novelonline Chapter 3465 "The False Man"
Chapter 3465 "The False Man"
Chapter 3465 "The False Man"
"Are they all imposters?"
Luvia, the doctor, and old John all looked at Shad in surprise, while Iluna, who was on guard at the back of the group, just listened intently.
Shad was certain he hadn't misread:
"All the workers I can see here are fakes, just moved to another place. I have a bad feeling."
This medium-sized textile factory has about 700 workers. Their jobs include operating spinning and weaving machines, and moving raw materials and finished products. Only a very small number are technicians and managers.
Under Shad's investigation, he did not see a single human being in the factory, and none of them had any markings on their heads.
"So there are more than seven hundred fake people in the factory in front of us? Could this be the real home of the fake people?"
The doctor even suggested this possibility, and even Luvia, who had given the divination conclusion, was somewhat unsure. However, the whispering elements in the area where the factory was located were not obvious, and the buildings inside the factory were completely different from the interior space of the relic described by Old John, so this should not be the relic itself.
The battle to annihilate the "House of False Men" has officially begun in the distance. Although the church's forces have blocked the spread of sound and light, everyone can still feel the abnormal fluctuations of spirits and elements.
However, none of the fake humans had any intention of helping; they simply continued working like normal people. Iluna even suspected there was something wrong with the fabric they were processing, but after inspection, everyone concluded that the factory's finished products were fine.
“Since the entire factory is made up of fake humans, there must be at least one fourth-stage fake human to lead them. Let’s go find the factory owner; I think the secret lies with him.”
Old John offered his advice, noting that the factory's office building and workshops were separate. The office building was still lit, though the accountants, secretaries, and other clerical staff had all gone home. Breaking into that building would be effortless, and finding the person they were looking for would be equally easy.
The indoor gas lamp cast a dim yellow light. The factory owner, a slightly balding man dressed in a suit and tie, was writing financial statements in his office.
At some point, it noticed a shadow cast on its desk and looked up to see five people in its office.
He loosened his tie, looking relaxed, then sighed and shook his head at them:
Good evening, gentlemen, you've come to the wrong place.
He said this:
“I know why you’ve come, but although I’m the factory owner, I’m no longer in charge here. You should go to the spinning workshop on the east side; the guy who’s in charge of this factory is there now.”
Chains bound its body, and then the doctor and old John packed up all the paper documents in the office and took them away. The group jumped out of the window, signaled their location to their companions outside the factory, and then Shad led everyone into the spinning wheel workshop full of fake people.
The steam gushing from the steam engine made the workshop unusually hot and stuffy even in winter, and it was hard to imagine what it would be like here in the summer.
The shrill whistles and clanging of metal made the place seem less like night. Iron-framed windows cast spiderweb-like shadows on the ground, hundreds of mule looms trembled simultaneously, and spindles whirred with a humming sound, carrying cotton wool. The damp air almost condensed into a heavy, leaden fog.
Water droplets seeping from the steam pipes on the walls dripped down the cracks in the walls, and the exhaustion from continuous work made everyone look like zombies from a horror story.
Suppressed coughs echoed intermittently, yet no one stopped working. Pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, and dripping oil stains occasionally fell onto the workers' shoulders, mixing with their sweat to create dark stains on the cheap cotton cloth.
Having lived in this era for so long, this was the first time they had ever entered a factory and seen the workers in action. But apart from Shad and Mia, the others didn't pay much attention to their surroundings, seemingly quite used to it all.
Some bald factory owners gave directions, eventually leading the group to a tall but somewhat thin worker wearing overalls. Like the others, he had no human markings on his head, but he also showed no signs of alienation. He was a stage four pseudo-human.
Even when the group arrived, he, who was carrying yarn spindles by the wall, actually saw through everyone's illusions and saw them directly.
He waved to signal everyone to stop and told his colleagues who were already carrying things to go elsewhere.
"Release the manager, and I'll talk to you."
Wearing a linen short-sleeved shirt under his overalls, the tall, thin man spread out his rough palms to indicate that he had no weapons, and then sat directly on the cargo cart.
