bookbashuk Chapter 689 The Liar
Chapter 689 The Liar
The meeting in the break room lasted for half an hour.
During this time, many outside employees also came in to get coffee and other drinks.
However, Wu Wang did not stop, and continued to tell everyone he wanted to tell them.
It doesn't matter if other employees look at me like I'm crazy and run away in a hurry.
During this meeting, Wu Wang did not present any complex plans, draw up any roadmaps, or assign roles.
He only said three things—
First, the core of the Desire Factory's operation is its data core, which is like a furnace. It transforms people's memories and current emotions into energy, and all employees are its fuel.
Secondly, this furnace of desire has a fatal weakness.
That is, it requires employees to be exploited voluntarily. Desire is different from fear and pain; it is an emotion that cannot be forcibly extracted. It can only be induced and lured out.
Third, and this is also a particularly important point.
Wu Wang did not allow any employees to engage in strikes or protests.
He doesn't need these people to rush into the 49th floor, as long as they tell the truth.
Wu Wang was certain that they would all be alright.
What he's doing now is completely different from what Solidarity did back then.
Zhang Mingyuan organized a group of employees to stage a large-scale strike, which led to the factory besieging him for illegal activities.
But now he doesn't ask these employees to do anything.
There were no strikes, no sabotage, and no complaints.
It's not illegal for everyone to stand here, it's not illegal for everyone to chat, and it's not illegal for everyone to chat with others after chatting, right?
All practical actions are based solely on language.
Although Wu Wang considered language to be the least aggressive form of communication, this was only true for someone like him who disregarded the vast majority of things.
For ordinary people, it is extremely difficult to completely ignore any external noise and truly remain unmoved by external things.
That's exactly what he wanted—words that weren't meant to be hurtful.
Let the act of speaking the truth spread like a virus among employees.
“When your coworkers ask you how much you still owe, we’ll tell them the truth.”
“The factory sent someone to ask you why you haven’t bought the desired items recently. Let’s tell the truth.”
“Even if the Smilers come to talk to you and ask if you have any complaints about the factory, we fucking tell the truth!”
Wu Wang wore his signature sly grin.
"The factory isn't afraid of you smashing things and causing damage; it's only afraid that you won't want anything at all."
"Because of this, it has no way to set a price."
After the meeting, most of the employees left the break room.
They carried their earnings, their expressions much more relaxed than before they came in, chatting and laughing as they returned to their workstations.
This made the group of clueless employees outside feel a bit strange.
In particular, the fact that these people who had been in the break room actually struck up a conversation with their coworkers next to them left the coworkers looking like they'd seen a ghost.
They even felt alarmed.
They were afraid that these people were trying to swindle something from them.
The same applies to that widowed woman.
Even though she was rather timid and hadn't said anything about herself earlier, she seemed to have some feelings about it and started talking to the people around her in a rather awkward way.
Old Fan watched what was happening outside.
He asked Wu Wang, "Is that core and furnace you mentioned real?"
“I witnessed it with my own eyes,” Wu Wang said without hesitation.
For him, lies were the least important means, especially since they were well-intentioned.
"Then how does it burn away so-called emotions? Does it burn away the soul?" Old Fan still didn't quite understand.
Wu Wang pulled a scalpel from his sleeve, casually tossed it to the little hill on his head so he could continue practicing his scalpel tricks, and said casually, "No, it's something more concrete than the soul."
"It burns away that tiny bit of hope that 'maybe things will get better' that you have when you open your eyes every morning."
"When that expectation is burned away, you become the one who smiles."
"No expectations, no fears, no desires, just an empty shell."
Old Fan remained silent for a long time.
He seemed to understand.
Then he turned around and walked outside, lowering his head and saying quietly, "Tell me, if my son's legs heal one day and he can stand up again, what kind of father will he expect to see?"
"Is someone who has knelt for most of his life, or someone who has stood up before?"
Wu Wang did not answer, and Lao Fan did not wait.
He said this more like he was talking to himself.
The sound of keyboards outside continued to surge in like a tide, drowning out many other noises.
