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Interlude (atapas)

Chapter 4: Shang Lei didn’t have all that much to complain about these days

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Shang Lei felt drained as he returned to the employee dorm.

It wasn’t the workload.

Please, he’s seen more paperwork come by his desk in half an hour back on Cang Qiong than what he deals with in a week back in this world. Even though he’s technically only working half days, Shang Lei feels like that should mean something.

It also wasn’t his coworkers.

In his first job of his first life, y’know before the whole quitting to write novels, dying, transmigrating, then dying(?) and transmigrating again thing, Shang Lei didn’t have “coworkers” as much as he had snitches and credit thieves. In this… second? Third? Back to first? life, his new coworkers were WAY better than his previous fellow wage slaves that seemed to exist just to torture each other.

Like, maybe these coworkers weren’t super friendly, but they were polite for the most part, didn’t make fun of him behind his back, and left him alone to get his shit done. And honestly, how many people can have it that good in this day and age? They even THANKED him for doing the work he was supposed to do anyway!

Even his direct supervisor was … man, he’d be afraid the Heavens would strike him down for daring to wish for better. Sure Director Wei was definitely out to get as much out of him as possible, but she was, like, giving him constructive criticism? The necessary tools he needed to work with? It was amazing … although all these certification tests and studying for said certification tests was a pain in the ass, but Shang Lei had been away from computers for too long. Instead of insisting he just get what he didn’t understand done, Director Wei started him slow and gave him study aids for all of the relevant data analysis tools he hadn’t touched in … decades.

So… yes, there was a lot of extra work Shang Lei had to do for his job, but no, that wasn’t what was making him feel drained.

The Big Boss though…

Just HOW has Shen Jiu perfected bloodlust without ever having cultivated?!

Every time the Shen CEO stared at him, Shang Lei always felt reduced to a frog – no, mouse … hamster? being stared at by a snake! It didn’t matter that Shen Jiu was no longer an Immortal Master while Shang Lei was. It was like it was ingrained in Shang Lei’s blood.

And it was like Shen Jiu enjoyed tormenting him or something, always calling him into the CEO’s office for something or other, whether it was work related, or just insults on his fashion. Just today he was grilled about his relationship with his mother and whether or not he was looking down on the Shens or whatever… gods no, it’s just his mom is a LOT, okay?!

Ahhhhhh!

But maybe it was a little funny to see how the tsundere-coded Shen Jiu tried to act like he didn’t actually CARE or whatever … but just a little. It was still mostly terrifying.

Although when you think about it, honestly, was this really that different from his time as a Cang Qiong Peak Lord? AND he gets afternoons off!

Actually, Shang Lei didn’t have all that much to complain about these days. Just … a little bit. And who doesn’t have a little bit to complain about no matter their lot in life?

Feeling a little refreshed after his mental pep talk, Shang Lei turned his mind to more productive things. Like lunch!

The cafeteria in The Heights’ employee dorms may be small with a modest amount of options, but everything was GOOD and the daily specials were always something interesting with seasonal ingredients. And let’s face it, the quality of the food was something Shang Lei would struggle to afford before meeting Shen Yuan. PLUS he didn’t have to cook and wash the dishes for himself!

So, although Aunty Luo’s craft was far superior, Shang Lei decided he wasn’t going to head to the villa and was instead going to have lunch in the dorm today~!

Because come on, you gotta let the lovebirds (ugh) have some time to themselves occasionally.

Shang Lei didn’t even bother changing clothes before heading to the cafeteria.

Let’s see what our great chef has made today~ hm?

Shang Lei paused as he saw Gong Xiaoyi sitting by himself and eating in the lounge.

Oh right… there was also … THAT whole situation…



Gong Xiaoyi looked up as someone set a tray of food down next to him.

“Oh, Shang-daren,” he said.

Shang Lei grimaced a bit. “Shibo” would be preferable to “daren,” but like THAT was gonna fly … technically they weren’t Liu-ge’s disciples after all, just learning from him. This world was also one he wasn’t used to having any sort of prestige in too, so maybe he’d cringe at shibo as well.

“Uh… can I join you?” Shang Lei asked, and Gong Xiaoyi quickly made room on the table.

“Shang-daren, you’re returning later than usual. Is everything alright?” Gong Xiaoyi asked, which made Shang Lei pause.

“… Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Shang Lei asked, looking the bodyguard up and down.

He’s seen way more than enough of Liu Qingge’s victims students to know exactly what happened to Gong Xiaoyi to have reduced the young man to such a dismal state.

