Chapter 179: The Rose Factory

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Beside a field of roses.

Hundreds of kilograms of roses have been collected and piled up on a hill in front of a field of roses, Qi Yifang stands in front of the field of roses, he pulls out a directional marker that swings from side to side with the wind and holds it up to the hill of roses, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"...... air relative humidity 78%, temperature 26 degrees Celsius, cloudy to overcast, no persistent breeze shifting to light breeze, wind from north force one ......"

Qi Yifang's eyes snapped open, and he ploughed the wooden directional marker with his thumb, his tone steady: "Now on to today's daytime weather forecast."

[System Alert: Player Qi Yifang uses the skill (Weather Broadcast)]

[Skill usage range: a localized circular area with a radius of ten meters]

[Technique Effect: Predict the weather in a local area, and control the wind direction, wind, sun and rain, and possible weather characteristics within a certain area].

[Warmly note: This skill will cause a certain amount of stamina and mental strength to drop, is the player sure about using this skill?

[OK.]

The wooden directional marker in Qi Yifang's hand began to swing rapidly from side to side as the system announced, and the stamina and spirit bars on Qi Yifang's personal panel began to drop.

Qi Yifang exhaled and began to broadcast in a deep voice.

"...... Light tornadoes with local winds around 2g during the day ...... followed by twelve hours of sunshine, light winds overnight, cloudy to

Clear ......"

The weathervane in his hand went from swaying from side to side to spinning incessantly as the words fell.

A cold, swirling wind blows, strangely stopping at a small area next to a field of flowers and starting to whirl, this swirls back and forth around the mound of roses, which weighs around 2g and swirls upwards on the gentle rotation of the wind, the lighter impurities being blown away, while the heavier ones remain on the ground untouched.

The magical tornado, set to weight parameters, acts like a highly sophisticated centrifuge, perfectly separating the rose from the rest.

It took only ten minutes for the fresh, dried leaf roses, which would have taken all day and night to be picked through, to be cleaned and tidied up and stacked in a crumpled heap.

Qi Yifang retracted the weathervane, looked at the pile of dried leaf roses in front of him, patted the grass scraps that had blown all over him, turned his head in satisfaction and smiled at the other two men.

"It's all taken care of and we can move on to the second session by tomorrow morning."

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Rose Factory Piazza.

A long queue formed around a fully automatic mesh sieving apparatus.

This is a relatively rare modern piece of machinery in a rose factory, where the roses are simply poured in for a few minutes of sifting, resulting in a clean, dried leaf rose after sorting.

But because the Rose factory is mainly a handcrafted and refined anti-industrial perfume brand, there are only a few such instruments, all of which are hijacked by the old processors and treated as their privilege.

Qi Yifang's group was about to queue up here to use the apparatus to sort and sift roses, but they were chased away by some old processors who scolded them for being lazy and using the apparatus when they had just been promoted, and for not doing their jobs properly and thinking of cheating all the time.

Although Qi Yifang and the gang weren't afraid of the processors, they were considering that it was best not to offend the NPCs in the game, and they had a way of handling the work - namely Qi Yifang's skills.

Using a skill that costs mental energy to complete a quest in a game where mental energy cannot be actively restored is not a good option, but Qi Yifang didn't want to get into too much trouble and their main objective was to save the little witch, so in the end he just took the other two and held his breath.

But the situation has now shifted markedly.

The moment the tall Tang Erda stepped into the queue, the old processors who had noticed he was a new processor began to bleep impatiently again.

"Why are you new arrivals so clueless?! Ah?! You have to rob us old people of our instruments! Do what you have to do!"

"That's right, don't understand you guys who are just working and want to be lazy and use machinery, don't hone you will soon not be able to do anything in the future and will be demoted, we are doing it for your own good."

Tang Erda swept his eyes soberly over the processors who disliked him.

He didn't say anything directly, but Tang Erda was tall, his limbs were long and strong, and the wide protective suit he wore was as snug as a tracksuit jacket, so he was not to be messed with.

The processors were silenced by him for a moment and did not open their mouths aloud, only daring to mutter in a whisper.

But as Tang Erda was about to get to the end of the line to use her instrument, an old processor cut in line and gave Tang Erda a provocative look back, then clapped his hands and asked the person behind Tang Erda to cut in line too.

This man is clearly trying to give Tang Erda a hard time and prevent her from using the instrument as a newcomer.

Wouldn't they be more productive now that the new ones can use the instruments?!

The Rose Factory already has a high turnover rate of processors, so if we don't squeeze out the newcomers, it will be even more difficult for them, the old processors, to get promoted to factory workers!

It is important to let newcomers know to know the unspoken rules, to use these unspoken rules to squeeze newcomers out of existence, to squeeze the fruits of their labour and to facilitate their own promotion - this is the agreed thinking of all old processors.

Although this idea and practice is no less than personally cutting off the new processors' lives and sending them to their deaths, the old processors don't care about this.

