Chapter 18 Money is Hard to Earn
Looking at the floating confirmation window in front of him, Sun Jack felt immense pressure.
With a tense expression, he finally made up his mind.
However, upon opening the message and seeing the ID: "Are you kidding me with this headache?!" Sun Jack looked at Tapai beside him with a speechless expression, "Fuck! Are you trying to kill me? You scared the hell out of me!!"
"You're such a scaredy-cat, a mere application notification has you freaking out like this."
Sun Jack couldn't be bothered with him and leaned against the electronic wreath, beginning to search for information about last night's big battle.
He knew very little about that space station; maybe Gaofeng Company would pick it up and start a detailed analysis, revealing some things he didn't know.
More importantly, he wanted to make sure, to confirm whether anyone had discovered his and Tapai's traces.
After a quick search, Sun Jack indeed found some reports, some of which were exclusive analyses from private livestreams, but just when he was about to excitedly click on one, the cold notification of insufficient balance stopped him in his tracks.
"Damn it, since when do you have to pay to read the news?" Sun Jack was so frustrated he almost hurt himself internally.
"What are you talking about? It seems you really need to adapt to this place. Capitalism is all about money talks," Tapai said from the side.
Thinking back on everything he had experienced since waking up, Sun Jack vehemently canceled all the UI in front of him. "Damn this shitty place."
Looking at the rain outside, Sun Jack said to Tapai beside him, "How about we just go somewhere else? Earth is so big, I refuse to believe it's all this bad."
"Sure, you're the boss, you call the shots, but the problem is, do you have the money for a ticket?"
Looking at the string of zeros in his account, Sun Jack immediately felt discouraged. Everything, whether information or leaving, required money.
Sun Jack glanced at him and said, "Can you come up with the money? Like hacking into bank accounts or something."
"Holy crap, you really think big, don't you? I'm a robot, not Superman."
"The robots in other movies don't work like that; they get things done in an instant."
"Keep dreaming, buddy. You can have it all in a dream, but not in this world. If I don't understand the native programming languages here, I definitely can't understand the world's new programming languages. It's already quite something that I can connect to the network, let alone think about hacking and stealing programming to make money."
"Then learn the new programming languages, you're a robot, right? Your learning capability should be strong, right?"
"Then give me money to upgrade my memory and CPU. With such limited computing power, I'm struggling even to consider learning a new language. The logic functions are already maxed out, and with this little memory, I'm impressed with myself just for being able to talk this smoothly."
"Then earn money!"
"I don't know the new language, how am I supposed to earn?"
"Then go learn the new language!"
"But learning costs money!"
"Then go earn money!....."
Five minutes later, Sun Jack and Tapai were both staring out into the heavy rain, lost in thought. Sun Jack finally understood what it meant for a hero to be stumped by the lack of a single penny.
Forget about messages and plane tickets now, if they kept staying there, they wouldn't even have money for food.
As Sun Jack was staring blankly at the hover cars and private planes coming and going in front of him, the people in suits passing by on the other side of the glass gave him an idea.
"Right, I can look for a job first."
Tapai turned his head, and a kaomoji popped up on the screen of his face. "(￢_￢)... Are you serious?"
"Why not? I suddenly realized that I might have fallen into a trap, it's not that this place is terrible, but the circles we've been in are terrible," Sun Jack began to explain.
"Right from the start, we've either been dealing with desperadoes, or with people like Song 6PUS who value money over life, we got roped into this by Song 6 from the beginning."
"You are influenced by the company you keep. From now on, we should minimize contact with them to avoid being assimilated."
As he said this, Sun Jack quickened his pace, standing in the heavy rain, and excitedly turned around to look at Tapai. "And look, Gaofeng Technology is a company, right? If it's a company, it needs people to work, right? There are still normal people who earnestly go to work in this place."
"Fine, you're the boss, what you say goes. What do you plan on doing next?" Tapai followed and also walked into the rain.
"Use your CPU to help me search for recruitment information, find all the jobs that match my skills, our primary goal now is to make money!"
Their systems swiftly began to search, and Sun Jack was relieved to find that at least applying for jobs didn't cost anything.
Although job applications were free, there were barriers: various professional experience requirements, academic qualifications, and skill requirements were all beyond what Sun Jack could meet.
Searching high and low, Sun Jack's stomach was growling with hunger and he had still not found a job when suddenly a customer service recruitment notice caught his attention.
"Working hours 56 hours per week, probationary weekly pay of 0.15 @Coin, requirements: brain logic behavior modification rate below 5%, cortical excitant injections less than 100."
"I'm qualified for this." Though the wage was not high, there were no educational requirements. At least he could survive in this world for the time being and stay away from those terrible places temporarily.
With Sun Jack's click, a large arrow appeared out of nowhere, and a navigation route instantly displayed in front of him, "The destination is 39 kilometers away, please turn left in 200 meters."
"Let's go! Move out!"
Although Sun Jack didn't have a car and couldn't afford public transportation, he had another means of transport.
Tapai, cursing under his breath, hoisted Sun Jack onto his shoulder, pressed his reverse-jointed legs down to transform them into wheels, and charged out into the rain.
Sun Jack shouted in the howling wind, "Tapai! Remember! The first thing we'll do when we make money is to buy food! I'm starving!"
Hearing this, Tapai quickly doubled his speed. "Come on! Drink in that northwestern wind!"
Half an hour later, the rain in the sky gradually let up, and they had arrived at the job application site, which turned out to be a basement. The place was somewhat run down, and next to it were piles of green garbage bags.
But Sun Jack didn't mind that at all, as long as he could make money. If it was too upscale, he feared he might not even get the job.
After drying his clothes and finding the HR department, Sun Jack saw that there were already two people sitting on the office couch, a man and a woman in business attire. Sun Jack, dressed casually, seemed somewhat out of place beside them.
One could see that both job applicants were young, their faces anxious, holding disposable cups in their hands, lifting them up but not drinking a single sip.
"This city isn't all Song 6PUS after all." Sun Jack smiled kindly at them and sat down beside them. "Right, there are still normal people here. Not everyone can be a lunatic."
The sound of "taptapta" footsteps rose as a woman with feet transformed into metallic high heels walked in. She haughtily glanced at the three job applicants and then settled behind a desk, clearly the company's HR.
"Who's AA?" she asked arrogantly, hands crossed over her chest, leaning back.
Not understanding the language she spoke, Sun Jack was relieved when an amber screen flashed and the automatic translation activated.
"I... I am!" A short-haired girl with purple streaks in her bangs hurriedly came forward nervously.
HR looked the girl over with a gaze as if appraising merchandise and said leisurely, "Would you be willing to have your uterus removed for the company?"
"Yes! I am willing! Rest assured, I had my uterus removed as soon as I came of age, I have no menstrual cycle, ensuring it won't affect work."