Free Web Novel“Once you finish harvesting, we’ll come to your tents before dawn to collect the roses.”
The worker’s tone turned stern.
“And remember this carefully—don’t let the refugees wandering around the flower fields steal the petals you pick. Those people are all addicted to Dried Rose Leaf.”
“If your roses are stolen, not only will you receive no perfume wages, you’ll also be fired from the factory and end up just like those refugees.”
“Understood?”
After saying that, the worker handed Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi several tools: two burlap sacks for collecting flowers, thick cotton gloves to prevent the scent of human skin from contaminating the roses, long tweezers for gathering fallen buds, and finally, a wage chart.
The worker shoved the wage chart into Bai Liu’s hands with a smug expression.
“You two probably won’t last long before getting fired and becoming refugees anyway.”
“Our factory has an extremely high elimination rate. Someone like me, who successfully rose to become a processing worker, only appears once in every hundred flower pickers.”
“I can pick six kilograms of roses in an hour.”
“You newcomers probably can’t even manage a sixth of that.”
“This might very well be your final night at the factory. Enjoy the fragrance of genuine Dried Rose Leaf while you still can.”
“You’re actually pretty lucky.” The worker muttered resentfully while walking away. “The rose harvest was poor last year, and too many people withered to death. This year, during recruitment, it was hard enough finding ordinary people who weren’t severely addicted and wouldn’t steal roses from the fields.”
“The May Rose Festival is approaching, so it’s peak season and we’re short-staffed. That’s the only reason you inexperienced rookies were allowed in.”
“...Back when I was recruited, they only accepted graduate students from 985 and 211 universities who had published at least three SCI papers related to Dried Rose Leaf research with an impact factor above 1.0...”
Bai Liu, who had graduated from a third-rate university after wasting most of his student years playing games: “...”
Liu Jiayi, a second-grade elementary school student: “...”
Although her intelligence stat was high, she genuinely had no idea what that man was talking about.
Holding up a pair of gloves almost the size of her face, Liu Jiayi looked silently at Bai Liu.
“Do you know how to pick roses?”
Judging from the worker’s explanation, harvesting Dried Rose Leaf roses clearly required technique.
“No,” Bai Liu answered honestly. “I’ve never picked roses before.”
Even so, he swiftly tied the burlap sack around his waist, rolled up his sleeves, tucked his pant legs into his boots, and pulled on the thick gloves.
In an instant, he transformed from an urban office worker into someone who looked perfectly ready to head straight into the fields and start farming.
Seeing Liu Jiayi’s increasingly suspicious expression, Bai Liu casually explained while testing the tweezers in his hand:
“I used to cut pig grass when I was little. Different crop, same principle.”
Liu Jiayi: “...”
Don’t compare roses to pig feed!!
Bai Liu crouched down on one knee and helped Liu Jiayi roll up her sleeves and pant legs before tightening the oversized gloves around her hands as securely as possible.
While doing so, he spoke calmly:
“There’s no need to panic yet.”
“Haven’t you noticed Tang Erda still hasn’t appeared?”
Liu Jiayi had already realized that, though she hadn’t understood why.
“If the person behind the scenes really wanted Tang Erda and you to kill each other,” she said slowly, “then the most logical move would’ve been releasing Tang Erda immediately.”
“He has overwhelming killing intent toward you. If he’d appeared right away, he could’ve killed you before you had any chance to prepare.”
“But instead, you were intentionally separated.”
“That’s basically protection.”
“...Why?”
“Because the purpose of this game isn’t to let me die.” Bai Liu stood up and dusted off his hands. His lowered eyes concealed all emotion. “It’s to give me the ability to kill my opponent.”
Liu Jiayi froze.
“...Just like the previous game.”
“He deliberately let you obtain Liu Huai’s soul first before confronting me.”
“In this game, Tang Erda was probably sent to another flower field. We won’t meet until—”
“—Until he determines I possess the ability to kill Tang Erda,” Bai Liu finished calmly.
A faint smile touched his lips.
“After all, a simple scene of a beast killing a human isn’t very entertaining.”
“But two fully grown beasts tearing each other apart inside an arena?”
“That’s far more interesting.”
“Of course,” Bai Liu added lightly, “there’s another reason too. But I think you’ve already figured it out.”
Liu Jiayi suddenly felt a chill crawl up her spine.
Slowly, she spoke:
“...Because the audience likes this kind of development best.”
“If the person behind the scenes is connected to the system and profits from it, then conflict like this generates the most popularity, the most viewer engagement, and the most points from charging.”
“And the system skims a portion of every profit we earn from the audience...”
“Even after we die, all our earnings—including our souls—belong to the system.”
