Interactive Fiction: The Right Choice After Unemployment

Chapter 1 I'm Finished

"I am done."

Zheng Zhuo was lying on the narrow bed in the rented house in a large font, looking at the familiar ceiling and muttering to himself.

In the small room, a few cardboard boxes were randomly thrown in the corner, and some pens, paper, water cups and other small things could be seen inside.

But their owners are obviously not in the mood to clean up at the moment.

"Ha ha……"

Zheng Zhuoqian laughed twice.

"I'm really unemployed."

……

To be precise, Zheng Zhuo has been unemployed for a week and three days.

After graduating from university, Zheng Zhuo entered a well-known company by virtue of his personal ability.At that time, he was still complacent for a while, thinking that his ability was finally appreciated.

Thinking about it now, human resources probably just took a fancy to the work-study experience that was so full in his resume.

Overtime, overtime, overtime.Overtime at noon, overtime at night, overtime on weekends, and overtime on holidays.

"You are the highly anticipated newcomer" is followed by "Now is the time for business development", and "Now is the time for business development" is followed by "You see peers are working overtime".

Zheng Zhuo, who was caught up in one trick after another that was difficult to distinguish between true and false, lived up to the resilience he honed during his work-study program and stayed here for a full six years.

However, the situation did not get better, it got worse.

As more and more competitors squeezed into the piece of cake that Zheng Zhuo and his industry were eating, the overtime culture quickly swelled to a terrifying level.

Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, one o'clock.The time to go home is constantly delayed, but the time to go to work has not been delayed by a minute.Bosses began to manage their employees in increasingly high-handed ways.

Finally, Zheng Zhuo, who had only slept for four hours a day for three consecutive weeks, quietly unplugged the cables from the computer case one by one in the morning meeting, and then lifted it up.

In the next second, the computer case flew past the boss's head.

"Bang!" A loud noise.

Zheng Zhuo, who had recovered a little bit of sanity, heard the sound of his future and the case falling apart.

……

"Haha... That job slip says salary, it's quite good..."

Zheng Zhuo swiped his phone aimlessly, and smiled wryly.

Compensation should be compensated, and compensation should be received.It has been more than a week since he left the company. If he were to describe his current mood, "confused" would be more appropriate than "happy", "relieved", "frightened", and "helpless".

But even if the heart has not been relieved, the mind has already understood one thing.

"Not looking for a job, no way..."

28 years old, male, single, four-figure savings, above-average height, and under-average weight.The stunt is good at breaking disposable chopsticks into two neatly.business skills...

I have been working for six years, and all I do is chores.If you think about it carefully, you don't have any business skills.

"……I'm doomed?"

Zheng Zhuo didn't know how many times he said this sentence today.He blankly searches for employment-related content on his phone.

"It's more reliable to look at the forum first."

Hot post: [-] reasons why you should never quit your job during this period.

Hot post: Had I known this, I would not have resigned.

Hot post: I resigned because I was not satisfied with the nature of the job.Reply: The landlord is an idiot. //It's still too late to cry and beg for personnel. //The future you will want to beat the present you to death.

"..."

Swipe up to close the page.

"Let's find some job-seeking apps."

Zheng Zhuo turned to the mobile application store.

Employment, employment, employment games, business games, employment psychological tests, games...

"There are so many games with this theme. No, why are you in the mood now..."

"...can be employed as a crocodile? What kind of strange game is this..."

"...Hey! Why did you die again..."

"..."

"……what!"

Zheng Zhuo raised his head abruptly.It was just now that the sun was shining brightly outside the window, but now it was pitch black.

……

"Maybe the last person I should trust is myself."

Zheng Zhuo finally got up from the bed.He bites into the plastic wrapping of instant noodles and starts making dinner while he deletes the software that was added to the phone in the hours that disappeared.

"Delete the game, delete the game, delete the software that looks deceiving at first glance, leave the famous job-seeking software behind, delete the game..."

"……Um?"

Zheng Zhuo's fingers across the phone screen stopped on a software icon.

The icon itself is completely black, with a red arc in the lower half of the icon.That mouth that looks like a smile... only without a face.

"It really has a simple enough icon."

Zheng Zhuo's eyes slid down.

collective subconscious.

This is the name of this software.The name is also very concise.

"Have I downloaded this? Ah, is it some kind of psychological testing software..."

Zheng Zhuo didn't think much about it.He clicked in.

……

collective subconscious.

This is the collective experience that human beings have gained in the past historical evolution process.It is a general and collective psychological activity of all human beings that transcends personal acquired life experience and transcends individuals, nations, and races.In the hypothesis put forward by Carl Gustav Jung...

"Wait, wait, it's been a long time."

Unexpectedly, after clicking into the software, the background of the application is completely black, there are no icons, buttons or guidance on the interface, only large blocks of white words.

Zheng Zhuo kept sliding down.The further down the slide, the more psychological terms and the more obscure the articles.It was clearly written in Chinese characters, and he knew every word, but he couldn't understand them together.

"What is this? Psychology paper software? Who would develop such a thing... ah."

He finally slid to the bottom.There, there was finally a line of words that he could understand.

"This software was developed to conduct experiments related to the collective subconscious. The purpose of this experiment is to obtain data on the behavior patterns of individuals in unconventional environments."

