Chapter 272 - Game with no Difficulty

“This is what Employee #427 did every day of every month of every year, and although others may have considered it soul rending, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been made exactly for this job.

“And Stanley was happy.

“The camera panned away before fading black, and this time the title of the game appeared on the screen.

“And then one day, something very peculiar happened.”

Something that would forever change Stanley; something he would never quite forget.

The game faded back in, showing Stanley who was still in front of the computer, but this time he wasn’t moving.

“He had been at his desk for nearly an hour when he had realized not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow.

“No one had shown up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say ‘hi’. Never in all his years at the company had this happened, this complete isolation.

The camera showed the other seats in the office which all happened to be empty.

Something was very clearly wrong.

Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time.

But as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office.”

As the narration finished, the camera panned away from the screen. Zhao Lei then realised he could control Stanley and start the game.

“What a weird start to the game.”

Zhao Lei was really confused, but he understood why Chen Mo said the game suited him. He was just like Stanley, someone who couldn’t escape work. On the surface he was incredibly happy and satisfied, but underneath that was someone incredibly sad and depressed.

Stanley’s job of pressing buttons on the keyboards following the instructions of the monitor, there was virtually no difference compared to a machine. But Zhao Lei couldn’t help but associate that with his job. Sure it was more complicated, but was he that much different from Stanley pressing on the keyboard?

Zhao Lei shook his head to usher away the weird thoughts in his mind, and looked around the room using his mouse.

The office was incredibly empty and quite small. He couldn’t interact with the computer, the filing cabinet, or the documents on the table. Zhao Lei left the office after triple checking he couldn’t do anything.

The rooms labeled 428 and 429 couldn’t be opened either.

The narration continued.

All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean?

Stanley decided to go to the meeting room; perhaps he had simply missed a memo.

There was a soft yet mysterious track in the background, and a weird narration to go with it. But the two combined fitted the game so well that Zhao Lei didn’t feel like anything was out of place, and even forgot that most games didn’t have weird narrations like these.

When Stanley came to a set of 2 open doors, he entered the door on his left.

The tone of the narrator was an incredibly natural one, as if it was something that was certain to happen. Zhao Lei didn’t put too much thought into it and walked through the door on the left.

The narrator would guide Zhao Lei through the next little bit of the game.

The meeting room was also completely empty, and so was the boss’s office.

Although there were a few forks in the road, Zhao Lei suppressed his curiosity and followed the instructions given by the narrator.

“Shocked, unraveled, Stanley wondered in disbelief who orchestrated this, what dark secret was being held from him!

“What he could not have known was that the keypad behind the boss’s desk guarded the terrible truth that his boss had been keeping from him.

“And so the boss had assigned it an extra secret PIN number. 2845.

“But of course, Stanley couldn’t possibly have known this.”

Zhao Lei quickly found the keypad as it wasn’t well hidden at all, typing in the pin as described by the narrator to reveal a secret passageway in the boss’s office.

“Yet incredibly, by simply pushing random buttons on the keypad, Stanley happened to input the correct code by sheer luck. Amazing.”

Zhao Lei needed a reason to complain about this narrator.

What? The keypad wasn’t hidden at all, nor was the pin complicated!

He thought it was a puzzle game, but it was too simple, it couldn’t even be considered a puzzle! He just had to key in the numbers like the narrator described to reveal the hidden passageway?

Holding back his complaints, Zhao Lei went into the passageway.

“He stepped into the newly opened passageway.”

He reached somewhere that was completely to the office that he was just it. It looked like a strange facility that was under construction. He then reached deep into the building through a creaking and shaking elevator.

After navigating a few more turns, he reached a large door that had the words “Mind Control Facility” written on it.

There were countless monitors on the walls of this huge room. Stanley pressed on a button, waking up all the monitors.

Stanley and his co-workers were seen on these monitors. Everyone was being monitored with no freedom in sight.

Stanley reached the core control center and discovered there were various mood controlling buttons: “Happy”, “Sad”, and “Satisfied”

He then reached the facility power room and turned off the power.

In the darkness came rays of light. There were blue skies, clouds, grass, everything freedom looked like.

Accompanied by the soothing music was the praises of the narrator as Stanley walked out of the facility power room.

“Stanley felt the cool breeze upon his skin, the feeling of liberation, the immense possibility of the new path before him.

“This was exactly the way, right now, that things were meant to happen.

“And Stanley was happy.”

This was where the game ended and Zhao Lei was returned to the starting screen.

Zhao Lei was confused that he beat the game like that.

Although the story was quite educational, going through the process of an office worker seeking freedom, wasn’t that too simplistic?

And could this really be considered a game?

Zhao Lei had a strange feeling inside of him throughout the game. There were various mysterious scenes, forks, and unfathomable narratives. He thought that it was a horror game and was expecting a jump scare.

But nothing came. He just kept following the guidance from the narrator, pressed a few buttons and managed to beat the game.

Zhao Lei was incredibly confused.

He looked at Chen Mo who was sitting next to him who had a smile on his face but didn’t seem to want to share why.

Zhao Lei started a new game thinking that there he must’ve missed something.