"Knock knock knock."
At noon, a series of knocks woke Wang Yan.
Ever since she discovered her daughter Chen Na was missing last night, she had been too worried to sleep. She had just dozed off for a bit when she was suddenly startled awake by the knocking.
Thinking the Police Departnt might have so leads, she quickly got up and went to the door. When she opened it, however, there was no one outside.
She looked around and saw a small box placed on the ground.
Taking it back to the room and opening it, she found a letter and a sealed dicine box inside.
Wang Yan unfolded the letter and imdiately recognized the delicate handwriting as her daughter Chen Na's.
"Sorry, Mom, I have to leave for a while. Please don't worry about , I will co back later."
Following Chen Na's brief ssage was another paragraph of text, written in a different handwriting.
"Ms. Wang, your daughter has passed our selection process. We will take her elsewhere for training for the ti being. The dicine box contains dication that can treat your illness, which is also the result of our agreent with your daughter. Do not attempt to find us; you do not have that capability. When the ti is right, your daughter will return to see you."
"Nana..."
After reading the letter's contents, Wang Yan was already in tears.
She remained silent for a long ti, then opened the dicine box. Inside was only a single pill. When she picked it up, her Personal Terminal automatically identified the information.
[Special Effect Healing Pill]: Can cure various diseases upon consumption. This item is tradable.
Wang Yan knew that such a dicinal item would probably sell for hundreds of thousands of Ascension Coins on the Market.
Now that the mysterious organization that took her daughter had actually delivered the dicine, she couldn't feel any happiness at all.
Having struggled through life for many years, she deeply understood that there was no such thing as a free lunch. The fact that the mysterious organization was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of Ascension Coins ant their assessnt was that they could gain a return far exceeding hundreds of thousands of Ascension Coins from her daughter Chen Na.
This made Wang Yan's heart ache intensely for a mont, not knowing what kind of treatnt her daughter would endure.
But she felt that what Guan Tong said on the phone earlier was probably correct. An organization that went to such great lengths to take Chen Na away definitely didn't intend to harm her, but to utilize her abilities. So she likely wouldn't be in any life-threatening danger.
After a long silence, Wang Yan looked at the pill and swallowed it.
This was what her daughter had exchanged for with her own personal freedom. She would take it. And then she would live, until she found her daughter.
...
On Mingdao Mountain.
Guan Tong sat at the door of the wooden cabin, basking in the sun. Coal Ball was climbing around on a tree in front.
In less than a full day, it had already adapted to and even co to like the environnt here. Being able to climb up and down trees was definitely better than being cooped up in a small room all the ti.
Watching Coal Ball's active figure, Guan Tong felt a sense that it was enjoying its freedom.
If Coal Ball was like this, wasn't he himself the sa?
A free, unrestrained life was what he had always wanted. Especially after entering the era of the Doomsday Rules, this kind of freedom had beco even more precious.
"It seems I can only decline Shi Jingyi's invitation for now."
After a morning of consideration, Guan Tong had finally made his decision.
Actually, the conditions Shi Jingyi ntioned were pretty good. The assistant teaching job wouldn't be too much work, he could get his identity registered, and he would have a separate faculty dormitory to live in.
However, in exchange, he would inevitably fall into a kind of templated, fixed lifestyle.
When that ti ca, forget about himself, even Coal Ball would probably find it difficult to climb trees, and it would have to be shut indoors most of the ti.
Furthermore, the academy was in Yong'an. As the national capital, Yong'an's controls in all aspects would definitely be the strictest.
After much thought, Guan Tong felt he wasn't suited for, at least not right now, living in the capital.
He took out his phone and edited a text ssage to send to Shi Jingyi.
"Thank you for your invitation. After consideration, I've decided not to co after all."
About ten minutes later, Shi Jingyi replied.
"Do as you see fit. And as I said on the phone, my invitation stands indefinitely. If you ever change your mind, just let
know."
Guan Tong put away his phone and began to spend his ti according to his own pace.
Just as planned before, he would watch online courses every day, maintain his website, and take walks on the mountain during relaxation ti.
During this period, Wang Yan contacted him once and told him about what happened afterward.
Although Chen Na had disappeared, Wang Yan's terminal illness had indeed been cured by the dicinal item, which was, no matter how you looked at it, a good thing.
Wang Yan told him she had registered and applied to join the Police Departnt, and the authorities had already notified her that her application was successful.
This surprised Guan Tong quite a bit, but thinking of Wang Yan's item, that "Oil Conversion Pot" that could transform any liquid into fuel, such a resource-type item still held a certain value for the authorities.
Moreover, it had been exposed online earlier that various official departnts, especially frontline ones, were recruiting en masse, and manpower was extrely scarce.
He figured it was because during the Blood Plague rule, due to chaos and conflicts everywhere, a large number of frontline personnel didn't die from the virus itself, but died at the hands of many riotous infected individuals.
Therefore, now, as long as soone was physically fit and had sound values, applying for frontline positions in official departnts was very easy to get approved.
As for Wang Yan's purpose in applying to join the Police Departnt, it was obvious at a glance: to find her daughter Chen Na.
