“Are you afraid?” Zhang Heng asked.
“It would be a lie to say that I’m not,” Qiu Ming said with a wry smile. “At first, I thought that this matter could be resolved peacefully. If it had been someone else, I would have had the confidence to convince the other party not to kill me afterward. But with you, I don’t have any confidence at all. Previously, due to work, I did some research on you, and I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t see through you at all.”
Qiu Ming paused for a moment before continuing, “No wonder you didn’t react much when I told you the truth about New Shanghai 0297. Did you already know about this? “Speaking of which, how did you get into New Shanghai 0297? What is your purpose? No, forget it… don’t tell me. I want to live longer.”
“I promised you that if you cooperate, I won’t kill you,” Zhang Heng said calmly.
Qiu Ming didn’t say anything. He took two more puffs of his cigarette. From the look on his face, he obviously didn’t believe Zhang Heng’s promise. Thus, he had been weighing his options.
After about five minutes, Qiu Ming seemed to have made up his mind. “Are you working for Mr. G now?” he asked again.
“Yes?”
“Mr. G and I have known each other for a long time. When he was still in the emergency response team and was known as the strongest clone among them, I gave him a USB drive with a movie in it.”
“Symbolic exchange and death?”
“You know about the movie,” Qiu Ming said. “I was born in a rather famous family. One of my uncles was a board director of Shengtang’s Morgan, and he didn’t have many material worries since young. In addition, I’m not the successor of the family’s main force, so I don’t have that much competitive pressure. Therefore, although I’ve received a lot of memory coding, most of it was skills, and I didn’t do too much in terms of character. This also allowed me to keep some bad habits unique to young people.
“At that time, I had just come to work in new Shanghai 0297. My job was to supervise my brach’s regular operations, especially the day-to-day running of the place, reporting to the board of directors, and so on. In fact, the management of the department would also write to the headquarters on a regular basis, so this was just an idle job to dismiss a young, ignorant and incompetent man like me. The power was not big or small, but it was easy enough.
“In the beginning, everything here was very new to me, especially when I saw so many people having to sign contracts with the company in order to survive. They then have to play a role in the city, living another identity without knowing anything. It was quite interesting. In fact, compared to the lifeless world outside where everyone was exactly the same, this place is more like a real, breathing world. What do you think? Doesn’t that sound a bit ironic?
“… it seems a bit far-fetched to say that it will be the New Shanghai 0297. Everyone here believes that one can not choose one’s birth, but hard work can change one’s fate. However, in reality, everyone’s birth has been artificially chosen. Whether you become a beggar on the first floor or a senior executive on the third or fourth floor might have just been a slip of the staff’s mind.
“For those who find it really hard to choose, we might as well roll the dice and make that decision for them. Even if it’s a role that has already been assigned, I can use the power in my hands to change it. Once, out of mischievousness, I threw a beautiful girl who was supposed to be sent to an entertainment company to be the wife of a 300-pound butcher. I have to admit that doing so gave me a strong sense of satisfaction. I was like a god, able to manipulate the lives of others at will.
“But no matter how good a game is, a time will come when I will get bored. And as time goes on, I get less and less pleasure from playing games manipulating someone’s fate. At the same time, I get a lot of resentment from some of my branch managers because I’m always messing around. I didn’t take it to heart, though, because I was craving new thrills at the time.
“In the end, I shifted my attention to Mr. G. At that time, he didn’t go by that name. He was the captain of the emergency response team and was deeply convinced that he was a clone. Therefore, he didn’t dare to betray the person who gave them the task because the emergency response team had been treated quite well. In order to allow the team to learn and grow, they wouldn’t erase their memories on a regular basis. Therefore, I watched Mr. G work hard for Shengtang Morgan, wiping his ass everywhere for such small benefits. If there were specific situations that were more dangerous and difficult to deal with, the company’s people would throw these at him and let him solve the troubles.
“I thought he was cute and stupid, like a dog, and gave him the USB drive on his birthday. To be honest, now that I think about it, I don’t know why I did it. It was probably just for fun. Baudrillard’s theory has been banned by the federation. His books and movies have been destroyed. I found the movie on the USB drive from my family’s collection. I didn’t expect Mr. G to see so many things from this movie.
“In short, because of me, he became suspicious of his own identity. He finally managed to reach the fifth floor, killing his way up here. This is the first time since New Shanghai 0297’s establishment that an outsider has entered this place, an incident which resulted in the death of more than 60 employees in the base. If you are familiar with the style those guys above work, you should know that no matter what, they will find a scapegoat as quickly as they can, then push all the responsibility onto that person.
“Unfortunately, it was my turn to play this role. I gave Mr. G the flash drive, which ultimately led to this disaster. The board of directors considered this an extremely frivolous and irresponsible act. My uncle was very disappointed in me and announced on behalf of the family that he would sever all ties with me. My status as a special agent was also revoked, and I became the most ordinary employee. However, the irony was that the culprit who caused all of this, Mr. G, had a good attitude after his arrest, and the board of directors happened to need someone to help them manage the hierarchy and reduce costs. Therefore, in the end, he actually changed his status and was directly incorporated into the management department.
“After that, he went to the first floor alone. I didn’t expect that within a few years, everyone would know his name there. After a few years, people began to call him the underground emperor of the first floor. He brought a special order to the first floor, and the management was very satisfied with his performance.”