They even want as many of the new processors to die as possible so that no one can take their place and lay them off.

Qi Yifang was also in this predicament and had no choice but to leave - they hadn't figured out the exact set-up of this tertiary game yet, and rushing to offend a large number of NPCs was not a good option.

But Tang Erda is not afraid to offend the NPCs.

He was strong enough to mess around in a Level 3 game, even if because of this incident Tang Erda drew hate value and all the processors in the entire Rose Factory went after Tang Erda after he turned into a monster, Tang Erda was certain that it would be the processors who turned into monsters who would end up dead and not him.

Tang Erda then moved the sack with the roses to her left hand, and with a flat, indifferent stroke of her right hand, a silver gun suddenly appeared in her hand.

The heavy gun fell downwards, hooked lightly onto Tang Erda's index finger and spun around before being held up, muzzle pointed at the back of the head of the older employee who had cut in front of him.

"I don't mind killing people before I work." His tone was calm and cold, "My previous job was to kill people who went bad, do you think you're bad enough now?"

The old processor in front of him, who had been looking smug, shook like a dustpan when he heard the sound of a gun being loaded behind him, his face paled and he gritted his teeth as he moved out of the way.

Tang Erda walked up with the sack as if nothing had happened, poured the roses into the apparatus and sifted them, then got the sifted roses and put them in the sack, he put the gun behind his waist, put the sack over his shoulder with one hand and walked out.

The old processors, who had just given Tang Erda a hard time, made way for him with a scowl on their faces.

"What the hell is wrong with this new batch of processors!" The processor who had just been held at gunpoint by Tang Erda began to curse after making sure Tang Erda's back was completely out of his sight, "Either they're robbing us of our instruments, or they've somehow managed to finish their work in a while, and two more haven't even started screening yet!"

"It's almost noon and I don't know where they've gone, if we don't do the drying soon, we won't be able to turn in a passable weight of roses when we weigh them tomorrow." This processor said and gloated, "These two processors will probably be demoted directly to flower pickers."

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Inside the abandoned factory.

Bai Liu stands on a rusty shipping container surrounded by a group of stragglers who have regained their senses.

The stragglers, who had just been awakened by Bai Liu's perfume, sat obediently on the dirty floor around the container, looking up at Bai Liu on top of it with a look that was almost like looking up to a saviour, a last glimpse of hope in despair.

"I'm sure you all know Mr. Bai Liu." There was another straggler standing on the container, the one who had led last night, and he stood half a step behind Bai Liu with great respect, his eyes shining as he introduced Bai Liu to the people below, "The rose perfume you all got this time was earned by Mr. Bai Liu working in the factory and then distributed to us for free!"

These words sparked a small commotion among the stragglers, which soon ceased when the one who spoke pressed his hands downwards.

"All right, all right, please don't get excited yet, Mr Bai Liu has more good news for us." The straggler piggybacked backwards with excitement on his face and bent down to invite Bai Liu from behind him, "Now please Bai Liu, come and say a few words for us now!"

Bai Liu comes forward with a small voice, but the people below are surprisingly quiet in order to hear what he has to say, which makes Bai Liu's voice reverberate clearly and powerfully in the empty, dilapidated factory.

"I want to help you from the bottom of my heart, for free." Bai Liu pulled a new bottle of perfume from his pocket, his eyebrows calm and his tone sincere, "but there is so little I can do alone to help the stragglers, and I am just a lowly processor in the factory, paid on time every day."

"Right now I can earn up to three bottles of low grade perfume a day, and a bottle of low grade perfume can hold a fragrance for up to four hours. At this amount of perfume, I can't divide it among each of you and keep many of you awake for a long time, and at this rate, I won't be able to help you for a long time."

Bai Liu's words dimmed the eyes of the stragglers under the container.

But they did not raise their voices to accuse Bai Liu of not continuing to help them.

After a long period of torture, Bai Liu, a figure who appears as if he were a divine being, offers them completely selfless help, even if it is only short-term, so that they can live in human form for a while and not dwell on the pain of the rose perfume that rules their minds and the itch of the endlessly growing tentacles on their bones.

It had been so long since they had maintained a human shape that they couldn't tell whether they were human or monster, and now, even sitting properly on the floor, they felt the urge to get down on their knees and crawl and wander away in a trance.

"But if you are willing to help me, my help to you can be extended indefinitely." Bai Liu's turn of phrase caused the lowered heads of the stragglers to rise again with a swish of their heads, looking at him nervously and eagerly.

Bai Liu continued unhurriedly, "There is a limit to what I can do alone, but if you can help me to get more work done in the factory, to get more perfume to distribute to more stragglers, so that more stragglers can be helped to be awakened, I promise that every bottle of perfume you help me to work to produce will be used to help more stragglers, so that them to join our ranks until I become the factory manager."

"The day I get the rose perfume recipe and become the factory manager." Bai Liu said with a straight face, "I promise that every bottle of rose perfume that comes out of the factory to everyone will be free, forever."