Because the cart was low, his arms appeared exceptionally long and thin when he sat down. Seeing that Shad hadn't let anyone out, he sighed and then looked out the window towards the direction of the "House of the Pseudo-Humans":
“You guys are so fast. I originally thought we could make money for a few more months. But these few months are enough, and we are all satisfied.”
The complex emotions he displayed at that moment were even more human-like than those of many humans. Shad had originally thought that such subtle emotional expression was unique to intelligent life, but he never expected that a pseudo-human could imitate it so perfectly, even too perfectly—
"You're wrong, what exactly are you?"
He suddenly had a brilliant idea and used the "Eye of Edwards" to observe the other person's body. He then discovered that two-thirds of the other person's body was glowing, while the remaining third was still a human body.
This is not a pure pseudo-human; it is a hybrid of a human and a pseudo-human, a situation that has never appeared in the records before.
The man sitting on the cart laughed:
"It was probably last summer when my mother contracted tuberculosis, which depleted all of our family's savings. By the time we buried her in the fall, we had almost no food left, but I still had a wife and three children to support. Can you guess what I was thinking at that time?"
His eyes were scanning the five people when the doctor spoke:
"You want to make money?"
"Yes, I wanted to make a lot of money. I was thinking, how wonderful it would be if I could work in a factory 24 hours a day without getting tired or sick, so that my whole family could have food to eat."
This time, my wish came true. That day, after work, I unexpectedly discovered a new building nearby that hadn't been there before. Somehow, I opened the red door and went inside—and then I knew everything; it truly could grant my wish.
His body was hunched over; despite his considerable height, he appeared hunched over as he sat there.
"I am the first person in Tobesk City to enter the [House of the False Humans]. I was supposed to be replaced by a false human after I entered, becoming the city's first false human. But because of another wish of mine, the house only replaced a part of my body with a false human, allowing me to retain my humanity. Can you guess what that wish that made the [House of the False Humans] willing to help me was?"
No one spoke until the eldest, old John, answered:
"You want to help more people?"
"Yes, with the increasingly demanding work of old Jack, the Simmel family, Mr. Bob, and the factory owner Little Mac, the wave of unemployment caused by the winter blizzards, and the economic problems brought about by the impending war, everyone is having a hard time. I'm just one of them. Now that I have this opportunity, I want to help them too."
I walked out of the house with half of my body transformed into a fake human, and then told the other people who needed to earn money about the "House of Fake Humans."
After a brief pause, he calmly met the gazes of the five people:
“I did not lie to them. I told everyone that there would be something that looks exactly like them, but will not get tired or sick, and will continue to take care of their families, and will continue to live exactly according to their personalities and habits.”
Although everyone hesitated at first, they all eventually agreed. After all, everyone was struggling to make ends meet, and this would allow their families to live better lives; besides, everyone was truly exhausted.
Iluna pursed her lips, Dr. Schneider's expression remained unchanged, old John simply shook his head slightly, Luvia glanced at Shad, and Shad continued to ask:
"So you just gradually replaced everyone in this factory like that?"
"Yes, and everyone did it voluntarily. They even kept it a secret and helped me expand my network. Some people contacted me directly, asking to be replaced, even though I hadn't even contacted them."
He paused slightly:
“I’ve attended night school and have some cultural knowledge. I don’t remember where I heard this saying: Everyone lives with different masks and different clothes. Now that everyone has given up their masks and clothes, they are actually still alive in a sense.”
He looked at the factory owner, who was bound by Shad's chains:
"There is only one fake person here, who has been forcibly transformed."
Around the time of the first snowfall of winter, I discovered that the "House of the Pseudo-Humans" was expanding even more aggressively. It and we would be discovered sooner or later, so I replaced Mr. Murray, the owner of the textile factory, found a way to get rid of the middle management, and then made all the workers share the profits generated by the factory equally.
Mr. Murray was the only one we forcibly replaced. He was terrified and called us monsters. I told him he was a monster too.
The man is laughing:
"【The House of Pseudo-Humans】doesn't mind what I do, because it's more conducive to expansion."
So the entire factory was replaced with dummy workers who never get tired, never get sick, and never complain, and all profits were used for equal distribution and expansion—can you imagine the factory's profitability now?
(End of this chapter)