The first sign something was wrong was the silence.
Not the usual, bureaucratic silence—the kind punctuated by quills scribbling, clerks muttering, and divine paper shuffling itself into stacks.
No.
This was the absolute, total, existential silence of an entire department holding its breath.
Yue felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
"Ne Job…" she whispered.
He nodded. "Yeah. That's… not right."
They both stepped out of the Records-of-Records Office into the main hall—and froze.
Every celestial bureaucrat, spirit, clerk, evaluator, auditor, scribe, and even the frequently-late-on-purpose Coffee Nymph stood frozen mid-action.
Not petrified.
Not asleep.
Not unconscious.
Frozen in place like someone pressed PAUSE on reality.
Even the flying scrolls had stopped mid-air, wings suspended.
A paper crane was frozen in front of Ne Job's cheek, the tip of its beak touching his skin.
He poked it.
It didn't move.
Yue's eyes narrowed. "This is unnatural even by Heavenly Department standards."
Ne Job inhaled sharply. "Is this… another Audit?"
"No Audit has the authority to stop everyone but us."
"Well… that's comforting."
"No, it is not."
They looked at each other.
And the same horrible thought hit both.
Someone broke the Flow of Time inside the Office.
---
Yue POV
She stepped forward cautiously, her boots clicking loudly on the marble floor—far too loudly, because nothing else was making a sound.
Her voice echoed, just once, then vanished into the stillness.
"Ne Job. The Desynchronization Clock."
His face paled.
"That thing?"
"Yes. If it's been triggered, the Office enters a "temporal safety freeze" until the anomaly is—"
A loud BANG sounded from the far end of the hall.
Both turned.
Both stared.
Both regretted turning and staring.
Because from the corner office of Temporal Compliance Division, the door burst open and a figure stumbled out—arms full of stolen donuts.
Yue blinked. "...Bao?"
Dreivery Spirit Bao froze mid-bite, eyes widening as he realized he was the only other moving entity in the entire department.
"Oh. OHHHH," Bao gasped. "So you also didn't freeze? GOOD. GREAT. I CAN EXPLAIN."
"You broke time," Yue said flatly.
"No!"
"You broke something that controls time," she clarified.
Bao shifted from foot to foot. "...Maybe."
Yue dragged her hands across her face. "What did you do."
"It wasn't ME! I swear! I was only borrowing—like for a very short, harmless, definitely-legal test run—the Temporal Compliance Division's Chrono-Stamp!"
Ne Job squinted. "…What the heck is a Chrono-Stamp?"
Bao brightened. "Oh! It's AMAZING. You stamp a document and it reverts itself to a previous saved version!"
"That sounds horrifying," Yue muttered.
"That sounds useful," Ne Job countered.
"That sounds ILLEGAL," Yue corrected Ne Job with a finger jab to his chest.
Bao continued, waving his donut in one hand. "So I used it to undo a delivery mistake from last week."
"Which mistake?" Ne Job asked.
Bao coughed. "The one where I delivered Lord Xian's sealed-forever pizza box to the Fire Spirit Gym."
Yue closed her eyes. "The box labeled NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, OPEN?"
Bao's donut drooped. "…Yes."
"And what did the Chrono-Stamp do?" Yue demanded.
"It, uh… un-delivered it."
"Meaning?"
"It sent the pizza box back in time."
"How far!"
"...define 'far.'"
"Oh Heavens."
Bao gulped. "It might have… landed in a moment where it wasn't supposed to exist yet. So the Office reacted. And then the Desynchronization Clock auto-triggered. And then everything froze except… I guess whoever wasn't in direct temporal flow? "
Yue answered immediately. "Ne Job and I were operating inside a sealed sub-dimensional file room."
Bao looked relieved. "So you're safe!"
"WE ARE NOT SAFE, BAO!" Yue shouted.
Ne Job raised his hand timidly. "What's a Desynchronization Clock actually do?"
