femme fatale [unlimited]

After playing this sentence, the TV flickered twice, and after a small electric sound, the program was interrupted, and the colorful and disorderly blocks filled the entire screen again.

Love asked Jiang Wan: "Is the thing played just now exactly the same as what you saw before?"

Jiang Wan nodded with a gloomy expression.

Seeing this, Luo Fu couldn't help but whispered: "You look so pale, what's wrong?"

Jiang Wan said, "I'm fine."

Love wanted to ask again, but saw that Jiang Wan had no intention of communicating, so she had to give up.

A few people stayed in the entertainment area for a while, and found that apart from the interview that would be played repeatedly on the TV, there was no new and useful information updated here.

So everyone didn't stay too long, and went to other areas to investigate.

Everywhere has become a mess.Most of the players have already read the interview, and learned that the person in charge of the company will come to inspect the work tomorrow, and they are panic-stricken.

And I don't know if the so-called "call of the gods" has played a role. A considerable number of players firmly believe that everyone's performance will be judged by the amount of gold coins in the end.

Some people stayed in the cubicle, staring at the scrapped computer in a daze with despair; some tried to fix the computer with various props, but no matter how hard they tried, it was futile; The winning ticket is already in hand; there are also people walking around, looking at other players furtively, trying to find a target to grab gold coins...

There were 25 players who entered the dungeon, but now there are only 17 left. The bones of those dead players have long been gone, and there is no trace left.

Compared to other players, Ning Mianmian and his party were much calmer.They found a quiet corner in the dining area, planning to review the dungeons of the past two days while having lunch.

Perhaps it was because the players were not in the mood to eat, the surroundings were deserted and there was no one around.The vending machine is also broken, the lights inside are dimmed, and all kinds of goods are hidden in the shadows.

Ning Mianmian glanced at the vending machine and breathed a sigh of relief.Fortunately, no player is stupid enough to listen to No. 23's words and come to exchange his limbs for gold coins.She doesn't want to see scenes of futile struggles and unnecessary sacrifices in order to survive. Just thinking about it makes one's scalp tingle.

Seeing that she hadn't moved her chopsticks, Lin Cen took the initiative to pick up a piece of braised pork for her, "Eat, preserve your energy."

Ning Mianmian nodded, she ate the food on the plate, and glanced at the people around her.

Lin Cen still focused on eating as usual, holding the chopsticks with his white and slender fingers, and delivered the food to his mouth mouthful, as if he hadn't been affected by anything at all.

She just finished eating a plate of food in such a leisurely manner, and then said: "Actually, we have already figured out the background of the dungeon. The only thing we need to confirm now is the person in charge tomorrow—that is, Andre's daughter, Alice. , What kind of standard will be used to evaluate our performance.”

Love asked her, "What do you think?"

Lin Cen said: "Since there is no clear reminder in the dungeon, it is better to infer from the background of the dungeon. The identity of the player is a low-level laborer, and they belong to an absolutely disadvantaged group in the dungeon. Resisting the rules will not work, we can only follow the rules .”

Love smiled and agreed: "That's right, Alice talked a lot about employees' passive sabotage today. In fact, she was talking about our superiors. Maybe we are not even considered human beings in her eyes."

Fluffy listened in confusion, "Then what are we?"

Lin Cen asked back: "Do you still remember the words Charles used on the first day?"

Ning Mianmian had a flash of inspiration, and quickly replied: "He said 'consumption', and said that we 'consume' very fast!"

After she finished speaking, she suddenly realized something, and then a chill ran down her spine to the top of her head.

She murmured: "We are, resources."

"That's right." Lin Cen gave her another two pieces of meat to show her comfort, and then continued, "Only resources are consumed, and those upper-level managers probably only regard us as ordinary equipment consumables. Like a cell phone, or a computer."

Jiang Wan, who was sitting next to Love, also finished his meal and joined the discussion.

She seemed to have a special paranoid about sweets, she only ate a little of other dishes, but she ate several pieces of cake.

