’s identity information was confidential to ordinary staff. Even the HR Supervisor did not have permission to access it.

So his guess was correct. Even the deputy director had no authority to drive him out of the zoo, which meant his identity was unusual. If HR couldn’t access his information, what about Dr. Peng?

Yan Jiyun immediately entered Dr. Peng’s name.

[Search: Peng Yu.]

Dr. Peng’s information popped up instantly, from his basic information, alma mater, work experience, and other related experience.

From this, it was evident that Dr. Peng’s importance in this instance was not on the same level as Dr. Zhou’s. He might be an important NPC, but likely only for the early-stage tasks.

If the information couldn’t be found on the computer, would it exist in the archives room?

Yan Jiyun decided to go back in and search again. The more mysterious the NPC, the harder they were to deal with.

Wait. Wasn’t there someone above the HR supervisor, an HR manager?

After all, this department managed personnel for the entire zoo, yet the office only had four desks.

The zoo must have at least several hundred employees. Four people might not be enough.

After searching through the archives room, Yan Jiyun confirmed there were indeed no files for key personnel, not even Dr. Peng’s.

He had been looking in the wrong place from the start.

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  Both are bō; peel is 剥 while push is 拨. The latter means “pushing aside with hand/foot”. Not really “push the antonym of pull”.