readbooksol Chapter 683 Insomnia and Recording
Chapter 683 Insomnia and Recording
On the fourth floor, the keyboard continued to hum like insects flapping their wings.
Wu Wang walked through these workstations, his pace slow but his direction clear.
Along the way, I saw that the door to the tea room was open, and there were four or five people standing inside holding coffee but not chatting.
They just stood there in silence.
One of them was Lao Fan.
He was wiping the water stains next to the coffee machine with a tissue, and after wiping them, he used the same tissue to wipe the surface of the cabinet as well. These actions had nothing to do with cleaning.
It's just something that isn't counted as work performance by the factory, nor is it marked by the wish shop.
These are silly little actions unique to humans.
It's clear that Lao Fan has already started to win over some people he knows.
Wu Wang smiled and walked towards workstation #9288.
At that moment, the other person was staring blankly at the screen.
He wasn't working; the screen displayed the Wish Shop page, lingering on the product details for the "Deep Sleep Experience."
This item, which costs only 5 wish points per night in Wu Wang's wish shop, costs a full 100 wish points per night in the other party's shop.
For someone who barely scrapes by each month to pay off their loan, a night's sleep costing 100 wish points is an absolute luxury.
"How's it feeling to have insomnia?" Wu Wang's voice came from behind him.
#9288 shuddered and instinctively covered the power button. The action was so smooth, as if he had rehearsed it repeatedly in his mind over the past dozen hours.
"You...you stay away! I've already cooperated completely! I've told you everything you asked!"
"You...you can't repay kindness with enmity!"
Seeing the other person's tearful expression, Wu Wang casually dragged over an empty chair from the workstation next to him, straddled it, and draped his arms over the back of the chair, a familiar smirk on his face:
"What's the rush? I'm not trying to shut down your computer. I just wanted to ask if you could sleep after seeing the bill?"
The other person's hand was still covering the power button, but their expression had changed from absolute defensiveness to a complex look between anger and frustration. They said, "You made a special trip just to mock me for not being able to sleep?"
"Not specifically for this, just something I bought on the spur of the moment." Wu Wang took out a candy, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. "So, have you bought this deep sleep experience?"
He naturally noticed the products on the other person's screen as well.
#9288 said in a low voice, "I bought it once. Last month, one day I just couldn't hold on anymore. I felt like I was going to die if I didn't get a good night's sleep, so I gritted my teeth and bought it for one night."
"How was the effect?" Wu asked knowingly.
He already knew what was going to happen.
The other person lowered their guard slightly, moving their hand away from the power button and unconsciously stroking the table: "More real than the real thing, I woke up after a dreamless night with my brain feeling completely clear, like it had been reformatted, but it's just..."
Before he could finish speaking, Wu Wang interrupted and added, "But you just couldn't sleep even more the next day, right?"
#9288 has stopped talking.
His silence itself is the answer.
The disparity between real sleep and purchased sleep is more unbearable than sleepless nights.
What the factory sells to its employees is not sleep, but the fear that they will never be able to fall asleep on their own again.
"So, how long have you been suffering from insomnia?" Wu Wang repeated the question.
The other person unconsciously rubbed their eyes and said weakly, "It's been more than two months. At first, the bracelet said my health data was abnormal, and then recommended that I buy a deep sleep package. They even gave me a discount, 20% off for a whole week."
"It was very cheap back then, and I slept very well for a week. Then there was another discount, a 30% off sale for three days, and I naturally didn't miss that opportunity."
"After the third discount, the price started to rise, and it has risen to a level that I simply cannot accept now."
Wu Wang chewed on the candy without saying a word.
He knew it wasn't because demand had increased, but because the Wish Shop knew this guy was becoming increasingly dependent on the sleep he bought, and the early discounts were just paving the way for countless price increases later.
The pricing is based on the other party's withdrawal costs.
Just like Zhou Ping's lover, Lao Fan's son, and Tie Jian and Zheng Yi, they were all priced.
The factory's reliance is not on the value of the product itself, but on the extent to which the target users will abandon it.
Did you go to the break room after you checked the bills yesterday?