But some people have begun to hear a deeper, more resonant voice growing beneath the keyboard sounds.
Those were the heartbeats of fifteen people.
No, perhaps not just fifteen, but three hundred... three thousand...
It's the resonance felt by everyone in this building who once thought they were the only one drowning, only to suddenly find themselves surrounded by the sound of water.
From now on, the factory will no longer be facing provocations from Wu Wang alone.
Instead, it was the silence of a group of people.
Silence is more frightening to the factory than screams.
"Let's go, we need to get to work too." Wu Wang rubbed Xiao Qiu's cat head and said, "Let's go see who's lying."
He then walked toward his workstation.
Wu Wang now wants to investigate someone—Ke Ming.
Ever since he met with Li Shuang last night, he has felt a sense of unease.
In that seemingly heartfelt conversation inside the ventilation duct... someone was lying!
On the surface, it seems that Zhang Mingyuan is the one lying, if the other party really did tamper with the files.
But Wu Wang still felt it was too much of a coincidence.
Is there anything I've overlooked?
To pinpoint a more specific direction, we need to find the missing person.
After all, all the clues Li Shuang had were obtained from Ke Ming.
What if Ke Ming is the one lying?
Or, was Ke Ming really the one who ultimately relayed the message back?
What if the factory had already captured the other party and then set a trap using Ke Ming's identity?
Considering his own bad luck, Wu Wang was certain that there was a huge pit waiting for him to jump into ahead.
He had to be prepared before jumping into the pit.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Qing Ning had already left the hawksbill turtle's room.
She discovered something strange and needed to come out and check it out immediately.
At this moment, she arrived at the door of an employee's room.
Just now, a player told Qingning that on the first night, when he was completing a task on this floor, he saw Ke Ming not go to the cheap rental room downstairs, but instead enter the room on the 35th floor.
Although I don't know where the other party got their wish points, they must have their own methods to be able to stay here.
At the time, the player didn't pay much attention and didn't even realize that Ke Ming was also a player.
After all, it's normal that the players who dared to be among the first to break into the Tower of Disaster must have some tricks up their sleeves.
When he heard Qingning mention Ke Ming's disappearance and describe his appearance, he felt a sense of familiarity. Then, he suddenly remembered that Ke Ming was the person he had bumped into on the first night. So, he told Qingning the news.
This made Qingning immediately realize that something was wrong.
Because when she had contacted Ke Ming before, he always lived in the cheap rental house downstairs.
Even after he disappeared, Qing Ning searched for the house downstairs.
I never expected that the other party also had a residence upstairs.
Meanwhile, Tortoiseshell was busy dealing with the guy with the cat on his head.
So Qingning came over to take a look by herself first.
Her hand was already on the doorknob, but she didn't open the door or knock.
It wasn't because I was nervous.
It's because the color of this door is wrong.
In the factory's employee housing area, apart from the cheap rental rooms assigned to residents when they first arrived, residents could choose the color of the doors for the upper floors themselves.
According to the players in the alliance, Kemin had previously entered the dark blue door of room number 444.
The floor is correct, and the room number is correct.
But now the door is not dark blue, but grayish-white.
It wasn't a textured gray, but a strange color that looked like it had been covered by something, as if someone had used a very thin layer of paint to cover up the original deep blue.
But it seems the person doing this was in a hurry, as the paint wasn't applied very thoroughly. If you look closely, you can see a faint trace of dark blue undertone at the edges.
Thinking of this, Qing Ning pulled her hand back from the doorknob and took out a pair of gloves from her backpack and put them on.
The Prime Minister's White Gloves (Premium)
Wearing this glove allows for the detection of traces of non-biological targets touched within the last 48 hours, lasting for five minutes, with a five-hour cool-down period.
[Note: We can't check everything, can we? What if we find something suspicious?]
Although it can only be perceived through touch, it is still a relatively convenient tool.
She took a deep breath and put her hand back on the doorknob.
In an instant, a flood of information rushed into her consciousness.
It's not a picture or sound, but a signal that can be read by touch.
