latelenovela Chapter 341 Du Xiaobing's Ruthless Destruction in the Clouds?
Chapter 341 Du Xiaobing's Ruthless Destruction in the Clouds?
As the holographic projection wove a galaxy onto the dome, Zhen Xiaosi was stirring her coconut iced latte with a bone china spoon.
Amid the crackling of ice, the live stream chat flooded the virtual mourning hall like a tidal wave, and the reward effects transformed into a shower of gold leaf, pelting down on the composite portrait of the deceased.
"Heartbroken Beauty No. 3" knelt before the altar covered with a pure Persian wool carpet, timing her sobs with a stopwatch. Resin tears clinging to her false eyelashes refracted an eerie iridescence under the spotlight. Trembling, she gripped the edge of the crystal coffin, the shattered diamonds reflecting off the reflective paint, determined to shatter this feigned grief into countless unrecoverable fragments.
"Dad, you left so suddenly... How could you bear to leave me all alone..." The hoarse sobs, mixed with carefully crafted breathy voices, trembled and accurately struck the tear ducts of everyone in front of the screen, while on the backstage monitoring screen, the real-time soaring reward data was ruthlessly revealing the true nature of this performance.
Du Xiaobing leaned back in her leather swivel chair, wiping away the scarlet lipstick with a wet wipe. The screen scrolled not only with order data, but also with "emotional packages"—from the silent tears of the "restrained and patient" type to the whispered murmurs of the "reminiscing and grateful" type, each type marked with a different price. For her, emotions could be priced like commodities.
She suddenly recalled the shocking elegiac duel in the bustling East Market of the Tang Dynasty. Back then, with a monthly salary of 20,000 coins, she was not only a top singer, but she also shattered the moonlight with her torn voice. At least the sorrow at that time still carried a burning human touch.
Today, the professional mourners she has cultivated are nothing more than assembly line workers, disassembling and quantifying the most complex human emotions, and then packaging them into commodities for people to consume.
"President Zhen, the donations for Starry Night Funeral have exceeded eight figures. This Du Xiaobing is something else..." Assistant Xiao Yao's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.
Zhen Xiaosi stared at the holographic white lily floating in the live stream, the water droplets on the petals actually being nano-sized reflective particles. She suddenly recalled the story of Du Xiaobing in historical records, who squandered his family fortune on an exorbitantly priced stone coffin for his father, Du Laozao… History always repeats itself in surprising ways, except that today's "excessive consumption" is no longer limited to the physical world, but is growing wildly in the virtual cloud, eroding humanity's last emotional bottom line.
The bells of the virtual funeral parlor suddenly rang, jolting everyone out of their data-driven frenzy. This was a special effect prepared for the next "immersive memorial service," but it felt more like a death knell tolling for this era driven by profit…
In this ruthless cloud built of code and desire, there is no place for real sorrow. All that remains is the statistically measured traffic and the endless pursuit of profit, like an absurd drama without end, constantly unfolding in the torrent of numbers.
As dusk bathed the white marble railings of the cemetery in a rusty red hue, Du Xiaobing kicked his sheepskin slippers to the side and stepped into his ten-centimeter Jimmy Choo stilettos—the heels clicking coldly on the marble tiles.
She leaned over the monitor screen, her gaze sweeping over the employment data that pulsed in the blue light: the numbers in the working hours column were climbing the salary curve, and the densely woven outsourcing contracts gleamed on the screen, like a spider web woven from countless silver threads, weaving the veins of the cemetery economy into an intricate cocoon.
At this moment, the evening breeze was swirling pine needles past the railing. She stared at the newly popped-up signing notification in the lower right corner of the screen, her heels unconsciously grinding against the mosaic pattern on the ground—the marble patterns, soaked in twilight, were permeating with the rusty colors of the Tang Dynasty, weaving a double reflection with the surging digital tides in the screen's data stream in the quiet twilight of the cemetery.
Three hundred meters away, Song Daqin's cracked palms rubbed heavily against the tombstone, the cold words beneath his thumb seeming etched into his skin. Disinfectant mixed with sweat and acid soaked through his faded work clothes, and the old moss under his fingernails was a dark green, like the indelible marks of suffering.
Inside the makeshift tin shed, Song Erjiu huddled among more than twenty fellow workers, the incandescent light overhead buzzing, the exhaustion from fourteen hours of work fermenting in the cramped space…
Their meager salaries were barely enough to sustain their meager lives, and even the most basic social security for their future became an unattainable fantasy.
So-called "flexible employment" is nothing more than turning them into wandering migratory birds, driven by different labor companies day after day, drifting aimlessly in the cold winter of survival.
Just then, the sound of a vehicle crushing gravel suddenly came from outside the shed. A blinding beam of headlights pierced through the gaps in the sheet metal, illuminating Song Erjiu's terrified and confused eyes. The truth behind this "flexible employment" seemed about to be torn open...