Neverland

Yan Cen woke up from the bed again - just like countless times before, he was conscious and in good condition, and even the noisy alarm in his head had disappeared.

He subconsciously reached out to reach the bed, but found nothing.

The bed beside him was cold and flat, without any trace of sleeping on it.

——Xu Muzhou didn't come back.

Yan Cen's complexion suddenly became ugly, he turned over quickly and got out of bed, stared at the half empty bed for a while, turned around and pulled up the jacket left at the end of the bed, put it on, and walked out in strides.

Menacing, like a debt collector.

It's just after dinner time, the sky outside is dark, and the corridors of Neverland are dimly lit. The whole castle is quiet and quiet, only the sound of Yan Cen's hurried footsteps is particularly obvious.

Half a minute later, the footsteps stopped abruptly.

Zhong Lu knew that Yan Cen was coming, and even left the door behind.The office door on the fifth floor was crookedly pasted with tape on a piece of white paper that read "No Knock". The ground is like an arrow pointing the way.

Yan Cen stood at the door for two seconds, then reached out and pushed the door open.

Zhong Lu sank into the large armchair, and the transparent screen in front of her was in standby mode, flashing bright blue lights intermittently.

The sky outside was completely dark, the wide-open windows were shaken by the sea breeze, and the white waves outside washed against the beach and the pontoon, rustling loudly.

Zhong Lu lowered the angle of the armchair a bit, and with a pedal under her feet, she was leisurely playing with an empty cigarette case, trying to fold it into a five-pointed star.

"Good evening." Zhong Lu threw the half-folded cigarette pack on the table, picked up a small and exquisite file, and while sharpening her nails, looked at Yan Cen with a smile, and asked knowingly: "What's the matter?" something?"

Suppressing his anger, Yan Cen stepped forward and asked coldly, "Where's Xu Muzhou?"

"Of course the violators will be punished for changing the mission timeline, don't you understand that?" Zhong Lu asked rhetorically.

"He is a non-staff member." Yan Cen said.

"Non-staff personnel are also staff members." Zhong Lu said.

"There are problems in that world." Yan Cen said: "That world is supposed to be changed."

"So what? I didn't hold him accountable for changing the world, but this kind of behavior should be punished according to the rules and regulations." Zhong Lu smiled slightly, and said: "Not to mention how serious a violation is to change the world line, you yourself It's also clear——Yan Cen, you're not the kind of person who is snarky and unreasonable."

Yan Cen gritted his teeth, conscious that he couldn't speak against Zhong Lu, so he swallowed his anger and took a step back, asking, "What did you punish?"

"Hey - you look like you want to eat people." Zhong Lu looked at the shape of the nails, probably feeling dissatisfied, and started grinding on the other side.Without raising her head, she said, "I've always followed the principle of turning big things into small things. Xiao Muzhou is still young, so I won't make things difficult for him."

"But from the bottom of my heart, I quite appreciate him. He has a point of view that I deeply agree with." Zhong Lu said: "——all living beings are equal, and no one has the right to be superior to others."

"Get to the point." Yan Cen said.

"I changed the task for him." Zhong Lu said lightly: "The backlog of task S1659 is long enough, and it's time to deal with it."

"That's an unsolvable task!" Yan Cen lowered his voice and said coldly, "You—"

"Don't be so angry." Zhong Lu finished manicuring her nails, threw the small file away, and said, "It's just a theoretical solution... Besides, compared to other tasks of the same type, this task is already easy to complete."

"I'm just looking at your face." Zhong Lu said: "No matter how bad it is, at least this mission is 100% successful--children, if you make a mistake, you can pass it without guilt."

"100% successful...?" Yan Cen's heart sank: "What identity did you give him?"

Zhong Lu blinked and gestured three to him.

Yan Cen's pupils constricted suddenly, he gritted his teeth, his jaw was tense.

The meaningless "temper ranking" of Neverland is not in vain. At least in Neverland, Yan Cen is rarely really angry-but now is obviously an exception.

The "unsolvable task" in the cleaning task is a very special existence. If you want to talk about it carefully, this kind of task cannot be counted as "cleaning", because the goal of the cleaning task is the obsession of a single task object, but the unsolvable task is not. .

——Because in the unsolvable task, those obsessions are scattered among different people, and each person only involves a small part.

This is the most special business category of Neverland.

Just like Qin Wei, her obsession did not reach the standard that should be captured by Neverland, but she was noticed by Neverland because of its influence on the world line.However, her obsession cannot be solved in a theoretical sense, and can only be solved through "unconventional means"-such as coming to Neverland, or erasing the memory of the subject, etc. There are various means.

