Chapter 4147: When the Pumpkins Ripen (Part 40)

Tim, who was helping out in the lab, saw Pamela, who had been scrolling through short videos on her phone, jump up like a carp, and rush to the research instrument with a roar.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?" Tim had been a bit sleepy, and this scared his hair to stand up. He stared at Pamela and said, "What's wrong with you? Did someone break in?!!"

Pamela, however, showed a contemptuous expression. She said, "I can't explain it to you. Hurry up, bring me the research report for the second phase of the expansion plant test, I have to finish the gene test tonight..."

"What is wrong with you?" Tim looked at her very surprisedly.

"Fine, fine," Pamela waved her hand at him and said, "Go draw your pictures."

Tim narrowed his eyes; he knew something he didn't know had happened. He looked at Pamela with a Batman-like disapproving expression, without any intention of leaving the lab.

"Alright, alright," Pamela said while taking the report, "Brainiac sent me a plan to counterattack Apokolips, and my plants play a very important role in the plan. And in the subsequent Apokolips development plan, whether it's the idea of using the special radiation of the Apokolips domain to study mutant plants, or applying the technology of transforming Darkseid's Parademons to plant mutation, they are all genius ideas. If he had said so earlier, I might have already attacked Apokolips by now..."

Tim opened his mouth. Actually, he didn't understand a word of what Pamela said about the technology of mutant plants. But only one thing he understood, he said: "So you don't plan to slack off anymore?"

Pamela rolled her eyes and said: "What do you mean by slack off? I was strategically adjusting my rest time. But I thought about it carefully, humans still have to struggle, have to realize their self-worth. I'm still young, I still have to have some drive."

"What kind of ecstasy soup did Brainiac pour into you?"

As soon as he finished this sentence, the phone rang. He walked out with the phone, came back in less than two minutes, and then started packing things in a hurry.

"What's wrong with you again?" Pamela asked. "Why did you pack up the easel and paints? You're not drawing anymore?"

"Draw my ass! As long as I can improve the efficiency of the Drake factory's fully automated assembly line by 30%, Brainiac will send the admission letter directly to my house. I have to go back to do research! Bye!"

Just as Tim ran out of the lab in a hurry, he bumped into Jason running up. Fortunately, he braked sharply, otherwise he wouldn't have been knocked away by this huge albatross.

"Why are you running so fast?" Jason said first. "Are you done drawing? Why don't I see you posting messages in the chat group?"

"Didn't you not post either? You don't have a research project, what are you doing running to the lab?"

"Who said I don't have one, I just received a research project."

"How long has it been since you did scientific research. What project did Brainiac give you? Can you figure it out?"

"Researching Batmobile tires."

The two stared at each other, Tim covered his forehead and said: "Brainiac could find such a matching research project. But why did he think of researching tires?"

"To be precise, it's researching the Batmobile," Jason said. "Or vehicles with performance similar to the Batmobile."

"He wants you to build a Batmobile?"

"It doesn't necessarily have to be built from scratch. I bought the blueprints for the Batmobile from the Arkham Batman with points, as long as I gather the raw materials, I can build one that's about the same. But there are a few types of metal that are hard to get, I'm planning to call Bruce."

"What benefit did he give you?"

"A professional chef on call 24 hours a day."

"He really has his ways."

Their conversation was interrupted, and another figure walked up from downstairs, it was Bruce. As soon as he saw Jason, he said: "Where are the blueprints? Which metal is specifically missing?"

"The others are easy to handle, the key is that Nth Metal is hard to find. This magic-immune metal is the raw material for the important components of the Batmobile's magic engine..."

Before he could finish speaking, a burly figure jumped in through the window, the yellow and black armor particularly eye-catching.

"Deathstroke?!"

"Brainiac asked me to send you something." He took a box out of his arms, threw it to Bruce who was closest to him, and said, "This is the metal left over from making the sword. Please sign the receipt."

Bruce took the order and looked at it, finding it was Brainiac's order form. He looked at Deathstroke, not knowing how Brainiac persuaded this super mercenary to contribute his own bottom-of-the-box materials.

And Tim had already asked sideways, because he also wanted to get some metal, after all, from the perspective of physics, the efficiency that can be improved by the automated production line is less than 10%, and the remaining 20% probably has to be thought about from the perspective of magic.

"Points." Deathstroke's answer was very short.

Tim patted his head, he should have thought of it earlier, this guy is a mercenary, besides money, what else could he want?

And at this time, his phone rang again. He saw a message from Brainiac: "I will provide you with all information data and support in terms of raw materials, but you need to provide requirements first before I can order for you."

Tim breathed a sigh of relief, originally he was still thinking, could he pick some metal from Bruce and Jason, but he didn't expect Brainiac to be much more generous than he imagined.

"Why were you called back too?" Pamela, who walked out of the lab, looked at Bruce with some surprise. "And for the Justice League, it should be off-duty time now. How did he convince you to work overtime?"

