"After we have collected them, we will come to your tent before daybreak to get the roses."

"Remember, don't let the vagrants who covet the dried rose petals steal the petals you have picked." The workers warned them sternly, "If they are stolen, not only will you not get a drop of perfume, but you will also be fired from the factory. You will end up like those vagrants! Do you understand?"

After that, the worker handed Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi two linen bags for storing the flowers, a pair of thick cotton gloves for picking the roses to prevent the smell on the hands from contaminating the roses, a pair of long tweezers for picking up fallen buds, and a specific wage form.

The worker casually handed Bai Liu the wage form and said rather proudly, "You won't be able to work for long before you are fired and become homeless. Our factory has a high elimination rate. People like me who can be promoted to processing workers are the only flower pickers among a hundred. We can pick 6 kilograms of roses in an hour."

"You probably can't even pick one-sixth of mine. This is most likely your last night in this factory. Enjoy the original scent of dried roses. You won't be at a disadvantage. Our flower tent is the most expensive hotel room in the world. I don't know how many people have to wait for reservations to stay here even though they have paid a lot of money."

"You are just lucky..." The worker walked back quickly while muttering indignantly, "Last year, the production of dry roses was not good, and too many roses withered. This year, it is difficult to find ordinary people who are not prone to severe wilt disease and will not steal roses in the flower fields. The Rose Festival in May is coming again, and it is the time when the flowers are in short supply, so it is your turn to recruit newcomers..."

"… I think my batch only recruited students with a master's degree or above from a 985211 university, who had published more than three research papers on dry leaf roses and whose SCI impact factor was above 1.0…"

Bai Liu, who played games all day long as a student and had poor grades, graduated from a fake university: "..."

Liu Jiayi, a second-grade student with disabilities, said: "…"

Although my intelligence is not low, what the hell is this thing you are talking about?

Liu Jiayi held up two gloves that were almost as big as her face and silently looked up at Bai Liu: "Can you pick roses?"

——From what the worker said, picking this dried rose leaf is obviously a technical job.

"No, I have never picked roses." Bai Liu answered straightforwardly, but he quickly tied the sack to his belt, rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, tightened his trouser legs, put on thick cloth gloves that looked like they were made for baking, and instantly changed from an urban white-collar worker to a country boy, looking ready to go to work in the fields at any time.

He looked at Liu Jiayi with a questioning expression, "Why do you look so skilled?" Bai Liu took the tweezers and explained naturally, "I used to cut pigweed when I was a kid. Although it is a different crop from roses, the harvesting method should be similar."

Liu Jiayi: “…”

Don't treat roses like pigweed! !

Bai Liu knelt on one knee and helped Liu Jiayi roll up her sleeves, tighten her trouser legs, and then pulled her gloves down and put them on Liu Jiayi with difficulty. While doing this, he calmly explained to Liu Jiayi: "Don't worry about anything happening for now. Didn't you notice that Tang Erda is not here?"

Liu Jiayi had actually discovered it, but she didn't understand why.

"If the person behind the scenes wanted you and Tang Er to fight, then he should have released Tang Er, a beast that has great killing power against you, at the beginning to quickly kill you who are powerless." Liu Jiayi held Bai Liu's shoulders with both hands and lifted her feet to let Bai Liu fix her shoes and socks. Her young face showed a deep expression that was inconsistent with her age. "But he deliberately separated you and Tang Er. This is to protect you. Why?"

"Because he designed this game stage not to kill me." Bai Liu stood up and clapped his hands. He lowered his eyelids and spoke in an unclear tone, "but to give me the ability to seize the opponent's weakness and kill him."

Liu Jiayi was stunned: "Just like in the last round of the game, I let you get Liu Huai's soul first, and then deal with me, right? In this round of the game, it is very likely that Tang Erda was sent to other flower fields until-"

"——We won't fight until he thinks I have the ability to kill Tang Erda." Bai Liu added to Liu Jiayi's words calmly, with a casual smile on his face that seemed to be amusing. "After all, it's just a simple feeding scene of a beast killing a human. It's far less interesting than a fight between two fully grown and still mad beasts killing each other."

"Of course, there is another reason why he did this, but I think you have guessed it." Bai Liu looked at Liu Jiayi.

An uncontrollable chill ran down Liu Jiayi's spine, and she slowly spoke: "Because the audience also likes to watch such developments. If it is related to the system, we can profit from the system. Such small TV trends are the easiest to gain recharge points and likes, and the various benefits we get from the audience will be partly taken by the system..."

