Immortal I Speedrun Supernatural Game

Chapter 682 The Heartbeat of the Employee

"You're overthinking it."

As Wu Wang took a big gulp of coffee, he mumbled something indistinctly.

The two looked over with some confusion.

What does it mean to overthink?

Judging from his previous behavior, this guy was clearly the one most dissatisfied with the Desire Factory. Why does what he's saying now sound like he's speaking up for the factory?

Isn't this just making an example of someone to scare others?

Unexpectedly, Wu Wang's next words were even more hurtful.

"What I mean is, the factory doesn't treat you like living creatures like monkeys at all. At most, you're just cogs in a machine and fuel. Making an example of you is just you overestimating yourselves."

"The factory doesn't do anything that wastes resources; they're just harvesting."

“Last night’s bill check instilled fear in many people, and this fear can lead to three outcomes—being pushed to work harder, collapsing, or rebelling. The factory is just harvesting those who collapse on the spot. This is not punishment; it is seasonal harvesting.”

Seasonal harvesting.

These five words sound just like agricultural products.

Wu Wang then added, "You know how it is to harvest leeks? You cut one crop, and another crop will grow back after a while."

For a moment, the tea room fell silent.

Only the faint hum of the coffee machine's residual heat remained.

"Then what should we do?" Old Fan finally asked after a while.

This was the question he asked most in the past two days.

But this time, his tone no longer contained only confusion and helplessness.

Beneath that weary shell, a bone that had long been numb was slowly hardening.

Wu Wang looked at Lao Fan, then at Tie Jian.

One of these two men is a father whose son is constantly being dragged down by rising prices, and the other is a police officer who is constantly being lured away by the factory in the name of justice.

They were not chosen by Wu Wang, unlike Zhang Mingyuan who chose Wu Wang.

They came to the tea room on their own to discuss certain issues.

Before Wu Wang even stepped into the factory, Lao Fan was already working tirelessly for his son; before Wu Wang had demonstrated any ability, Tie Jian had already hesitated in the face of the exorbitant price of justice pushed by the bracelet.

They don't need to be forcibly awakened.

They just need someone to tell them they can wake up.

"How many people are on this floor?" Wu Wang suddenly asked an unrelated question.

Tie Jian frowned and said, "There are about three thousand permanent employees."

As a former police officer, he had already been conducting this kind of grassroots investigation work when he completed his onboarding duties yesterday; it was simply a professional habit.

"How long have you all worked here? For example, how many have worked for more than a year?"

Hearing Wu Wang's question, Lao Fan pondered and said, "More than a year? Then the proportion is probably not that high, a few hundred at most. The personnel turnover on the fourth floor is quite fast."

Wu Wang nodded in agreement.

A few hundred...that should be enough.

If they have been employees for so long, then even if they didn't participate in the strike, they should have at least witnessed or heard about it.

After all, even the bill checking issue that Wu Wang caused last night could affect more than one floor.

Not to mention the strike that lasted for a full eleven days, starting from the fourth floor.

These people watched Zhang Mingyuan get arrested, and saw their colleagues, like themselves, being transferred or recalled. Then they lowered their heads and continued working, typing away on their keyboards for hundreds of days.

Some people have indeed been poisoned by the factory of desire to the point of indifference and numbness.

But there must have been some people who were filled with complex emotions while working during that period.

They did nothing not because they weren't angry.

It's not because of anger, but because there's no outlet for it.

Just like Lao Fan in the meeting room yesterday, after he questioned the smiling man and received no response, didn't he feel indignant at all? Didn't he want to rush up and grab the smiling man's tie and roar at him?

If they weren't indignant, why would they stand outside the talent incubation center for so long?

He simply couldn't afford the consequences of his impulsiveness.

Anger that cannot be vented will not disappear into thin air; it will only accumulate deeper and deeper in your heart.

Ultimately, it will either collapse or erupt one day.

"I need to know the heartbeat of the fourth layer."

Wu Wangchao Tiejian said.

His tone was no longer the teasing and joking of before, but a calm, almost commanding statement.

"I'm not talking about the health data on the wristband, but about seeing with our own eyes, listening with our own ears, and touching with our own hands, to know how many of these 3,000 people have trembling hands, how many pairs of eyes are not constantly looking at the computer screen, and how many people come to the break room to complain instead of sleeping or working overtime during their lunch break."