During normal cleaning tasks, the staff should minimize the impact on the timeline, including but not only reducing communication with non-task objects, not using external means, not causing harm to task line objects, etc.

But in unsolvable missions, none of these constraints exist.

Neverland employees can use any means to limit the impact of the task object on the timeline-including amoral means to a certain extent.

Yan Cen has heard about the S1659 mission for a long time. This is the type used to press the bottom of the box in the unsolvable mission.Ever since he was the only one left in the clean-up task, this task has almost become a tacit "not performing the task". Unexpectedly, Zhong Lu turned it out now.

"It's almost time for this task to be completed, I believe." Yan Cen said: "But you took him out now, just because you just happened to seize such an opportunity, so that you can justifiably hand over this hot potato to Xu Mu." continent, not to me, right?"

"Is it not possible?" Zhong Lu said lightly: "You also know that it is my responsibility and obligation to manage the affairs of Neverland. Therefore, without personal application, I am among the non-staff and regular employees. Of course, the priority should be to preserve the regular employees—I asked Xu Muzhou about his wishes, and he agreed."

"I don't agree." Yan Cen said, "Stop it."

"Impossible." Zhong Lu said: "Once the world line channel is opened, there is no way to stop it, you know this."

"Then delay it for me." Yan Cen suppressed his anger: "I apply for intervention."

"He is an employee brought out by me. He made a mistake, and I didn't teach him well." Yan Cen said: "I deserve to be punished."

Unsolvable tasks have no progress bar, no single task object, and even standard obsessions are scattered.

This kind of special task is like this, not only for Xu Muzhou, but also for regular employees like Yan Cen - the only difference is that Yan Cen can still retain his memory and cognition to carry out the task.

But the problem is that retaining cognitive memory is not necessarily a good thing sometimes.

Xu Muzhou doesn't know much about Neverland, but Yan Cen is not. This veteran employee is familiar with the affairs of Neverland and understands these typical tasks.

In other words, he knew the pros and cons of these matters no less than Zhong Lu herself—but even so, he chose to intervene without hesitation.

In fact, based on Zhong Lu's understanding of Yan Cen, when she chose this punishment measure, she knew that Yan Cen would not be at ease with her.And just like what Zhong Lu said, since the "old house on fire" asked for it, she went along with it and didn't stop her.

She lay down on the table with great interest, watching Yan Cen's back as he walked out the door, and found it really interesting.

Xu Muzhou is a temporary employee she personally selected from the world line. When she selected him, Zhong Lu just wanted to find a companion for Yan Cen, and give the Dumiao who cleaned up the system a little leeway in the task. The temporary staff possessed great skills and courage, and they actually took the treasure of the town house of Yongwu Township into their pockets.

——It is admirable that Yan Cen, who adheres to "has nothing to do with me", can take the initiative to work on himself.

Zhong Lu watched Yan Cen walk out of the office with a smile. As soon as he left, Song Yan sprinted in close to the door.

"Hey, what's going on." Song Yan held a small glass bowl in one hand and patted her chest with lingering fear: "Just now I almost bumped into Yan Cen on the stairs, and a bowl of ice cream almost hit him, so hanging No tragedy came out——what's wrong with him, he's in such a hurry, so anxious."

Zhong Lu leaned back in her chair, curled her lips when she heard the words: "He thinks I'm that vicious No. 13 witch, rushing to the hero to save the beauty."

"What's the mess—" Song Yan looked at her strangely, and asked, "Yan Cen just left your place? Why does he look like he wants to eat people?"

"Waiting to save his little boyfriend who was just punished for violating the rules." Zhong Lu Subai flicked her fingertips in the air, tapped Song Yan from the air, and said, "I'm a temporary employee. Amazing—more guts than you.”

Song Yan, as a violating employee with a "conviction record", subconsciously felt cold when she heard this word.

"What's the violation?" Song Yan asked.

"Change the progress of the world line." Zhong Lu bent her eyes and smiled: "Change the life path of the characters in the original world line."

Song Yan: "..."

The employees that Yan Cen brought out were not ordinary people, Song Yan thought.

So Song Yan quickly stopped the conversation and refused to have further communication with Zhong Lu on this matter.She put the glass bowl on the table, turned out the one she wanted to use from the stack of documents on the table like no one else was there, and then walked away, carrying out the morality of life that silence is golden.

"Hey, everyone doesn't know what's good and what's wrong—" After a long while, Zhong Lu sighed exaggeratedly in the empty office, and whispered to herself: "...I never do anything like beating mandarin ducks."