Homo Sapiens

「Meanwhile.」

Back in his hometown of Jin City, Wang Haoran faced the difficult task of convincing his parents.

Watching his mother, who had difficulty walking, bustling about in the kitchen, he secretly steeled his resolve. Wang Haoran wasn’t actually the eldest son. His older brother had been driven to suicide by jumping into a river a few years ago due to online gambling debts.

His mother’s leg had been injured by the debt collectors who came to their door.

That was why his family was destitute.

His mother prepared a huge spread of food and kept putting more onto his plate, while his father sat to the side, silently smoking his small pipe.

After eating his fill, Wang Haoran put down his chopsticks. ”Dad, Mom, I’m planning to take you to the south in a few days.”

”Why so soon? Can’t we wait until after the New Year?” his mother asked, placing a piece of pig’s trotter on his plate.

Wang Haoran had already prepared his excuse. ”My job requires me to stay there for over a year. Plus, my girlfriend and I are getting ready to marry, so you’ll have to be there for that. It would be too disruptive to my work if we have to travel back and forth.”

”Can’t we just take a bus over ourselves when the time comes?” his father muttered dismissively.

Wang Haoran retorted, ”Dad, you’ve barely even traveled all of Jin City. Fifth Uncle had to take me to college. When the time comes, I’ll just have to fly back to get you anyway. Since you’ll have to move sooner or later, we might as well get it all done at once.”

Hearing that her son was getting married, his mother ignored everything else and made the final decision. ”Then we’ll go with you. I’m waiting to hold my grandchild! Besides, jobs are hard to find these days. Let’s not cause our son any more trouble.”

His father, who was rather afraid of his wife, didn’t dare to mumble another word.

Having convinced his mother, Wang Haoran breathed a sigh of relief.

As for the girlfriend, he wasn’t lying to his parents. He really did have one.

After all, in the employee town in Hongsawaddy, a large number of local female workers had their eyes fixed on these ”prize catches.”

All employees of the Three Great Groups knew that the salaries and benefits for technical personnel were significantly higher than those for ordinary workers.

As an aerospace engineer who enjoyed Grade B-4 benefits even during his internship, he would be promoted directly to Grade B-2 benefits upon formal employment.

For context, Grade C salaries ranged from 2,000 to 3,500 Jin yuan, while Grade D salaries were between 500 and 1,500 Jin yuan.

Although the company’s other benefits were excellent, even someone earning 500 Jin yuan a month didn’t have to worry about food, clothing, housing, or transportation.

But the benefits were still tiered.

Most of the ordinary female workers were in Grade D. How could they get promoted? They could only wait for seniority to accumulate or study hard to acquire professional skills, which was obviously a difficult path.

Therefore, many chose to take a shortcut.

They became gold diggers.

And in Hongsawaddy, who were the wealthy ones? The management, technicians, and scientists of the Three Great Groups, of course.

The management level was basically out of the question. After all, there were only a few managers, and Hongsawaddy didn’t permit polygamy—not even secret mistresses were allowed.

The Three Great Groups had some very specific rules. Divorce was permitted, but the party at fault in the marriage would be forced to leave with nothing and be demoted to the very bottom of the career ladder.

If it was true love, one would naturally be willing to accept such an outcome.

If it was for money, then they were in for a major disappointment.

As for determining which party was at fault, the Homo Sapiens Company had implanted latent data collectors in every employee. Combined with a powerful surveillance system, it was impossible to hide anything from the company within the controlled zones.

However, under normal circumstances, the Internal Affairs Department responsible for this area didn’t spend all day monitoring employees’ private lives.

In any case, once married, both parties had to be aware of the consequences.

Otherwise, they could just not get married. As long as you remained single, the company wouldn’t care if you had a few ”friends.”

The playboy Gafei, for instance, was not married.

The female workers of Hongsawaddy generally didn’t target married men, because there was no point even if they succeeded. They wanted a better life, not necessarily true love.

Even if it were for love, married men were usually middle-aged or old. Wouldn’t it be better to choose a younger man?

Therefore, the management class, who were typically already married, were not the female workers’ targets.

Their targets were the technicians, scientists, and teaching staff.

Wang Haoran was targeted in this very way. After a local girl persistently pursued him for over a month, the two finally confirmed their relationship.

Of course, the girl was quite a catch herself. At the very least, she was good-looking and an employee at Qingye Bank.

However, to prevent Wang Haoran from loving her and leaving her, the girl was very direct, stating that they could only consummate the relationship after marriage.

This was actually a key point the company emphasized during training for its female employees: don’t let a man touch you before marriage, lest you be abandoned later.

This was because of an internal company rule: before marriage, both parties must undergo a comprehensive physical examination and mutually confirm each other’s physical condition. Agreeing to accept each other’s current state was a prerequisite for the marriage to be approved.

Whether a man had remained chaste was generally difficult to verify, unless he had contracted a disease.

But for a woman, it was different. A single check would reveal the truth.

Therefore, many young female employees at the Homo Sapiens Company would actively choose to remain chaste, unless they were the type who didn’t want to get married.

Wang Haoran’s girlfriend was one such example. She was a rather honest and proper local girl.

If Wang Haoran were to actually abandon her, he would be immediately demoted to the very bottom by the company, and his assets within the company would be re-evaluated and adjusted accordingly.

In reality, the Homo Sapiens Company did this for the good of its employees.

When the bonded relationships of the foundational organisms cannot be stably maintained, the internal stability of the total system composed of these organisms will consequently decline.

After all, a single employee meant they had no ties. An employee with no ties was often difficult to control and manage within the company’s system.

Without a large number of stable, bonded foundational organisms, the company’s ability to self-sustain and grow would also decline.

As a fundamental social structure, it is linked to the stability and continuity of the entire operational system. If this structure is extensively damaged and cannot be repaired or replenished in time, the consequences will be extremely severe.

The Homo Sapiens Company was doing this for the sake of the future.

As the company’s internal economy experienced explosive growth, all kinds of benefits would continue to improve.

This was like an organism consuming increasing amounts of food and oxygen. During this growth process, free radicals would also appear.

Once the free radicals spun out of control, they could very well cause some cells to become cancerous, ultimately killing the organism.

The ordinary cells in the super-organism of human society are, in fact, combinations of two organisms. Once this combined relationship breaks down, it signifies the emergence of two potential cancer cells.

When the rupture of these cells exceeds the organism’s own limits for repair and replenishment, it means cancer has broken out.

However, this type of cancer is not incurable.

It’s just that since the dawn of human civilization, it has been treated through methods like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgical removal, and allowing the diseased body to procreate.

These treatment plans all share one characteristic: they inevitably kill a large number of healthy cells, and the recurrence rate is one hundred percent.