Ti passed, and before he knew it, it was October 10th.
Today was the day the nation officially entered the warti state. Guan Tong also turned on his computer and watched the announcent live streaming.
He knew that starting today, this country was going to undergo a major transformation.
After the authorities announced the entry into the warti state, the atmosphere online imdiately underwent a significant change.
Originally sowhat out-of-line remarks were quickly suppressed.
Nurous drones were dispatched to patrol various major cities. These drones were equipped with facial scanning capabilities. As long as they scanned unregistered individuals, they would transmit the location to the Police Departnt, which would then dispatch personnel to investigate.
Additionally, the first batch of officially constructed shelters was completed. Occupants were randomly assigned based on registered personnel. Each shelter could accommodate about a thousand people, with living conditions not much different from university dormitories.
However, unlike university dorms, each shelter had two energy systems: one supplied from the outside and one independent system. If the external system was cut off due to natural disasters or human factors, the internal system could still operate for a period of ti.
Furthermore, various food, dicine, equipnt, etc., were stored in large quantities in each shelter as regular supplies, ensuring that material shortages wouldn't occur easily.
On the local Yunhua forum, Guan Tong saw soone ntion that everyone moving into a shelter had to undergo detailed registration.
Not just na, age, and facial data, but also the Personal Terminal's digital ID, Mind Power items, abilities, number of Ascension Coins... all of this had to be registered, and a protocol had to be signed.
The contents of the protocol weren't directly posted online, but roughly summarized, it ant that after moving into the shelter, one agreed to resource sharing.
In other words, if the authorities had a unified allocation requirent, shelter occupants were to obey managent and allow their items or Mind Power to be allocated as needed.
So people felt this wasn't great, but others said they didn't mind. They felt that since the authorities provided shelter and would assist in passing subsequent rules, obeying managent and unified resource allocation for that purpose was nothing inappropriate.
Furthermore, a not insignificant group of people were posting a large number of questions and doubts online: they claid that while shelter occupancy was supposedly randomly assigned, based on their observations, almost all those moving in were Ascendants.
That's right, this group was the non-Ascendant group. These were the people whose Mind Power had declined to zero after failing several rule challenges, and whose Personal Terminals had shut down.
This group had started appearing as early as after the third rule, [Fasting Therapy]. After the fifth rule, another large batch was added.
Now, the number of people in this group was already considerable, and the volu of their voices after banding together was huge.
They believed the authorities were prioritizing Ascendants for shelter occupancy. For those of them whose Personal Terminals were shut down, they were all placed at the very end of the line. This was blatant discrimination.
The authorities did not respond to this. Instead, so Ascendants expressed disdain online, saying what use would a bunch of people without Mind Power be in the future? Giving shelter occupancy qualifications to these people was purely a waste.
This triggered strong dissatisfaction from the non-Ascendant group, leading to many protests. As for the final outco, Guan Tong couldn't find any follow-up. Only sporadic comnts ntioned so being assigned to shelters, while others said they chose to leave the city together to live elsewhere.
After browsing through the current situation, Guan Tong's heart was also unsettled.
If the division among people after the third rule was still implicit, not that obvious, then after this conflict erupted, it had reached an irreparable stage.
Perhaps the authorities were also helpless. There were only so many shelters built now, and those moving in were destined to have so go first and so later. So, who goes first, Ascendants or non-Ascendants, was a simple choice.
Completely random was impossible. Because no matter how much one talked about everyone being equal, everyone knew in their hearts that the value and potential of an Ascendant was higher than that of a non-Ascendant.
The authorities had already stated clearly in the previous live streaming press conference that everything was for the survival of more citizens, and for that, so sacrifices had to be made.
These sacrifices included lifestyles, and certainly also included so people.
But when it was really your turn to be the one sacrificed, how many could accept it calmly?
However, what was both surprising and unsurprising to Guan Tong was that after entering the warti state, the traffic to his "Ascendant Ho" website began to soar.
The number of registered users had now surpassed two thousand and was still increasing rapidly.
"It seems other social websites are becoming less able to allow free speech..."
Guan Tong thought that even if his website couldn't be tracked, he couldn't allow users to talk nonsense. Discussing daily life and sharing information was fine, but so anti-human remarks were definitely prohibited.
He quickly wrote a "Posting Guidelines" and pinned it in various sections. It stated that healthy, positive, and harmonious discussions were encouraged, and those posting anti-human remarks would be muted or banned.
Once the post was published, dozens of new comnts quickly appeared.
"Support the Administrator!"
"After the warti state was announced, other websites clearly tightened up. Feels like this forum will be the only haven..."
"Anyone from Wu'an City? I was assigned to Wu'an-114 Shelter. If anyone is assigned there, we could be roommates!"
"You got assigned to a shelter already? I don't think I was in the first random batch. Probably have to wait for the second or third batch of shelters to be built before I can move in."
"What's so good about shelters... Four people to a room, and no co-ed living. They're forcing
and my girlfriend apart!"
"I rember the shelter occupancy protocol seed to have a note saying that strict managent is only during Doomsday Rule release periods. During non-rule periods, you can still apply to go out and et people from other shelters."
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