Tie Jian narrowed his eyes and looked at Wu Wang.

After a moment of silence, he asked, "What are you organizing?"

“An organization?” Wu Wang laughed, though his smile still had a slightly smug edge. “No, I’m just doing calculations. I want to figure out how vulnerable this factory is.”

"If a place needs fake afternoon sunlight, soothing fragrances, deliberately controlled white noise, and endless desires to keep its employees from breaking down."

"Then it is already very fragile."

Wu Wang finished the rest of his coffee in one gulp.

A strange flame seemed to burn in his eyes.

"It needs you to keep borrowing, keep wanting, and keep fearing in order to get it running."

“You are all fuel.”

"Whether the fuel stops burning simultaneously or burns explosively in a synchronized manner, it is very difficult for the factory to handle."

"I bet it can only handle isolated individual data and can't handle resonance."

Old Fan seemed to understand something and slowly put down his cold coffee.

His voice seemed to regain the same strength he had when he used to carry cement up twenty stories in one go on construction sites, as he said, "How many people do you need to tell the truth?"

Wu Wang raised an eyebrow and looked at the other person.

He found that the middle-aged man was much more lucid than he had expected.

The other person was just too tired, so tired that they used to consider being sober a burden.

"Not too many, twenty will be enough."

"Twenty people who are willing to let their fellow workers know the amount of their debts and make it clear that they will no longer buy any wish-fulfilling items. They don't need to shout slogans; they just need to do one thing when asked—tell the truth."

Tie Jian's thumb had stopped rubbing against the bracelet, and his body language was gradually shifting from that of a retrieval officer carrying out work orders back to that of the police station in the interrogation room.

They not only passively accept orders, but also proactively assess the situation.

He asked, "And then?"

Wu Wang placed the empty cup back under the coffee machine.

After sensing the information from the wristband, the machine started working again and emitted a buzzing sound.

"Then the factory will find that there is a group of people who are no longer paying for desire and fear."

"Based on its recommendation algorithm, the more desired something is, the more precious it is. So how will the Wish Shop treat these people? I have a bold idea—it will offer discounts, discounts so deep they're practically exorbitant, discounts so deep they're practically free!"

"Because it has never encountered a customer group that doesn't pay for desires, its pricing algorithm doesn't have a solution for this situation."

"By then, we will be able to see its true colors."

Wu Wang turned and walked towards the door of the tea room.

He didn't take the refilled cup of coffee away.

Instead, without turning his head, he said, "Old Fan, please remember to invite him back after you restore employee benefits."

Watching the tea room door slowly close behind him, Lao Fan and Tie Jian exchanged a glance but remained silent. Neither of them left immediately.

Just then, the coffee machine made a muffled gurgling sound as the beans jammed, even though it wasn't Wednesday or evening.

All I can say is that this coffee machine is really too old and broken; it frequently jams coffee beans.

Old Fan skillfully raised his hand and tapped twice at the location indicated by the arrow.

After the machine resumed its normal humming, he stared at the yellowed note for a long time.

"I'm going back now."

Tie Jian nodded without asking why.

The answer was already in Lao Fan's mind when he picked up the cup of coffee Wu Wang had offered him and left.

It's free coffee, why talk about inviting them back?

Sure enough, free things are the most expensive.

Tie Jian also left the tea room not long after, and it is unknown where he went.

When Wu Wang returned to his workstation, he happened to see a smiling person walking at a steady pace from the end of Area B. After noticing that Wu Wang was staring at him, the person inexplicably quickened their pace.

He wasn't the smiling man who was previously extorted.

He was there to take over the other person's patrol duties, and he knew why the other person needed to be replaced.

Damn it, there's some bad luck here.

"Sir, there's something I need to remind you of." Bai's voice suddenly rang out and said softly, "During your conversation with Lao Fan and Tie Jian just now, someone passed by the tea room door three times, in the same direction, and even the interval between each time was exactly four minutes. Normal walking to the restroom wouldn't produce such lingering data."

[White] We do not currently have direct access to factory monitoring systems.

She simply sensed the signals from other employees' wristbands nearby.