Jiang Wan wiped the cream on the corners of her lips with a tissue, and said, "If the player is replaced by a computer, a lot of logic will become smoother. For example, the illusion we see can be explained as a bug caused by a virus infection. Charles said It can be regarded as an administrator program in the computer, and the employees Alice wants to lay off are computer users."

"Of course, tomorrow we will inevitably be weighed and compared and make trade-offs. But we have different identities from computer users, and the standards for trade-offs must be different."

Ning Mianmian was terrified when she heard that, they couldn't be some kind of virtual employees that only existed in the system, right?

No, no, in the illusion she experienced before, those proud daughters clearly called the staff of the cubicle "untouchables". If they were just virtual characters, why would they engage in such discrimination?

She put aside this doubt, and tried to continue to deduce: "Under normal conditions, the amount of gold coins can indeed measure our value. But if we are infected with a virus, our value lies in ourselves."

After Ning Mianmian finished speaking, Lin Cen glanced at her, with a slight smile on his lips, as if he was very satisfied with her conclusion.

Love, on the other hand, was a little surprised, and sighed, "Yes, Mianmian, the waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves ahead."

Fluffy didn't understand, and was about to die of anxiety: "What wave? Why push it?"

Love was helpless: "I told you to read more books and stop chasing butterflies all day long."

But complaining about it, she still patiently explained the logical relationship to Rongrong.

If a computer is infected with a virus, the first thing the owner wants to do is to disinfect the computer instead of throwing the computer away.So as long as they are not irreversibly damaged, they should be safe.What's more, under such difficult conditions, they have created some value for the company.

Lin Cen saw that Rongrong had figured it out, and continued, "In this way, there is actually one thing that has been ignored by everyone."

Love said, "You mean Charles' hint."

Lin Cen nodded, "That's right, Charles has actually reminded players three times to pay attention to their health."

"The first time was when he joined the job, he said that if he made too little money, he would have no gold coins to buy food, and his body would be bad if he was hungry; the second time was after the end of the illusion on the first night. Don’t be too sad for number 3, it hurts your body; the third time is after he finished talking with number 3, he reminded others to go to bed early and stay up late to hurt your body.”

"At that time, the players felt that this was an empty talk, but if Charles himself was an AI, it must be of great significance to set such program reminders many times. And this also coincides with our inference above. .”

Jiang Wan added: "I think that apart from ensuring a good physical and psychological state, there is one more important thing. The technology here is extremely advanced, and people at our level, no matter what small movements they make, will be captured by the system , so I did not agree with the use of system bugs to swipe gold coins from the very beginning."

Ning Mianmian deeply agrees with this. She doesn't understand why some players feel that they have taken advantage of the copy by illegally swiping gold coins. It may be that the low spiritual power and SAN value are too affected by the virus.

The replay is basically over here. According to the usual routine, Lin Cen and Love have already gone back to rest, while Rong Rong will go to the cubicle to work overtime.

But today, Lin Cen remained unmoved abnormally.She glanced at Ning Mianmian, with a hint of hesitation on her delicate face.

Seeing that she hesitated to speak, Ning Mianmian took the initiative to ask concerned: "What's wrong with sister, what are you thinking?"

Lin Cen looked at her and slowed down his tone, "Actually, based on the experience I have accumulated in dungeons, I still have a conjecture with insufficient evidence..."

Ning Mianmian was just about to hear what her conjecture was, but Luo Fu interrupted her, "Lin Cen, your wife is still a newcomer, if you say it, it won't do any good, and it won't change anything, it will only affect your mood...that's still It's better not to say."

Lin Cen's expression paused, she glanced at Ning Mianmian again, and reached out to remove a piece of hair stuck to her cheek.

Then she smiled at Love: "You're right."

***

The third night was Christmas Eve and nothing bad happened.The illusion did not appear again, but looking at the dilapidated and dilapidated appearance of Ge Zijian, it was like a new illusion.

On the morning of the fourth day, after Ning Mianmian and the others got up, they rushed directly to the entertainment area.

Last night, they discovered that the contents of the books in the entertainment area had been updated as before.

