Chapter 20
Bai Hewei went straight home after leaving the exam venue.
He felt he had done exceptionally well this time, especially on the Essay, which was the best piece he had written in all his years of taking the exam. He had managed to use almost every single subheading from the government work reports.
On his way back, Bai Hewei had already begun searching for the commute time from his house to the Special Operations Department, while calculating how to spend his future salary now that it was going to increase by so much.
Thank goodness he had moved quickly and hadn’t let that freak ruin his exam. Otherwise, what a waste it would have been!
Bubbling with joy, Bai Hewei remained in high spirits all the way home.
When he saw his father cleaning the beef tripe and pork intestines, he sat on the sofa like a grand lord. “Dad, put plenty of pickled cabbage and extra chili in today’s dishes.”
“Did well on the exam, did you?” His father poked his head out from the kitchen. Taking one look at Bai Hewei’s smug expression, he couldn’t help but laugh along. “You, don’t get ahead of yourself. The last time you acted this cocky, your results turned out terrible, and you were sobbing your eyes out even though you were in your twenties.”
“This time is definitely different,” Bai Hewei said earnestly.
“Oh, right, Dad. On my way there, I helped catch a thief, but my phone got ruined. The police said they can give me a four-thousand-yuan stipend to cover the cost of a new phone. But that subsidy has to go through an approval process. How about you advance me the money first, and I’ll pay you back when the funds come through?” Bai Hewei scanned the room. Seeing that his mother and grandmother weren’t around, his eyes darted about as he decided to squeeze Old Bai for a hefty sum.
“Where would I get that kind of money? All the money is with your mother.” His father wasn’t falling for it. “Don’t we still have that old phone from a few years ago at home? Make do with that for now, and buy a new one when your money arrives.”
“Is that so? In that case, I’ll have to take a really thorough look inside our sofa pillows, the hidden compartment of Mom’s jewelry box, and…” Bai Hewei began rattle off a list of locations, every single one of them being Old Bai’s secret stash spots for his private savings.
To begin with, his father’s skills at hiding private money weren’t very advanced. After Bai Hewei became an Evolver, he could locate every single cent hidden in the house with absolute clarity.
His father’s expression changed instantly.
“Fine, fine, fine! But the moment your money comes in, you pay me back immediately.”
“Got it,” Bai Hewei replied. At most, I’ll pay back half.
“What a disaster. Other people’s sons at your age have already settled down, established a career, and given their parents grandchildren to hold, or they’re handing their parents mountains of gold and silver. How come when it comes to you, you’re still plotting against my private savings?”
“Oh, come on. Your son lives at home, his workplace is close by—how many people would beg for a setup like this?” Bai Hewei shot back without a shred of courtesy. “Don’t go comparing me to those successful kids, and don’t look at those deadbeats who do nothing but bring their wives and kids to live off their parents either.”
His father couldn’t win the argument, so he used the excuse of cooking to drive Bai Hewei out of the kitchen.
Bai Hewei secured twenty-eight hundred yuan from his father and decided to go buy a temporary phone first.
He didn’t need an expensive phone; the functions he actually used were quite limited anyway.
After purchasing a new phone and getting a replacement SIM card, Bai Hewei finally downloaded all his essential apps and re-established his WeChat friends list.
Once Bai Hewei successfully logged back into his WeChat account, he discovered that the Exam God had actually sent him a message.
wz1: Do you think this year’s Essay prompt was difficult?
The message had been sent around five in the afternoon, not long after his exam ended.
It was already past seven now.
Bai Hewei quickly replied.
When Will I Pass the Civil Service Exam: Great Master, I did fantastic on the exam! It’s all thanks to your guidance. I feel like I’ve made massive progress this time. The prompt was about cultural tourism, and it provided examples from a few regions, asking us to come up with our own title and write an essay. I managed to incorporate several subheadings from this year’s government work reports! Haha, I feel like my Essay score is going to be a complete sensation this time. A part of my success belongs to you, Great Master—it’s all because you taught me so well.
Wen Zhiyi was currently working with the personnel from the Special Operations Department to handle the Forbidden Zone near the vocational school town.
Because of the combat energy generated between Bai Hewei and Gentleman, the conditions inside the Forbidden Zone had likely undergone a mutation. They had to clear it immediately before the zone expanded into an even more unmanageable state.
Several field squad captains took turns leading their team members into the zone, carrying machines designed to absorb evolutionary energy. Their goal was to siphon out the excess energy inside and neutralize a sufficient number of the zone’s supernatural attacks, which amounted to a massive engineering project.
