370,000 per square meter. When the price was announced, some people in the sales office stood there in a daze, while others rushed forward like crazy:

“I told you that house prices will continue to rise!”

"Buy it now! If you don't buy it now, the price will go up to 400,000 per square meter next time, and you really can't afford it!"

"House for sale! We want a large apartment of 25 square meters!"

"Same here! Are there any suites on the 17th floor?"

"I'm sorry, the 17th floor is sold out. How about you take a look at the 27th floor..."

Xiaodong covered her stomach and smiled. Her face was pale and she was sweating profusely as she led other guests to look at properties. People lined up, holding up loan contracts and crowding each other, fearing that they would not be able to buy a house if they were a little late. Her face flushed and she shouted heartbreakingly:

"I want to borrow two shares of Sunshine Seedlings!"

"I want to borrow five!"

Someone stared at all this in a daze, muttered something in a low voice, "I really can't afford it, and I don't want to lend my child," and suddenly turned around and ran out.

In less than two minutes, these people fell from outside the building, torn into pieces, and died with their eyes open.

The others just glanced at it and then looked away as if they were used to it:

"Someone jumped off the building again?"

"It's normal. Every time a new property is launched and the price goes up, there are young people with poor mental health who jump off buildings."

The patrol team collected the body in an orderly and skillful manner, and then took it away to the two corpse collectors in white coats who were waiting there, saying:

"See if these two people have any loans. If they do, send them to a private hospital and disassemble their organs, bones and flesh and auction them off to pay off the loans. The bodies are still fresh and can fetch more money."

The corpse collectors nodded. The patrolmen looked at the corpses and sneered. One of them even kicked one of the corpses and spat:

"Do you think you don't have to pay back the loan when you die? That's just wishful thinking!"

"I don't know how much this corpse can be sold for. If this guy has a lot of loans and the auction price of the corpse is not enough to cover the loss, then our big boss Mr. C will still lose money in the end."

"You are so heartless. The big boss was kind enough to give you money in advance, but you wanted to die before you paid it back. You are such a shameless bastard!"

There were crowds of people all around, and the noise was deafening, seemingly a harmonious scene. However, Shi Qian and Yuan Guang, who were in the middle of it, looked at the patrol teams who were talking in a trance, and listened to the sounds of house transactions all around them. They felt cold all over, as if they had arrived at the eighteenth level of hell.

Everywhere there are chaotic demons who do not regard others as human beings, and do not regard themselves as human beings. Everywhere there are suffering living people who are being tortured and punished but are unaware of it.

Yuan Guang and Shi Qian slowly turned their heads to look at Director C, who was sitting on the stands, with a flushed face, drinking red wine with the people next to him to celebrate the hot sales of the new building. His hand was turning, revealing a dangerous silver light.

[System prompt: Player Yuan Guang uses personal skill weapon (box cutter)]

[System prompt: Player Shi Qian uses personal skill weapon (caliper)]

E District Cemetery.

At 8:20, it was completely dark. The cemetery opposite Route 444 was dark and eerie. Behind an old double-opening hollow carved iron gate stood many elliptical tombstones, and one could vaguely see the portraits of the people on them.

Apart from the weeds in the cemetery, the only living creatures that could be seen were one or two crows, which fluttered down on the tombstones, stopped, and uttered two hoarse cries.

Next to the iron gate was a half-open, dilapidated security room with the door swinging at an angle. There was only a dusty stool inside. It was obvious that no one had been here for a long time.

Tang Erda had a complicated expression: "The old man said that the cemetery in District E was once a supporting facility for the residential buildings in District E, and it was once robbed, but now there is no one to maintain it."

"Because people in Sunshine City spend all their money on buying houses, how can they afford to buy a tomb?" Mu Sicheng also sighed, "I feel like this tomb is just a decoration. Who would buy this thing except rich people?"

Bai Liu smiled and said, "That's not necessarily true."

Liu Jiayi looked around and said coldly: "These cemetery houses are not sold to the living, but to the dead."

"Selling to a dead person?" Mu Sicheng was puzzled and shocked. "Why would you buy a house when the person is dead?"

Mu Ke was not surprised at all and nodded calmly: "According to Bai Liu's previous analysis and what the old man told us, we can simply make a guess that the real estate developers in Sunshine City built everything for profit, for money, or a currency that can be exchanged for human productivity."

"Land is a production resource that they firmly control. Under private monopoly, this production resource has been transformed into an item that can be infinitely exchanged for productivity through various operations and regulations of real estate developers."

Mu Sicheng was a little dizzy: "What?"

"At this time, people's productivity will be constantly demobilized in the process of currency equivalent substitution." Mu Ke looked at Mu Sicheng, "To put it simply, it is to monopolize production data and make others involute. Through the process of involution and competition, your productivity will be constantly demobilized, and at the same time, the contradictions of survival will be transferred to the people below, making you hate those who are in competition with you, and make you grateful that they are willing to let a little money slip out of the cracks for you to fight for."

"But at this point, it is meaningless to compete for currency. Currency is just a transit channel for them to exchange productivity. As long as they allow production data to be infinitely premium, your productivity will never fill the hole in housing prices."

"So land is the most valuable thing. Since these real estate developers are willing to use the land to build cemeteries, it can only mean one thing, that is, after the cemetery is built, a large amount of productivity can be exchanged through the production data of the cemetery."

After Mu Ke finished speaking, he saw that Mu Sicheng still had a confused expression. He paused for a moment and said tactfully, "Did you skip some basic required courses when you were in college?"

For example, Ideological and Political Marxism.

Mu Sicheng, who understood Mu Ke's sarcasm, was quite angry and embarrassed, so he immediately turned to Bai Liu who was observing the entrance to the cemetery and pointed at Mu Ke and complained: "Bai Liu, Mu Ke doesn't speak human language!"

