Shi Rang subconsciously suspected that the Charity Foundation had filtered their aid recipients from the very beginning, but after careful thought, he realized that made no sense.
Teenagers of this age already possessed basic self-care abilities. Why would they co to the Charity Foundation to sign an "aid loan" before venturing out on their own?
Not to ntion, their files clearly detailed a multitude of tragic pasts.
After conducting a simple statistical sampling, Shi Rang discovered that the reasons they beca orphans were statistically... surprisingly uniform.
Singling out the category of "guardian involved in a car accident," there were over three thousand aid recipients added to the list in the First District this year alone for this reason.
And in the Ninth District, a generally economically backward region frequently plagued by civil unrest, the figure was also over three thousand.
The First District led the world in its number of highways, so the "accident locations" in the files never overlapped. The Ninth District was a completely different story. Shi Rang flipped through a few files and saw the exact sa highway appearing repeatedly. The "family accident records" of two different children were even completely identical, with only the ti and location altered.
According to the files, this single road produced an orphan every week on average.
He considered the possibility of an Anomaly causing these accidents, but as more evidence surfaced, Shi Rang realized this was clearly the result of programmatic generation with minor subsequent edits.
All signs pointed to a terrifying answer:
The existence of these specific-aged orphans might be artificially manufactured.
The Charity Foundation... No, the Managent Authority was manufacturing orphans?
Artificially causing accidents to create orphans and then organizing adoptions was ti-consuming, laborious, and unnecessary. This looked more like... they were creating humans of a specific age and using the Charity Foundation to integrate these unrelated individuals into society, recovering funds in the process.
Therefore, the massive profits stemd from the fact that they never needed to provide long-term care for these orphans.
They only needed two or three months of socialization before sending them into society, subsequently receiving subsidy repaynts over several years. It was a highly lucrative business model...
Why?
Shi Rang dove into the Managent Bureau Main Station. Finally, in an inconspicuous corner of the Terminal Station, he found a directive file belonging to the Veil Project.
He broke through the file's Class B Clearance requirent in a single strike, exposing its contents completely.
"Following a vote by the Supre Council, Project Sky-nding Stone is hereby approved. We will mass-deploy non-anomalous humans—as individuals or family units—across the world to replenish population losses and ensure the stability of the Veil..."
"To this end, we propose the coordinated establishnt of a Veil enterprise under the guise of 'charitable orphan aid activities' to provide assistance and cover for these independent individuals as they reintegrate into society."
The electronic signature at the end of the directive belonged to "S6—Autumn Chrysanthemum."
That Council mber who oversaw the Ethics Committee.
The approval date was the year 1620. By the end of that sa year, the Charity Foundation was established.
Using manufactured, non-anomalous humans to replenish population losses...
Was it because of the Anomalies?
Shi Rang had indirectly experienced the containnt operation for the Divine Corpse and had read many Subject files. He knew exactly how massive a threat these ubiquitous anomalies posed to ordinary people.
Even though Managent Authority personnel were working hard to contain them, and the Pan-Continent Alliance seized every opportunity to destroy all Anomalous Entities, the number of people worldwide who died due to anomalies had to be an astronomical figure.
He reserved judgnt on the Managent Authority's actions; at the very least, this thod was undeniably effective. He had previously wondered how there could be so many orphans in the world for the Charity Foundation to aid, but he had never thought too deeply about it. The mundane world continued to spin as usual.
This explained why all the subsidized orphans he encountered were in a similar age bracket, and why they even exhibited certain shared behavioral responses...
But imdiately after, Shi Rang's thoughts shifted, and his consciousness turned as cold as solid ice.
Ying Shang was also an aided orphan.
So, was she also one of these manufactured humans?
Did the holand and birth parents she constantly yearned for simply never exist?
Shi Rang still rembered that shortly after they confird their relationship, Ying Shang had shared her unpleasant experiences with her adoptive family. Mid-sentence, she had suddenly fallen silent.
They walked shoulder-to-shoulder around the university track at night for an entire lap, and she didn't say another word.
"If it makes you unhappy, don't talk about it. You're an adult now anyway; they can't control you," Shi Rang had comforted her. "You have your own life now."
"No... I just..." She suddenly stopped. "I was just thinking about when I was little..."
The choke in her voice threw Shi Rang into a panic. He scrambled to step in front of her, completely at a loss for what to do.
Ultimately, he simply pulled her into a hug, letting Ying Shang bury her face in his shoulder and cry her heart out.
Her tears dampened his shoulder, and the scorching breath of her sobs brushed against his neck. anwhile, he kept a vigilant watch, glaring at anyone who dared look in their direction, like a wild beast fiercely guarding its nest.
He knew Ying Shang's parents had both passed away in an accident, and learning this had profoundly impacted him. He had once worried that his love for her was mixed with too much pity rather than genuine affection, terrified that he might end up hurting her feelings.
Shi Rang suffered imnsely because of his Original Family, and so did Ying Shang, though for completely opposite reasons.
Ying Shang felt noticeably better after she finished crying. She used several tissues to wipe her face and tried her best to clean his shirt.
The two of them continued strolling around the track, chatting, and never brought the topic up again.
That night, when he dropped her off outside her dorm building, she suddenly said, "They died in a car crash."
It took Shi Rang a mont to realize she was talking about her birth parents.
He didn't know what to say, but he understood that Ying Shang just needed soone to listen, so he nodded heavily.
"That's what the Charity Foundation volunteers told . I also rember when the car flipped... I was inside it at the ti, which is why I've always been terrified of riding in cars... The volunteers said they went quickly and felt no pain, but I... I know they were just comforting . I rember the burning fire and the sll of smoke and dust. They must have... I'm sorry, I'm rambling again."
She lowered her eyes, apologizing out of habit, but Shi Rang shook his head.
"I'm willing to listen to you. Talk for as long as you need."
Fan Yingshang looked at him with red-rimd eyes for a mont, then smiled.
She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss, a light peck on his lips like a little bird. The warmth ca quickly, and faded just as fast.
Back then, Shi Rang had smiled foolishly as he watched her retreating back, but now, he couldn't smile at all.
Shi Rang's mind snapped back to the present, returning to his physical body. He stared at the dark surface of the desk, as if seeing her dim, sorrowful eyes when she spoke of that "car crash" once more.
He had no doubt that the Managent Authority, capable of producing various types of mory Erasure agents, could easily implant tailored mories into the orphans.
But why go to such lengths?
Was it to make the orphans believe they were truly orphans? To make them run away rather than dig into their own pasts?
Then what about the years of terror and agony she suffered as a result? What did all of that amount to?
An ancient question of Philosophy popped into Shi Rang's head: 'If your mories are subjected to Tampering, are you still you? What about copied mories? Fabricated mories?'
All the blood in his body seed to rush straight to his head, shaking his very soul and leaving his ears ringing.
He furiously brushed these thoughts aside, only for a far more terrifying conjecture to slip in—'Is it because creating a new human is so easy that Tian Ying approved wiping the personalities of all those affected by the incident, including hers?'
'Is the person living in the town truly the Ying Shang who spent so many years by his side?'
Shi Rang could no longer sit still.
He dashed out of the office, power-walking through the labyrinthine corridors of the main building. He had already found the most critical breakthrough that had drawn him into this investigation; now, even if the Alliance were to attack, nothing could make him stay here a second longer.
The idle procurent director stord out of the Operations Zone with blazing urgency, heading straight for the small town, making a beeline directly for Number 210.
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