At the very least, all eight field squads had been put on a rotating shift roster. Over the next few days, they would take turns sleeping and resting, and no one could go home until this Forbidden Zone was suppressed back within a safe parameter.
As the Chief Researcher, Wen Zhiyi naturally couldn’t catch a break either; he needed to remain on-site to provide constant guidance.
“Chief Wen, aside from those offensive-type abilities, there are also many spatial rifts inside this Forbidden Zone. They were likely created by Gentleman. How should we handle them?” The field agents inside the zone maintained contact using specialized communication devices.
They were completely speechless at the absurdly dense evolutionary energy within this Forbidden Zone.
How on earth did Bai Hewei and Gentleman fight?
The entire zone was saturated with the energy of those two individuals.
“This Bai Hewei… is too powerful,” a field agent couldn’t help but mutter. “I feel like if I went up against him, I wouldn’t even be able to withstand a single strike. Has he really only been awakened for a short time? I think I can understand now why those foreign organizations are coming after him in a never-ending, relentless stream. He is truly terrifying.”
The machines they had brought along were all the latest models, representing the absolute pinnacle of global technology. Yet in less than a short hour, the energy storage of their devices was completely filled, forcing them to find personnel to transport the full units out and bring back fresh ones.
He had heard that the Chinese Academy of Sciences was currently researching ways to generate electricity using evolutionary energy. If the research succeeded, Bai Hewei’s individual energy output could likely sustain the electricity consumption of an entire city.
Frightening. Absolutely frightening.
“Why else would he be the world’s strongest?” another team member sighed. “Forget about Bai Hewei; even going up against Gentleman would be too much for us to handle. It really tests how tightly coordinated we are. But since Chief Wen has already taken away the syringe containing that new version of the Evolver Potion, we can only count on the Research Institute to produce results and see if they can boost our strength.”
There was truly no logic to be found when it came to evolution.
The disparity between different grades was simply too massive.
Just look at Bai Hewei and Gentleman—the two of them had nearly turned this originally stable Forbidden Zone into a high-risk hazard zone.
When they first entered the zone, they had almost stepped right into a spatial rift that would have teleported them who-knows-where.
Having barely dodged the spatial rift, a sudden burst of lightning arced down.
Getting struck by lightning was one thing, but the next moment they were assaulted by ice spikes.
Walking just a bit further forward, they actually encountered a psychic attack. It was truly lethal.
“Standard procedure: use the instruments to absorb all the evolutionary energy within the Forbidden Zone first. Do not easily deploy your own abilities,” Wen Zhiyi instructed. “Pay special attention to the central sector of the zone to see if any life-forms are generating. The moment a life-form appears within the Forbidden Zone, destroy it at all costs, understood?”
“Understood.”
Once a life-form was gestated within a Forbidden Zone, no matter what it was—even a tiny plant—it would become a massive problem that gave countless Evolvers a severe headache.
The news reports about a certain country being destroyed by a Forbidden Zone was, strictly speaking, because it had been ruined by the entities emerging from within the zone.
Life-forms that emerged from a Forbidden Zone, whether flora or fauna, naturally fed on the evolutionary energy drifting in the air.
Once they engaged in combat with an Evolver, even if the Evolver held the upper hand initially, they would be in deep trouble if they couldn’t eliminate the creature quickly. Over time, as the Evolver became exhausted due to the excessive depletion of their internal evolutionary energy, the creature could continuously absorb the free energy floating in the air, or even siphon the energy surrounding the Evolver. Ultimately, it could even replicate the Evolver’s supernatural ability.
It was a literal nightmare.
Fortunately, the conditions required to gestate this kind of life-form within a Forbidden Zone were exceptionally harsh. Furthermore, their country’s monitoring devices and detectors covered every corner. The moment an anomaly was detected, the local research institute and the Special Operations branch would immediately head out to handle it.
So far, things were still under control.
And when these Evolvers entered a Forbidden Zone, they would also spray a specialized chemical solution to eliminate any possibility of a life-form developing.
Wen Zhiyi had only managed to check his phone by snatching a brief moment of leisure amidst his hectic schedule.
When he clearly read the WeChat message Bai Hewei had sent, and recalled the Essay sheet he had observed earlier during the exam, his mind was instantly flooded with a barrage of profanities.
Especially when he saw Bai Hewei’s line, “it’s all because you taught me so well,” he fell dead silent instead.
When the results came out, he didn’t ask for much—just that Bai Hewei wouldn’t expose him and claim that he was the one who had taught him.
