Welcome to the Misogyny Game

In the stinking ditch, flies swarmed around a filthy man whose hair was like a broom, whose fingers were withered, but whose eyes, hidden beneath his hair, were pitch black, focused yet indifferent.

The ears gleamed with a metallic sheen.

A mouse crawled up to him and squeaked a few times. The man's eyes turned red.

In just one second, the transformation from human to mouse was completed.

This happens in every corner of the city. Office workers who work overtime late at night use alcohol to numb themselves and find a moment of peace. He knocks over a waiter's glass and starts cursing.

He couldn't see his expression; he only felt a blur before his eyes, and then he lost consciousness, turning into a lifeless bat.

A student taking out the trash in the morning slipped and fell onto the trash can. As he was getting up, he saw a kind old lady. She smiled awkwardly, removed the vegetable leaves from her head, and thought, "How embarrassing!" Just as she was about to leave quickly, she was hit from behind. Before losing consciousness, she saw her own furry paws.

The old lady lifted the white mouse by the tail and smiled with satisfaction.

……

“We’ve already checked the factory workers, and these are the only suspects.” The man in police uniform saluted and led them into the interrogation room.

Inside sat a disheveled man who looked extremely slovenly.

"Name?"

"Wang Liang."

"gender."

"male."

"Work."

"Meat processing station".

"When and where did the incident occur?"

"Workshop assembly line."

What did you bring for lunch? Where is it?

"Officer, do you have to tell me this too?" the man said with a bitter expression.

"explain."

“These are sweet potatoes from my family. I just came back from my hometown and brought some sweet potatoes that I grew myself. I put them in the place where we usually keep things, in a cabinet. There are also some unused water bottles piled on top of them, which you should be able to see,” the man said.

The two officers exchanged a glance.

Have you ever met someone you don't recognize?

"Officer, how am I supposed to explain this?"

"Just tell the truth."

"So many people come and go from our factory, I can't possibly know them all," he said hesitantly.

“Someone you’ve never met before, or something you saw on the day of the incident.”

Is it everything?

"Yes, let's start with your meals."

The man frowned and thought for a moment: "Nothing else happened today. I ate breakfast at home and then took the factory shuttle bus to work."

"Is today's factory shuttle driver the same one as before?"

"Yes, but he was a little late today. We almost thought we'd miss our train, but he still managed to deliver it to me on time."

The two men exchanged a glance, while the police officer next to them scribbled down notes.

"Do you remember whether that person was male or female, how old they were, whether they had a beard, and what color clothes they were wearing?"

"It's a man, and he seems a bit younger than me." The man's ID card says he's 43 years old, so he's younger than me, meaning he's only an adult, or at least in his forties.

"How did you determine that?" he pressed.

"He just looked quite young, with hardly any gray hair and a very short beard. He was wearing a work uniform, but he drove very steadily; I almost fell asleep at the time."

If the driver is very steady, has no gray hair, and a short beard, then it can be ruled out that it is a woman impersonating him. Of course, some people may specifically buy fake beards with very little facial hair, but this is just an isolated case. When a woman imitates a man, if she wants to imitate a beard, she will always imitate the areas with more facial hair.

Furthermore, they prefer to be beardless, and they also don't wear beards when they play men.

Did you see the driver get out of the car?

"No, the factory shuttle bus driver always tells us to get off first. I don't know when we get off, but when I changed into my work clothes and got off, the bus was still parked there."

"Stop there."

"Yes, but it's not particularly strange. Our factory vehicles usually stop there for a while too."

"Did you see the driver inside?"

"Everyone's busy with work, who's going to go back and check on things? Isn't this just busywork and a waste of time?"

The police officer nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"After getting off the factory bus, we went to work, but I had to put the sweet potatoes I brought in the morning at my workstation."

"Where is your workstation? How far is it from where you change clothes? Is it on the first floor or which floor? Do you need to take the stairs or the elevator?"

"Officer, you're asking so many questions. Which one should I answer?"