"Honorary Doctorate in Psychology." Bruce's answer was also very short.

"God, can the Professor agree?"

"It's just an honorary degree. Besides, I see Brainiac is serious this time, I don't know how much stimulation Darkseid gave him to make him do even this kind of thing."

"I always feel something is wrong."

"I also feel a bit strange."

"It is indeed too abnormal."

"Do you remember what the Agent said?"

"When you discover any abnormality..."

"... either it was done by Greed, or it has something to do with him."

"But he did offer us conditions that we couldn't refuse." Tim sighed and said, "I'm afraid we'll all be very busy for a while."

"That's fine, otherwise it's idle during martial law." Pamela said, "Let's go, let's invest in great labor."

Several people scattered like this, and then invested in work with very high efficiency, this efficiency was so high that Brainiac was shocked.

"I haven't not incentivized them before." Brainiac said. "I will give them bonuses, and supplies, will report on them, let them become representative figures praised by everyone. Isn't this enough?"

"Theoretically speaking, people live a lifetime just for fame and fortune. Money and reputation can motivate most people, so you can't say you are wrong. I think it should be useful for many other people, right?" Greed stood in front of the coffee machine, picking beans while saying.

"Yes, for the vast majority of people, they are very satisfied. After getting rewards, they will also invest in work with greater enthusiasm, and the efficiency is not bad. But there are indeed many tough nuts to crack, whether it is monetary rewards or reputation rewards, they are not very interested. I have thought of all kinds of methods to improve their work efficiency, but they are not satisfactory. Why is it different this time?"

"Because of 'breaking the rules'."

"What?"

"Because you broke the rules for them. Before, you were an absolutely fair ruler. Take Tim for example, although he has achieved not small achievements in management and mechanical engineering, if he wants to study at the Art Academy, he still has to prepare a portfolio step by step, submit an application, wait for the school's approval, and then he can go to school."

"Is there anything wrong with this?"

"There is nothing wrong, this is very fair. Because even if he is a genius at managing groups and updating assembly lines, he may not necessarily have enough talent for artistic creation, so he must take out something to prove that he also has talent in another aspect, in order to be able to study deeply in this aspect. You let him follow the general application process, it is completely correct from the perspective of law, and you can't pick out any faults from the perspective of emotion, so didn't he obediently go to prepare?"

"But you let me give him the admission letter directly."

"Yes. Precisely because he knows in his heart that you doing this is correct, you are a very fair ruler, so when you, such a fair ruler, break the rules to do 'wrong things' for him, it will give him great spiritual encouragement."

"……?"

Brainiac put a big question mark on the huge billboard outside the window within Greed's line of sight.

"Thank you for establishing a righteous persona for yourself before, making you look like an omnipotent righteous god. And humans, this kind of creature, prefer destroying gods to creating gods."

"You mean, I've fallen from the altar now?"

"Yes, and it's only aimed at a few people. Or rather, only by breaking the rules for a small group of people in a small range can you have such an effect."

"Why?"

"Because of greed. I said before that greed and pride are the original sins of humanity. And the fair society you created cannot satisfy the greed of some people, because what they want is not fairness, but privilege."

"I understand. Now I gave some people privilege by breaking the rules, letting them become the privileged class. No one doesn't want to become the privileged class, so they will work harder than before."

"That's about it. But in fact, the key is not your breaking the rules this time, but the fair society you created before, which makes them feel that you are indeed very fair. In this way, your breaking the rules has greater value. A person with principles breaks principles for you, which can prove your status in his heart. And if a person doesn't have principles to begin with, then no matter how many times he breaks the rules, no one will be moved."

"Alright. But is this beneficial to the long-term development of society?"

"You think creating a privileged class is wrong, fairness is not absolute, and not absolute is unfair. But in reality, absolute fairness itself is at the cost of sacrificing the development of some people. For example, the few people you treated specially this time, their talents are not limited to the work you arranged for them, and their subjective initiative has not been fully exerted. But for the sake of fairness, for the sake of not being special, you sacrificed their development. And this time, it's just slightly corrected back."

"But if it continues to develop like this, unfair social phenomena will still appear. For example, Tim got the admission letter directly, which is unfair to those students who need to prepare portfolios for a long time and have experienced strict application screening."

"I will never say things like 'there is no absolute fairness in this world'. An omnipotent ruler can ensure the absolute fairness of society. But as I said, absolute fairness itself is a kind of unfairness. Supplementing the shortcomings of disadvantaged groups is the simplest link, the most difficult is how to meet the development requirements of geniuses."

"From the surface, satisfying the development requirements of geniuses without a bottom line will inevitably sacrifice a part of fairness. They need a lot of resource support, need a certain degree of breaking the rules, and will occupy social resources that ordinary people cannot occupy. However, what you should focus on is not these things, but whether their development can bring enough social progress, and whether this progress can feed back to ordinary people, making their lives better than when it was absolutely fair before, even if there is a certain degree of unfairness. Isn't it?" ===== CHAPTER 4148 =====