While Captain Rude was interrogating the HR department head surnamed Wu on the rooftop of Tenda’s headquarters, other resistance forces had finally breached the building.

A corporate army flying the resistance flag led an assault into the deepest underground network control room of Tenda Group headquarters.

After the commander led all the corporate soldiers in carefully eliminating the few remaining defensive forces in the control room, he immediately ordered his warriors to seal off all passages leading to the room and entered alone.

He activated a holographic projection to communicate with a wealthy-looking individual dressed simply but whose office was spacious and luxurious.

This was clearly the actual controller behind the corporate army—the CEO of some major financial group supporting the resistance.

Seeing the scene in the underground control room, this stern-faced CEO burst into laughter.

“Hahaha!”

“Those fools didn’t realize that Tenda Group’s most valuable assets are all in this control room.”

“Tenda Group certainly possesses enormous wealth, but those are dead assets—even if seized, they can’t be retained. All the assets in Tenda Group’s company accounts will be confiscated, but in the end, each person will receive only a tiny fraction.”

“But Tenda Group’s monopolistic industries possess massive amounts of data, including everyone’s daily behavioral data, personal preference data, geographical data of the entire world, and so on. With this data comes the power to control the entire world.”

“Not only that, Tenda’s internal AEEIS artificial intelligence system can integrate opinions from throughout the company, from top to bottom, and combine them with specific analyses from department heads to formulate strategies most beneficial for the entire enterprise’s development. As long as we obtain this AI system, even if we promote a group of pigs to be department heads afterward, we can keep the entire company developing continuously.”

“However, those Tenda executives were truly pedantic—they actually didn’t let AEEIS fully take over Tenda Group’s corporate army and defense plans. Nor did they set corporate security as AEEIS’s highest priority, resulting in their failure to strangle the resistance in its cradle when it first emerged.”

“But no matter, I will absolutely not make such mistakes.”

“Immediately transport all this data back intact.”

The corporate army commander nodded instantly and said: “Yes, CEO. However, the hackers in our team say the entire system is extremely complex and has certain self-defense mechanisms. It would be difficult to crack in a short time, so we can only transport the entire control room system back unchanged.”

The CEO in the holographic projection smiled slightly: “No problem. I’ve already secretly recruited several Tenda Group department heads. With them, this system can be smoothly operated again.”

After ending the holographic call, the commander issued orders to his soldiers.

…

Meanwhile, on the rooftop.

The conversation between Captain Rude and the HR department head surnamed Wu had ended.

The department head surnamed Wu once again stood at the edge of the rooftop.

Captain Rude had saved him earlier because he wanted to obtain more clues and truth from him, but now he had lost the motivation to stop him, only asking: “You won’t be sentenced to death—at most a few years’ imprisonment before release. There’s no need for suicide.”

The department head surnamed Wu smiled resignedly: “Actually, I won’t spend a single day in prison, because soon some large corporations will do everything possible to get me out. They’ll use various methods to exonerate me, and then let me continue to hold high positions in their companies.”

“I’m dying to repay Tenda Group for recognizing my talents, and also because of the shattering of my dreams.”

With these words, the department head surnamed Wu leaped from the high-rise rooftop.

Captain Rude could have saved him, but this time he did nothing.

Finally, Captain Rude came to the building’s rooftop, returning to the scene from the very beginning.

Smoke filled the entire city, and the war seemed to have reached its end. The resistance forces had fully occupied Tenda’s headquarters. Those nearby Tenda corporate forces still stubbornly resisting were also eliminated one by one.

But Captain Rude didn’t feel he had achieved the long-awaited victory.

He even felt confused, not knowing what he had been desperately seeking all this time, nor whether everything he had done had any meaning.

This great confusion and bewilderment surrounded him, and it also surrounded the players in front of their computers.

Just then, knocking sounds came from outside the rooftop door.

Unlike the opening scene, this ending was more abrupt—the screen cut to black before Captain Rude turned his head to look.

The game’s title appeared on the screen once more:

THE FUTURE YOU CHOOSE

Then the credits began to roll.

Besides the regular staff, there was a very interesting list that caught Qiao Liang’s attention.

“Tenda Departments’ Cooperation Cast List.”

For instance, the war machine’s prototype came from Guo Licheng, while the final department head surnamed Wu was based on Wu Bin from the Human Resources Department. Many antagonists appearing in the game’s plot were actually designed using Tenda’s current departments and their heads as prototypes.

