130 Collective Wisdom

Inside the thatched shed, the conversation had entered a substantial phase.

"Do you really have to do this?" asked the voice, laden with obvious anxiety.

"Otherwise what? Wait until we're worked to death?" a voice immediately snapped back from beside him. "Martin, are you scared?"

"Of course not," Martin replied. "I just think that if we do it right away, it's a bit too hasty."

"Hasty? If we aren't hasty, it'll be too late! You coward—"

"Brandon, hold on a moment," a calm voice intervened, halting Brandon's rebuke before turning to address the hesitant Martin. "Martin, I know what you're thinking. You must feel that although today's work was exhausting, if you just grit your teeth, you can somehow pull through, and you even get to eat beans—who knows, maybe tomorrow there'll be more—"

"Rory, you know me, how could I care about beans—" Martin quickly explained.

"It's fine, it's fine. What's wrong with wanting to eat beans? Even I want to eat beans just as much," the steady Rory continued. "Everyone sitting here right now, you, me, all of us are serfs. The master has made our lives wretched, leaving us starving every single day. Who wouldn't want to eat a little more?"

The serfs inside the thatched shed lowered their heads one by one.

"However, everyone needs to see the reality," Rory raised his voice. "For these few mouthfuls of beans, how much extra strength did everyone waste today? Terence, you tripped three times today, didn't you?"

"Mm—" Terence, sitting in the corner, rubbed his arm and nodded.

"Brandon, when we finished work, I saw your legs shaking." Rory turned to the impatient Brandon.

"They're only starting to hurt now," Brandon answered, shivering.

"And you, Martin—" Timid Martin was not spared either. "In just that short while, your stomach growled three times."

Martin touched his belly and said nothing.

"Look at yourselves, in this state right now—who still has the strength to beat anyone?"

All three shook their heads simultaneously.

"If you can't beat anyone, who's going to help you do extra work?" Rory pressed on.

"Ha, extra work!" The impatient Brandon chimed in. "Martin, keep dreaming about your beans! We eat the same food, we do the same work; in a couple of days, once they recover their strength, it'll be our turn to take the beatings!"

Martin remained silent.

"Martin," Rory said earnestly, "you might think that since you haven't been with us long, you haven't beaten many people, and you haven't forced others to do extra work for you very often, so they won't hold too much of a grudge against you. You think you can just grit your teeth, take a few beatings, tough it out, and then you'll be able to eat beans with them—"

"Thinking that way isn't entirely wrong. Even for us—" Rory pointed in turn at himself, Brandon, and Terence, "—having beaten them for so long, stolen so much of their food, made them take that many extra hits with the stick, and do that much extra work... if the few of us are willing to tuck our tails, let them beat us for a few days, go hungry for a while, and let them snatch a few mouthfuls of food, we'd probably be let off the hook. Those guys are only capable of doing that much; otherwise, they wouldn't have let us live so comfortably before."

"But! Is it worth it?" Rory said loudly. "Are you reconciled to this? Just for two mouthfuls of beans, is it a good trade? All these years, everyone has put in so much effort and taken so many beatings just to make them fear us, just to make our lives a bit more comfortable. Who among you is willing to let all past efforts go to waste?"

"I certainly am not!" Brandon jumped out again. "Without them at the bottom to cushion us, how exhausting would it be to keep working like this!"

"I'm not willing either," Terence muttered dully. "I'm not afraid of hard work, but I want to live a few more years."

"Who doesn't want to survive?" Rory first sighed, and then said resolutely, "But if we want to live longer, we must never work like we did today again! At the very least, the few of us must never exhaust ourselves like this again!"

"Right!" "Yes!" Brandon and Terence nodded heavily.

"Martin, what about you?"

Martin nodded gently.

"Good!" Ignoring the slightness of Martin's nod, Rory said aloud, "Starting tomorrow, we'll do as we did before—we'll only put in half our effort!"

"Mm!" Brandon nodded heavily again, though he suddenly hesitated. "Tomorrow morning, will the first round be the same?"

"The same!" Rory answered without hesitation. "Don't worry, you all saw it today—Loss's method is very effective. As long as the few of us relax just a little, those fellows can push a bit harder and still reach the first tree branch, and we can tag along and sponge a couple of mouthfuls of beans."

"If we can even reach the first branch—" Terence rubbed his arm, revealing the first smile inside the thatched shed, "—reaching the second tree branch will be even less of a problem."

"What if we don't make it?" Even though he had agreed, Martin's anxiety still hadn't vanished.

"If we don't make it, we don't make it," Brandon laughed as well. "If misfortune hits, it hits everyone together. How much strength does Antoine have on his own? If it falls on our heads, at most we'll take two or three strikes with the stick."

