Three days later, Robin had someone set up a desk in the outer office—technically Xiao Zhu’s territory—and placed an intern nameplate on it.
Fu Luo’s very first day on the job was... a disaster.
First of all, she got stopped by security as soon as she walked through the front door of the building.
In her limited life experience, Fu Luo had never given much thought to what she wore. She’d spent more than a decade in school uniforms, then switched straight into military academy gear. With hardly any days off during the year, a few sets of sporty loungewear were enough for home.
Because she was reporting to Robin today, she had actually tried to dress up. She dug out what she thought was her most formal and decent outfit—a men’s suit of unknown origin, a pair of leather shoes with barely three centimeters of heel, and even carried an empty, beat-up briefcase just for show.
As a result, she was promptly stopped and interrogated by the building’s dutiful security guard.
Guard: “Who are you looking for? Which floor?”
Fu Luo: “Twelfth.”
The guard gave her a long, suspicious look up and down. “You selling insurance? Or bank cards?”
Fu Luo: “…”
Seeing no reply, the guard pressed on: “Or are you delivery? Courier? We don’t allow food delivery inside; have them send robots to pick it up downstairs. If it’s a courier, you’ll have to use the freight elevator.”
Fu Luo paused for a second, then made a career choice:“Courier, I guess.”
Guard: “Next time, wear your company’s uniform. Helps us manage the place.”
Fu Luo didn’t want to waste her breath. She gave the guard a perfunctory nod and headed for the freight elevator.
But the guard wasn’t done yet. He jogged after her, waving a database terminal the size of a business card.“Hey! Bro! Come back! You need to leave a record first!”
Inside the freight elevator, a row of delivery-bot workers sat like obedient schoolchildren. One of them seemed to be malfunctioning, endlessly circling Fu Luo’s feet. After she gave it a kick, it rolled aside and let out a suspicious “ka-lunk,” as if it had just been beaten into tears.
Fu Luo stared at her reflection in the elevator’s metallic walls, studying her outfit with a growing sense of gloom.Inwardly, she grumbled to herself, “Can’t I at least pretend to be a white-collar worker? My collar’s a whole damn foot long!”
But when she finally reached the twelfth floor, Fu Luo realized that what had happened earlier wasn’t entirely the security guard’s fault.
The entire floor belonged to Mr. Robin.
There were huge glass doors, walls decked out in retina-scorching wallpaper playing high-resolution runway footage—handsome men, glamorous women, designer scents, glowing lights. Even the air seemed to carry a hint of something intoxicatingly fragrant.
Fu Luo took a long, hard look at the two ceramic mannequins—one male, one female—standing by the entrance. Studying the eye-blinding outfits and accessories they wore, she did a quick mental adjustment of her self-perception.
“So I’m basically a country bumpkin wrapped in a potato sack,” she thought with sudden clarity. “The guard was being polite. He could’ve said I was here to fix the pipes.”
Perhaps she’d lingered too long at the door. Before she could even press the doorbell, a receptionist came out with a polished professional smile and asked politely,“Hello, sir. May I ask who you’re here to see? Do you have an appointment?”
With the rise of advanced tech and declining population, the cost of top-tier human labor had skyrocketed. This young lady was not only a pleasure to look at, but also professionally flawless. Even if Fu Luo had actually been a walk-in plumber, she’d still have made her feel like royalty. Clearly, she was worth every credit of her salary.
What a filthy rich enterprise.
Fu Luo said, “I’m here to see Mr. Robin. He knows I’m coming.”
The receptionist froze slightly when she heard Fu Luo’s voice. Her eyes scanned Fu Luo from head to toe at lightning speed, then she quickly corrected herself,“Ah—Miss. I’m terribly sorry. Please, come with me.”
From the moment Fu Luo stepped through the door, she felt like an A-class armored battleship drifting into a mutated space zoo—her dusty, rugged style stood out like an alien anomaly under scrutiny.
Every employee, previously absorbed in their whirlwind of work, would automatically stop whatever they were doing the moment she passed by. Their expressions said it all:“What is this creature’s mission on Earth?”