Wu Wang crumpled the candy wrapper into a ball and casually tossed it into the air.
The cow-patterned cat, Xiaoqiu, focused its gaze and tapped the crumpled paper with its tail, sending it accurately landing in the trash can three meters away. Then, it let out a triumphant meow above Wu Wang's head.
"I did go, but I saw a lot of people chatting inside, so I didn't go in."
"why?"
Upon hearing Wu Wang's question, he hesitated for a moment before replying, "Because I don't know what to say to those people, I don't even know what to say to myself."
He is on the verge of a breakdown.
If they are pulled back, they might be able to stand up and fight back; if they are not pulled back, they will only fall into the abyss.
Wu Wang stood up and pushed the chair back to its original position.
He raised his hand and patted #9288's shoulder. This time it was a really light pat, without the previous forceful pressure or any sense of intimidation.
"Next time you go to the break room and see people talking, especially if they're talking about things that make you want to run away, you don't need to say anything. Just stand next to them and tap the coffee machine a couple of times if it jams."
The other person looked at Wu Wang with a somewhat blank expression.
He wanted to ask what the point was, but he swallowed the words back.
Perhaps it was because of Wu Wang's gaze, the playful mockery in it had disappeared without him noticing, leaving only a strange focus that Wu Wang couldn't understand.
Then Wu Wang asked again, "What's your name?"
"#9288, didn't I tell you about it before..."
Before he could finish speaking, Wu Wang waved his hand to interrupt him, saying, "I asked what your name is, not your employee number."
“I…I am Wen Xiaolou.”
After hesitatingly saying his name, he was slightly taken aback.
He hadn't told anyone his name in a long time.
Because here, the employee number is more important than the name.
The employee ID can locate everything about you in the bracelet's system, from work records to loan balances, from wish lists to behavior ratings; you can look up anything using your employee ID.
But a name can't do anything.
"Wen Xiaolou." Wu Wang repeated the name and then said, "See that old man in the old suit in the tea room over there? His name is Lao Fan. If you meet him in the tea room later, tell him your name is Wen Xiaolou and that I sent you to find him."
This left the other person somewhat confused. Then, Wu Wang turned and left, adding without looking back after a few steps: "By the way, if you have insomnia, I suggest you don't use your smart band tonight. Turn the screen brightness down to the lowest setting and tell yourself that you're just resting with your eyes closed, not trying to fall asleep. Just think of it as a chicken pecking at rice in class or slacking off at work. Otherwise, the more you try to sleep, the less you can fall asleep."
"This is free; it doesn't cost any wish points."
Wen Xiaolou watched as the annoying guy with the cat on his head gradually disappeared at the end of the corridor.
He suddenly felt a little dazed.
The other person shut down his computer twice, nearly crushed his shoulder with force as a threat, and even teased him with free candy and coffee, and now he's offering a free piece of advice.
In the factory of desire, free is the most expensive.
But the phrase "free" seems to imply that it's truly free.
He looked down at his wristband, which displayed the product name "Deep Sleep Experience".
This time, he didn't open it; he simply turned the brightness down to the lowest setting.
Suddenly, an awkward question occurred to him—
"Wait a minute, how am I supposed to tell Lao Fan that he sent me over?"
"Who is he? He didn't tell me his name or employee number!"
Wen Xiaolou then realized that he had been tricked by this guy several times, and he didn't know a single bit of information about the other party. Every time they met, the initiative was in the other party's hands.
He sighed, somewhat envious.
How wonderful...to have someone with such talent and charisma...
If only I could become that kind of person...
Even just once would be fine...
Unbeknownst to him, the prices of items related to deep sleep on the dimly lit Wish Shop interface seemed to be decreasing little by little, while the prices of items such as those that boosted confidence and acquired talents began to fluctuate.
The wristband is constantly monitoring the employees.
Of course, Wu Wang was unaware of these things after he left.
He is now heading to other floors, seemingly wandering around aimlessly, but is actually checking the routes that the ventilation duct diagram will take.
In case anything is broken or slightly off.
If you end up stuck in the ventilation duct, you'll be a laughing stock.