"Even if we die, all our gains, including our souls, will be taken away by the system..."

They are all just... animals that the person behind the scenes let loose for people to play with and watch, to please the eyes... That's all.

"So don't worry about our life or death for now. The people behind the scenes won't let me die easily." Bai Liu pulled out the salary form from his pocket and showed it to Liu Jiayi while sighing, "It turns out that I'm really working part-time..."

The wage list clearly lists the weight of the picked roses and the corresponding wages.

Reference data: A dried rose leaf (not dried) weighs about 2g.

40 kg of dried roses (with intact branches) can be exchanged for a 35ml bottle of low-grade dried rose gas perfume with a concentration of 30%~40%.

(Note: A bottle of low-grade perfume with a concentration of 30 to 40 percent can retain its fragrance on the human body for 4 hours)

[System prompt: Player unlocks side quest]

[Side Quest: Players collect 40 kilograms of roses tonight]

[If the mission is successful, the player can redeem the first bottle of low-grade perfume made of rose stem gas, which can be used to alleviate the pollution and take the first step towards becoming a processor! If the mission fails, the player will be demoted and exiled to the periphery, becoming a refugee. ]

Bai Liu silently calculated in his mind. One rose weighs 2 grams, so 40 kilograms of roses is...

"...20,000 roses..." Liu Jiayi looked up at Bai Liu from the payroll in disbelief, "They want us to pick 20,000 dried roses in exchange for a bottle of cheap perfume that lasts for four hours?! Are they treating us like animals?"

Bai Liu glanced at Liu Jiayi as if it was nothing special: "Congratulations, kid, you have already experienced the true meaning of working part-time."

"I also talked to my boss like this when I got my salary every month." Bai Liu paused, "Then I was fired by my boss. However, I was not very interested in doing this kind of thing with extremely low cost performance. After I realized the benefits of not working part-time and being a freelancer (making money in horror games), I didn't expect that I would also start working part-time in horror games, and the salary is even lower than before..."

The white willow began to wither visibly.

Liu Jiayi: “…”

OK, I think we are talking about his sad things...

But Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi were still chatting, and they nimbly carried the sacks to the flower field.

The flower fields were densely planted with lush roses. Rows of rose bushes left a narrow aisle about one person wide. Bai Liu was now moving slowly in this aisle, picking up roses on both sides with tweezers.

Bai Liu wanted to move quickly, but the bottom of the rose field was a layer of very wet, soft and sticky red mud. Stepping into it felt like stepping into a swamp. It was difficult to move even in plastic boots with a smooth surface. Moreover, this red mud always had a faint fishy smell, not the smell of blood, but the smell of the sea.

And the weird thing is that almost every fully bloomed rose here is exactly the same in size, color, and number of petals, as if someone pinched a rose and used copy and paste to generate all the roses in the rose field.

Bai Liu used tweezers to clamp the root of the rose and lifted it up, and the rose was picked. He observed the freshly picked dry leaf rose from a distance - this was a very unique type of rose, at least Bai Liu had never seen this variety of rose in real life.

Open the flower buds that have not yet fully expanded, and the petals exude a dark red that is almost black and purple from the root, gradually turning into a beautiful rose red towards the edge of the petals, and the outermost side is light pink. Unlike the dark green oval leaves of ordinary roses, the heart-shaped leaves and thorns on the stems of the dry-leaf roses turn yellow when they are ripe, and wither and fall off the moment they are picked - this is also the origin of the name of this rose.

The moment the dry leaf rose matures, all the stems and leaves that have provided nutrition to it will dry up, leaving only the full and fragrant buds - just like humans who are addicted to its concentrated fragrance but cannot get constant nourishment.

It is a rose that is extremely aggressive in both its growth process and the fragrance it produces.

Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi walked in the flower field, one step deep and one step shallow. After almost an hour, they stopped at the same time and walked to the edge of the field.

Liu Jiayi raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, exhaled, handed the sack full of roses she had just picked to Bai Liu, then sat limply on the ground and drank energy supplements in big gulps.

The weather in the game is now around April or May, and the nights are no longer cool. Staying in a flower field surrounded by dense vegetation and high humidity will make you feel stuffy and hot all the way up your neck and back, especially as they are moving around in a swamp-like flower field picking flowers, which is completely physical work.