Chapter Two: The Honey Tragedy (Part Two)
"Waaah—" Liu Na collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
Tan Qiaoqiao: Although I know she met the wrong person and cried to the scumbag, I still feel a little guilty.
"Even though Chang Heng was a jerk, at least he's dead." His straight male colleagues offered sincere comfort, "Even though you were the one who got dumped, you're still alive!"
"Wah—" Liu Na cried even louder.
Tan Qiaoqiao: That was a good comforting remark, but please don't offer comforting words next time.
"Who hasn't encountered a few scumbags when they were young?" Tan Qiaoqiao said solemnly.
Actually, she didn't.
Yunxin probably doesn't have it either.
But it's okay, as long as I can comfort people, that's enough.
Chang Heng was found, and Liu Na cried uncontrollably. No one mentioned returning to the company anymore, and a group of people watched the spectacle with amusement.
Chen Xuan shook his head as he watched, "I told you we shouldn't get involved. Look at those people, they took advantage of being grown men to go and help, and ended up giving away all their money. They didn't save the people they wanted to save, and they even lost money themselves. Everyone's stuck in this syrup and can't get out."
"When it comes to saving lives, you should act within your capabilities. Trying to be brave will only cause trouble for the police officers."
“The rescue team is already quite busy. If they have to spare time and manpower to save you first, won’t that delay things?”
"You can't say that," a colleague couldn't stand it anymore and retorted. "If it had been hot water instead of syrup that leaked, they would have successfully saved the person. If you're not going to help, fine, but don't make sarcastic remarks. They had the guts to risk their lives to save someone; even if they failed, they're still heroes!"
"What sarcastic remarks? I call this rational thinking," Chen Xuan said emphatically.
Tan Qiaoqiao turned to Yun Xin and said, "Did you hear that? Think rationally, and don't save people recklessly in the future."
Chen Xuan opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but then felt it wouldn't be appropriate. After a moment of hesitation, he turned his head to look at the scenery, pretending not to have heard.
At this moment, someone pointed and asked hesitantly, "Am I seeing things? That little sugar figurine... is it our boss?"
Everyone was like, "?!!"
I looked at it carefully, rubbed my eyes, and continued looking, blinking a few times before looking again...
"Oh no!! It really is the boss!"
Several grown men howled like banshees, their voices completely drowning out Liu Na.
Liu Na was stunned, forgetting to cry, and stared blankly at them.
"I have a mortgage to pay, and a wife and kids to support! Boss, you just disappeared after only half a day?!"
"After graduation, I changed jobs five times. This one paid the most, had the least workload, and the best office atmosphere. Now the boss is gone, the company is gone, and I have to go out and look for a job again, sob sob sob."
"The office building is gone, we can find another one. Office supplies can be bought again. But the boss is gone... what... what do we do?"
"Did you guys see clearly? Are you sure it's the boss?" Yun Xin hadn't even gotten a good look at what the little sugar figurine looked like when her colleagues started yelling.
“Yeah, what if I cry the wrong thing? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?” Tan Qiaoqiao said. “The boss wasn’t in the company this morning. He said he went to the bank and wouldn’t be back until the afternoon meeting. It’s only a few o’clock now, he might not be back yet.”
As she spoke, she took out her phone and called her boss.
The phone rang, just as it came from the sugar figurine vendor. The owner had probably put the phone in his pocket; it's now part of the statue.
Tan Qiaoqiao put down her phone, her feelings complicated. "It really is him."
"What do we do now?"
The group looked at each other, completely baffled.
Normally, if it were just a sudden accident, the injured would be rescued, the solidified honey would be scraped away, the scene would be cleaned up, and one could compose oneself and life would return to normal.
But when the boss becomes a little sugar figurine, many things change.
"What will happen to the company? Who will take over? Is this considered voluntary resignation or dismissal by the company? Will I be able to get compensation?" Chen Xuan asked a series of questions.
No one can answer.
Everyone is confused.
Some people stared blankly at the sky, thinking, "Isn't this considered paying money to avoid disaster? I lost my job but got my life back. It's still a huge win."
At first, having narrowly escaped death, my heart was pounding, and a surge of joy welled up from the depths of my heart.
Later, they believed that the loss of (company property) was controllable and none of their business, so they adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
Now, things have taken a turn for the better. Without a comfortable job, I feel a pang of heartache.
This day was full of ups and downs, it was incredibly exciting.
Tan Qiaoqiao suddenly remembered a meme circulating online: One second, I thought I'd seen it all. The next second, I realized I'd never seen anything like it before.
She thought to herself, "I've never even heard of a syrup leak accident, let alone seen one."
Looking at the semi-solidified syrup scattered all over the ground, Tan Qiaoqiao wondered, "How could the syrup have leaked for no reason? Such a big accident, causing so many casualties, isn't anyone going to take responsibility?"
"The police are busy rescuing people, so they may not have time to investigate the cause of the accident right now," Yun Xin guessed. "Once they're done with their work, they'll start investigating the cause of the accident."
She was very curious whether it was a natural disaster or a man-made one. If it was caused by a game, how did it do it?
"Who in their right mind would build a sugar factory in a residential area?" Chen Xuan thought to himself. "Aren't these factories usually built in the suburbs, in deserted, open areas?"