"Can you pinpoint the employee number?" Wu Wang asked, raising an eyebrow.

Logically, at such a close distance, [Bai] should have a chance to read the other party's wristband data.

"There's nothing I can do. The other party's bracelet seems to be blocked by something. I can only sense the signal passing by, but I can't lock onto the specific target."

Wu Wang casually selected a soothing task on the computer, then casually walked towards the target floor with his hands in his work clothes pockets.

He wasn't in a hurry to find this person.

If the other party had malicious intent, they wouldn't have lingered in such an easily detectable manner.

That is, the other party has no malicious intent but deliberately reveals its existence.

This person is waiting to be discovered.

Now, countless heads are intently focused on computer screens at the workstations on both sides of the corridor. Trying to find that person who cannot be located by technical means in this vast sea of ​​people is nothing short of a pipe dream.

Then let's do something worthwhile.

So that the factory can be judged as being passively shirking its duties in addition to being an inefficient asset.

This appeasement task also doesn't offer many wish points. Although the target is on the fifth floor, he is already an employee deeply mired in consumerism. Wu Wang knows that there's no need to waste too much effort on this kind of person.

Therefore, he didn't guide him like he did with Zhou Ping; he simply "appeased" him.

This time it also took less than an hour.

But when he returned to his workstation, he found something extra on his desk.

It was a candy.

Someone placed one of those free hard candies provided in the break room right in the center of the keyboard when he wasn't looking.

Little Qiu poked its head out from above Wu Wang's head, sniffed the candy, and said, "Meow~"

[Boss, the scent of a human woman]

"Heh, so you can even recognize women by their scent now," Wu Wang teased, then summoned his bracelet and asked, "Bai, who just approached my workstation?"

He knew that Bai must have left backups or something similar on his computer.

The other party was so close, they should have been able to notice.

"Sir, the signal detection I left on your computer does indeed show signs of being triggered."

[Bai] paused for a second to organize his words.

"A Desire Bracelet briefly entered within one meter of your workstation, and the bracelet's serial number has been recorded, but... this serial number does not exist."

Her words surprised Wu Wang.

What does "does not exist" mean?

Upon hearing Wu Wang's question, Bai replied, "It is not on the currently known list of registered employees, and its behavior does not indicate that it is a smiling person. From a data perspective, this employee number is virtual."

[Bai] is the AI ​​that takes over from the Desire Bracelet.

Logically, she should be able to determine some of the other person's information within the system using their ID number.

Even if Wu Wang's bracelet doesn't have high enough permissions, it can still at least confirm whether the number exists.

The results she found were blank.

There is only one possibility—the information left by the other party at the data level is false.

This person may have hacked the bracelet's information, just like [Bai]!

Wu Wang casually picked up the candy; it was still the most common orange-flavored hard candy.

He noticed something different.

The candy wrapper wasn't sealed by the machine when it left the factory. You couldn't tell the difference from a distance, but if you looked closely, you could see that it was a little loose, which meant it had been tightened by hand.

The candy had been opened.

He casually tore off the candy wrapper and unfolded it, discovering a line of small print next to the advertising slogan for the beta test—

[Today at 16 PM sharp, cabin B-3 on the 28th floor, no reply required]

The other party's meaning is already very clear.

If you dare to come, go at the designated time; if you don't dare, there's no need to deliberately look for her.

"I can't find it, is that what you mean?" Wu Wang smiled.

"Meow?" Little Hill asked, licking the candy.

[Boss, are you going?]

In response, Wu casually burned the candy wrapper to ashes.

She began by saying, "Four o'clock in the afternoon is working hours. There are few people in the Wish Exhibition Hall on the 28th floor. The other party must have thought this out carefully. Perhaps her ability to hide is limited in crowded places."

"But even so, they still have to take the risk of contacting me to prove that the other party definitely has some information to tell me or exchange."

"Go for it, it's a clue delivered right to our door."

There are still two hours until 4 p.m.

He has two things to do during this period.

The first step is to determine the current specific situation of the routes marked on the ventilation duct drawings.

The second reason was to meet someone.

It wasn't a player, nor was it Lao Fan or the others we just chatted with.

Instead, it was some unlucky guy—employee #9288 whose computer he had turned off several times.

He had another question to ask the other person… (End of Chapter)