This is obviously an extremely tempting offer.

The stragglers below couldn't help but swallow, but their faces were a mixture of joy and fear - the promise was all too familiar to them.

Back when rose perfumes were rife, those same manufacturers lured them in with such sweetness, but what about now?

The same manufacturers who said they would give out free rose perfume to them in the first place, hated to sell a bottle of perfume for a sky-high price!

They looked at Bai Liu on the container with suspicion, fear, apprehension and tear-filled eyes, as if they were looking at the last straw in a dark swamp, not knowing whether this man was lying to them or leading them deeper and deeper into a mire from which they could not extricate themselves.

But what's the point? They had no choice but to believe that Bai Liu would make a good factory manager.

When the Rose perfume was abused by their unconscious acceptance, the end was sealed and they could only choose to accept it or escape it with death.

It was a long time before someone raised a trembling, extremely careful hand, withered to nothing but white bones, and inquired very quietly, "...... Mr. Bai Liu, would you really make a good factory manager?"

The woman who asked the question was a woman whose body was little more than half decayed, whose face was withered only at the corners of her forehead, and who carried in her arms a little baby whose feet were withered and who appeared to be only a few months old.

The little baby was curled up dying in her arms, sucking on a thumb that was going to wither or not, and in its pure, slithery black eyes were two, senile, withered roses that were completely out of keeping with this little baby's age.

With eyes that held the same dying roses, she looked at Bai Liu with tears in her eyes, without blinking, and her voice choked with sobs: "...... If you become a factory manager, will you always be a good person who is willing to help us?"

"No." Bai Liu replied bluntly, "There's a good chance it won't, and it's just being said now to trick you into working for me, just like the factory manager who promoted Rose perfume before me."

Bai Liu's words fell into the stunned eyes of the people below and exploded like a drop of water in a frying pan.

The stragglers stood up with clenched fists, their chests heaving violently as they stared viciously at Bai Liu, their eyes, which had held a faint glimmer of hope, turning angry and dead, while others dropped their heads numbly, as if they had expected this end.

The young mother who had just asked Bai Liu a question dropped her hand weakly, covering her face and sobbing quietly, seemingly mumbling her child's name.

But still, no one among them rushed up to attack Bai Liu.

--Because even if Bai Liu had laid out his nasty intentions in such a straightforward manner, Bai Liu was as much their last hope as their despair.

As long as they can briefly escape the addiction of rose perfume hocked to their bones, the helpless stragglers can only be held hostage by those who hold the source and forced to descend into a deeper hell.

Bai Liu's eyes scattered over the faces of the stragglers below who were in various moods at his words.

He could have used that excuse just now to trick these desperate stragglers.

You see, even if he told them now that he was lying to them, they would still deceive themselves into going along with him and working for him for free, just for a mouthful of vapid aroma.

As long as perfume exists, this vicious circle must exist, and when civilians start hoping for happiness for all with thinking like [good people to be factory managers], that in itself is representing that nothing else is going to restrain evil -

-- If morality is used to restrain interest, it will only allow interest to be presented in the form of morality.

But Bai Liu doesn't like perfume, he likes money, and this kind of world doesn't make sense to him, even if he gets more perfume from these stragglers, it's just a symbol of a spiritual superiority.

Bai Liu has no feeling for this [sense of superiority].

He prefers a world where money circulates as hard currency, so he wants to put an end to the existence of such a world.

"You can't hope that I'm a good person, I'm not a particularly good person, or rather, when it comes to times like that, whoever is the plant manager won't be a good person as long as Rose Perfume exists."

Bai Liu looked down at the stragglers without a ripple in his eyes, his tone was as flat as ever, "But I if I say, let me be the factory manager and I have a way to make the rose perfume disappear so you all don't continue to wilt, will you help me?"

Slowly, incredulously, the stragglers on the stage looked up, and Bai Liu's emotionless face was reflected in a pair of rose-implanted eyes.

"You help me become a factory manager and I'll help you end the blight." Bai Liu said, "This is not some gratuitous help, but a deal of equivalence, will you do it?"

The young mother was the first to stand up with tears in her eyes, holding up her child and asking incoherently, "Really? Mr Bai Liu, do you really have the means to end us, to end my child's blight?!"

Bai Liu smiled, the rose in his right eye blooming with a sixth petal, the chaffing at the edge of the eye socket bone-deep: "If I can't do it, I'll wilt too."

"I've given you most of the perfume I've been given, and you can supervise me all the time, but if I don't find relief, I'll be the first to wither, so will you trust me?"

A brief, pin-drop silence.

This mother hugged her child tightly, lowered her head and cried out in pain with trembling lips, "Thank you, thank you!!!"

The abandoned factory was inexplicably clamouring with excitement.

The stragglers raised the Bai Liu on the container and threw it upwards, the rose in their eyes, like the light of a fire about to go out, burning faintly, yet firmly.