Celestial Employee - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Numberless Elevator

Zhao Lingjun and Zhang Changsheng along with their colleagues walked through muddy puddles, and finally arrived at the office ground floor. At the ground floor, Zhao Lingjun saw a red Volkswagen Polo and a black Honda parked in the carpark.

*Pui* Zhao Lingjun noticed a person loathingly spit a mouthful of saliva in the general direction of the two cars.

Afterwhich, Zhao Lingjun saw another person patiently scrape the mud covering his shoes off on the rims of the car.

“This… What are they doing?” Zhao Lingjun whispered. “It doesn’t seem too good.”

“It’s nothing. In the future you will get used to it.” Zhang Changsheng replied. “These two cars are owned by Baoya Zhen and Fatty Zhang. Those people have suffered a lot from them.”

Zhang Changsheng motioned towards a young man wearing a short-sleeves shirt and said, “Do you see that guy who spit towards the car? His name is Lin Yiren, and is responsible for client relations. He was conned into joining the company by Baoya Zhen using a 1,800 yuan salary. Furthermore, that 1,800 was before taxes and social security payments.”

“That person who smeared mud on Fatty Zhang’s Honda, is called Xiao Ping. He is in the marketing department. Because he was late by just two minutes, Fatty Zhang tattled on him, resulting in him receiving no pay for a whole month.” Then Zhang Changsheng motioned towards another person, a young man dressed in sportswear, and continued, “If I didn’t stop him previously, he would have already punctured Fatty Zhang’s tires with a nail.”

“Then since they are so unhappy, why don’t they just jump ship?” Zhao Lingjun felt that the company was becoming more and more shady.

“Jump ship? Ha Ha Ha.” When walking into the lift, a person from behind had overheard their conversation and laughed wryly three times.

Zhao Lingjun turned back, and noticed that the person who had laughed was precisely the same person Zhang Changsheng had just talked about, the one who was baited by Hao Meili into joining the company using a salary of 1,800.

Lin Yiren’s laughter caused Zhao Lingjun’s hair to stand on end, and turned his blood cold. Zhao Lingjun could not resist asking Lin Yiren, “Fellow colleague, what are you laughing at? Isn’t jumping ship very easy now?”

“Easy?” Ha Ha Ha.” This time it wasn’t Lin Yiren, but the person beside him. It was the person wearing unknown brand sportswear, Xiao Ping. He also couldn’t help but to ambivalently laugh as well.

“What is wrong with both of you? Is what I said wrong?” Zhao Lingjun looked at the person’s slightly bulging belly, and it was apparent that he had a beer belly. He was short and fat but wore unknown brand sportswear. This person was none other than Xiao Ping. Zhao Lingjun wanted to laugh but could not laugh.

“Very soon you will understand.” At this moment, everyone in the lift smiled strangely at Zhao Lingjun.

All the strange smiles directed at him made Zhao Lingjun’s scalp tingle. For no reason, he recalled a horror film he saw a long time ago. In the film, there was a person who played a minor role slated to be killed. Just before his death, he was also in a lift with many people giving him strange smiles. Once the lift started to move, he felt that the lift was ascending but when he took a look at the display, the numbers were decreasing instead. When the lift finally stopped at the nonexistent -18th floor, he waited for the doors to open before walking out while trembling in fear. However, upon exiting, he fell to his death. It turned out that the lift stopped in midair.^[1]

Once he recalled that guy’s gory death and his mutilated remains, Zhao Lingjun was chilled to the bone. He could not help but stare intensely at the changing numbers on the elevator display.

While staring at the number increasing, Zhao Lingjun remembered his trip to the office with Hao Meili yesterday. He had followed blindly behind her and did not pay attention to which floor the office was on. If he had come alone today, he would have to make a phone call to ask which floor it is on. That would just be too embarrassing.

Therefore, Zhao Lingjun turned his head to look at which floor his colleagues pressed.

However, what he saw almost turned his legs into jelly, and frightened him to death.

Those who had ridden an elevator before would know that after entering, you would press the corresponding button to the floor you want to go to. That pushed button would then be lit up until the elevator reached the floor.

