"Go to sleep, go to sleep, my darling baby.
Mother's hand rocks you gently..."
Chen Kele woke to the sound of a chilling lullaby.
He found himself at a murder scene eighteen kilometers away.
The killer was not him, and yet it was him: a mass-produced Striving System on the verge of being scrapped.
By day, it pushed him to compete with everyone. At night, it did the "settling of accounts" for him. It handled the killing but not the cleanup, and still collected its KPI rewards.
When the lullaby ended, his body was returned to him.
The System went offline, and he logged on, using a 64-page PowerPoint presentation to get the Special Investigations Bureau and Compliance Department to back him up with a claim of "force majeure."
Everyone was convinced he was the mysterious mastermind, the Lampbearer, lurking in the shadows.
Only he knew the truth:
The Lampbearer was a miserable outsourced worker.
A monthly salary of 3,800, plus a 300 attendance bonus. One late arrival, and the 300 was gone.
He just wanted to ask the System:
Could you stop singing and let me get a good night's sleep?
