After hearing Liu Shuai’s words, the programmer, who was originally excited, turned down in spirits, which made Hao Ning amused.

This programmer was a new employee at the company, born after 1995. He had a very special name, called Qi Li, probably because his father wanted him to be a great man, but it turned to be a joke in school. When the teacher walked into the class, the class monitor would shout “Stand up!” (in Chinese, the phrase has pronounced the same as “Qi Li”) and the students would stand up. While some of his classmates would tease him because of his name, especially as the teacher asked him to answer a question, some naughty students would get up and say “Whoops, Mister, I thought you want us to stand up!”, and then make more students laugh. It even made him famous in his elementary school, middle school, and high school. Of course, his personality was also very cheerful, but it turned to be a trouble for him when he entered college. Due to the special nature of his name, every guest speaker would know his name, and every time they would not forget calling out his name. Thus, he was “forced” to become the one who never skipped a single class. Every time he spoke of this matter, aside from pride, he also felt that it was a pity. After all, some friends of his who could find a girlfriend in college would sometimes skip classes to accompany their girls. He envied them a lot.

Since he just graduated, Qi Li was not very familiar with the work, and he frequently made mistakes. There were testing engineers in the company who would do quality control jobs on programmers’ codes. Every mistake they found would be counted into the appraisal of an entire technical team in a project.

Previously, due to Liu Shuai’s strong technical skills, his team was always rated very high in the company. Ever since Qi Li came here, because of his own mistakes, he pulled down the scores of the entire technical team. The testing engineers could not even stand it, and other than scoring on their work, they were all secretly giving Liu Shuai feedbacks. As the technical director of this team, Liu Shuai, though he felt that this guy had a very good personality and was quite nimble, but he also got upset being told that there were a lot of problems with his new team member, so when Qi Li was just curious, Liu Shuai forced him back to work.

Seeing Qi Li put on the headsets, Liu Shuai frowned and touched his forehead, then said to Hao Ning in a low voice, “Hey, could you lower your voice? Do you want everyone in the company to know that there are some freaks here? Besides, those Taoist techniques are only meant for me to protect myself. If I were to meet any monsters or ghosts, do you want me to comply and wait for them beating me?”

“Hahaha,” Hao Ning could not help but laugh in a low voice. “Freaks. It seems like you are very clear about your own status. But then again, with how great your Tao techniques are, it’s such a pity for you to be a programmer. If you were a ghost capture expert, you might have been able to make a lot of money. Look, those who can capture ghosts in film and novels can make millions easily by exorcizing demons for rich families.”

“Hahaha, you’re thinking too much,” Liu Shuai interrupted Hao Ning and continued. “These days, how can there be so many demons and ghosts. Throughout my life, I’ve only seen a few of them, and I never encountered a single case of ghost hurting a human. If I were to do business like capturing ghosts, I would have starved to death. It would be better for me to write codes to earn this peaceful money.”

His words made sense to Hao Ning, who laughed while nodding, “People cannot see it in real life, so they have to read stories. Just take a look at those countless cultivators, ghosts and fantasy novels. There are so many devils, monsters, immortals and deities.”

“Hahahaha,” Liu Shuai laughed, “What you said makes too much sense, people are willing to read stories of demons, ghosts, and gods. There aren’t any in the real world, so they could only look for them in the story. Check those websites like Qidian and Zongheng. There are numerous ghosts in the stories. Even if all the plants and animals start cultivating now, it would still be too late to meet the number. There are films about Bunshinsaba, dish fairy, and It’s said that there will be a film of chopstick fairy. I can tell that there will be bowl fairy, rice cook fairy, chopping board fairy, gas burner fairy, hood fairy, washer fairy, and refrigerator fairy.” Liu Shuai felt that it was funny, and while laughing, he said, “What do you call it? For a good reason, you can call it a hobby, but for a bad thing, you may also call it a slut. In the novels, protagonists beat up demons all the time, and readers can’t help but enjoy it. But what if one day these demons really stand in front of them? What do you think they would do?”

“I have no idea,” Hao Ning smiled as he thought about it, then said, “You’re a bit too cynical. People read online novels to amuse themselves. Why are you thinking so much?”

Liu Shuai nodded his head and thought that it was reasonable, “You are right. That’s their way of recreation. It’s just that you and I have really fought demons before, let me ask you, when you fight, are you afraid or not?”

“Nonsense!” Hao Ning turned serious. He was still anxious when he recalled the last battles. “Other than the time when Zhang Chi Hang was there, we fought those battles on our own. How can I not be afraid?”

“Exactly!” Liu Shuai nodded his head, “Actually, we were forced to fight. To put it bluntly, we traded our lives for victory. It’s scary to think of it now, but how many people do you think would be afraid of if these things were written into a novel? There will even be people who laugh at you. They will think that you are a coward and that your fighting prowess is lacking… ”

“Well…” Hao Ning was startled when he heard Liu Shuai’s words, and then he laughed embarrassedly, “About that, I did write a novel about what happened to us during this period of time. I uploaded it to Zongheng website, and the most bizarre thing is that Zongheng came to me. I have become a signed author of Zongheng website.”

Hearing Hao Ning’s words, Liu Shuai opened his eyes and mouth wide in shock, as if he wanted to swallow Hao Ning in whole, “What? Are you crazy? How could you write these things online? What if someone read them? The truth of the gods and demons in this world cannot be known by anyone, otherwise, everything will become a mess!”

“You’re thinking too much,” Hao Ning laughed when he noticed Liu Shuai’s nervousness. “Let me ask you, you’ve read the fantasy novels online, do you think that they are talking about the real things in the world? And do you believe that there is such an immortal cultivating method called the Lightning Tribulation in this world?”

“Lightning Tribulation isn’t that kind of method. The correct method is…” Liu Shuai wanted to retort, but then he thought that it was reasonable. “Haha, I understand what you mean. No one would believe that it is true. But even so, why are you writing these?”

“Well, maybe as a commemoration.” Hao Ning lowered his head in thought. “There are so many things that happened recently. I really don’t know who I should talk to, nor do I know where Yan went to. I always thought it was a pity to just go over like that, so I wrote it down, but don’t worry, I did not use my real name and I did some artistic treatment.”

“Artistic treatment?” Liu Shuai laughed, “Then you have to write me down to be more handsome, better like Wu Yanzu, with a strong figure, and with a lot of girlfriends, a lot of wives and concubines. And, I also want to be rich. Knowing some medicine skills would be better, especially the Zhu You Technique. And, I want to be a reincarnation of some gods, not too low, probably Yuanshi Tianzun. What do you think? No, Heavenly Headmaster would be better. Well, no, let me think about it…”

Liu Shuai was still contemplating with his head down, while Hao Ning laughed bitterly, “Just now, you thought that all of the novels in the web were just bullshits. But when it happens to you, your ideas become like wild, runaway dog that cannot be pulled back. Oh, I got an idea, how about I write about you as the reincarnation of a Husky? Is any Husky famous? Let me think. Yeah, you could be Erlang Shen’s divine dog, the one named Xiaotian who ate the moon. How’s that?”