Rule Horror: I Handle Labor Arbitration in the Horrors

Chen Mo has worked the night shift in the world of supernatural tales for three years. No overtime pay, no five-insurance-and-housing-fund benefits, 37 pay deductions, over 200 days covering shifts for coworkers, and three meetings with the supernatural HR department, all on the grounds that he was "emotionally unstable."

In the fourth year, a new rule was posted: If you hear footsteps at 3:33 a.m., do not look back.

Chen Mo looked back. The owner of the footsteps was his department supervisor, a supernatural being whose head could rotate 180 degrees. Chen Mo pulled out the handbook. "Part Three, Article Seven: Employees have the right to confirm the identity of anyone approaching them. You wrote it yourself." The supervisor's head got stuck. Chen Mo then pulled out a list. "Three years of unpaid wages, overtime pay, and illegal deductions: 47 items. According to your own rules, any deduction without grounds must be repaid at double the amount. Do the math."

While everyone else was running for their lives in the supernatural world, Chen Mo was chasing unpaid wages, demanding overtime pay, and rating supernatural beings on their KPIs. His only golden finger was "Supernatural Labor Arbitration": whenever a supernatural being violated a rule it had set itself, he could forcibly initiate arbitration. The being had to respond according to its own written logic, or suffer a backlash from the rules.

He dug up an old file from the archives: Employee ID D-012, Zhang Wei, "filed," with the note "voluntarily waived all rights." On the back, in tiny handwriting: "Don't sign. I'm investigating them."

Zhang Wei herself stood at the door, a ring of indelible rule marks around her wrist. "You looked through my file?" Every time she helped him, she forgot another memory of him.

He asked, "What's the point of remembering this?"

He said, "If you forget, I'll remember for you."