Life Dungeon Game

The first thing that catches the eye is the warm lighting and the area divided into two parts.

Zadi stepped through the open door.

The lights on both sides of the metal door cast two completely different shadows on him, as if two people were overlapping.

-

In the elevator

Coles glanced down at the shadow beneath his feet, then looked up at the security camera in the elevator.

The Gene Era

"The door is open."

A hoarse voice came through the tiny earpiece in his ear.

Chapter 463 The Fate We Were Born With (Long Chapter, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

"Recruiting Factory Technicians"

Requirements: Under 40 years old, weekly salary of 350 federal dollars or more, good health, hardworking.

"Weekly salary of 350 Federal Dollars or more, negotiable."

The man stared at the job posting on the door, then looked up at the sign in front of him: 'Allen Job Placement Agency'.

He turned his head and looked at the girl beside him who was intently looking at the job postings. "Are you looking for a job?"

“No,” the girl looked up and shook her head slightly. “I know that after my father lost his job, he often looked at these job postings, trying to see if he could find a new job. Over time, it has become a habit, so I subconsciously want to take a look.”

"So have you found a suitable job for your father?"

The man looked at the job postings and asked in a low voice.

“No,” the girl shook her head gently and said softly, “There are too many unemployed people now, and large companies are basically not posting job openings for management positions.”

"What about the factory?"

The man looked at the wall covered with flyers, many of which were job postings from various factories. These factories seemed to be short-staffed, the only problem being that the wages seemed a bit low.

"Although the factory has always been short-staffed, the recruitment requirements are getting higher and higher,"

The girl looked at the factory job postings and said softly, "There are many people looking for work now, so factories can easily find people. When my father first lost his job, the upper age limit for factory recruitment was 42, but now it has been lowered to 40, and many factories have even lowered it to 38."

At this point, the girl paused for a moment, "Moreover, the labor intensity in the factory has increased compared to before. My father had been showing signs of poor health. I called many factories and found that they generally do not want to hire people like him who work long hours and are older for office administration positions. They feel that he cannot do much work and is very likely to die suddenly on the assembly line."

"What about other, less demanding industries?"

The man's gaze fell on a job posting for a full-time employee at a convenience store.

"Most bosses now only hire employees under 40,"

The girl sighed.

"People in this age group are physically strong, can work overtime, and ask for less pay, making them high-quality employees for employers."

"And my father, who is nearly 45 years old and unemployed, is not very popular with bosses."

"Even if there are some companies that are willing to accept older job seekers, the wages are very low, and they are offered as part-time or gig work. They do not provide social security or medical insurance, and the money earned can barely cover household expenses, let alone mortgage payments."

“Actually, I knew that my father had found some odd jobs during this period, but these odd jobs didn’t last long. This is because the industries that need odd jobs are basically industries with peak and off-peak seasons like the tides. They only hire odd jobs to help out during the few months when business is good in the peak season. Most of the time, they don’t hire extra workers.”

At this point, the girl paused for a moment, then looked up at the towering buildings in the distance. "When I'm alone and quiet, I often wonder, what did my father do wrong?"

"When I used to work..."

He often worked late, leaving home at six or seven in the morning and not returning until eleven or twelve at night. For a long time, I complained that he neglected his family and didn't take care of my mother.

"When my mother was dying, he was away on a business trip and couldn't come back to see her one last time."

"But he worked so hard his whole life, and it seems like he didn't save anything. His grandfather's medical expenses, his mother's medical expenses, the mortgage interest, my tuition fees, he finally saved up some savings to buy a house, and then he was laid off and unemployed."

"I still can't understand why my father was laid off."

"He was smart and hardworking. His termination notice stated that he was being laid off due to adjustments in company projects. I knew that he had been assigned to a new project, which encountered problems, so his entire team was laid off."

"But was the decision to adjust the company's project his own? He worked hard, in the wrong direction, day and night, and in the end the project ran into problems, resulting in his layoff. Why should he bear the consequences of someone else's wrong decision?"

The girl had her back to the person behind her, and she covered her face with her hands, so that no one could see her expression.

"In this world, many times, hard work and talent cannot change one's destiny."

The man behind him seemed to remember something and sighed softly.

The girl paused for a moment, then wiped her cheek.

“I asked a classmate whose family owns a bank. If we can’t pay our mortgage and property taxes, the city government might take back the house and auction it off.”

"There are too many people who can't pay their mortgages right now, and too many houses are being auctioned off. These houses may be auctioned off at 70% or even less of the purchase price."

“Our family’s loan is a ‘split repayment’ method, where the monthly repayment amount is the same. In the early stages of this repayment method, most of the repayments are interest, and not much of the principal is settled. We have only been in the loan for a few years now, which means that so far, most of the loan repayments we have made have been interest to the bank, with only a small amount of principal being paid back.”

