My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 455: I Can Change My Own Boss

Chapter 455: Chapter 455: I Can Change My Own Boss

After making an appointment with Wang Ping’an, Han Fei had initially planned to let him go home early, but Ping’an kept scrolling through his phone and finally pointed to the store beneath Han Fei’s feet.

"Here... also ordered a lot of rice meals."

Han Fei looked at Wang Ping’an’s phone screen; the first white rice order he had received had the address of the secondhand store.

"I delivered it to the store, but the food was thrown away. The staff said no one had ordered it," Wang Ping’an spoke slowly, struggling to express something.

"Our store also ordered white rice?" If only the dead order this type of white rice, it meant that there were also dead people in the secondhand market, possibly hiding in a corner of the shop now.

"The store is filled with recycled secondhand goods, so it’s normal for some of them to harbor unclean things. This confirms that they are genuinely old objects. Maybe the boss of the market likes collecting such haunted trinkets." Normally, such a revelation would make any rational staff member panic, but Han Fei felt indifferent about it.

After Wang Ping’an left, Han Fei first returned to the counter and then, sticking to blind spots of the surveillance, turned off the store’s CCTV.

"I love my job, treat the company as my own home, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with researching my own family’s belongings."

Han Fei took a ring from the landlord out of the item bar and put it on his finger; a familiar chill emerged as soon as he wore it.

"I knew these recycled secondhand goods were problematic. That market’s boss didn’t construct this place out of sentiment but for a deeper scheme."

Raising his arm, Han Fei moved closer to the store’s merchandise with the hand wearing the landlord’s ring, guided by the ring, he walked up to a shrine.

A fake shrine was placed at the deepest part of the secondhand store, but the real shrine was in the basement storeroom.

Ever since Han Fei knew the real shrine was underground, he had disregarded the one on the surface until now, when the landlord’s ring clearly indicated to him that the surface shrine was also emitting a chill!

He lifted the black cloth; the wooden shrine was ordinary, similar to other shrines Han Fei had seen before, looking like an aged craft piece.

The shrine’s door was nailed shut with wooden planks, and on closer inspection, one could see writings similar to a curse, roughly meaning that anyone who opened this shrine’s door would encounter misfortune and disaster.

The shrine on the surface was the same size as the one underground, but they felt completely different.

Merely approaching the underground shrine would reveal its abnormalities, and lifting its black cloth would make the entire basement storeroom turn eerie.

Although the door of this fabricated shrine was sealed, it did not convey the same extreme sense of danger.

"Should I open it to see? As the master of Big Evil, Li Zai’s close friend, burdened with several unspeakable curses, I must be the most unfortunate person in Deep World now, right?"

With nothing left to lose, Han Fei put on gloves and grabbed a toolbox from the store.

The surveillance was already off and there were no customers outside, so he directly dismantled the wooden planks from the shrine’s door.

The landlord’s ring kept alerting Han Fei, but he ignored it, imitating Big Evil’s method of avoiding the shrine’s front and opening the shrine’s door from the side.

Almost the moment that small door was pushed open, the store’s lights started flickering, and a scarred arm reached out from the shrine, grabbing at Han Fei’s fingers!

Han Fei was prepared, his reaction was very quick, but he was still caught.

His body was dragged towards the shrine; Han Fei barely maintained his balance. His left eye, bloodshot, saw inside the pitch-black shrine where a severely injured man was stuffed.

The man’s limbs and torso were contorted together like a jar inside the shrine; his pale face faced the shop entrance, his mouth half-open, constantly having black mist entering his body.

"This guy is wearing the same uniform as me?"

Unable to break free, Han Fei’s mind raced; in desperation, he shouted out loud, "I’m here to deliver the red sweater! Mom has been looking for you! She came to the store every day because of you, and I want to reunite you with her!"

His body tilted towards the shrine, and the irresistible force weakened slightly.

"The store owner harmed you, and now he’s planning to kill me! It was Mom who saved me! I’m here to repay her!"

Han Fei’s acting was mixed with sincerity; he wasn’t delivering a line but shouting out what was in his heart.

The strength in that arm weakened further, and Han Fei seized the opportunity to roll back sharply. He wasn’t trying to escape, but to grab a package not far away.