There is also a button below this line.Buttons are black on a white background.

【I know】

"...The human-computer interface design is not very good..."

It turns out that the long paragraph above is the informed consent.Just like the kind of long articles that need to be confirmed before entering the game.

Zheng Zhuo thought so, and clicked the [I know] button.

Immediately afterwards, the screen went completely black again.Immediately, a white frame was displayed on the phone screen.Above the white box are two tab pages.The currently displayed tab is [Subconscious World], and the second tab that is not displayed is [Subconscious Voting].

"...the world and... the vote."

Zheng Zhuo frowned.They seem unrelated.

Moreover, the currently displayed [Subconscious World] page has nothing.No matter how I swipe the phone screen, only black pages are displayed.

So, Zheng Zhuo clicked on the second tab, [Subconscious Voting].

This time there is content on the screen.but……

"Everything needs to be filled out by yourself... Is it really a psychological test software?"

Zheng Zhuo looked at the content on the screen.

At the top is a line of small characters.

"Ask questions with options. All humanity will subconsciously choose options."

Below this line is the fill-in area.

【problem】

【(to be filled in)】

【Option [-]】

【(to be filled in)】

【Option [-]】

【(to be filled in)】

【+Add option】

【Poll】

"All mankind... is too exaggerated. Is it some university doing an experiment? Maybe it's the kind that tells the subjects that 'all mankind will answer your questions', but in fact only some recruited volunteers will answer The type of your question."

Zheng Zhuo stroked his chin, thinking.

Even if there are only some volunteers on the other side, he still wants to give it a try, but...

"Suddenly I am asked to ask questions of all mankind, and I don't know what to ask."

If you say that what you are most concerned about now is definitely employment.Ask about employment?
"Wait, to let others make judgments, you have to write a lot of personal information about yourself. I don't know the details of the software, writing personal information is too dangerous...I thought of it."

Zheng Zhuo suddenly laughed.

"That's what you said. 'All humanity will subconsciously choose options'. If so..."

Let all mankind evaluate your software, right?
Zheng Zhuo tapped the screen and entered the question.

【problem】

[If you are unemployed.When searching for job-seeking questions, software appears that can ask the subconscious mind of all human beings.What should I do? 】

【Option [-]】

[God-sent opportunity!Trust the software and input more information to find a way to make money quickly]

【Option [-]】

[What's the use of this?Just keep it in your phone and just try to play it whenever you remember.Jobs should be found or have to be found. 】

【Option [-]】

【Suspicious software!Taking up memory may also carry viruses.Delete now and get a real job. 】

【Poll】

……

"Let me see what all mankind is thinking."

Zheng Zhuo said half-jokingly, and pressed the [Start a Vote] button.

The fillable content immediately becomes the text displayed on the screen.At the same time, a bar graph appears below all the options.There is a percentage number on the top of each single bar of the bar graph, and all the single bars are constantly floating up and down, and the numbers are also jumping at a speed that is difficult to see with the naked eye.

"Oh...it's amazing, it's really moving."

Zheng Zhuo couldn't help sighing.

Has this software really entered the statistics?No, no, no matter how you think about it, it is impossible to vote so soon.Even for volunteers, it takes time from receiving questions, reading questions, thinking and voting.This should be just the "voting" dynamic effect made by the website.

Zheng Zhuo stared at the voting page.After a while, his eyes began to blur, and the dynamic effect of the voting did not change.

"How long will it take...Ah! My instant noodles!"

Zheng Zhuo threw the phone aside.He lifted the cover of the instant noodles and frowned—the noodles soaked when the software was just deleted were already rotten.

"Evil... hey. Forget it, it's the same if you eat it in your stomach."

Regardless of moral considerations or savings considerations, Zheng Zhuo's current situation does not support his waste.He sighed, and began to eat cheap instant noodles that shattered at the touch of a finger.

"Collective subconscious..."

Zheng Zhuo never thought of himself as a smart person.Like now, he downloads a software that many people will vote on his question, but he has no idea what it will do.

"(I can think of usage...I think about it...)"

Zheng Zhuo thought of himself.He was fired more than a week ago because he couldn't stand the excessive overtime.And until now, he still doesn't know whether the decision he made was right or wrong.

Is it better to be patient?Or would it be better to resign sooner?
It's a hard question to ask other people.Even if he asks relatives and friends, or posts on the Internet, he always feels that the other party's views reflect his own position, or that it is a minority view of a few people.

So, is using this software the best answer?

I don't know who the questioner is, and I don't know who the answerer is.Answering out of "subconsciousness", I have no position of my own, and there are no spectators.

If there are really correct answers to the questions in the world, then wouldn’t the answer that is closest to the correct answer be the one that the most people choose in this poll survey?

"...Hey, hey. Don't place your hopes on some software that came out of nowhere."

Zheng Zhuo smiled.He talked to himself.

"Anyway, let's take a look at the voting results this time."

　After [Option 1], [Option 1] and [Option [-]], you can leave a message in the form of [this chapter says]. A message under [-] id counts as [-] vote.

　　Because it is not sure whether it can pass the review... The voting deadline for Chapter 1 is to be determined.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)