“Welcome to the interview at the Hell Chain Hotel. First, we will ask you three questions.”
The first interviewer said concisely, “Do you fear the dark? Do you fear ghosts?”
The second interviewer was expressionless. “How would you rate your sense of humor?”
The third interviewer smiled kindly. “If a customer asks you for help and says he can’t find his head, what should you do?”
Wen Nuan: “……”
Wen Nuan, male, 22 years old, a senior student intern.
Before starting this interview, Wen Nuan considered himself a seasoned veteran when it came to being an interviewee, ready to respond to even the weirdest and craftiest of interviewers. But right now…
Wen Nuan wore an appropriate smile on his face. He looked young, like an eighteen year-old boy fresh out of high school. His complexion was fair and clear, and the first impression he gave off was that he wasn’t a bad person. Most stunning were those amber phoenix eyes of his that curved up at the outer corners. Paired with the whites of his eyes, they gave him the image of an aloof beauty who was also a little sleepy, like the misty surface of water being reflected by light.
Usually, he had an expressionless face like an unsmiling Son of Christ, shrouded in an air of asceticism that made him seem thousands of miles away. But it would be a mistake to think of Wen Nuan as someone who was hard to approach; on the contrary, Wen Nuan had a prize-winning sense of humor.
Most children grew up reading fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson. Wen Nuan was an orphan. Even if he wanted to read fairy tales, he had no funds with which to buy them, so he had no choice but to read what he could get his hands on without being picky. Thus, Wen Nuan read Top Corny Jokes and The Comprehensive Collection of Punchlines growing up.
It couldn’t be helped that Wen Nuan’s childhood was a bit bumpy, but the world was fair, compensating as much with Wen Nuan’s naturally good looks. He took advantage of such wherever he went, never lacking in self-confidence.
This was especially so when he smiled. There was a sweet little dimple on his left cheek, like a fragrant peach petal falling into a pool of spring water, making others feel inexplicably favorable towards him.
But right now, Wen Nuan’s smile was just a little bit forced.
That dimple on the left side of his face twitched. Wen Nuan laughed hollowly. “I…”
He’d barely spoken a word when someone knocked on the door and entered. He walked straight towards the first interviewer’s side, using the folder in his hand to block their mouths as he lowered his voice to whisper something secretive.
“Okay, I understand.” The first interviewer nodded.
This was merely a brief interlude, but it gave Wen Nuan half a minute longer to think about what his response was going to be. In these kinds of situations, extra time was rare and precious.
After that person left, Wen Nuan opened his mouth again. “I…”
The first interviewer held a hand up to stop him from continuing. “You’re hired. Tonight will be your first night shift as part of your internship. Please go to the hotel lobby to report at that time.”
“I’m hired?” Wen Nuan held his resume in hand and exited the hotel doors in a muddle headed daze. He couldn’t help turning back to look.
The hotel’s simplicity exuded a sort of delicateness. That delicateness exuded a sort of lavishness, and that lavishness had a sense of refined taste to it. It didn’t at all have an air of pomp or tackiness to it, either. Every tree and bush was cultivated just right. The only fault the hotel had was in its name.
“Hell Chain Hotel” just sounded plain ominous. But in this day and age, there were all kinds of themed hotels. Even dark and dreary ones had their own flair, and young people liked this kind of stuff, so this could be said to have adopted an original approach.
The most important thing was that the salary of the hotel staff was high. It was almost fifty-percent higher than that of other hotels, which was also the most important factor that had attracted Wen Nuan.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
With this job, Wen Nuan’s rent, tuition, and living expenses could all be covered.
“Dea…”
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It wasn’t just Wen Nuan who had been wondering the same thing.
In the hotel, the expressionless second interviewer continued, “There were still twelve candidates after him that we had not listened to yet.”
“Take it easy.” The smiling third interviewer, though also having some concerns, wasn’t worried at all. “I’m sure the boss had reasons for doing so.”
The first interviewer wrote the two words “Wen Nuan” on a document on the table, treating words like gold and said, “This person. Hard life.”
……
“Young man, this must be your first day working here!”
