Homo Sapiens

Wu Fang listened as Xin Tu muttered to himself. He wasn't particularly surprised and didn't offer any opinions.

This was because such behavior was very common among the "new human" employees within the Homo Sapiens Company.

The psychological counseling office had even specifically studied this phenomenon, dubbing it the "rebound-from-the-bottom effect."

The so-called "rebound-from-the-bottom effect" refers to what happens after people completely open themselves up to others. Once they no longer have any privacy, they become more moral and orderly, and the better side of their nature is released.

After all, in this nearly transparent society, bad deeds cannot be hidden; similarly, good deeds cannot be hidden either.

Under these circumstances, would you choose to do bad things, or would you choose to do good things?

The vast majority of people would certainly choose to do good deeds. This is because doing so earns them the approval of others, who will see them as someone worth associating with.

If someone chose to do bad deeds, the new human employees around them would surely despise, shun, and isolate them, and the company would also administer punishment.

In this way, the group of "evildoers" among the new human employees is not only suppressed to a minimum but also left with nowhere to hide, thus ensuring the internal purity of the workforce.

Employees who have just become new humans gradually transform as they adapt to this transparent society, leading to situations like Xin Tu's.

These people easily become fanatical Converts. They have unconditional trust in the company and yearn to reshape the entire world in the company's image, thereby establishing a transparent society to achieve permanent peace.

According to an investigation by the Internal Affairs Division, the proportion of fanatical Converts among new human employees is very high, reaching 31%.

Another 45% are "Believers." They also aspire to establish a transparent society and achieve permanent peace, but they have not fallen into a state of fanaticism.

The remaining 24% are "Rationalists." This group consists of highly educated new human employees who view issues more rationally. Although they contribute to the company's development, they have some of their own ideas.

These are the three major groups currently within the new human workforce.

Of course, despite some differences, it doesn't affect their division of labor, cooperation, or mutual trust. After all, the ideas of some of these individuals may change over time.

For example, Wu Fang is a Believer.

And now, Xin Tu is a Convert.

After half an hour of feeling the breeze outside, Wu Fang and Xin Tu returned to their posts.

They worked until evening, when the night shift employees came to take over.

Xin Tu boarded a small train and returned to District 6 of Yunshan Base City via the tunnel.

District 6 of Yunshan Base City can accommodate 32,000 employees. It is located about 7.7 kilometers from the Yunshan Dam, and there are underground hot springs nearby, so a geothermal power station was built there.

District 6 is divided into three functional blocks: the Upper Block, the Lower Block, and the East Block.

The train stopped at the station in District 6, and Xin Tu, along with a group of other employees who lived there, disembarked.

The artificial sun in the station plaza was also positioned to simulate a sunset.

On the other side of the station, numerous elevators were running up and down. The elevators were divided into three types: passenger elevators, cargo elevators, and special-purpose elevators.

Just then, the doors of three cargo elevators opened. Self-driving transport carts, pulling bamboo crates filled with fruits and vegetables, headed toward the food street in the Lower Block.

Xin Tu ran into his younger sister, Meiyu, who had just gotten off work. In truth, his sister's name wasn't originally Meiyu. Her previous name in their local dialect was "Beautiful Ruby." When Xin Tu registered a new name for her, he specially chose a nice-sounding Chinese one.

"How was work?"

Meiyu nodded. "It was fine. The kids were all well-behaved."

"Good. Keep up the good work, and don't fall behind on your studies. If there's anything you don't understand, you can ask me."

"I know, Brother." Meiyu revealed a pair of cute little canines.

Her parents had originally arranged her future for her; she was supposed to marry the younger son of a landlord from the next village next year. However, the landlord's family was "cleaned up" for armed resistance against the Assam Branch's administration.

Meiyu was only 16 now. According to the Homo Sapiens Company's internal regulations, employees could marry after turning 18.

So, Xin Tu had her work and study at the same time. She was now assigned to be a caregiver at the Yunshan Sixth Kindergarten.

The Homo Sapiens Company had artificially created a large number of positions to absorb low-skilled female labor.

For example, in nurseries and kindergartens, the company's standards dictated a ratio of one caregiver and one teacher for every 10 children, one pediatric nurse for every 100 children, and a minimum of three pediatricians for every kindergarten.

As a caregiver, Meiyu partnered with another teacher, and together they were responsible for 10 children.

To the company, hiring more employees wasn't a big deal. After all, kindergarten work truly required a lot of staff.

If there was only one teacher for fifty or sixty children, it would be impossible to be attentive to every child's needs, no matter how dedicated the teacher was.

But after adjusting the ratio to 10:2, it meant that the teacher and caregiver only had to manage 10 children. The precision of their care was bound to increase dramatically, preventing situations where attending to one child meant neglecting another.

This ultra-small class size might seem like a waste of manpower, but it was actually very important to the Homo Sapiens Company.

For instance, to a certain extent, it allowed the company to indirectly strip some natural-born parents of their custody rights, reducing the probability of these children being "contaminated" by their parents.

At the same time, it allowed the company to begin instilling its philosophy from childhood. By the time these children grew up, their level of identification with the company would undoubtedly be very high.

The company's management in this area was extremely strict. For particularly malevolent natural-born parents who refused to change despite repeated correction, the company would use compulsory measures to transfer custody of the child to the kindergarten and school, leaving the parents with only visitation rights.

Among the children Meiyu managed, there were two whose custody had been taken over by the kindergarten.

For these children under full-time care, there was a special arrangement within the kindergarten. They were grouped in sets of 10, each group assigned a dedicated guardian and caregiver.

These full-time guardians and caregivers were different from regular teachers and caregivers. Their main responsibility was to handle all duties after the regular staff's shifts ended, so they were also known as "surrogate parents."

Barring special circumstances, these full-time guardians and caregivers would typically remain in their roles until the child turned 18, at which point their special task would be complete and the special relationship dissolved.

For some orphans, this represented a very good future.

After all, the company would arrange surrogate parents, and with the other children in the same group, it was like having ten brothers and sisters. Even though they weren't related by blood, sometimes blood ties don't matter to people.

And these professionally trained surrogate parents were certainly much better than those scumbag parents.

Xin Tu was very satisfied with the company's meticulous arrangements. 'If I have children in the future, even if I were to die in an accident one day, I could face death calmly.'

In this regard, the nursing homes had a similar mechanism in place, eliminating everyone's worries about the future.

The contract the Homo Sapiens Company gave its new human employees was very simple and clear: the company arranges everything for you, and you devote your life to working for the company with peace of mind.

'I don't see anything wrong with that,' Xin Tu thought.

'Right now, I just feel full of energy. After all, looking at how the company operates, all the work I'm doing now is truly in service of myself.'

'For example, the underground hydroelectric power station I helped build generates electricity that is used to produce all sorts of daily necessities and food. It can also be used to produce weapons to protect the company and my own property.'

'In the end, all of this is directly tied to my own personal interests.'

'In fact, to me, those slackers and corner-cutters inside the company are harming my own interests. I have to properly supervise those natural-born employees for the good of the company.'

'Working for yourself and working for others are two completely different states of being.'

It was precisely because of this mentality that Xin Tu didn't find his work tedious or dull. On the contrary, he was filled with energy from head to toe.