What I said above is that with the further development of artificial intelligence, human labor is almost completely replaced.In the case of sufficient labor, the untouchables are a heavy burden, both for enterprises and for the country.

After Andre's daughter Alice took over "Longevity", she improved the traditional lattice model, which greatly reduced the cost, and was able to accept more desperate untouchables, making outstanding contributions to the country.

The content of the update is over here, and it doesn't say how Alice improved the cubicle.So Ning Mianmian came here a little early on purpose to see if there was any new content update.

It is now seven o'clock in the morning, and there are already a few sparse figures in the entertainment area guarding in front of the TV, probably because they are afraid of missing any important clues.Someone's eyes were red, and it looked like he hadn't slept all night.

There is no program on the TV, and it is still a mess of color blocks.Several people studied the books separately, and found that what was written on it was still the content of last night.

Ning Mianmian and the others checked the books and found that they hadn't been updated, so they simply sat down on the soft chairs in front of the TV. They entered the dungeon at [-]:[-] in the morning, anyway, the dungeon was over in an hour, entertainment area It has always been their biggest source of information, and it is reasonable to stay here.

Obviously, all the players thought so. As time passed, more and more players gathered in the entertainment area. Before eight o'clock, everyone was already there.

And the TV did not live up to everyone's expectations, and the screen turned on on time at eight o'clock.

At the same time, a system prompt pops up:

[Congratulations on successfully surviving for 72 hours, the final evaluation result will be announced below. 】

For a moment, everyone's eyes were locked on the TV screen.

The pretty pink-haired girl appeared again. She dressed a little more formally today, with exquisite and decent makeup. Besides the host I saw yesterday, there was a tall middle-aged man and a young man beside her.

Except for the young man who looked a little nervous, the expressions of the others were relaxed.

The host held the microphone and said with a smile on his face: "Thank you for allowing us to visit. To be honest, no one thought that you would agree to our live broadcast here before, nor did they think that your father would condescend to go."

"It's nothing." The pink-haired girl took the arm of the man beside her and said with a smile, "The Changsheng Group is my father's painstaking efforts and pride, and we are happy to show everyone its truest side."

The middle-aged man should be Andre. He is wearing a decent suit and has an extraordinary bearing. He looks like a pampered person on weekdays.

He patted the girl's arm, smiled and said, "Okay, Alice, let everyone see how you deal with the cubicle problem."

Alice nodded, and said to the young man, "Take me to see... Let's go to the island area first. The virus pollution there seems to be the most serious, and it always consumes quickly."

The hearts of the players in front of the screen suddenly hung up. Sure enough, Alice would come to them first, and no one knew what would happen next.

The young man bowed slightly, and then made a "please" gesture, leading Alice and his party to a metal door.

He respectfully said: "This is it."

Then he pointed to the things that had been prepared on the side, "The inside is a sterile environment, please put on isolation gowns."

The host was very excited and slightly raised his voice: "Is this the improved cubicle? It's really exciting!"

Alice walked over calmly, and the metal door slowly slid open to both sides.

Ning Mianmian was so nervous that her palms were sweating, she subconsciously glanced at the door.

Will Alice come here through other areas in a while?Seeing such a scene in the island area, would she use this as an excuse to lose her temper?

Wait, a sterile environment?They don't look like it here... Could it be that they went wrong, or there are other island areas?

However, nothing in Ning Mianmian's imagination happened. After the door opened, what came into view was a huge white platform with dense grids.The bottom of the grid is connected, and the viscous nutrient solution flows in it.

And in each grid, there is a brain, connected to several lines of different colors, extending to several large computers placed against the wall.

On the edge of the platform, there is a small stand.The camera zoomed in, and the characters above were clearly displayed on the screen.

The content is: island area.

The air was deathly still, and then boiled in an instant.

The crowd in front of the TV exploded, screaming endlessly.

And Ning Mianmian stared blankly at the screen, only one sentence remained in her mind.

That was a system prompt when they first entered the instance:

[When technology develops to the top level, the living space of the bottom workers is compressed to the extreme. 】

——Because it is the bottom layer, it is not worthy of having a complete body.