For the first time, Wen Zhiyi felt that “respecting teachers and honoring their teachings” wasn’t exactly a pleasant concept.
wz1: …Which specific subheadings from this year’s government report did you think could be applied to cultural tourism?
Bai Hewei replied very quickly.
When Will I Pass the Civil Service Exam: There were plenty, of course! For instance, that one section…
Bai Hewei typed away furiously, dumping all the subheadings he had written along with the case studies he had applied into a giant message and firing it off.
Along the way, he even took a moment to admire the essay he had composed.
Bai Hewei noticed that the WeChat status kept displaying “the other party is typing…”
But despite typing for a long time, not a single word came through.
What’s going on? Could it be that I wrote it so beautifully that even the Exam God is at a loss for words on how to praise me?
“Hold it, don’t curse. Let me edit this for you.” Huo Ling, who rarely caught Wen Zhiyi slacking on his phone, leaned over to take a look. He discovered that Wen Zhiyi had already typed out a massive paragraph in the text box.
Although it contained zero profanities, the sheer vitriol and sarcasm dripping from the entire passage left even Huo Ling unable to keep reading.
If this were sent out, Bai Hewei would probably explode on the spot. It was simply too hurtful.
What did he mean by, “If what you wrote counts as cultural tourism, the officials at the local Bureau of Culture and Tourism ought to swap positions with the garbage collectors”?
And what did he mean by, “If writing an Essay merely required mindlessly forcing templates, a monkey could become a civil servant”?
Huo Ling took one look and knew this wouldn’t do. He couldn’t let Wen Zhiyi send this paragraph out.
Though he claimed he was going to edit it, Huo Ling didn’t alter a single character. He simply took Wen Zhiyi’s phone and cleared out the entire block of text.
“Think about it—if Bai Hewei were actually good at writing Essays, he would have passed the exam long ago.” Huo Ling should have been incredibly furious that the tailored position he had custom-made for Bai Hewei had gone down the drain. But seeing Wen Zhiyi this enraged, his own anger evaporated instead.
If it didn’t work out this time, there was always a next time.
Once Bai Hewei’s national award came down, and the next time a vacancy opened up, they would restrict it to local household registration, add bonus points for national-level awards or above, and throw in a requirement for three years of subdistrict work experience. That would absolutely guarantee Bai Hewei could land on the shore of a stable career!
Wen Zhiyi let out a sigh.
“Give me back my phone. I know how to reply.”
“Seriously, don’t berate him. Right now, you need to play the role of Bai Hewei’s caring mentor. Whatever you do, don’t expose your true nature,” Huo Ling said earnestly. “Do you know how much the energy density of this Forbidden Zone has spiked? Bai Hewei is genuinely formidable. He’s already this powerful; if his brain were equally brilliant, wouldn’t that be terrifying? Who else in this world could possibly keep him in check? The way he is right now is absolutely perfect—he loves a peaceful life, abides by the rules, and is a little bit dense. How wonderful! This kind of Evolver is the strongest in the world; I could literally laugh myself awake from my dreams!”
“I know,” Wen Zhiyi grunted, nodding reluctantly.
On the other end, Bai Hewei waited for a long time before finally receiving the Great Master’s reply.
wz1: Sorry, I’m currently working overtime. I have to sign off for now.
When Will I Pass the Civil Service Exam: Got it, got it. Go ahead with your work, Great Master! (#^.^#)
Bai Hewei smiled. Hum me a little tune in an excellent mood, he headed back home.
It was already past eight in the evening.
Liu Zhong, the Party Working Committee Secretary of the Heping Subdistrict Office, was currently at home checking his child’s homework when his phone suddenly rang.
“I have to head to the district office for an emergency meeting. You keep checking her homework. I took a look earlier; she got quite a few wrong.”
“Another late-night meeting?!” his wife snapped furiously. “Day in and day out, it’s nothing but work, work, work! It’s rare for you to help check our daughter’s homework, and now you’re running out again. Is your district going to explode if it goes a single moment without a subdistrict secretary like you?!”
Liu Zhong didn’t dare talk back. He put on his shoes and drove down to the district office himself.
The notification from the district had come so urgently that he didn’t even have time to call his office assistant to drive him.
When Liu Zhong arrived at the district office, he discovered that several standing committee members were fully assembled in the conference room. Yet, among the grassroots secretaries summoned, he was the only one present.
Instantly, Liu Zhong’s heart leaped into his throat.
Could it be that something had gone wrong in his subdistrict again?
He hadn’t received any reports.