The first signal read out was that a man with strong force touched the doorknob, his fingers were dry, and he opened the door quickly, as if he was in a hurry.
His complete handprint was on the doorknob, covering the entire surface, proving that he was the first person to touch the door during that time period, and there was a brief pause after he placed his hand on it before opening the door.
Qingning guessed that it was a pause when unlocking the door with the bracelet.
The first person should be Ke Ming himself.
The second signal started to look strange.
It was a woman's hand, the pressure was very light, and there were thin calluses on her fingers, as if caused by long-term friction.
She used only two fingers to pinch the edge of the doorknob and push it open, without feeling a firm grip.
This is a very careful action, like a thief trying to avoid leaving too many traces.
The third signal was also from a male, and the force was even greater than that of Ke Ming, with a noticeable downward pressing motion when opening the door.
This isn't a normal way to open the door; it looks more like an attempt to force it open.
The fourth signal...
Qing Ning's brows suddenly furrowed.
The traces of the fourth signal are quite strange.
It wasn't even a complete palm print; it looked more like a mark from an eye socket.
Who the hell would stare at a doorknob?
Before Qing Ning could examine it closely, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her glove.
boom--
The next second, to her utter astonishment, her prop gloves turned into specks of light and vanished.
"Holy crap! The props were destroyed? What kind of marks were left?"
Lime was completely puzzled.
She stared at the doorknob for a few seconds, realizing that what Ke Ming was involved in was more important than she had imagined.
I carefully pressed the doorknob down and pushed it inward, and found that the door was indeed not locked.
After all, most of the people who entered later did not use the bracelet to unlock their way in.
This door has been illegally opened several times already.
A faint scent of air freshener wafted into the room as the door opened.
This room was unlike any of the staff accommodations Qingning had ever seen before.
It's not because it's tidy or messy.
Rather, it's because there's absolutely no indication that the person has stayed there.
"Has it been tidied up?"
Qing Ning watched as the ornaments on the table were placed at a fixed angle, the chair backs were pushed under the table, the bed was folded neatly like a tofu block, and even the curtains were pulled back to a strictly symmetrical position, with the fabric folds on both sides being almost identical.
This level of meticulous, almost pathological, organization is beyond what a normal person would do.
Or perhaps it's more accurate to call it cleaning than tidying up.
Someone visited Ke Ming's room after he disappeared, cleaning it to the standard uninhabited state, like a hotel cleaning lady tidying it up to welcome the next guest after a guest checks out, or... like a murderer cleaning up a crime scene?
The factory's employee rooms are not automatically transferred to the next person.
Unless the original employee has left or moved to another floor.
"Was Ke Ming recycled by the factory right here?"
Qing Ning felt a little helpless. To be honest, she was really afraid that in a couple of days she would see a smiling person with Ke Ming's face providing services to the employees. It gave her a strange and eerie feeling.
She walked to the desk and began rummaging through it.
However, neither the surface of the desk nor the drawers showed any signs of being used by anyone else.
However, when Qingning looked through the gap in the drawer, she found a note stuck tightly to the drawer slide. It probably wouldn't have come out unless she had to push and pull it repeatedly.
She carefully pulled it out.
The note was even found to have been burned.
There were no words on the slightly yellowed and curled paper.
Lime felt a little confused.
If there is no record of it, why would you go to such lengths to hide it in such a secluded place?
Place the paper on the table and turn on the desk lamp for a closer look.
A moment later, Qing Ning realized what the problem was.
Indeed, there were no words on the paper, but there were indentations.
It appears that someone wrote on the page before this piece of paper was torn off, using such force that the pen tip left a deep indentation on the paper.
Hold it up to the light of a desk lamp, tilt it slightly, and you'll see lines of indented writing emerge.
"The Forgotten Zone is at the end of passageway 07 in section C on the 49th floor!"
"In addition to the permissions granted to the person who smiles, iris verification is also required!"
"Li Shuang lied to me!"
"Don't trust Li Shuang!"
"She isn't..." (End of Chapter)