…Even the receptionist leading her got a random chill down her spine, as if her familiar workplace had suddenly turned hostile.
The young lady finally led Fu Luo to Mr. Robin’s office and pressed the buzzer:“Boss, there’s a guest here, surname Fu.”
The door slid open automatically. Mr. Robin’s raspy voice called out from inside,“She’s not a guest. Have her register at my door.”
The receptionist blinked. “Uh… what?”
Mr. Robin’s voice grew noticeably irritable.“I said, give her permanent access at my office door, then grant her assistant-level privileges. It’s not rocket science. How many times do I need to repeat myself?”
The word “assistant” successfully detonated whatever fragile threads of sanity the receptionist had left.
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She slowly turned back toward Fu Luo, her head creaking like a rusty hinge, and stared up at her in disbelief.Even her flawless makeup couldn’t conceal the words “help me” gradually surfacing on her delicate little face.
Fu Luo felt genuinely sorry for the psychological trauma she’d just inflicted, so she offered an apologetic, innocent smile.
As a bona fide filthy-rich tycoon, Mr. Robin naturally had a deluxe executive suite.The inner area was his personal domain; the outer office belonged to his assistant, Xiao Zhu.
When Fu Luo walked over to her desk, she realized it was absurdly big—larger than the command station she’d used for half a year in Space Combat Division Three. The surface was nearly empty, except for a lone office computer occupying a tiny corner.
At first, she suspected there might be some hidden mechanism underneath. She poked around a bit, only to find the entire desk was spotless—inside and out.It even still carried the faint fragrance used to neutralize the smell of industrial paint. This thing was brand new.
She glanced sideways at Xiao Zhu’s desk—only to be visually assaulted by a one-square-meter area piled a foot high with personal cosmetics and skincare products.Only then did Fu Luo understand what this oversized desk was really for.
Just then, Mr. Robin’s voice rang out from the inner room:“Luo Luo, come in.”
Clearly, being filthy rich wasn’t as easy as it looked.
At that moment, Mr. Robin was swamped beyond measure. His massive desk was buried under papers, sketches, and mood boards. Even his computer monitor had been hoisted into midair to make space.
A gigantic spreadsheet was projected across the snow-white wall, filled with chaotic markings and terminology that Fu Luo had never even heard before.The trash can was overflowing like a small mountain, and the cleaning robot was slumped in the corner, its head pinned by a cigarette butt, frozen in a dramatic system crash.
Hearing her footsteps, Mr. Robin lifted his head from his work. He took one glance at Fu Luo—and immediately felt as though his retinas had been hit by a biochemical weapon.
He took three deep breaths to calm himself, barely suppressing his rising frustration, and said weakly:“Luo Luo, can I make a request? Tomorrow… could you please wear women’s clothing?”
Fu Luo answered without hesitation,“Can’t fit into them.”
Mr. Robin’s voice trembled as he replied gently,“You could look for some non-traditional shoulder and sleeve designs… This year’s retro loose batwing sleeves are very on trend. Surely there’s something you could squeeze into?”
“Sure,” Fu Luo agreed readily. “I’ll order one online in a bit.”
Though obviously reluctant, her cooperative tone helped Robin breathe a little easier.
Then she added,“Just saying, I might end up looking like Batman.”
Mr. Robin: “…”
The entire morning went by without anyone having the time to talk to her.Mr. Robin seemed busy designing a new image package for an important client, while the rest of the team—led by Xiao Zhu—was prepping for a product launch.
Fu Luo observed Xiao Zhu take twelve calls in a single hour, running in and out seven times, her feet surrounded by piles of advertising catalogs.
Since she was already here, Fu Luo didn’t want to be a burden or look completely clueless.She first connected to the company intranet and ordered a batwing top with instant delivery. Then she sat down in front of her computer and began reading the company’s introduction like she was memorizing vocabulary—doing her best to cram in unfamiliar product names one by one.