Wen Nuan had his interview in the morning, and he’d come to the hotel at night to start the first day at his internship. It was a night shift, which sounded exhausting, but when he thought of the salary, Wen Nuan was permeated with enthusiasm.
After Wen Nuan reported for duty, he went to the staff lounge to change into his hotel uniform. The hotel was really quite big, and when he came back, he was completely unfamiliar with the place. He couldn’t find his way around for a while, so he asked a cleaning lady for directions.
The hotel staff were all very energetic. The cleaning lady showed him the way, then pulled him aside secretly to whisper, “Hey, your first day’s the night shift. You have to watch out for yourself.”
Wen Nuan partially understood, but the cleaning lady was a chatterbox, so she kept rambling on. “This hotel is ominous in many ways! There are dozens of rooms that are empty and unoccupied, but we have to clean them every day.”
“I thought to myself one day that since maybe nobody was staying inside, I would skimp out and not clean…”
“But guess what! Someone filed a complaint against me!”
“Isn’t that ominous or what?”
The hotel hallway was empty. Save for the cleaning lady and Wen Nuan, there was nobody around. The cleaning lady had lowered her voice as much as possible, but in that deserted hallway, it still managed to echo, giving people the shivers.
“See, look over there, at that room!”
The cleaning lady pointed her finger. In that direction was Room 404.
The door wasn’t shut all the way; it was left half open, and the inside was dark and empty. The inhabitants of this room were unknown, but it was shrouded in mystery, as if ready to engulf adventurers who wanted to investigate.
Every hotel had its own ghost story, just like how every school had its own urban legend.
When Wen Nuan was a university freshman, he had heard many of his upperclassmen talk about such tales, but he was in his fourth year now, and he had lived these past few years quite peacefully.
Speaking of which, Wen Nuan was not afraid of ghosts. He was an orphan, so whether it was day or night, he passed the time by his lonesome. His nerves had long since been honed to an edge.
To Wen Nuan, ghost stories were akin to corny jokes: both of them made a hot summer’s day a little cooler.
The cleaning lady still had a lot to say about the hotel, but they were out of time. Wen Nuan couldn’t listen to the rest of it before he had to finish putting on the rest of his uniform and head down to the lobby to start his shift.
“Wen Nuan, it really is you!”
Who would’ve thought that on Wen Nuan’s first day, he would run into an acquaintance.
“Senior Fan?” Wen Nuan said in surprise. “Why are you here?”
Senior Fan was one year older than Wen Nuan. He had already graduated from school. Wen Nuan and Senior Fan had met each other during an elective course in school, keeping in contact a few times after that. Senior Fan had a simple and honest disposition. He always tried to help everyone, and was a genuine pacifist. There was nobody who didn’t like him.
But what was weird was, despite Wen Nuan being acquainted with Senior Fan for this long, he didn’t know what Senior Fan’s full name was. How mysterious.
Senior Fan smiled and said, “I heard that there was a newbie starting today named Wen Nuan, but I didn’t really think it would be you. This is great; not only can we work together, we can also look out for each other.”
Wen Nuan had just been reminiscing about the old days with Senior Fan when a young woman in a uniform passed by, casually saying, “Liangda, you know the newbie? That’s great; you can show him the ropes. The night shift is pretty lax as long as you answer the lobby phone and provide the guests with towels and slippers.”
Wen Nuan wasn’t actually unfamiliar with hotel night shifts, but when he heard the woman speak, he couldn’t help but startle. He slowly lowered his head until his eyes landed on the name tag fastened to Senior Fan’s chest.
Fan Liangda! Fan Liangda?
Wen Nuan came to a sudden realization about why Senior Fan never mentioned his full name. Senior Fan’s parents must have been really bold. Perhaps they were trying to go for an original approach, but to actually give their son such a name…
The night shift started at 8:00PM. The landline phone in the lobby hadn’t rang once yet, and in the blink of an eye, it was already approaching midnight. On his first night shift, Wen Nuan began to feel drowsy.