"Based on this calculation, after the house is auctioned off and we pay off the principal, penalty interest, and property taxes owed, we will hardly receive any money. The down payment and the portion of the loan already paid will all be lost, and we might even be burdened with debts to the bank. And this is assuming the house is even successfully auctioned off."

The girl turned around and smiled somewhat dejectedly.

"This is the result of my father's lifelong efforts."

Then she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

“It’s much better to say it out loud, Uncle Roger. Don’t tell my dad about this, so he won’t worry.”

"I don't really have anything to worry about. After all, these experiences are my dad's. He didn't worry about them, so I don't need to either. Especially after I learned how capable he was in the past, this kind of worry has faded a lot."

"Although I still have some inexplicable resentment in my heart, I am no longer worried. This 'venting' is my last obsession."

"My mother often said that being able to live well is the greatest happiness."

People suffering from serious illnesses or whose lives are about to end often say, "Live well."

Annie's story is actually

This didn't particularly move Roger; he was used to the heart-wrenching separations and deaths of those at the bottom of society, and far more tragic and desolate fates were commonplace in his memory.

Having witnessed so much of the world's most rudimentary circumstances, he had become numb to such tragic stories.

When he heard this story, he was reminded of the boy who risked his life to bring down the Anvis Power Group.

The boy seemed to belong to an organization called 'k'.

After meeting that boy, he also developed some kind of connection with the organization.

Every member of this organization seemed like a reckless madman, rushing into the fire like a moth drawn to a flame.

They all seemed to be carrying a kind of oppressive despair.

The boy named Qiao Yin faced the purest form of despair: the despair of losing his family and having nowhere to escape.

At this moment, the despair facing 'Pete' is gentler, yet more painful. He has worked hard and struggled his whole life, once thinking he could change his fate, but in the end, he still fell into a deeper and darker abyss.

At this moment, his past struggles and hard work seemed to have lost all value. What brought him despair was not a sudden accident, but a certain inevitability that he took for granted.

It is a destiny that cannot be changed even if one devotes one's entire life to it; it is one's innate fate.

Of course, all of this is based on the premise that 'Pet' is an ordinary person born into ordinariness, rather than an extraordinary individual who has a glorious history and lives in seclusion in the countryside.

Contrary to Annie's belief that her 'father' was always very powerful, Roger thought that Pete might have gained his supernatural powers after losing his job, and before that, Pete was probably just an ordinary person.

After Pete lost his job, he may have met someone from the 'K' organization by chance, and then joined the 'K' organization by sheer coincidence.

For a potentially high-ranking secretive organization, it is easy to suddenly grant a member great power; however, great power often comes at a high price.

Roger didn't tell Annie any of this. He just nodded slightly, indicating that he would keep it a secret for Annie, and then gestured for Annie to turn to the side.

Annie immediately understood and turned around to cooperate.

The two looked at the job postings again, and behind them, a man in plain clothes hurriedly walked into the depths of the street.

Then the two turned around and walked out onto the street.

——

The moment Officer Zadi stepped through the door, the metal door behind him spun rapidly again, quickly closing the door shut.

Only then did Zadi look up at the scene around him.

Although this 'safe' is named after a 'cabinet', its interior space is more like a small room.

Using the door as a dividing line, the entire room can be divided into two spaces, left and right.

On the left is a huge refrigerator with a transparent glass door. Inside the refrigerator are neatly arranged test tube racks, most of which are empty except for some 'reagents' on the top shelf.

On the left side of this floor are some translucent milky white liquids, while on the right are some test tubes that shimmer with a red glow. The test tube racks in the middle on both sides are empty.

This is the situation on the left side of this 'small room'.

To the right of the small room was a row of silver metal cabinets.

This is the classic design of a federal 'supercomputer,' which is composed of multiple computing units assembled into a giant computer unit, and these computers are all very expensive.

On the far right of this computer is a simple electronic screen, which seems to be its interactive device; the screen is currently off.

Zadi's gaze lingered on the screen for a long while before he slowly shook his head and walked towards the refrigerator.

His gaze swept over the reagents in the refrigerator, then he opened the refrigerator door and took out the seven reagents with the darkest color in the upper right corner.

Then he opened his clothes, revealing a portable test tube bag inside, and inserted all seven test tubes into it.

After doing all this, he glanced at the supercomputer again, his gaze lingering on the monitor for a moment before he shook his head, closed the refrigerator door, and walked toward the metal door.

This time, he verified his identity and password again.

The heavy metal door opened quickly.

As the metal door opened, his gaze swept over the monitor one last time.

He vaguely felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

He didn't look away until the metal door was fully open, and then he walked out.

Then the metal door slowly closed.

Card--

As the metal door slammed shut for the last time, a slender figure slowly emerged from the void, gazing at the now-closed metal door.