In the end, they were nothing more than beasts released into an arena for entertainment.
Objects to be manipulated.
Watched.
Consumed.
“So there’s no need to worry about dying for now.” Bai Liu pulled the wage chart from his pocket and sighed softly. “The person behind the scenes won’t let me die that easily.”
Then he lowered his gaze toward the wage table.
“...It really is just another job.”
The wage chart clearly listed collection quotas alongside corresponding wages.
—
Reference Data:
One fresh Dried Rose Leaf rose weighs approximately 2g.
Collecting 40 kilograms of intact Dried Rose Leaf roses may be exchanged for one 35ml bottle of low-grade Dried Rose Leaf Gas perfume with a concentration between 30%–40%.
(Note: A low-grade perfume bottle with 30%–40% concentration can maintain fragrance on the body for approximately four hours.)
—
[System Notification: Side Quest Unlocked]
[Side Quest: Collect 40 kilograms of roses tonight.] ƒrēewebnovel.com
[Quest Reward: Exchange for one bottle of low-grade Dried Rose Leaf Gas perfume, which may alleviate contamination and mark the first step toward promotion to processing worker.]
[Quest Failure: Immediate termination from employment and exile to the outskirts as a refugee.]
Bai Liu mentally calculated the numbers.
One rose weighed roughly 2 grams.
Which meant forty kilograms equaled—
“...Twenty thousand roses.” Liu Jiayi stared at the chart in disbelief before looking back up at Bai Liu. “They want us to pick twenty thousand roses just for one bottle of low-grade perfume that only lasts four hours?!”
“Are we livestock to them?!”
Bai Liu gave her a calm, unsurprised glance.
“Congratulations, kid.”
“You’ve now experienced the true essence of being a worker ahead of schedule.”
“When I received my salary every month, I used to speak to my boss exactly like that.”
He paused thoughtfully.
“Then my supervisor fired me.”
“Though honestly, I never liked jobs with such terrible cost-performance ratios anyway. I’d only just started appreciating the advantages of freelance work.”
By freelance work, he naturally meant earning money inside horror games.
“And now I’m somehow forced to work inside a horror game too.”
“The pay is even worse than before.”
Bai Liu visibly sank into depression again.
Liu Jiayi: “...”
It feels like I accidentally triggered some kind of trauma...
Still, despite casually chatting the entire time, both Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi worked surprisingly quickly.
Carrying their burlap sacks, they entered the flower fields.
The roses grew densely together, leaving only narrow pathways wide enough for a single person to pass through. Bai Liu moved slowly down the path, using the tweezers to harvest flowers from both sides.
He wanted to move faster.
Unfortunately, the ground beneath the rose fields consisted of thick, sticky crimson mud. Every step sank heavily, almost like walking through a swamp.
Even with rubber boots, movement remained difficult.
And the mud carried a faint fishy odor.
Not the scent of blood.
Something closer to seawater.
Another unsettling detail quickly became apparent:
Every fully bloomed rose looked exactly the same.
The same size.
The same color.
The same number of petals.
It was as though someone had created a single perfect rose and simply copied it across the entire field.
Bai Liu gripped a flower stem with the tweezers and pulled upward, harvesting a rose.
Holding it at a distance, he examined it carefully.
It was a completely unique variety.
At the very least, Bai Liu had never seen anything like it in reality.
The tightly layered petals shifted gradually in color—from a near black-purple at the base to brilliant crimson at the edges, while the outermost petals faded into pale pink.
Unlike ordinary roses with dark green oval leaves, the Dried Rose Leaf had heart-shaped leaves and thorn-covered stems that immediately yellowed and withered once the flower matured.
The moment the flower was picked, those stems and leaves crumbled away instantly.
That was the origin of its name.
The instant a Dried Rose Leaf matured, every part that once nourished it died away, leaving behind only the swollen, fragrant blossom itself.
Just like the humans addicted to its concentrated fragrance—
People who endlessly consumed it without ever being able to sustain it forever.
It was an extraordinarily aggressive species of rose.
Both in the way it grew...
And [N O V E L I G H T] in the perfume produced from it.
Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi continued harvesting through the fields.
After roughly an hour, both finally stopped and returned toward the edge of the plantation.
Liu Jiayi raised a hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead before heavily dropping her filled sack beside Bai Liu and collapsing onto the ground to drink a stamina recovery potion.
The in-game season appeared to be around April or May.
The nights were no longer cool.
Combined with the suffocating humidity generated by dense plant growth, the flower fields felt unbearably muggy. Sweat clung constantly to the neck and back, and trudging through swamp-like mud while harvesting roses was exhausting physical labor.
