Don't follow the rules

Chapter 560 The Church of the Cross (Part Twenty-Three)
With Manyi, an employee, leading the way, Ning Yao and Chunyu Kong were finally able to enter the association building. Scenes that were commonplace in the past now seemed rare.

"I've only been away from the company for a few days, and they've already put up famous quotes in the hallway? Pretty efficient, huh?" Ning Yao clicked his tongue.

"...It has the feel of a senior high school cram school." Chunyu Kong rarely continued Ning Yao's words with a sarcastic remark.

Manyi didn't respond, but walked slower and slower until Ning Yao bumped into his back, at which point she reluctantly turned around.

"Hey, I've already led you in. The mummy storage area is just ahead. You don't need me to lead you these last few steps, right? I'm really afraid of being forced to work overtime. Can you spare me?" Manyi was still muttering to herself when she had already taken action, and the dog sneakily retreated in the opposite direction.

"Don't rush off~" Ning Yao chuckled, pulling her back and wrapping his long arm around Manyi's neck, loosely tightening his grip. "What are you afraid of? It doesn't look like a medical room up ahead."

Manyi tugged at Ning Yao's arm and was surprised to find that the lock was quite secure: "There are too many mummies, and our small medical medicine storage room can't hold them all. This is a new storage room that has been vacated. Once all the mummies have been collected, they will be incorporated into the main storage room."

"Come on, come with me to take a look." Without giving Manyi a chance to refuse, Ning Yao tightened his grip on her arm, grabbed her by the neck, and swiped open the facial recognition access control before pushing the door open and entering.

The moment the warehouse door was pushed open, the rotten, sweet, and fishy smell hit Ning Yao's throat like a heavy punch, causing him to instinctively gag.

The air seemed to be filled with dust from four thousand years ago. Ning Yao identified the smells one by one: the sour smell of dried crocodile leather, the crisp, pungent smell of scarab beetle elytra... and a huge number of kittens that had been over-cured in cedar oil.

Manyi sighed helplessly, "Alright, I've seen it all, can I go now? Before they spot me..."

"Manyi! Don't run away!"

According to Murphy's Law, the thing you fear most is the most likely to happen, and Man Yi was unsurprisingly caught by her colleagues.

"So you're here! You didn't answer the phone or reply to my texts, and I've been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been hiding again? I still have a lot to do today." A sweaty man rushed over pushing a cart and grabbed Manyi as she tried to escape.

The man's close-fitting short-sleeved shirt was completely soaked with sweat and stuck to his skin. He wasn't wearing the same white coat uniform as Manyi, perhaps because it was inconvenient to work, so he took it off. But the man's doctor's demeanor was very well-established—he even had a pen tucked into the decorative pocket on the chest of his T-shirt.

Manyi, who was still not behaving herself while Ning Yao was choking her, immediately became quiet the moment he grabbed her collar.

"I...I just went to the security room. Someone rang the bell there, and I just finished and came back." Manyi quickly explained, and began to help push the cart.

The man fanned himself with his hand: "That's pure bullshit. I saw you being dragged in."

“That’s…that’s really awful,” Manyi muttered.

Ning Yao and Chunyu Kong exchanged a glance and silently followed the two.

Although the man was drenched in sweat, there was no unpleasant odor in the air, and both Ning Yao and Kong could sense that the man's body temperature had not risen at all, remaining in a very stable state.

"The aura is familiar, but the face is unfamiliar," Ning Yao said, and Kong nodded thoughtfully.

"Finish today's work today. There's no escaping it. If this batch isn't registered by today, it'll pile up and we won't be able to handle it later. There's another batch to be put into storage tomorrow." As he spoke, the man handed the entire cart to Manyi, then stood with his hands on his hips, pointing and gesturing, before walking further and further away until he disappeared completely around a corner...

Ning Yao felt increasingly uneasy: "Huh? No? Where is he?"

Manyi remained calm, with an air of "being used to it": "They dumped the work on me and then slacked off and ran away."

"Huh? He ran away?" Ning Yao was greatly shocked. "Wasn't he just lecturing you to finish today's work today?" Manyi: "He meant that I should finish today's work so that he could rest."

Chunyu Kong suddenly remarked slowly, "Sure enough, you can't have two kinds of people sleeping in the same bed."

Ning Yao suddenly realized: "Oh! He's that vat of eels!"

Manyi complained, "Hey, hey, hey, can you two at least be a little more discreet with your words? And what do you mean by 'eel'? You tasteless bastards, that's a whole tank of garden eels!"

"It seems his body transplant surgery was very successful. He looks almost exactly like a living person; you can't tell he ever died." Ning Yao patted Manyi's shoulder.

“That’s right, practice makes perfect,” Manyi nodded. “After practicing on you, my skills will be fully developed. Old Chu is now at his most perfect form.”

"What do you mean by using me as practice?"

"Literal meaning. Oh dear~ it seems I'm still too ethical as a doctor. It's a bit of a shame I didn't give you a crooked eye and mouth." Manyi said without any remorse, her sarcastic remarks even carrying a hint of vengeful pleasure—who told you to drag me back to work overtime?
Ning Yao was about to retort when Chunyu Kong grabbed his mouth.

"That's enough. Arguing will only waste half a day. Don't forget we have important business to attend to."

Ning Yao could only glare fiercely: You're lucky, I'll spare your life.

Manyi rolled her eyes at her.

Fortunately, there was a register of items entering the warehouse on the trolley, so there was no need to go elsewhere to get it. Chunyu Kong took it without ceremony and quickly flipped through it: "The vast majority of the items entering the warehouse are animal mummies, and among them, cat mummies account for a significant proportion."

He looked at Ning Yao: "It's obvious that Bass is craving jerky. We need to take this investigation seriously."

Manyi walked ahead: "The cat mummies have their own section, next to the newly arrived batch of fish mummies."

"Why is there a mummy among the fish?" Ning Yao laughed out loud. "Isn't that just dried salted fish? Hahahaha!"

The laughter abruptly stopped, and Ning Yao abruptly bent over to cover his eyes, which had just been poked by Chunyu Kong and were now itching to move again.

"What's wrong?" Kong stepped forward and put his arm around Ning Yao's shoulder.

Ning Yao shook his head and steadied himself: "Horus seems very angry, extremely angry, the kind of furious, but he refuses to tell me what he's angry about."

“…He’s quite arrogant,” Kong said helplessly. “He’s a god who’s thousands of years old, can’t he be a little more mature?”

Ning Yao held his head in his hands: "He's completely silent now, just banging and thrashing around in my head."

Manyi was shocked: "Your empty head can actually have something for someone to smash and beat?"

Chunyu Kong: "Pig's head meat is also meat."

Manyi: "That's true."

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