Next to him, Fan Liangda wasn’t the least bit sleepy; he was already used to it, but his face looked a bit dejected.
“Ai…ai, ai…”
“Senior Fan, are you okay?” The drowsiness on Wen Nuan was about to get scared off by Fan Liangda’s deep sighs.
Fan Liangda wanted to say something, but hesitated. It seemed like it was something too embarrassing to mention, so in the end, he shook his head, continuing to sigh.
Wen Nuan turned to face him, a lightbulb going off above his head. “Senior Fan, could it be that you’ve been dumped again?”
After hearing Wen Nuan’s words, Fan Liangda’s head sank even lower. Wen Nuan had hit the nail on the head. He heaved another sigh. “Wen Nuan ah, it was like I was dumped. My goddess, she…you know, that one senior sister? She rejected me.”
Wen Nuan was not a stranger to this business since they had known each other for so long. He said quite insightfully, “Actually, you should have seen this coming early on. If you label someone as your goddess, it isn’t because her face is beautiful, her figure is good, her character is cute, or her intellect is high.”
Fan Liangda listened dazedly, but he nodded and asked, “Then why?”
“Usually…” Wen Nuan grinned. “It’s because though you admire that person, they don’t admire you at all.”
Fan Liangda felt like he’d taken an arrow to the knee. “Wen Nuan, you’re making fun of me.”
Wen Nuan shook his head, face full of sincerity. “I’m inclined to speak the truth.”
“Before…” Fan Liangda hesitated. “Before, she clearly…clearly seemed to like me.”
Hearing this, Wen Nuan once again acted as if he had unraveled a profound mystery. “Senior, have you ever heard of life’s three greatest misconceptions? Feeling your phone vibrate, hearing someone knock at the door, and thinking that she likes you.”
Fan Liangda: “…” It felt like both of his knees had been shot into sieves.
“This won’t do!” Fan Liangda suddenly stood, straightening his shoulders and lifting his head high, walking out of the lobby. “I need to keep my spirits up. I’m going to go find something to do, like mopping the lobby floors! Wen Nuan, watch over for a bit.”
Wen Nuan had no complaints. In the dead of the night, there were scarcely any guests who called the phone, so just Wen Nuan manning the lobby alone was enough.
“Ring ring ring—”
Coincidentally, just a minute after Fan Liangda left the lobby, the landline phone on the lobby desk suddenly rang.
“Hello, this is the hotel lobby. How can I help you?” Wen Nuan promptly answered the call.
“Hello.”
A man’s voice came from the other side of the phone. There was no warmth to be heard in that single word, but in a split second, it was like an iron hammer had stricken Wen Nuan’s stomach.
This fellow named Wen Nuan had three distinct characteristics. A sense of humor was merely one of them. The other two were that he was a face-con and a voice-con.
In Wen Nuan’s words, the soul was distant while the face was near, so instead of yearning for something you couldn’t touch, why not stand to be more materialistic?
And though he was a picky voice-con, Wen Nuan swore this was the most magnetizing voice he’d ever heard, even if the other party had only spoken a single short word. It was deep, low, and steady. The end of the last syllable had a touch of roughness. It was clean and cold with just a touch of sexiness.
If the other party kept talking, Wen Nuan felt like his ears might get pregnant.
Lo and behold, the voice over the phone spoke again.
“Room 404.”
The man added, “I need special service. Please come to my room.”
The author has something to say: Opening a new pit hole! Scattering flowers~
Lighthearted, supernatural, complete story, a sweet novel~suspenseful~1V1!
Translator comments: Yippee! New novel! 🥳
Oh hoho, this looks fun! And such an easy-to-read, smooth translation too! Thank you for your hard work, Translator-老师.
Wen Nuan is down bad for the ML and I love that for him!
This is starting off super cute!!
As a fellow voice-con, I may have found my brethren called Wen Nuan 😚
Face-con, voice-con…I understand…truly… Thanks for the translation 🤣❤️
As a fellow face and voice-con, have to say, those low, deep, clean magnetic voices that resonate in your chest like the timbre of a cello are really heavenly~
Thanks for the chapter 💕😘