Just as she opened the system to start learning, a communication window popped up directly from the system interface, featuring Utopia Security CFO Zhao Yi, his face flushed and his eyes bleary. Five muscle-bound brutes were serving as her makeshift flesh-and-blood sofa.
"Pick any one you like! They're yours for the taking!" she said, her slimy hand carelessly caressing each man's face.
"What makes you think I'd be into that? If I were to fool around with men, that would be like overtime. Are you going to pay me overtime?" Linda Linda requested as her mechanical bird brought over a semi-translucent silk nightgown for her to slip on.
"So, what do you want to play with, me? Come over to my place, I have everything there! Let's play together!" Zhao Yi leaped up and dove straight into the slime-filled pond next to him, filled with men.
"How many men have you hired, anyway?" Linda Linda began to worry for her friend in the company capable of holding a proper conversation. "Where did you get all that money? You didn't embezzle it from the company, did you?"
"I'll have you know, Sun Jack is no fool. His 200 Clone People have already joined the company and are bound to sort through the company data. Moreover, his woman Tapai is the head of the information security department and will surely audit the accounts. If he catches you, you're finished. Accountants like you are a dime a dozen, he can replace you anytime."
"What nonsense are you spouting? I have shares in the company, don't forget. Besides, the Matrix gave me a pile of money before. Buying a few men is still within my means."
"The Matrix, huh?" Linda Linda couldn't help but think of the pretend Holy Grail Person. "You took so much money from her without ever thinking of helping her? I've seen her, and she doesn't seem to be doing well."
Zhao Yi, tumbling in the slippery slime pool, responded with surprise, "We earned that money fair and square. Why should we help her? Linda Linda, you're still so kind-hearted, but I think it's enough to be kind to our own people; there's no need to care about outsiders."
"Oh, you carry on playing. I have things to do," said Linda Linda, and she promptly closed the communication.
Zhao Yi was about to say something when the screen went black.
Linda Linda knew that, since she had met with him a few times, he seemed to have developed a different kind of affection for her, but she never believed in any of that crap called love.
The guy was just bored with playing with men and found playing with women to be novel. She knew that once the novelty wore off, he would eventually kick her to the curb.
She had seen this scenario unfold countless times over the years.
Instead of wasting time with him dilly-dallying, it was better to figure out how to improve herself quickly. People's hearts are so fickle; they're not worth entrusting anything to.
Only by finding a way into the upper echelons of the company could one have a semblance of security in this city.
Although her brain now possessed plenty of medical knowledge thanks to the knowledge chip, without proficiency, she could not even begin to think of stepping up to the operating table.
Linda Linda, via OR Technology, began to use the virtual world's wounded to repeatedly increase her proficiency. It was said to be surgery, but in reality, it was more about controlling the surgical robot arms, sometimes even requiring her to write the surgical programs.
A perfectly good doctor, in her eyes, seemed more like a programmer, but no matter how difficult, she was determined to learn well.
Time ticked away, second by second, and before Linda Linda knew it, she was awakened by the ringing of an alarm. It was time to go to work.
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Although Linda Linda didn't need to sleep, she could still feel exhaustion. With a weary face, she rubbed her eyes, squinted on the bed for a while, then got ready to pack up and go to work.
Even so, Linda Linda still felt she wasn't trying hard enough. After thinking it over, she placed an online order for a loan to purchase a game pod from OR Game New World, just because the time flow rate inside this game server was 0.6 times that of the outside world.
At the current pace, she would be competent for the physician job within a month.
While eating synthetic bread made from plastic waste, Linda Linda held up an umbrella and stepped back into the drizzle.
As she returned to the medical room, ready for the shift change with the nurse, she saw Head Physician Delete surrounded by a group of nurses and doctors, gathered around a semi-opulent screen, quietly discussing something with anxious expressions.
Linda Linda approached curiously and saw the company's new announcement on the screen, "Due to a surge in company business, the procurement department has decided to purchase a batch of Angel 2 medical robots from Weike Medical. The medical department is temporarily halting the recruitment of flesh-and-blood physicians and prosthetic body doctors. The last-place elimination system will be implemented for current physicians to ensure that within five months, the number of real human physicians is reduced to five."
The moment she read that sentence, a message was transmitted into her head, "Your New World game pod has been installed at the ceiling of your home; the 1st of every month is the loan repayment day, with a repayment amount of 3480 DogB. Please make the payment on time."
Linda Linda clenched her fists tightly, then released them weakly, with an indifferent expression she reached behind her ear to pull out the medical chip. Without any hesitation, she uploaded her resignation, turned around, and prepared to pack and leave.
There was hardly anything belonging to her at the company. In just a few minutes, Linda Linda didn't even bother to take the umbrella, grabbed her things, and left the company.
The patients in the room, looking at her slender, graceful departing figure, were filled with reluctance.
"Linda? Where are you going?" Delete, draped in a white lab coat, quickly caught up to her.
"Where else can I go? Back to being a whore. After all, I only came here to avoid the financial crisis. Since it's over, there's no point in staying," said Linda Linda, shrugging her shoulders with an air of indifference.
"Is it... because of the announcement just now?" Delete looked at the woman before him with a complicated expression. Having worked together for so long, he wasn't blind and could of course sense her thoughts.
"Don't leave just yet. That announcement probably wasn't issued by Sun Jack; it might be the result of the automatic cost optimization by the company AI. Let me ask him for you."
"Forget it, forget it. I know the company's ways well enough. Can you stop it this time, and again the next time? It was only a matter of time. Let it be," Linda Linda said, turning away without a shred of remorse and left.
Delete watched Linda Linda's disappearing figure with some worry, then turned and ran angrily toward the company interior.
After Linda Linda got home, she viciously threw the stuff in her arms against the wall, cursed Sun Jack's ancestors for a full three minutes.
She ranted at her former boss for a good three minutes before she stopped.
Having vented, Linda Linda took a deep breath, turned the page, and got ready to apply for her old job.
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