Jiang Ye had a private office in the Music City, one hundred and twenty square meters with complete facilities, but he rarely visited it.
A spherical robot, the size of a fist, was responsible for cleaning the room, so there was no dust on the desk. Jiang Ye sat down, turned on the screen, and began to get busy.
First, he sent a message to Donnie, asking him to recruit a thousand new volunteers, expanding the volunteer team to fifteen hundred people.
Donnie was hesitant and asked for money.
The reason was valid: recruiting volunteers required advertising, and newspaper and online ads were expensive.
Jiang Ye approved fifty thousand yuan for him, estimating that the money would be enough, and the rest would be his bonus.
Opening the office software, Jiang Ye tried to design an experimental record card.
Middle school had experiment classes with record cards. After so many years, he could only vaguely remember some of the outlines. Jiang Ye recalled and started to create a table.
At the top were the basic information fields: [Date], [Name], [Experiment Location], [Volunteer ID], [On-duty Supervisor], [Music Track Listened To].
Below that, a large space was reserved for writing up to a thousand characters for [Detailed Experimental Process and Feelings].
At the bottom were the evaluation and feedback sections: [Was the Experiment Safely Completed?], [Overall Evaluation], [Volunteer's Remuneration], [Remarks].
Jiang Ye pondered for a long time and then added an eight-digit number in the upper right corner of the record card.
The first record card's number should be 00000001, and so on. This format could accommodate nearly a hundred million record cards.
At the rate of fifteen hundred volunteers, it could support over 660,000 experiments, which should be sufficient. After all, even the most prolific accounts on music platforms didn't have 600,000 songs.
Jiang Ye sent the created table to the staff and instructed them on how to use it.
There was an experiment scheduled in exactly ten minutes. Jiang Ye got up, left his office, and walked to the laboratory.
Five hundred volunteers were ready, all seated in their positions in the laboratory. Some were chatting with their neighbors, some were playing on their phones, and some were dozing off.
A dozen Music City staff members and robots stood around, responsible for repairing faulty equipment and treating volunteers who encountered problems.
As soon as Jiang Ye stood by the window, the entire laboratory quickly fell silent. All the volunteers sat up straight and assumed a serious posture.
"It's like I'm a homeroom teacher..." Jiang Ye chuckled helplessly.
A staff member ran over and handed him the laboratory work card.
[First Experiment: 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM]
[Music Track: Leaking Urine No. 2]
[Expected Effect of Music Track: After listening, one will unconsciously leak some urine.]
[Experiment Reward: Those who listen to the entire track and manage to hold it will receive a reward of 3,000 yuan.]
Jiang Ye was bewildered.
What in the world was this?
The tunes created by the "Smart Fungus" were becoming increasingly bizarre. Even a witch wasn't this formidable.
"Leaking Urine No. 2? Was there a No. 1 before?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Yes, No. 1 wasn't very effective. Less than a third of the people urinated while listening," the staff member replied. "The 'Smart Fungus' created No. 2, which is ten minutes longer than No. 1. We're preparing to see the results."
"If the effect is really good, will the laboratory turn into a giant public restroom?" Jiang Ye worried.
"The volunteers are all wearing diapers," the staff member said, handing him a tablet computer. "The diapers are equipped with sensors to measure the amount of urine. The measurement can be taken half a minute after the music finishes."
Jiang Ye took the tablet. On the screen were five hundred small blue squares. When he tapped on one of them, it displayed "Anthony Jay, Volunteer #127, Urine Volume: 0 ml."
"Let's begin," Jiang Ye said.
The staff member hurried back to the laboratory.
The volunteers put on their headphones as instructed, set the volume to 80%, and clicked play on the screen. They all began listening with tense expressions.
Jiang Ye scanned the room. The volunteers' expressions varied. Some had a determined look, as if saying, "I'll be damned if I pee," while others looked like, "I can't actually pee, can I?" Some were smiling, and others were meditating with their eyes closed.
Five minutes into the music, the tablet in his hand suddenly vibrated.
Jiang Ye looked down and saw that one of the small blue squares had turned yellow.
[Thomas Picketty, Volunteer #198, Urine Volume: 2ml]
"It's starting, it's starting," Jiang Ye felt an inexplicable urge to laugh.
As the music progressed, the tablet continued to vibrate.
Small blue squares turned yellow one after another. Within a minute, over a hundred volunteers began to wet themselves.
The volunteers' expressions had changed dramatically. Some looked terrified, some were furious, and others had given up struggling with a wry smile, likely corresponding to "the urge to pee is so strong," "I must hold it," and "I've already peed."
The tablet continued to vibrate, and some yellow squares turned red. Jiang Ye tapped on one and saw that the volunteer had urinated 330 ml, the equivalent of a bottle of mineral water.
Some volunteers' faces were flushed red. Even as adults, they couldn't control their urination, and subconsciously, they felt it was very embarrassing.
Finally, the music track ended.
All five hundred squares... No, one was still blue!
Jiang Ye tapped on the only blue square that hadn't changed, and was stunned.
It was the same Caucasian girl who had pulled her hair until her face was bloody during the Sleep No. 1 experiment.
It was her again!
This girl was formidable; she always won in the end!
Jiang Ye beckoned to a staff member and whispered something.
The staff member quickly brought the Caucasian girl who had won to the front.
Her complexion was pale, and she was swaying. She looked like she had a serious illness.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Ye asked with concern. "Are you feeling unwell?"
"I haven't had any water since yesterday," she said.
Jiang Ye then noticed that her lips were chapped, looking as if she had walked out of the Sahara Desert.
"Take her to the infirmary immediately. Give her some water and an IV drip of glucose," Jiang Ye exclaimed in shock. "You can't do this! Your body will collapse! And it's meaningless to do this experiment without drinking water!"
"But I really need the money," she said with a wry smile. "I've earned a lot of money these past few days, and I'm very happy."
"How can it be meaningless? There always needs to be a control group," she added. Perhaps due to severe dehydration, her speech was intermittent, and her mind wasn't functioning properly.
Before Jiang Ye could say anything further, she was taken to the infirmary by the staff.
The other volunteers also filed out, rushing to the restrooms to change their diapers and take care of their lingering urges.
The laboratory staff began distributing the experimental record cards and neutral pens, placing them on the tables for the volunteers to fill out upon their return.
Jiang Ye returned to his office to wait and soon saw the scanned electronic versions of the record cards.
He specifically read the detailed description section.
[At first, I didn't feel anything, but soon my bladder started to swell, as if the headphones were an air hose blowing up my bladder like a balloon. At the same time, the muscles holding back the urine were weak and powerless. I resisted for a long time, first trying to force myself to hold it, then trying to distract myself by thinking about the movie I watched last night, but I still couldn't hold it and ended up urinating completely.]
[When the music reached the six-and-a-half-minute mark, a huge, intense, and irresistible urge to urinate washed over my entire body. I even suspected the headphones were leaking electricity. After a bout of shivering, my diaper was full.]
[I don't know what happened. I dozed off, and when I woke up, I had urinated in my pants.]