Yue massaged her temples. "If the Office detects a major temporal contradiction, it freezes all staff to prevent cascading paradoxes until the anomaly is repaired."
"And if it isn't repaired?" Ne Job asked.
"Everything unfreezes at once and time tries to 'correct' the contradiction."
"Correct how?"
She inhaled sharply.
"By deleting the problem."
Ne Job paused. "…Deletion sounds bad."
"DELETION IS BAD!" Yue snapped.
---
Ne Job POV
He pointed at the office hallway.
"So the pizza box—"
"—must be retrieved from whatever time period Bao flung it into," Yue finished.
"And before the Clock resets," he added.
"And preferably before Lord Xian wakes up," Bao whispered.
Ne Job frowned. "Lord Xian is frozen."
Yue corrected him with a shiver. "No. Bureaucrats of his tier have special protections. He's only… paused in consciousness. When time resumes, he'll remember EVERYTHING from one second before the freeze."
Bao dropped his donut.
"Oh no."
"Oh YES," Yue groaned.
"So," Ne Job summarized. "Let me get this straight."
He held up a finger.
"One: Time broke."
Two fingers.
"Two: Bao broke it."
Bao squeaked. "Allegedly!"
Three fingers.
"Three: A demonically cursed never-open pizza box is now loose somewhere in time."
Bao nodded nervously. "Classic Tuesday stuff."
Four fingers.
"Four: If we don't fix it, the entire Office and all staff get paradox-deleted."
Yue added darkly, "And us with them."
Ne Job clapped his hands together.
"Alright. We fix it."
---
Yue POV
She wasn't surprised.
Not anymore.
Not after 147 chapters of this.
"Bao," she said sharply. "Show us exactly where you stood when you used the Chrono-Stamp."
Bao scampered to the hallway like an overexcited raccoon.
"This spot!" he said proudly. "I stamped the form right here and—"
The air in front of him flickered.
Reality glitched.
A vertical tear opened, shimmering like a rip in fabric—crackling with temporal electricity.
A rift.
The pizza box must have fallen through that.
Yue felt her stomach twist. "Ne Job."
He cracked his knuckles. "Yeah?"
"You may need to jump into a time anomaly."
He blinked. "Cool."
"Cool? COOL? Ne Job, this is not cool—this is—"
He grinned. "Yue. I'm the Intern from Hell."
"And?"
"I've been doing impossible things since my first day."
Her frustration melted.
He always did that—taking the unthinkable and making it feel doable.
Bao leaned in. "Also it's probably safe? I think? Maybe? 40% odds?"
Yue shot him a death glare. "WE NEED AT LEAST 80%!"
Bao adjusted. "Uh—60%?"
"BAO."
He straightened. "FINE. 62%."
Yue sighed. "We're going to die."
Ne Job stepped toward the rift.
But before he entered, he turned to her.
"Yue. You're coming with me, right?"
She stiffened. "Is that an order?"
"No. It's… because I'd rather face temporal collapse with you than alone."
Silence.
For a moment, the time-freeze didn't feel so absolute.
She stepped beside him.
"I'm with you," she said quietly. "Always."
Bao wiped a tear. "Hold on—let me—JUST one sec—" He rummaged through his pockets. "Take these chrono-stickers. If you tap them, they bookmark your temporal location!"
Ne Job blinked. "Like… save points?"
"Yes!" Bao beamed. "But don't die, or they erase ironically."
Yue pocketed the stickers. "Not comforting."
"Wasn't meant to be."
The rift crackled again.
The entire Office trembled—papers shaking, frozen spirits quivering in their stasis.
The Desynchronization Clock was running out.
Ne Job extended his hand to Yue.
"Ready?"
She took it.
"As I'll ever be."
She squeezed once.
He squeezed back.
Together, they stepped into the shimmering tear.
And Bao shouted behind them:
"BRING BACK THE PIZZA BOX BEFORE TIME MURDERS US ALL!"
---
END OF CHAPTER 148