Ji Le opened the door and walked into the room. He thought he would come to a cramped rental house, but unexpectedly he came to Philip Company.
Another hallucination? Or is it true? The familiar office made him feel a little dazed.
He felt a strong pressure forcing him to sit in the chair.
Fatigue, heaviness, difficulty breathing... These adverse physical reactions made Ji Le realize that something was wrong with his current state.
He stuck his head out and looked at the smooth desk.
A pig with a fat head, big ears, and a long snout was shown on the desk. He touched his face, and the pig reflected in the table also raised its trotters and touched its face.
Ji Le quickly checked his hands and body and found that he had completely turned into a bloated pig.
"Is this a hallucination? But it feels so real."
He touched his eyes and found that the virtual glasses had fallen off. This shows that the scenes he saw were real and that his transformation into a pig was not an illusion.
There is a technology that can extract people's imagination and memories, then convert them into images and project them directly onto the retina to form illusions - Ji Le can understand this technology. But the problem was that what was supposed to be a virtual illusion had now turned into reality, which he couldn't understand at all.
Ji Le carefully observed the surrounding environment, hoping to find a way to solve this anomaly. Anxiety surged in his heart. In this place that was completely beyond common sense, what should he do to return to being an adult?
The workspace is divided into cubicles by translucent projection walls. The company's business blueprint and promotional slogans are displayed on the projection wall.
"Phillips is a great company, and it is our mission to create value for great companies."
"Here, every employee can get the fairest treatment, and you will realize your dreams in life."
"As long as you are wise, you will get corresponding rewards."
“Emotion is the natural enemy of reason and affects our judgment.”
While being drained of blood, Ji Le vaguely remembered his previous experience working at Philip Company.
Newcomers are easily motivated by this atmosphere, while older employees only find the information on the projection wall distracting.
Employees sit on work chairs that are very ergonomic, plug the nerve cable on the workbench into the interface on the back of their necks, connect the company's local area network to the brain terminal, and start a busy day of work. Ji Le does not have a neural direct connection system and can only use the most primitive virtual glasses to receive information and use his fingers to type instructions on the virtual keyboard. This makes his work efficiency indeed slower than those who use a direct connection system. .
But Ji Le tried his best to make up for this gap in efficiency with his own efforts. He is convinced that some work decisions not only rely on advanced neural direct connection devices, but also rely more on his own thinking and judgment.
Ji Le was completely immersed in the current scene and brought back his previous memories.
On the one hand, he was nostalgic for the work here and couldn't bear to part with the projects he had started. On the other hand, the company was not as fair as it seemed, which made him completely disillusioned.
Nostalgia, reluctance, unwillingness, resentment...
These emotions surged into his heart, almost causing Ji Le to fall completely into the previous blow.
A blood-red tube appeared behind Ji Le and then suddenly inserted into his back.
Ji Le felt severe pain, and his blood was losing through the tube. His blood will continue to feed this place, and he will have to endure this pain until it is completely drained.
Zila——
Along with the noise of electricity, all the advertisements and slogans on the projection walls changed. On the translucent screen, lines of bright red words appeared, with red liquid flowing down from the end of the words.
"You contribute your flesh and blood to the company. When you can no longer produce, you can only be abandoned by the company."
"Talent is nothing, hard work is nothing, your value is to create value for the company."
"Your energy is gradually drained out, and your life is filled by the company. When you have no use value, you will be abandoned."
"You are unwilling, helpless, and angry...but you can't vent it out, because you will be regarded as mentally ill."
"Until these pent-up emotions fill your body and you can no longer hide them, you have a mental breakdown - and you swallow the consequences all by yourself."
"In the final analysis, you are just the company's pig, a beast that can be fattened and then killed and drained of all your flesh and blood."
Ji Le's irises reflected these blood-red writings, and these messages were conveyed to the brain along the neurons, further hurting his heart.
The noise of the current was getting louder and louder, and it seemed to be mixed with someone's scream, like a cry of unwillingness.
Zila——
The entire workshop began to shake unsteadily, and the bright fluorescent lights began to dim, turning into a very strange red light.
Ji Le suddenly felt that everything in this space was alive. It is like an avatar of a person, changing with that person's emotional ups and downs.
In the narrow cubicle, under the dim red light, figures working one by one appeared. They were slumped in work chairs, their bodies as heavy as pigs, and they smelled musty. Even without a diagnosis from the hospital, Ji Le could feel that those "pigs" were terminally ill.
Lack of sleep, severe mental overdraft, constant calculation, fatty liver disease, cervical spondylosis, high blood pressure, obesity... For companies, they are just machines that create value and are thrown away after use.
Ji Le was also one of these pigs. He felt that he had been kidnapped by this scene, and countless negative emotions invaded him, almost making him lose consciousness.
I can't... This can't happen anymore. Is there any way to break through the current predicament?
Ji Le wants to find a way to take back the initiative. He cannot continue to be sucked of blood. If time goes by, he will die.
"Is all you get is pain?"
A question arises.
Everything has two sides. He knows that he is just a tool used by the company to create value, but he continues to work even though he knows this. Does he have other expectations that he wants to realize?
He remembers the joy and sense of accomplishment he felt after seeing his project successfully go live after countless working days.
"I want to finish that project, I like to go all in on something... It's something I've always wanted to do and I love my job."
Ji Le recalled the data after "Dreamland" was launched.
He kept an eye on the rankings all the time, watching helplessly as it climbed from the thirty-somethings, to the top fifteen, to the top ten, to the top three, and finally defeated the number one game and became number one.
That sense of joy and accomplishment can almost drown out all the previous negative emotions.
"The company and I are just using each other to get what we need."
Along with Ji Le's memories, the scene changed.
The red light was dispersed by another blue light, and all the bloody words on the projection wall were replaced by the ranking list.
Number one on the charts, "Dreamland"'s name is shining brightly.
"This game is so fun, I can't stop playing it."
"I feel very relaxed when I play this game."
"Come on, production team, I look forward to your next update."
"I'm very happy...Thank you for bringing us such interesting works."
The players' voices of praise also echoed in Ji Le's ears along with Ji Le's memories. In this world full of negative emotions, it seemed to have given Ji Le a shot in the arm.
Call him vain, but he just enjoys the feeling of being recognized. For him, this sense of accomplishment can make him feel that his previous hard work has not been in vain.
[The box scene is being reconstructed——]