“Secretary Liu is here. Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing.” Seeing his subordinate’s pale complexion, the District Party Secretary knew he had jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“Take a look. This was accomplished by a contract worker from your subdistrict office. Truly excellent work.”
The District Party Secretary slid a red-headed document in front of Liu Zhong, the Party Secretary of the Heping Subdistrict Office.
When Liu Zhong saw that the title of the red-headed document was a “Notice,” his anxiety dropped by half.
He quickly read through the file, and his heart settled completely.
“So it’s a reward for Bai Hewei, an employee at our subdistrict office.” Liu Zhong smiled. “I didn’t expect him to be so capable, actually helping to capture spies. This is a massive achievement. Of course, this is also thanks to the guidance and care of the district leadership, and it’s inseparable from the concepts our jurisdiction has consistently promoted…”
Liu Zhong delivered a flawless round of praise for the district leaders and policies, but internally, he couldn’t help but wonder: This isn’t such a earth-shattering matter, so why was it treated with such extreme urgency?
A bonus of five hundred thousand yuan sounded like a lot, but the individuals seated here were all members of the District Standing Committee. A mere five hundred thousand yuan was absolutely nothing to them.
Even without engaging in corruption, the sheer level of convenience accessible at their rank was already beyond the imagination of ordinary people.
Things that were immensely difficult for ordinary citizens—such as securing school placements for children or getting elderly parents medical treatment—were practically effortless tasks at this rank.
“If it were just a five hundred thousand yuan bonus, it would have been enough to let the deputy district director in charge of culture and education present the award,” the District Party Secretary said, shaking his head. “The reason I called you over is to ask: what exactly is Bai Hewei’s background?”
“Him? He’s just a contract worker at our subdistrict.” Liu Zhong had a very deep impression of Bai Hewei.
There was no helping it; across the entire district, Bai Hewei was a remarkably handsome young man. Even his own niece, after seeing Bai Hewei once, had relentlessly hounded him to ask for his WeChat.
“He doesn’t have any other background?” The District Party Secretary frowned.
“None at all. His parents are both retirees from a state-owned enterprise, and they weren’t even official permanent employees back then. His grandmother was also a regular blue-collar factory worker before retiring,” Liu Zhong answered without a trace of hesitation. For the sake of his niece, he had investigated Bai Hewei’s family background inside and out long ago.
Even so, his niece was still absolutely dead-set on going on a blind date with Bai Hewei.
Young girls these days didn’t care about a boy’s financial conditions at all—they only cared about his face!
“This doesn’t seem quite right,” the District Party Secretary muttered, shaking his head. “This five hundred thousand yuan bonus is merely the absolute baseline. I heard from the central government that Bai Hewei’s name is included in this year’s National-Level Awards. An old classmate of mine happens to be responsible for drafting the reporting materials, and he spotted the name of Bai Hewei from your subdistrict in our district. He reached out to congratulate me, which is how I found out.”
“Huh?” Liu Zhong was startled. “His name is on a national-level award?”
“Furthermore, I asked around to see exactly what kind of award it was and who had evaluated him, but no one was willing to give me a straight answer. Word is, it was pushed forward by the Special Operations Department.” The District Party Secretary let out a sigh. “I suspect Bai Hewei has a relative who serves as a high-ranking executive in the Special Operations Department, or perhaps someone very close to him is a top-tier Evolver, which explains this kind of treatment.”
Presently, their country extended a significant amount of care toward Evolvers, but when it came to those top-tier powerhouses, every single aspect of their lives was considered with extreme thoroughness.
Bai Hewei’s situation looked very much like someone in his family had become a top-tier Evolver and earned tremendous merits. Since the state couldn’t easily pile on more rewards for that individual, they chose to extend the benefits to their relatives instead.
A five hundred thousand yuan bonus or a national-level honorary title didn’t actually amount to much materially; in terms of financial rewards, it couldn’t even compare to the year-end bonus of a large private corporation.
But an award like this served to make the Evolver identify with the state’s ideology on a spiritual level, which resonated much deeper with people.
“This… I haven’t heard anything about it, and Bai Hewei has never brought it up,” Liu Zhong said hesitantly.
“Information regarding top-tier Evolvers is generally kept classified. Perhaps Bai Hewei himself doesn’t even know,” the District Party Secretary mused after a moment of thought. “In any case, keep this matter in mind. Pay attention to Bai Hewei’s situation, but don’t overdo it, and don’t let anyone make things difficult for him. Our district is still trying to secure a national policy support initiative; we might be able to leverage Bai Hewei’s presence when the time comes.”