"What if we get caught?"

"Ha, who's going to catch us?" Brandon smiled. "Same as before—with so many people, how many can Antoine keep his eyes on?"

"Andrei and Loss are the same," Rory added from across the room. "These are two masters—the current master and the future master—how could they possibly fixate on serfs like us?"

"The people working alongside us will always know," Martin pointed out.

"So what?" Brandon didn't care in the least. "Who dares? Which one of them would dare? Whoever dares, we'll beat them! They've made us take plenty of beatings in the common land; back in the village, every single one of them will get the exact same treatment from us!"

"That's precisely why we must start tomorrow, immediately cutting our work effort in half," Rory reiterated. "Only then will we have the extra energy to beat them hard enough to hurt!"

"All right, enough of that. Let's figure out what tricks we'll use to slack off tomorrow. Loss's new working method is genuinely troublesome..."

The conversation gradually drifted into a discussion of technical details.

The next day.

Medieval World, February 1, 0001.

Beneath the great tree, the person issuing orders had changed.

Assembling the serfs, organizing them into squads, reiterating the promises—

Wu Qingchen assisted from the side, while Andrei began taking over the actual operations.

In the muddy common land, Rory exchanged glances with Brandon, Terence, and a visibly uncertain Martin.

If it were an inexperienced Andrei presiding, a drop in work speed would be much easier to slip past—

Silently pondering the "relaxation" techniques discussed the previous evening, Rory felt a greater surge of confidence.

Rory had no inkling that for a decision he made to truly succeed, the simple collective wisdom hurriedly summed up by the four of them the night before would have to contend not only with bailiff Antoine, prospective master Andrei, and the repeatedly oppressed fellow serfs, but also with another collective intelligence countless times vaster.

15 minutes later.

Earth.

May 14, 2012, 00:02:01.

Command Center of the Human Resources Group, Unified Cooperation Relations Department, Provisional Committee for Celestial Anomalies, United Nations.

The gigantic command center, spanning several thousand square meters, was brilliantly illuminated.

Directly ahead in the command center, a massive liquid-crystal display screen, 30 meters long and 25 meters high, was partitioned into numerous hierarchical display blocks.

The most expansive and prominent position among these screens naturally displayed the close-up dynamic footage of Wu Qingchen in the medieval world.

To the left of Wu Qingchen's footage were four quarter-sized split screens, currently displaying Andrei, a medium shot of the common land, a full panoramic view of the serf crowd, and a panoramic view of the celestial phenomenon, respectively.

To the right of Wu Qingchen's footage were densely packed smaller screens—each a meter wide and 15 centimeters high—showing close-up dynamic footage of every single serf.

Regardless of the screen size, the ultra-high resolution rendered every detail of the video impeccably clear.

The exact moment Rory began signaling Brandon, Terence, and Martin, the video frame borders displaying the avatars of the four men instantly flashed with blinding red light.

This was the micro-expression recognition software, jointly and urgently developed, beginning to sound the alarm.

Half a minute later, multiple command centers of equivalent scale within the Analysis Group and Emotional Group instantly uploaded and shared the conclusions of the first round of manual appraisal: the four individuals shared a common secret.

Across all command centers, Rory, Brandon, Terence, and Martin were immediately listed as high-priority surveillance targets.

Much like in the majority of command centers, within the liquid-crystal display of the Human Resources Group Command Center, the video avatars of the four men were instantly magnified to four times their original size, and their positions were shifted directly to the right of Wu Qingchen's colossal image.

Additionally, next to each of the four video avatars, an additional synchronized panel laden with dense parameters had appeared.

The first column displayed basic status: Heart rate: / Body temperature: / Respiratory rate: , etc.

The second column displayed mental status: Attention level: / Tension level: / Emotion: , etc.

The third column displayed physical status: Stride length: / Calorie consumption: / Muscle status: , etc.

The fourth column, the fifth column—

When first entering the medieval world, in order to minimize Wu Qingchen's workload, Earth had scoured for tens of thousands of master slackers from all walks of life.

Now, though the first crisis had passed, these painstakingly summoned masters had not departed.

Armed with such detailed data and backed by top-tier peers from various fields mutually assisting one another, the petty tricks of the four men led by Rory were instantly exposed.

The conclusion was swiftly reflected in the parameters under the N-th column: Labor efficiency 4%.

Ten minutes later.

"A false alarm."

Gazing at the parameters shared in real time by the "Master Slackers Division," the duty director of the command center wiped the sweat from his brow. "Turns out these fellows just wanted to slack off."

"It still requires attention," the deputy director beside him reminded. "This falls squarely within the scope of our Human Resources Group."

