The Balance of life and death...
In that place, it had never tilted.
Life would bring death, and death would bring life.
It was only in such a special zone that he had so many chances to practice this so‑called balancing.
But any art of balancing, if it can’t guarantee the life safety of the one being balanced, will inevitably go wrong.
At this moment, almost everyone had stopped working overtime. Half the people were applying to resign and jump ship to Zone C.
This was the sign of a team completely collapsing.
Even though only one person had died, the butterfly‑effect chain reaction it caused made it impossible for the team to return to what it had been.
"Shut up! All of you shut up! You don’t want your points anymore?"
"I’ve got more than eighty points in my hands right now!"
"I can give you these points. As long as you work overtime properly, you’ll be able to enter Three Towers Company with me!"
"If you feel your work accuracy has dropped, just report it to me!"
"A11 is just an exception! An exception!"
Yun Xinghe spread his arms wide:
"If you walk away now, then don’t blame me for not giving you these points!"
If you were an outsider, you’d definitely be able to calmly analyze that even if you stayed, those points would never end up in your hands.
If you were an outsider, you could definitely see that this was just Yun Xinghe’s rhetoric.
But everyone here was an insider. These points were all bought with their Life Value. When Yun Xinghe used points to threaten them, it really did make many people think: I worked myself half to death for those points—if I quit now and they go to someone else, what a waste.
Sometimes, people working in the corporate world tend to fall into a strange pattern. Many companies withhold one month’s salary, or separate base salary from commissions.
When things aren’t going well and you want to leave, if you quit, at most you can get your base salary, but forget about the bulk of your sales commission.
So just to get that commission, you often stay one more month.
But when you’ve stayed one more month, next month’s sales commission is generated again.
This moment is exactly like that moment.
The renewed silence let Yun Xinghe see hope.
As long as he could steady this crowd, the next step was to go crazy on stimulants, burn through stimulants at any cost.
hp loans solve the hp problem; stimulants solve the dr problem.
That way, he still had hope.
But suddenly, the silence was broken.
"Sunk costs don’t factor into major decisions; past losses shouldn’t affect current decisions. We can’t just let the driver take us somewhere wrong just because we’ve already paid the fare!"
This time, the one who stood up was Clark Kent, that former Zone C elite.
Clark Kent said:
"I’m resigning, Boss Yun. I hope you can give us the points, but if... if you don’t, I’ll still resign."
Just like when choosing a boss, Clark Kent could precisely spot the problems in Li Weiwei and turn her strengths into weaknesses.
Same here now: Yun Xinghe using points to threaten everyone was his advantage in this moment, but Clark Kent’s next words instantly flipped it into a disadvantage:
"I’m leaving. If you don’t give me my points, that means that in your eyes, plundering our points is justified."
"If you can’t even part ways cleanly, how am I supposed to believe that if I keep staying, you’ll ever give me my points?"
Yun Xinghe’s expression twisted with venom again.
A Zone C spy! This Clark must be a spy sent by Zone C!
Many bosses want smart employees, but not employees who are too smart. Clark was the textbook example.
...
...
Zone D.
[Zone‑wide notice: Zone A employee Feng Shan has killed Zelatan, a serious violation of the employee code, and will be erased.]
Once the zone‑wide notice appeared, Lorenzo quickly realized something was wrong.
D02 was in charge of internal affairs, which included helping Lorenzo track dr values. Today dr values were invisible, and then something happened in Zone A.
This made it easy for D02 to start making connections:
"Officer, looks like someone in Zone A had dr too low and did something irrational. We have to tighten up on prevention and not repeat the mistakes Zone A made."
Lorenzo said:
"Then D02, tell me—how am I supposed to prevent it?"
D02 didn’t speak, so Lorenzo asked and answered his own question:
"There’s no way to prevent it, D02. Zone A is about to collapse; morale is falling apart."
"I didn’t realize this game was played like this."
"We’re close to losing too."
Lorenzo finally understood what dr was.
It’s the basic info on a resume; it’s the reason a person has to keep living and has to keep working; it’s the bonds and motivation tying someone to this world; it’s family, love, kinship, responsibility, the willingness to give.
In real companies, if someone has a lot of people to support and a very strong sense of responsibility...
Then that person won’t resign easily.
If you tell them to work overtime, they work overtime. If you tell them to risk their life, they risk their life.
For their kids, their spouse, their parents, many people can work like maniacs.
These things chain them down and keep them working overtime.
In reality, dr values are invisible, and yet visible.
Although there’s no concrete number for dr in reality, you can clearly see on a person all the things that force them to struggle on.
Shrewd leaders can, through various methods, figure out which employees are the docile workhorses.
But in this game, dr is completely invisible.
Which means the bosses can’t make employees work overtime without bottom line anymore.
D02 and D03 were the brains of Zone D, so of course they were smart.
D02 fully understood what Lorenzo meant.
"I’m sorry, I can’t solve this problem for you, Officer."
"Because once dr values went invisible, our actuarial models broke down too. Right now the best way to prevent problems... is to stop overtime. Let employees’ dr values recover in a healthy way."
"Which means we adopt the same strategy as Zone C."
"But not long ago, we gave 28 points to Zone C. Zone C may have no points left, but their hidden hp pool is still there, and the gap between their points and ours is very small."
"Yet their Life Value is far higher than ours. In terms of hidden points, because we had to give them those 28 points, we’ve already fallen behind Zone C."
"And if Zone A collapses..."
Lorenzo gave a bitter smile and picked up where D02 left off:
"If Zone A collapses, those employees are far more likely to head to Zone C. Because Zone C’s anti‑overtime strategic leaning is right there for all to see."
"They’ll definitely be much more popular than our Zone D."
"By then, in population capital and life capital, we won’t be able to compete with Zone C at all..."
"If Zone A is done for, we’re done for too..."
The rapid twists of the situation all made perfect sense, yet unfolded so fast that even Lorenzo couldn’t keep up...
A single move—making dr values invisible—actually set off such a terrifying chain reaction. It let Zone C in this game of chess swiftly checkmate Zone A, and checkmate itself as well.