Liu Zhong maintained a smile on his face, but his heart felt remarkably bitter.
It sounded simple enough, but striking the perfect balance in his treatment of the boy was going to be incredibly difficult.
If Bai Hewei himself didn’t even know he had a top-tier Evolver relative, he certainly couldn’t be the one to blab about it as the subdistrict secretary. If it ended up being classified as a leak of secrets, he would be completely ruined. It hadn’t been easy for him to climb to a department-head rank after years of hard work, and he was just waiting to finish this term before moving into a comfortable, quiet position at the People’s Congress or the Political Consultative Conference to wait out his retirement.
But if Bai Hewei were handled correctly, it would also bring immense benefits to his unit, so he couldn’t just alienate him either.
Looking at the district leadership’s stance, they had likely considered transferring Bai Hewei to the district office initially, but after analyzing the situation, they ultimately decided to maintain the status quo for now to test Bai Hewei’s true depth.
Liu Zhong let out a long sigh.
This was simply too difficult.
The next day, when Bai Hewei went to work, he ran into the subdistrict secretary in the elevator. The secretary smiled warmly at him, struck up a brief conversation, and praised him for doing an excellent job with his work lately.
Bai Hewei accepted the praise with absolute composure.
He was just a contract worker outside the official establishment. Getting praised by the secretary wasn’t going to raise his salary, nor was it going to earn him an excellence evaluation, so why shouldn’t he take it in stride?
If this had happened during his first year on the job, he would have been ecstatic for days. Now, he had long since become immune to it.
The moment he sat down at his workstation, his phone buzzed with a news notification.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a fierce condemnation against America for deploying a top-tier Evolver to infiltrate Chinese territory without justification. Citing substantial damages incurred, they demanded one hundred million USD in compensation to be allocated as funding for the Special Operations Department.
In the past, America’s State Department would either talk around the subject or play dumb for a considerable period. To everyone’s surprise, they actually admitted their error with absolute compliance this time and transferred the funds over. Instantly, countless public accounts and current-affairs bloggers caught a whiff of an underlying story and began churning out various analyses.
Some bloggers claimed this was a tactical probe by America, and they had only complied so submissively because they had been caught red-handed by China.
Other bloggers argued that the top-tier Evolver had likely sneaked in to stir up trouble, only to be neutralized by the Special Operations Department. Based on the current situation, it was highly probable they had been targeting a top-tier national scientist or official for assassination.
Yet other bloggers claimed these were all smoke screens, asserting that the public was entirely ignorant of the true underlying truth, urging viewers to follow their channel so they could guide them through the complex shifting dynamics of international politics, and so forth.
Bai Hewei scrolled through a vast loop of content, but not a single person mentioned the Forbidden Zone, nor was there a single word regarding Gentleman.
Naturally, his own name was entirely absent as well.
Wonderful.
Bai Hewei let out a massive sigh of relief. If nothing else, the Special Operations Department truly excelled at managing public opinion and information control. He didn’t have to worry about stepping out of his house one day only to be surrounded and stared at like a monkey in a zoo.
Not bad, not bad at all. Life had returned to a peaceful state.
On the other side of the world.
Inside the underground research facility.
After escaping from the Forbidden Zone, Gentleman had headed directly back to the [Sacred Staff] organization.
He hadn’t returned to the underground research facility, deeply worried that his current condition would allow the researchers to tamper with him. He didn’t harbor a single shred of trust toward those scientists.
“You cut off your own arm?” A blonde girl who looked to be around fourteen or fifteen years old walked over, curling her lip. “To heal your body, it’ll cost fifty million USD. Deposit it into my card.”
“Deal.”
Only then did the girl nod in satisfaction. She reached out and placed her hand on Gentleman’s stump.
At a rate visible to the naked eye, a brand-new arm rapidly sprouted from the site of Gentleman’s severed limb.
Before Gentleman could even celebrate, the newly grown arm suddenly exploded into a mist of blood.
Fresh blood splattered across the girl’s face, causing her to let out a piercing shriek.
“Why is there still someone else’s evolutionary particles lingering on your arm?!” the girl shouted in a mixture of shock and rage. “We have to completely purge the evolutionary energy on your stump first! Now it’s going to cost three hundred million. I also have to go get my brother to help you neutralize this foreign evolutionary particle clinging to your body first.”
Gentleman’s complexion grew increasingly dark.
What on earth had Bai Hewei done to him?
Author’s Note:
Bai Hewei: I didn’t do anything at all. I am dutifully working my job.
The other leaders: What kind of immense background does this guy actually have?!
