Chapter Text
"We're rebooting the multiverse?" the new hire asked, sounding like he didn't believe her.
Mei nodded. "Well, part of it. It's actually not that big of a deal? It happens a lot- especially the PIDW subsystem. I blame the Prime."
"You're talking about Luo Binghe right? One of the other guys was saying he ripped something?"
"The coding of the multiverse- hence the restart," she said. "And there's lots of Luo Binghes." To prove her point she stopped at the observation window for Room 668G.
The new guy blinked in shock at all the Luo Binghes inside, mostly disciple Binghes, though there were a smattering of fluffy puppies in the room too.
"Are those?"
"Bingpups yeah- look the multiverse is vast - this isn't anywhere near the weirdest thing I've seen."
"How do you know who the Prime is if there's so many?"
A good question. "It varies by section but the PIDW section goes with the guy living the original novel. You read it right?"
"Yeah."
"Good." Mei continued down the long hall. "Anyway we figured out which one he was because he doesn't seem to have a husband?"
"A what??"
"Let me explain," Mei said. "So it's kinda weird but in literally every iteration after the Prime, Luo Binghe has a husband- it's all the same guy too- and all the Luo Binghes are desperately in love with their husbands and vice versa. But the Prime just... doesn't have one. Like you'd think having a bunch of overpowered demons around would be more of an issue but the little ones are very polite and the rest of them chill out tremendously when you pair them up with their husband."
"But Prime doesn't have one." the new guy frowned.
Mei shook her head. "Not that we've found anyway. Believe me the research team is looking. It wasn't a big deal for a while but then there was an... incident. Prime spent ...18 hours I think? In a universe where there was a husband and he got extremely jealous that he didn't have one. So he's been looking for his own ever sense.
"Which causes problems when he's running around in everyone else's world trying to steal and/or bride-nap their husbands," Mei concluded. "He usually does that when he's here too but I haven't heard any alarms today... Here let's peek..."
She deflected the new guy down a side hall, taking him through a series of twisting turns until they stopped outside another holding cell. This one had only one Binghe in it, this one in full Demon Emperor regalia. He was kneeling on the floor with his eyes shut- meditating probably?
"Wow," the new guy said softly.
In the holding cell Luo Binghe Prime's blood red eyes snapped open.
Time to leave! Mei began gently shoving her new coworker away from the window.
"...Can he see us?" the guy asked.
"Oh yeah," Mei said. "Hear us too. Two way mirrors do jack shit for Heavenly Demons. Come on, the boss is waiting for us."
That got the guy to start moving. As they left Mei remembered something.
"Hey, I don't think anyone actually told me your name?"
"Oh they didn't!" New Guy said. "I'm Shen Yuan."
Behind them the alarms on Luo Binghe Prime's cell started beeping rapidly. Thank fuck that wasn't her problem. She just had to get Shen Yuan to part two of his orientation in one piece. Still, wouldn't hurt to just ... She linked their arms and started walking faster.
"Do I get hazard pay for this?" Shen Yuan asked. He tried to sit up more but couldn't really. Luo Binghe Prime had him in a princess carry and was completely uninterested in letting him down. In retaliation Shen Yuan was pretending the Demon Emperor didn't exist. It would probably have been more convincing if he wasn't blushing bright tomato red but he couldn't exactly stop that could he?
The head of HR sighed. "I have no idea," she admitted. "There's nothing on the books for this situation."
"Respectfully ma'am that's bullshit. I'm being very slowly kidnapped."
The head of the Research department laughed, though none of the other half dozen people in the room did. Shen Yuan was meeting so many interesting and important people today, as most of the department heads had turned up in the conference room Binghe had settled in after snatching Shen Yuan up in the hall.
The head of Security, a big twitchy guy with what looked like a cattle prod on his belt huffed, "I don't understand why he's still here. Shouldn't he had run off already?"
"There's nowhere for him to go right now," the head of Engineering -she had a hard hat on- said. "The System is still down."
"So could we just keep it d-"
"Absolutely not!" That was the head of 'Guest Services' Shen Yuan thought. "If the System's down too long we'll Desynchronize! Do you want that?"
Shen Yuan didn't know what Desynchronizing was, but it must be bad because every other person in the room winced.
Well, Binghe didn't, but they were all speaking in English so he didn't understand.
Luo Binghe caught him looking and smiled sweetly at him, batting his eyelashes. Shen Yuan scoffed and turned away, he wasn't falling for that!
"How long do we have before we have to restart?" Security asked.
"About 45 minutes." Luo Binghe said in perfect English. "Less if you want spare time to handle start up errors."
After a very very long pause HR snapped, "Who taught him English??"
Research rubbed her temples. "He probably just picked it up. He's here enough and it wouldn't be the first time."
Shen Yuan nodded, after the initial shock he hadn't been surprised at all. "He's done exactly this with... Six languages in the book."
The head of Research looked pleased. "What unit are you in?" she asked Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan's supervisor, who'd spent this whole time standing at the back of the room wringing his hands spoke up. "We were still doing basic orientation, he hasn't taken the placement test yet."
"Dibs." The Research head said.
"You can't call dibs on new staff!" HR hissed. Then she perked up.
"Only Engineering and Security get hazard pay." She told Shen Yuan. "So we'll have to wait and see if you qualify for any."
"'S bullshit." Shen Yuan muttered to himself. Binghe must have heard him though because he chuckled.
He had a nice laugh, Shen Yuan conceded. He'd like it more in different circumstances.