"Moreover, storing scalding hot syrup must have strict safety standards," someone nearby added. "It must have been shoddy workmanship and violation of safety standards that caused this major accident."
"If you ask me, this kind of person should be shot!"
"That scoundrel! He killed so many people, how can he compensate for it? Even his own life wouldn't be enough. How many lives does he have? Enough to compensate for so many deaths?"
"If someone dies unexpectedly due to a sudden accident, will they receive compensation? They may be dead, but their families are still alive. If they receive compensation, at least their families can live a better life."
As the conversation went on, the topic veered off course. Chen Xuan took the lead in analyzing how much money the victim's family could roughly receive and how they should claim compensation, leaving the others listening in stunned silence.
Looking at the mess, Yunxin sighed inwardly: The game is over, but the cleanup has just begun.
On the third day after the incident, the rescue operation ended, and the statistics were released. The syrup surge resulted in more than 60 deaths and more than 90 injuries.
In addition, the financial losses caused by vehicle damage, house destruction, and loss of public facilities are incalculable.
The subsequent cleanup took a full five days. This was thanks to the cleaning team working overtime and other departments sending extra manpower to help.
It is said that even after the streets are cleaned up, people can still smell a sweet fragrance in the air as they walk on the road.
Recalling that cloyingly sweet aroma, Yunxin, who had a sweet tooth, felt a sense of aversion for the first time.
I turned on my computer, opened the official website and checked everything one by one. Soon I found the explanation of the cause of the accident.
This accident was both a natural disaster and a man-made one.
Just as suspected, the owner, Wang, cut corners to save money and did not strictly follow safety standards when installing the sugar jars.
To further reduce costs, he secretly built the sugar jar in a residential area.
Even worse, the capacity standards were violated. Syrup that should have been stored in two separate containers was crammed into a single container. This resulted in severe damage to the storage container, making it prone to cracking.
On the day of the accident, the temperature suddenly rose at noon. A large amount of carbon dioxide was produced inside the sugar tank, which damaged the storage tank, causing all the syrup to spill out. At its worst, it formed a giant wave more than ten meters high, which led to the tragedy.
Ultimately, the accident was treated as an unforeseen incident.
The relevant departments severely criticized Wang for his shameless behavior of cutting corners, disregarding safety standards, and jeopardizing public safety. Wang was ordered to compensate all victims for their economic losses, and he was also held legally responsible.
“An accident,” Yun Xin murmured.
If she had never seen the transparent panel, if she had never known of the existence of the Evolution Game, perhaps she could accept the investigation results right now, leave the syrup incident deep in her memory, and slowly forget it as time goes by.
However, now, she repeatedly reads the explanation of the cause of the accident, and finally her gaze stops on the words "the temperature suddenly rose at noon on the day of the accident".
"The sugar jar, inherently unsafe, combined with the sudden rise in temperature, became the perfect escape scenario. No matter how the investigation goes afterward, it will be classified as an 'accident,'" Yun Xin pondered. "Was the sudden rise in temperature caused by the evolution game? Or was the area around the accident site only identified as an 'scenario' by the evolution game when the syrup broke out of the jar?"
The contact time was too short, the clues were too few, and there were too many things I couldn't understand.
What's even more annoying is that even Level A only knows that the Evolution Game exists.
The question is, "How do I end the evolution game?"
The question remains, "How many players are currently participating?"
It didn't react at all.
After a moment's hesitation, Yunxin closed the official website and searched for related news in the search bar. As soon as she opened it, she made another discovery.
It was a short video with very poor quality and the screen was constantly shaking.
The video begins to play. A massive, surging wave of syrup engulfs the village and rapidly spreads outwards.
The camera pans to the edge, where a man's ankles are encased in syrup. His expression is contorted as he struggles desperately, but he cannot escape the syrup.
At this moment, the voice of the person filming can be heard in the video.
"That syrup is so hot, it can burn a layer of skin off a person!"
"Some people were burned to death, and others were turned into sugar sculptures."
"Some people are stuck to the ground and can't move, just like a mouse stuck to a chopping board."
In the video, the man with his ankle stuck to the ground looks up in terror at the churning syrup in the distance. Unfortunately, the video abruptly ends before viewers can see the ending. It's unclear what difficulties the filmmaker encountered during filming that caused the interruption.
Although the video had ended, that terrified face left a deep impression on Yunxin.
For a fleeting moment, she seemed to see a microcosm of ordinary humanity. Caught completely off guard by the sudden disaster, they trembled with fear.
After turning off the video and shutting down the computer, Yunxin was preparing to reorganize her thoughts and rethink her ideas. In a flash, a terrifying conjecture surfaced in her mind.
"Instance number 111679—'The Honey Tragedy,' if the numbering starts from 1, one instance equals one accident..."
"Players will only become aware of the Evolution Game after receiving an 'A' grade (or higher) in the game's progression evaluation once or more. If I participated in the Evolution Game without knowing it before receiving an 'A' grade..."
"If the hypothetical 'I' could be replaced by anyone in the world..."
"Then, is it possible that at some point in the past, everyone was already involved in the evolutionary game without realizing it?"
The difference is that some people perform exceptionally well and receive an A rating after completing a certain instance, thus learning the truth about the world.
Most people perform poorly, occasionally lamenting the frequent unexpected events and the hardships of life, but they never realize that they are in an evolutionary game.
(End of this chapter)
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