Moreover, these department heads had provided some opinions and suggestions about their own fates. For example, the department head surnamed Wu jumping from the building at the end was Wu Bin’s own insistence.

These department heads had all planned their fates to some degree, and the game developers had only made some minor modifications to these characters’ final endings according to their requests.

Accompanying the credits were not scenes from the game, but many scenes from reality.

These showed Tenda’s various industries flourishing and being deeply loved by ordinary consumers.

For example, a long queue formed outside Slackin’ Takeout, with the manager being interviewed. Many young people were laughing and playing, coming and going from Slackin’ Internet Café. Tuoguan Fitness helped many people achieve perfect physiques, while Headwind Logistics delivery workers diligently delivered all kinds of large items to customers’ homes.

Such scenes flashed by one after another, finally freezing on a spacious office.

Behind a heavy desk was a huge executive chair, somewhat like a throne. It had a tall backrest and wide armrests. It was currently facing away from the camera, toward the large floor-to-ceiling window beside it, as if the person in the seat was gazing at the night view outside, contemplating something important.

Suddenly, this giant throne slowly turned around, but when it faced the camera, the throne was empty.

With this, the game concluded.

…

In front of his computer, having just completed the game, Qiao Liang stared at this scene, speechless for a long time.

His mind was in disarray, thoughts running in a thousand directions, not knowing where to begin.

Perhaps his brain wasn’t clear from staying up too late, or perhaps the game was trying to express too much—he couldn’t grasp the thread in this tangled mess of clues.

He had played this game all day, from morning until late night, before finally completing it.

The game’s content was indeed very rich. Although it wasn’t an open world, generally progressing through different scene battles, these scenes were all very exquisitely made with fresh ideas. The map mechanisms were also rich, allowing players to experience the exhilaration of adrenaline rushes during combat.

The game’s combat mechanisms were also diverse. As the protagonist, Captain Rude could continuously obtain new combat abilities by replacing prosthetics. Every so often, he would gain a new ability, and toward the end, he could even combine different abilities to complete missions more quickly.

During the resistance process, the scenes gradually expanded, battles became increasingly intense, and the teams supporting the protagonist grew more numerous. All this created an obvious positive feedback loop, allowing players to clearly feel that their efforts were yielding fruitful results, which also stimulated players to continue investing wholeheartedly in playing on.

However, to be fair, the game’s shortcomings were also quite apparent. For instance, the overemphasis on combat made other aspects of the game seem monotonous.

An open-world game, with its vast and rich content, can let players replay for hundreds of hours, but this game focused its main energy on the player’s initial experience.

In other words, while most players might enjoy the intense combat mode the first time around, they would likely grow tired after playing through twice, and couldn’t possibly play for dozens of hours.

The special combat abilities that the protagonist continuously activated seemed novel during the first playthrough, but would feel limiting during a second playthrough from the beginning. Many powerful abilities would be unavailable, giving players a sense of frustration.

Additionally, in the middle and late stages of the game, various details seemed to give players a mysterious hint, causing them to start questioning themselves and wanting to understand what was happening outside the battlefield.

But the game completely confined all plot developments to combat scenes, forcing players to fight continuously like machines, watching helplessly as the truly good ending drifted further and further away.

Of course, what surprised Qiao Liang most was the game’s portrayal of Tenda Group.

The final ending was essentially a revelation of the truth. But shockingly, Tenda Group, which had monopolized all industries across the entire world, had no manifestation of individual will, no real CEO. All decisions were made jointly by department heads and the AEEIS intelligent system.

The final scenes—the new financial group seizing Tenda Group’s data and intelligent system, as well as the department head surnamed Wu’s leap from the rooftop—all seemed to contain certain metaphors.

No matter how you looked at it, this game’s portrayal of Tenda Group as the ultimate final antagonist was undeniably a form of defamation. But after experiencing the entire ending, this sense of defamation seemed somewhat diluted.

It was difficult to discern what the creators’ intentions truly were.

In Qiao Liang’s livestream, the audience had also erupted into an uproar.

Many viewers had followed along with Qiao Liang to virtually complete the game. Although their experiences weren’t as intense as Qiao Liang’s, just watching the plot had generated many associations. At this point, everyone had their own interpretation, and they couldn’t reach a consensus.

After a long silence, Qiao Liang said: “Today’s livestream ends here. I need to get a good night’s sleep and think carefully about the deeper meaning of this game.”

“I’m going into seclusion!”

“Everyone, see you in the next video!”