"Have you made your decision?"
A scientist looked at Pang Te lying on the operating table and performed the final surgical confirmation.
Pang Te had no close family. After leaving his job, he had lived alone ever since.
Only in the Virtual World could he feel that he was still alive. In the real world, aside from exhaustion and weariness, there was nothing else that could make him feel happy.
Faced with jobs he wanted to do but that offered him no more than two extra hours, assembly lines where he had to hold in his urine for six hours, and seemingly enthusiastic but actually indifferent working environments.
Sometimes, he could not even understand what the meaning of living was. Was it merely to go on living numbly and repetitively like a robot?
He used to enjoy watching a reality show, especially one of its characters: lazy, gluttonous, obese, fond of taking petty advantages, and burdened with countless bad habits.
Despite being an almost entirely negative character, he was still fairly popular.
That was because people saw themselves in him. After some inner struggles, some of them came to like him.
Watching that man's listless appearance on the show was like looking into a mirror. People even hoped he would pull himself together, and their desire for him to do so was stronger than their desire to pull themselves together! Everyone held onto a hope that one day, the man would recover, change himself, and become an example for others!
Pang Te particularly liked one interview—or rather, one exchange—from the show.
When the host asked him why he spent all day lying on the sofa, using welfare food and borrowed money to buy cheap high-calorie food and soda while watching various television dramas and slowly sinking into ruin.
When asked