Although it was Zhao Lingjun’s first official day of work, but he had used this kind of elevator multiple times before. He even had deep impression of an elevator advertisement, this was because the advertisement’s slogan was “The pleasure of going up and down, up and down, in and out, in and out.” Therefore Zhao Lingjun would not forget about it. However, right now other than him feeling chilled all over, he could not feel any pleasure of sort. This was because, the button that was lit did not have a floor number.

That button was glowing an eerie bright red, and it was as clean as a mahjong tile’s white area. Don’t tell me that after leaving that place, I’ve encountered a… Zhao Lingjun dare not continue this trail of thought, and also did not dare to turn his head towards his strangely smiling colleagues.

At this moment, the lift made a sound and stopped. The door opened and before Zhao Lingjun was a pitch black darkness.

“As expected, it’s like this.” Zhao Lingjun’s heart jumped, and nearly stopped pulsing.

“Move, why are you standing there staring blankly?” Zhao Lingjun heard a person say from behind.

　　***

I, Zhao Lingjun, in my whole life have not done any atrocities, I’m even a virgin still. Don’t tell me that I really have to cut my life short doing such a life threatening thing? Zhao Lingjun looked at the void abyss out the door, and woefully thought. He felt that if he took a step out, he would definitely end up like that guy in the film, falling to his death and turning into a gruesome pile of remains. Zhao Lingjun really wanted to turn his head and shout loudly, “I don’t want! I don’t want to go!”

But at this exact moment, he gained a sudden surge of courage, and involuntarily took a step forward.

“What’s wrong with this little brother? Why is he spacing out at the door?” Before he was compelled to take a step forward, he had heard a person say this from behind.

“It looks like my little life, this time is gone. They should just push me down.” Zhao Lingjun depressingly thought, and let out a miserable, blood-curdling scream. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

But before he could finish screaming, he realised that reality was not what he had expected.

The feeling from under his foot, told him that he was stepping on a firm and solid floor.

“What is happening? Could it be that they let me off?” Zhao Lingjun astonishingly turned his head to see the group of people behind, all giving him a “Are you a fool?” kind of look.^[2]

After that Zhao Lingjun heard a “fwip” sound, suddenly the place lit up. He turned around and noticed Xiao Ping’s hand moving away from a switch on the wall.

“He is probably afraid of the dark.” Another person said. “Baoya Zhen and Fatty Zhang always does this. After walking by, they would switch off the light using the switch at the other end. Must they even save this little bit of electricity?”

“Precisely! If we knew this earlier, we should have installed a voice-activated light.” Zhang Changsheng also chimed in. He then smiled faintly at Zhao Lingjun, “Although the corridor is slightly darker on a cloudy day, even then you shouldn’t have such an adverse reaction right?”

“I…” What Zhao Lingjun actually wanted to say, was “I thought you guys were evil spirits.” But he discerned that everyone would be under the impression that he was a crazy person and could only shamefully say, “I have been afraid of the dark since I was young.”

“Oh, then stand towards the middle next time.” The sportswear clad Xiao Ping patted Zhao Lingjun’s shoulder before speaking to the group, “Being afraid of the dark is normal. For example, Andy Lau is still scared of rats. But you don’t have to be afraid, next time we will help you switch on the lights.”

“Thank you, Big Brother Xiao^[3].” Looking at Xiao Ping’s protruding little belly, Zhao Lingjun wanted to cry but had no tears. In this wanting to cry but had no tears state, Zhao Lingjun still managed to remember an important question, and asked Xiao Ping, “Exactly which floor is our company on? I didn’t notice which floor was pressed earlier.”

“Our company is on the 14th floor.” Xiao Ping replied.

“Then…” Zhao Lingjun paused before continuing on, “Then why did the lit up button I saw earlier not have any floor number?”

“Oh… That’s because our boss thought the number 14 was not auspicious, and hired people to remove it.” Xiao Ping went on, “Therefore next time you just have to press the button without a number.”

“Since the boss thinks that the number 14 is so inauspicious, why did he still make it the company’s office?” Zhao Lingjun depressingly asked.

“Oh. It’s because the 14th floor was the cheapest floor of the whole building.” Zhang Changsheng said.

“…” Zhao Lingjun was once again speechless.

^{[1] Does anyone recognize this movie? If so drop a comment below. 
[2] Fallen: Que Khuja’s this guy is really not the brightest lightbulb
Khuja: Yup… Worse than I thought. 
[3] Big Brother Xiao – Form of endearment for that Xiao Ping guy.}