"Then let's answer the last question: which floor is your workstation on, and do you need to take the stairs?"

“I took the elevator,” he said. “The fourth floor is a separate floor; I have to go down two floors to get to my workplace.”

"So you went straight from the changing area to the fourth floor by elevator?"

"No, there's no elevator where I change clothes. I'll go downstairs first and then take the elevator back to my workstation."

"Whether there's an elevator or not, why don't your managers install one for you?"

"What are you going to do? There are all sorts of huge meat grinders underneath. If you put it there, it'll collapse."

It seems there's more to discover about this person.

How do you know it will collapse?

"Work..." He seemed to have thought of something and quickly shut his mouth. The policeman continued to tap the table rhythmically. Suddenly, he hit it hard, which startled the man.

"What kind of work?"

“Didn’t do it…” Thump.

Another sudden loud noise startled him, even though he was prepared.

"I, I used to work in engineering," he said, shrinking his neck and sounding a little nervous.

"Isn't engineering a legitimate job? Why are you afraid to say it out loud?"

"Because the boss owed wages, he filled in himself as the legal representative. I finally managed to pay off the debt, and I didn't want to do engineering work anymore. I think it's shameful."

"Then you still have a sense of responsibility," the policeman said sarcastically.

The man chuckled awkwardly.

"Do you want to continue talking about today's events?" The man wanted to skip the topic, but the police officer didn't seem to make things difficult for him and gestured for him to continue.

Later, it was all about how many items were completed that day and how much money should be earned. The chicken leg we had for lunch wasn't very tasty, but the braised pig's trotters with soybeans were quite delicious.

They didn't have time to eat in the cafeteria; they just waited for the food delivery truck to arrive.

"Was it the same person delivering the food today?" the officer asked again.

The man answered fluently: "Yes, but there were so many people buying food today that I almost had to wait for the second batch."

"More than usual... but there are enough lunch boxes?"

"That's not enough; some people need to register to buy it."

"Have you kept track of how many people there are?"

"How could I possibly remember that?"

"Yeah, are all your boxed lunches the same?"

“They are different. The first batch and the second batch are different. The first batch also has two different options.”

"Did you see any different dishes today?"

“I saw it,” he said confidently. The person eating a different dish happened to be sharing a table with him, so he saw it: “Their side has all green vegetables, and there’s a steamed egg with meat sauce. It doesn’t look as good as mine at all.”

He disliked the local dialect.

Steamed egg with meat sauce?

After thinking about it for a moment, the two of them couldn't find anything suspicious. It couldn't possibly be that they put hallucinogens on the meat sauce, could it?

"Did anyone eat mushrooms today?" another policeman asked, realizing something.

"Hmm~"

The man shook his head. As far as he knew, there wasn't a single dish today that included oyster mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, or enoki mushrooms.

Later he said it was a factory shuttle bus that took people home, but the person was still the same one.

The police sorted through the documents and handed some records to the two officers for review.

"The suspicious points are the time the factory bus driver was late and the issue of his driving skills. Perhaps someone impersonated the factory bus driver to pick up and drop off the workers."

The two quickly reviewed what they had done that day, and then Liu Chaoque said, "Perhaps this man lied about the project. Do you know anything about his previous company?"

Perhaps she's being conspiratorial. Foremen are usually experienced with workers demanding unpaid wages; they won't readily pay wages that aren't rightfully theirs. If a worker frequently fails to receive their wages...

Unless he is the boss who owes wages.

“We’ve investigated. It’s a sunset company. The boss has absconded. Facial recognition doesn’t match the person.” Knowing what Liu Chaoque wanted to ask, the policeman smoothly continued, “And those who inadvertently revealed their previous companies, I’ve also investigated them, and it matches what they said.”

"That's strange. Why are they all hesitating?"

"Has the connection between these places been confirmed? Where are they on the map?"

Using a map of China, the group marked their former and current workplaces, and the possible points where they might intersect were all unknown.