Admittedly, Wu Wang could use the heretical [Seven Star Steps of Heavenly Gang] to instantly teleport and adjust his position.
However, after discovering that the Smiler could instantly transform into a powerful state, Wu Wang believed that it was best to avoid using skills or items in the factory whenever possible.
Even if it is to be used, it must be a method like a "source code engine" that leaves no trace and is difficult to monitor or be detected by employees.
Otherwise, who knows if the Smilers would become even more outrageous if they discovered that someone could use such an obviously supernatural ability as teleportation.
If they turn into Super Saiyans and gang up on me, that would be a real problem.
Because the layout of ventilation ducts is quite complex and involves many floors.
Wu Wang spent more than an hour inspecting the entire area but still couldn't see everything. He only managed to figure out the area below the tenth floor and didn't find any problems for the time being.
Just minutes before the deadline, he calmly arrived at the Wish Exhibition Hall on the 28th floor.
At the edge of the showroom sat a wish consultant who looked like a customer service representative.
As expected, this wish consultant was not the same guy who had taken sick leave that Wu Wang had met the first time.
Although it's true that illness might not be something that can be recovered from in just a day or two, Wu Wang felt that most of the people working here afterward would be the current Wish Consultants.
When the other person saw Wu Wang walk in, he simply bowed slightly in greeting and didn't say anything more.
The Wish Showroom is open to all employees; anyone with a wish point can pay an experience fee.
There weren't many people in the hall at the moment, just as Wu Wang had said before, 4 pm was the peak work period.
Less than one-tenth of the spherical experience cabins were occupied; most were empty, waiting for people who wished to experience them to come in.
Wu Wang followed the curved passage and found the hull numbered B-3.
The location is quite delicate, with almost every direction blocked by the surrounding hull, making it a perfect place to do bad things.
The hatch was ajar, as if someone had moved it.
Wu Wang pushed open the cabin door and went inside, only to find that there was no one there.
But the moment he stepped into the cabin, the door closed silently behind him, and the light inside the cabin instantly adjusted to a darker, warmer tone.
This is the default setting in the standby state of the experience cabin.
However, the next second, instead of the warning message that appeared before that the wish could not be detected and therefore could not be displayed, the bracelet played a voice message that could only be heard internally.
It wasn't the kind of voice you hear on factory broadcasts, nor was it the voice of the virtual AI inside the bracelet.
Instead, it was the voice of an ordinary woman, slightly hoarse and panting, as if she had just finished running.
"Hello, eleventh unlucky guy."
"If you can hear this recording, you're in luck; it means you're still alive and I haven't been caught either."
“My name is Li Shuang. I’ve been observing what you’ve been doing, but to be honest, I don’t quite understand your thinking.”
"You're provoking the factory to attract attention while simultaneously helping the employees gather. You're not afraid of death, but you're not here to die either. I won't ask who you are for now; what I need to say is more important than that."
The recording paused here, and the sound of papers turning could be heard.
Then she spoke much faster.
"There are actually two kinds of products on the forty-ninth floor. One is the Smiler that everyone has seen, and the other is an existence called the Crystal."
"The factory stored all the extracted memories in a hidden spot on the 49th floor. Then, it repeatedly extracted the emotions from these memories and refined them into a fuel called 'Crystals,' which was then used by some unknown entity within the factory. Memories that were over-extracted would eventually only be left as a black and white negative, completely losing their value."
"But these memory scraps won't be deleted; they'll just be compressed into an archive called the 'Forgotten Zone.' Once you have them, you can prove to the employees that the factory has been illegally manipulating them at the cognitive level—not just economic exploitation or overwork, but the dismantling of their personalities!"
"This is a great help in uniting your employees!"
Then came the sound of paper turning over.
Even the woman's voice seemed even hoarser.
"But this information comes at a price."
"The forgotten partition is monitored for access records. Once someone illegally takes memories from it, the factory will immediately lock the user's wristband number."
“Someone tried it last night, and he was found and taken away by the Smiler in less than five minutes. I haven’t seen him reappear in the factory since.”
"That man's name is Ke Ming. He should be the same kind of person as you, right?"
"You are—the Descendants." (End of Chapter)