After the old lady had pulled him out of the illusion, she had placed the clothes to be donated tonight near the shrine.

Reaching into the package, he took out a red sweater stained with animal blood. Han Fei held the package and proactively returned in front of the shrine, "Mom was deceived by the store owner! She thought that by doing enough good deeds, she could release you, but the store owner never intended to let us go! After using us up and draining our last value, he still wants to silence us! I was forced into a corner, that’s why I risked opening the shrine!"

Han Fei took out the red sweater from the package, holding it in front of him, "My mother saved me! Now, I’m risking my life to reunite you with her! I’ll take the wrath of the store boss, while you use this time to reunite with the old woman. She has been waiting for you for ten years; don’t let her wait any longer!"

His screams were exhaustive, each word ringing with sincere emotion. Han Fei’s shouts stunned the man in the shrine.

For the first time in ten years he had seen the light of day, only to meet such a bizarre person.

The man, whose arms were covered in wounds, stopped dragging Han Fei. The man, folded up like a can, opened his mouth wide as if trying to say something, but unfortunately, his teeth and tongue had been removed, rendering him unable to make a sound.

He struggled in the dark shrine but couldn’t even move his body; he had grown into the wall of the shrine.

"What do you want to say? If you can’t leave the shrine, I can take the shrine to her..."

Before Han Fei could finish, the man in the shrine began to struggle violently. He seemed to not want his mother to see him in this state.

"How can I help you then?"

The man’s only mobile arm frantically slapped the base of the shrine until he exhausted all his strength.

The lights came back on, and the man in the shrine vanished, leaving only a black and white obituary photo in the false shrine.

The man in the photo looked like a handsome middle-aged man, mature and weathered, with a trace of melancholy on his face, as if he hadn’t smiled happily for a long time.

Looking at the photo and then thinking about the man in the shrine who had been folded up like a can, Han Fei got goosebumps. "Is this the same person?"

He took out the photo and hid it in the red sweater the old lady was planning to donate, then tried moving the shrine to see what was underneath it.

The wooden shrine was much heavier than Han Fei had expected, and it took all his strength to move it slightly.

As the base of the shrine moved, deformed insects, crying like children, scurried out.

Continued exertion allowed Han Fei to completely push aside the shrine, and a dark hole appeared before him.

"Was the shrine on the floor intended to subdue this hole?"

The base of the shrine and the area around the hole were densely covered with root-like veins, all of which Han Fei accidentally tore apart while moving the shrine.

"It seems to be connected to the underground storeroom?"

Peering down into the hole, it appeared to be a well, with some floating debris and many photos visible on the water’s surface.

Having found fishing line in the Secondhand Store, Han Fei tried to hook something from the water, but as soon as the hooked line touched the water, something emerged from the dark depths, and a tremendous force pulled the line into the well.

Han Fei looked at the cuts the fishing line had made on his fingers—he hadn’t even reacted when the line was pulled away.

"Good thing I didn’t go down myself."

After estimating the distance from the well’s opening to the water, Han Fei turned, locked the store door, and found a pickaxe and a shovel in the Secondhand Store.

He carried the tools and walked down to the underground storeroom, stopping at the last row of shelves.

The shrine covered in black cloth was on the other side, apparently backing onto the well.

Moving the shelves, Han Fei touched the dusty wall, "If I break an opening here, it should directly touch the water in the well."

Han Fei memorized the location, but it was already late.

"The boss might come during the day. I need to restore everything to its original state as soon as possible and wait until tomorrow night to see if I have a chance to break through this wall."

Han Fei already knew that all the sufferings of the Master of Shrine were prearranged by the store boss, but he wasn’t planning to quit. Instead, he grew to love his job even more.

He intended to stay here long-term, using his passionate love for his job to put the Secondhand Store back on the right track.

"The store boss must have already received the news from West City; he knows I wasn’t disabled by those thugs and will definitely intensify his retaliation against me."

"I have offended the boss, but I can’t give up the job the Master of Shrine once had... In that case, I can only think of a way to eliminate the boss."

"The store boss has gone astray; such a boss might as well be dispensable."