Gong Xiaoyi gave a weary chuckle. “As I thought, you and San-di knew what we were getting ourselves into.”

“… Um.”

Well, yeah. This is Peak Lord Liu in the flesh. No way those poor chumps are getting out unscathed.

Gong Xiaoyi smiled.

“I don’t blame you two for not telling us,” he said. “In the end, it should be up to us to decide whether or not getting stronger was worth continuing or not.”

“… You’re lucky Liu-bro is a little different these days, or maybe you wouldn’t have the option to quit,” Shang Lei muttered quietly.

“Hm?” Gong Xiaoyi didn’t quite hear what he said.

“Uh, nothing! Nothing. As you said, it’s up to you guys, so it really wasn’t our place to dissuade you,” Shang Lei said, picking up his chopsticks. “Anyway, Liu-bro isn’t someone who tortures people for fun. If you can survive it, you’re guaranteed to see results.”

There were enough Bai Zhan monkeys that proved that point back on Cang Qiong.

“I see. I wasn’t intending to quite, but it is reassuring to hear there’s some sort of guarantee,” Gong Xiaoyi said with a sigh.

“…”

To each their own.

Shang Lei couldn’t help feeling like there was no helping those who don’t help themselves as he slurped on his sour pickle and beef noodles.

“But it is rare for you to return after 1 pm,” Gong Xiaoyi said, and maybe the guy wasn’t a complete masochist if he so obviously changed the subject to stop thinking about the muscle torture he’d just gone through.

“There was an emergency,” Shang Lei said with the roll of an eye. “I’m not sure what it was exactly, but they needed me to re-crunch a whole bunch of numbers. At least the emergencies only happen once in a while, unlike my previous job. It was stranger when I didn’t work overtime, haha!”

“…” Gong Xiaoyi didn’t know what to say.

He’d seen Shang Lei’s dossier, and that black company the poor guy got snagged by previously… well, let’s just say that Shang Lei was extraordinarily unlucky even for an unfortunate wage slave. It was really a bit ironic, since this man was now…

“… Aren’t you a bigshot in the cultivation world now?” Gong Xiaoyi asked. “Why are you working as an accountant at a regular company and subjecting yourself to overtime at all?”

Can you really consider Shen Jiu’s top-earning social media and tech company a “regular company”? And in the first place, wasn’t it common sense that he couldn’t just be jobless and wandering around in mortal society? … Not that Shang Lei actually understood until Shen Yuan actually explained everything to him, but still.

Shang Lei hummed as he chewed his noodles.

That was such a complicated question. There’s the whole System complicating things too, but … hm. If he had the option to decide for himself… maybe he wouldn’t be so gungho about grabbing a job so soon, but he probably wouldn’t be willing to completely cut off connections with the mortal world even without the System’s coercion.

So yeah, he was strong-armed into all of this, but does it really matter if he kind of likes the situation it landed him in?

“…” Shang Lei thought for a moment before saying, “Is it possible to live in mortal society without having some sort of explainable way to make a living?”

Gong Xiaoyi thought for a moment. This was one of the problems all half-cultivators had to face. “… These days, it’s harder and harder to do so,” he admitted.

“There you go,” Shang Lei said. “And we don’t want to stand out too much, so a job like this is more than sufficient. There will be a time when we’ll eventually withdraw from society and won’t be able to do mundane jobs like this anymore, so might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”

As for when they’d withdraw and how it all would work out, Shang Lei had no idea. That was more of a Shen Yuan kind of thing to deal with.

“I see… I guess I understand,” Gong Xiaoyi said dubiously. Being too good at cultivation and yet subjecting yourself to a corporate job was something half-cultivators weren’t experienced with, so he decided to just assume there were a lot more things to worry about as Immortal Masters and just leave it at that.

The two of them lapsed into silence as Shang Lei busied himself with his lunch and Gong Xiaoyi finished up his.

“… … So, um … Shang-daren … was there something … you needed?” Gong Xiaoyi finally managed to ask.

Because Shang Lei wasn’t being subtle at all, staring at Gong Xiaoyi while slurping noodles.

“No, well,” Shang Lei hummed without averting his gaze one bit. “So… like … you and Zhi Lang…”

You can’t blame him for being curious, okay?! C’mon, Zhuzhi-lang? And Gongyi Xiao?! How the hell can he NOT be curious?!?

Notes:

While I’m very happy that everyone likes ATAPAS so much, please re-read responsibly since it’s a long one…