By the time she reached product model number 102 in the beauty tools catalog, a situation broke out at Xiao Zhu’s station.
With one earpiece in each ear, Xiao Zhu was multitasking at full throttle.
Into one side, she snapped,“I don’t care what broke or what kind of malfunction it is! I just want to know when the thing I asked for is arriving on the twelfth floor!”
Then to the other line,“Could you help me coordinate, please? I really can’t juggle—ah!”
She was too distracted and stepped right into a fold in the carpet, nearly faceplanting.
Clutching the edge of the desk in frustration, she looked up—Only to find Fu Luo standing in front of her.
“Oh no,” Xiao Zhu snapped back to reality, suddenly remembering she’d left the boss’s connected intern hanging all morning. She hurriedly apologized,“God, look at me. I haven’t even shown you around yet. This morning’s just been complete chaos. Let me take you out for lunch later, okay?”
Fu Luo shook her head.“Is there anything I can help with?”
Xiao Zhu hesitated.“Um… about that…”
She glanced toward the inner office to check with her boss.
Mr. Robin didn’t even look up as he waved his hand.“It’s fine. If you’re too busy, just find her something to do.”
And so, Fu Luo was sent down to the logistics department on the first floor.
A batch of product samples and guest brochures had just arrived downstairs. One of the two freight robots assigned to the twelfth floor was currently out of commission.For regular office buildings, these delivery bots usually had a weight limit between 80 and 100 kilograms. To preserve their longevity, the rule was: any item over 80 kilograms must be carried by two robots simultaneously.
Xiao Zhu asked Fu Luo to go to logistics and check on that damned broken robot, see if they could get it fixed faster.
No one knew what was going on that day, but every floor’s robots seemed to be overworked.When Fu Luo arrived at the logistics department, she found the place was a mechanical disaster zone. Broken delivery bots were lined up like an overextended battalion, their parts scattered across the floor like shrapnel.
Fu Luo showed the repair number tag. A sweating supervisor ran out and explained:“This time the overload fried the processor. We need to replace the whole unit and reprogram the task sequence. There’s no way it’ll be back on duty anytime soon…”
Fu Luo asked,“Can’t you borrow one from another floor?”
“Uh…” The supervisor rubbed his bald head awkwardly.“The bots are pre-routed and floor-specific. They’re not interchangeable. Even if we ‘borrowed’ one, we’d still have to reset the whole protocol… wouldn’t save us much time. Please bear with us—we’re doing our best—”
Before he could finish, Fu Luo had already turned and left.
Ten minutes later, the freight elevator stopped on the twelfth floor.
Xiao Zhu was going over the VIP list with a colleague when she suddenly heard a voice at the door:
“Whoa—what’s all this?”
Fu Luo’s voice replied calmly,“Product samples.”
Xiao Zhu turned around in surprise.“That was fast! You got the robot fixed alr(already)—”
Her sentence stopped cold in her throat.She froze mid-turn like a springbok caught by the neck.
On the delivery cart, the two large boxes of product samples were stacked one on top of the other.The lone delivery bot was still going through its grab-and-lift routine, according to preset protocol—only to be nudged aside by Fu Luo’s foot.
Then, this mighty woman bent down and lifted both boxes at once.
“Could you open the door for me?” Fu Luo said to the receptionist, who had just suffered her second existential crisis of the day.“And please make some room.”
The dumb little robot, its arms still raised in the air as if holding something, cheerfully trotted along behind her—like a loyal sidekick carrying invisible treasure.
“Where should I put these?” Fu Luo asked.
The receptionist, stiff as a statue, raised one trembling hand and pointed toward the far corner of the office.
Fu Luo placed both bulky sample boxes in the indicated spot, kicked the blocking robot aside again, and turned to leave.“There’s still a stack of brochures downstairs,” she said.“I’ll go grab the rest. Also… your delivery cart is way too tiny.”
The delivery robot hurriedly spun its wheels to catch up, but the glass door swung shut with a clang, trapping it inside.It stayed there, spinning in confused little circles—looking inexplicably pitiful.