"It should be fine; the contingency plans account for this scenario," the director said, pointing to the screen before him. "Look, Mr. Wu Qingchen has already noticed."

"Slacking off—" The deputy director smiled wryly and shook his head. "To play tricks in front of Mr. Wu is truly trying to display one's slight skill before an expert. Let's watch the results of the next few rounds of labor."

Each round of labor was anchored to a two-hour node.

Aside from causing massive hardships and even greater consumption of human and material resources, a 1:0 time dilation ratio was not entirely without benefits.

For instance: 4 minutes on Earth corresponded to two hours in the medieval world.

Now, the command center duty director could instantly view the contents after two hours, four hours, six hours, and eight hours.

The duty director opened four videos simultaneously. Within the preliminarily edited footage:

First round: All three squads achieved 100%, ate their beans, the serf crowd was reasonably cheerful, and Wu Qingchen remained silent.

Second round: The efficiency of the three squads dropped to 85%, many serfs wore resentful expressions, and Wu Qingchen still remained silent.

Third round: The efficiency of the three squads barely scraped past the 0% passing line, more serfs noticed, and Wu Qingchen began conversing with Andrei.

The preliminarily edited video lacked synchronized audio, but roughly transcribed subtitles marked the crucial dialogue:

Wu Qingchen: You can start organizing squads among the serfs on your side as well.

Andrei: Good.

Wu Qingchen: Organize two squads.

Andrei: Why? Can't we organize three squads just like before?

"Why?" The deputy director answered his own question. "To leave a certain space, waiting until the branch company is established to peel off non-performing assets!"

Fourth round: Two new squads were formed, while Rory and the others continued to slack off.

Fifth round: Rory and the others were still slacking off, the labor efficiency of the original three squads finally plummeted below 0%, and Wu Qingchen once again began conversing with Andrei.

At this point, twilight was approaching in the medieval world.

Following the conclusion of the fifth round of labor, Andrei gathered the original three squads of serfs.

The serfs who had failed to complete their tasks wore nervous expressions.

Wu Qingchen: Don't be afraid, not everyone is at fault.

Andrei: That's right, there are people inside who were slacking off!

Wu Qingchen: Everyone will not be punished.

Andrei called the serfs up one by one, walking them behind the large tree for private conversations.

"Stunned, aren't they? Thinking there's safety in numbers? Thinking intimidation would work?"

Surveying the psychological analysis group's preliminary estimates of the countermeasures Rory and the others might adopt during their slacking off, as displayed in the parameter column, the deputy director looked on with utter disdain. "Don't they know what anonymous whistleblowing is?"

In the video, the expressions of Rory and the four men shifted, though they did not appear excessively terrified.

Next, four individuals were picked from the remaining serfs to supplement the cooperative work teams, while the bailiffs dragged out Rory and the four men—who had now been officially defined as non-performing assets—dumped them in a corner, and left them to labor alone under the supervision of two bailiffs.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, the stripped non-performing assets hurriedly threw themselves into labor. Yet, perhaps out of habit, a few minutes later, Brandon habitually paused mid-task.

Antoine gripped his cudgel and walked over.

The next instant, executing a gripping technique, poking angle, and force application entirely different from anything seen previously, the cudgel in Antoine's hand struck Brandon.

As if struck by a lightning bolt, Brandon instantly registered an expression of extreme agony. His entire body convulsed, his limbs shaking like a bundle of wheat stalks stripped of their support, and he collapsed limp into the mud.

Standing nearby, Antoine waited quietly for a moment, then hauled Brandon back up.

Brandon remained limp.

Antoine raised his club once more.

Like a rabbit frightened to its core, Brandon instantly bolted upright. He grabbed his farming tool, his hands spinning like fiery wheels, pouring 150% of his effort, heart, and soul into the agricultural work of the common land.

"Tsk tsk, why bother?"

Pitying and exasperated as he watched the scene unfold, the deputy director shook his head, then suddenly looked toward his superior. "Director, I heard this technique was summarized by some illegal coal mine boss? Looking at it, that doesn't seem quite right—this, this is way too professional!"

"No, during the final round of testing, the coal mine boss's methods were rejected," the duty director said. "Though testing proved that boss's methods wouldn't cause permanent physical damage... the higher-ups still harbored misgivings about such crude, back-alley methods. Regardless, even serfs are valuable assets of the Ekri village; appropriate discipline is enough, there's no need to cause a loss of labor force."

"So this is a regular method?" The deputy director pointed at bailiff Antoine gripping the cudgel. "What kind of pedigree does this regular method have?"

"Leaving no wounds while inflicting extreme pain—naturally, it's U.S. military club-work."

A look of admiration crossed the director's face. "When it comes to torturing prisoners, our country still has quite a gap to close compared to the U.S. military."