Chapter 79: Capital Game

Qiu Yinong and the Middle-aged Uncle stood at the entrance of the Escape Room Game. The difficulty displayed above the door had also changed:

[Normal]

The two merely glanced at it before stepping into the Secret Room. Just like before, the room contained nothing but two wooden chairs.

They sat down.

A sudden bout of dizziness washed over them. When they opened their eyes again, they had arrived in a new Secret Room.

To be precise, this Secret Room was the lobby of a hotel.

Directly opposite them were the main doors of the hotel, but they were currently secured by an Electronic Combination Lock.

The lobby featured sofas, a reception desk with a computer for checking in guests, a pantry, restrooms, and even a few potted money trees.

The two approached the door to examine the Electronic Combination Lock. It only required a three-digit passcode.

'A three-digit passcode... Even if we tried every single combination, we could brute-force it.'

'But only a fool would actually do that. Who knows if entering the wrong code would trigger some deadly trap.'

'The words "Golden Brilliance Hotel" are displayed on the wall, which means this is a hotel lobby.'

'Since it is a hotel lobby, the check-in system at the front desk must contain critical clues.'

As he was lost in thought, he noticed that Qiu Yinong had already taken a seat at the front desk's computer, pulling up the operating system to investigate.

The Middle-aged Uncle hastily jogged over to look at the hotel's basic information.

The screen indicated that the current time was 5:00 PM, and the hotel was fully booked.

Suddenly...

The Middle-aged Uncle and Qiu Yinong both stared at the monitor in utter shock.

"Floor 1, Floor 2, Floor 3..."

"Floor 100, Floor 1,000..."

As they scrolled down with the Computer Mouse, they were astonished to discover that this hotel seemed to have an infinite number of floors. They could never reach the bottom of the list.

On the operating interface, there was a [Notice] tab. In the top right corner of the [Notice] section was a tiny [?].

Qiu Yinong moved the Computer Mouse and hovered over the [?], prompting a line of text to appear.

[Any notice issued by the front desk will be received by the occupants of every room, and the instructions within will be strictly executed.]

Just as the two were puzzling over this, a dialog box abruptly popped up on the hotel's check-in interface. It read...

[A traveler has booked Room 8 at the Golden Brilliance Hotel. Please vacate Room 8 before 18:00.]

Qiu Yinong clicked the Computer Mouse to inspect the details and found that Room 8 was located on the second floor. The second floor had a total of ten rooms, numbered from 1 to 10.

She then checked the third floor.

The rooms on the third floor were numbered 11 through 20, and the fourth floor held rooms 21 through 30.

The pattern continued accordingly.

Finally, she clicked on the details for Room 8 and discovered that it was not only currently occupied, but the guest was booked to stay until 8:00 AM the following morning.

"Wait a minute, if someone is already living there, how could it be booked?" the Middle-aged Uncle said, utterly speechless.

Seeing that Qiu Yinong remained silent, he added, "Since the occupants will execute any [Notice] issued by the front desk, then..."

His implication was obvious: they should just force the current occupant of Room 8 to check out.

Qiu Yinong shot him a cold glance, then immediately opened the [Notice] tab and rapidly began typing on the keyboard.

[Notice: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the guest residing in Room 8 is requested to relocate to Room 9, and inform the guest in Room 9 to relocate to Room 10. The guest in Room 9 is to relocate to Room 10 and inform the guest in Room 10... and so on. You may only relocate to the next consecutively numbered room after the guest from the preceding room has entered yours.]

"What is the point of doing this?" the Middle-aged Uncle asked, deeply puzzled.

"Have you ever read Das Kapital?"

The Middle-aged Uncle didn't understand why she would ask such a question, but he answered anyway, "I have. The essence of capital is exploitation. For example, suppose you create one hundred in labor value in a day, but your daily wage is only eighty. That remaining twenty is the value exploited by capital."

"Go on."

"As time goes on, capital will continue to squeeze your labor value—like extending your working hours without increasing your wage..."

Speaking up to this point, the Middle-aged Uncle seemed to realize something and quickly looked back at the computer monitor.

He saw that right after the [Notice] was issued...

About a minute later, the previously occupied Room 8 became vacant, and the guest information for Room 9 updated to show the person who had been staying in Room 8.

Another minute passed, and the guest information for Room 10 updated to show the person who had been in Room 9.

The pattern continued down the line.

Every passing minute, a room's guest information would update to reflect the guest from the preceding room...

"You... you exploited exactly one minute of each guest's time to facilitate the room change! Assuming this hotel has a thousand floors, with ten rooms per floor, that's ten thousand rooms. Squeezing one minute out of every single room equates to ten thousand minutes!"

"Ten thousand minutes is roughly one hundred and sixty-six and a half hours. In other words, long before 8:00 AM tomorrow, not only will everyone still have a room to stay in, but Room 8 will have been completely vacated."

After finishing his deduction, the Middle-aged Uncle looked at Qiu Yinong with an incredibly weird expression. This kind of ruthless manipulation...

'It would be a tragedy if she didn't become a corrupt capitalist!'

At this moment, he finally understood why Liu Xing had given such an aloof response when he asked him about this earlier.

'How is anyone supposed to play this game?'

'I hadn't even begun to wrap my head around the problem, and she had already typed up and sent out the [Notice].'

'Thank god it seems like we clear this Secret Room together. I can just get carried to victory. If I had to clear this alone...'

'I can't even imagine it!'

Thus, he probed tentatively, "So, is the first digit of the Electronic Combination Lock an 8?"

"It's too early to jump to conclusions. The Electronic Lock requires a three-digit passcode, which means there is a high probability that two more batches of guests will arrive to check in," Qiu Yinong replied, her eyes locked onto the screen.

The Middle-aged Uncle pondered for a moment before voicing a lingering doubt that had been gnawing at his heart:

"Since you understand capital so well, could you help me figure out a question I've had?"

Qiu Yinong acted as if she hadn't heard him.

Undeterred, the Middle-aged Uncle continued, "When I was alive, I worked at my company for ten solid years. My monthly salary was 5,500. I originally thought that was decent enough, but one day, the company hired a fresh graduate to be my apprentice, and his starting salary was 6,500. I was furious and went to argue with management. In the end, not only did I fail to get a raise, but I was fired. I just can't understand it. Why?"

A flash of anger crossed the Middle-aged Uncle's face. He had worked diligently and conscientiously his entire life, yet in the end, even a brand-new employee earned more than he did.

He had originally believed that, given his Seniority, asking for a raise would easily net him something around seven or eight thousand. Instead, he was abruptly terminated...

"If you get a raise, then wouldn't the people who joined the company at the same time as you also demand a raise? Wouldn't the employees who joined even earlier than you also want one? This isn't just a matter of whether you alone get a raise; it's a matter of whether the entire workforce gets a raise," Qiu Yinong replied without even turning her head.

The Middle-aged Uncle stood frozen in place. He had envisioned countless possibilities, but he had never expected an answer like this...

Becoming unemployed in middle age, murdering his boss, and descending into Hell after death—the root cause of all this tragedy was actually so laughable. He retorted, "I don't get it. If the company wanted to exploit its employees, why would they give a new hire such a high starting salary?"

"There are many factors involved in that. Simply put, if they don't raise the recruitment salary, they can't hire anyone new."

Having said her piece, Qiu Yinong ignored him.

At that exact moment, another window popped up on the computer screen. But when she saw the information displayed on it, her eyes widened in shock...