Having good grades and a good memory, it’s amazing that you can remember everything in class!

Mu Sicheng let out the angry cry of a poor student.

Bai Liu half-knelt on the ground with his back to Mu Sicheng, looking down as if observing the dense footprints on the ground. Without turning his head, he spoke in a light tone:

"Don't you think ghosts are a better source of cheap labor than humans?"

"If a person works six days a week, nine hours a day, then his working hours are only 54 hours, and the time for eating and going to the toilet must be deducted, which is about 50 hours when rounded up."

"But ghosts don't need to eat or sleep. They only need 3 to 5 square meters to house a family. They can operate 24 hours a day without rest. A ghost can work up to 168 hours a week."

Bai Liu stood up slowly: "This is equivalent to 3.4 people working 996 for a week."

"From the perspective of productivity, it is far better to let ghosts work than to let people work. If we speculate to the extreme——"

Bai Liu turned around and looked at Mu Sicheng calmly: "-- A large number of people moved into Sunshine City to stimulate population growth, but at the same time they didn't care about the mortality rate at all, and they raised house and commodity prices crazily. Regardless of any collective events, such as famine, plague, and mass suicide, they didn't consider whether people could survive here, and even encouraged suicide and euthanasia invisibly, using the survival of the fittest as an excuse to eliminate a large number of the bottom-level poor. Isn't this, to a certain extent, to turn people into ghosts and convert one person into 3.4 units of productivity?"

"In other words, maybe the living people are not important to real estate developers at all. What is important are the dead people, that is, the cheaper and more useful ghosts, the invisible labor force under the Sunshine City."

Mu Sicheng was a little horrified by Bai Liu's gaze: "So the people here still have to work even if they become ghosts? They can't rest in peace even after they die?"

"No." This idea was a bit too scary. Mu Sicheng gestured with his hands and tried to refute it with a serious face, "This is too tragic. I'm dead and turned into a ghost. Why should I still work for them?! These people, if they are not ghosts, why don't they run away?"

Bai Liu brushed off the dust on his sleeves and walked slowly to Mu Sicheng: "Have you seen A Chinese Ghost Story?"

Mu Sicheng didn't expect the topic to suddenly jump to this point. He was stunned for a moment, but still answered honestly: "I have seen it."

Bai Liu hummed calmly and asked, "Then why do you think Nie Xiaoqian, as a ghost, didn't run away when she had to work hard every week, deceived two men to feed her grandmother, and was finally forced to be sold to the Black Mountain Demon in an illegal women's ghost trade?"

"You think she likes working for her grandma, right?" Bai Liu asked calmly.

Mu Sicheng: "..."

He asked a really stupid question. If he wasn't running, it must be because he was trapped for some reason and couldn't escape!

Mu Sicheng frowned and asked, "Is the reason why these people are trapped related to the tomb?"

Bai Liu nodded: "So I agree with Liu Jiayi's point of view. These tombs are most likely not built for the living, but for the dead."

"Buy?" Mu Sicheng was increasingly confused. "Do the developers here still pay ghosts?"

Bai Liu glanced at Mu Sicheng and said, "If I ask you to work without paying you, will you work?"

Mu Sicheng: “…No fight.”

"No, I always feel something is wrong," Mu Sicheng touched his chin and fell into deep thought, "If I were a ghost, I would be trapped in Sunshine City and couldn't escape, but even if someone offered me a salary, I would never work for it."

Mu Sicheng glanced at the graves in the cemetery with a hint of disdain: "...Not to mention working hard to buy a cemetery like the eighteenth level of hell."

"I don't need to eat or sleep, so I don't need a house or money. Even if the real estate developer uses some method to trap me here, I have been working part-time for my whole life and I have worked myself into a ghost. In this case..." Mu Sicheng clenched his fists loudly, "I can't work! I won't work for the rest of my life!"

Bai Liu glanced at Mu Sicheng with admiration: "Nie Xiaoqian must have thought the same as you did back then. You are very brave."

Mu Xiaoqian: “…”

Mu Xiaoqian was treated with strange words twice in a row. She bravely clenched her fists and angrily faced Bai Liu who was ripping her like a tree demon. "Fuck! I'm dead! What can they do to me? They can't possibly let me seduce men for them to eat!"

"Of course not." Bai Liu looked at the gate of the cemetery and squinted his eyes in thought. "Under what circumstances would make a person willing to work like crazy after death just to buy a cemetery, and then shrink in his own cemetery with a width of only 2 square meters?"

Liu Jiayi suddenly said, "Could it be that just like the living, these dead people also have to pay land use fees? So they are trying to hide in apartments or cemeteries?"

"But you can't do anything to me if I don't pay this land use fee, right?" Mu Sicheng crossed his arms and shook his legs in a very unconcerned manner, "I'm already dead!"

Bai Liu turned his head slowly and smiled: "That's not necessarily true. Living people who don't pay land use fees are just beaten to death, but since dead ghosts can't die again, the types of torture they can receive have actually increased a lot."

"Anyway, no matter how much you're tortured, you can't die again, right?"

Mu Ke added calmly, "Nie Xiaoqian doesn't want to work for Grandma, but Grandma is a tree demon who can torture ghosts. She can also insert her tree roots into the necks and bodies of small demons, shaking the roots inside their bodies to suck their blood, torturing them so much that they have to work for Grandma and seduce men to dig out their hearts."

"There is always a way to make ghosts work for you." Mu Ke smiled at Mu Shicheng politely, "Are you right, Mu Shen?"

Mu Xiaoqian: “…”

Thank you, I feel very involved in the situation. I already feel like I am seducing a man.