Chapter 47
“Can’t you guys really come and take it away?” Bai Hewei couldn’t help but urge. “It’s not a good idea to leave such a precious thing with me. If someone else steals it, don’t blame me.”
Wen Zhiyi laughed upon hearing this.
Was there anyone else in this world capable of snatching a building block from Bai Hewei’s hands?
There was no place safer than by Bai Hewei’s side.
“Even if we take it away, it will still be attracted to you and continue to show up by your side,” Wen Zhiyi said with a smile. “Why don’t we leave it with you for now, and we’ll come back for it once we find a way to lock it down completely.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“It’s fine. Since it chose you, it won’t leave easily.”
Bai Hewei and Wen Zhiyi engaged in a difficult tug-of-war over the fate of the building block, but it was ultimately to no avail—the block had to stay at his house.
In the end, Wen Zhiyi ended the stalemate by personally subsidizing Bai Hewei three thousand yuan a month under the guise of a “security fee.”
“Sigh, the money isn’t really important. The main thing is, since it showed up at my house, it’s destiny. I got it, I’ll take good care of it.” Bai Hewei’s tone shifted instantly.
There was no helping it; three thousand yuan was just too sweet.
Bai Hewei grabbed a random leftover milk tea bag at home, tossed the building block inside, and called it a day.
Since they wouldn’t let him return it, this building block was just a useless piece of junk anyway. Might as well leave it there.
The building block adjusted its position inside the milk tea bag and settled down quietly.
When he went to work the next day, Bai Hewei heard from his colleagues that the “thief” mentioned in the previous rumors had already been caught, meaning they didn’t have to keep working overtime to assist with the case.
Local residents really did get the news fast.
The person was only caught yesterday, yet there was already word today, and it was pretty much spot on.
Bai Hewei sighed with emotion, then put it out of his mind as if it had nothing to do with him, conscientiously going about his own work.
During this month of centralized annual leave, there was relatively little to do. Not only were the grassroots units on leave, but the higher-level departments were on vacation as well. Since everyone was off, work naturally slowed down, and many major projects wouldn’t be rolled out during this period either.
This was Bai Hewei’s favorite time of the year.
Every day after clocking in, he would first order a cup of ice-cold lemon tea, complete his simple tasks, and then play on his phone. He felt he was living the dream.
If work could always be this relaxed in the future, this temporary job wouldn’t be so bad to keep.
“You have no idea how sweet annual leave is for the Evolvers in the municipal departments. My wife told me that her Evolver colleague, who was only recruited two years ago, took ten days off for annual leave. Apparently, he combined his annual leave with the Evolver evaluation leave.”
“Evolver evaluation leave? What’s that?” This was the first time Bai Hewei had ever heard of such a thing.
He hadn’t been an Evolver before, so he naturally hadn’t cared. But now that he was one, he had to ask.
“Evolvers have to undergo physical evaluations and testing every year. Because there are so many people, they have to line up, doing only one or two segments a day, which drags things out. That’s why they were granted this leave,” the colleague sighed. “Some Evolvers who live close by just pop in to finish a segment whenever they have free time, completing the evaluation early, so they end up with extra days off.”
Ah?
Then what did my tests count as?
Oh, right. I’m not on the permanent establishment, so I don’t get leave even if I take the evaluation.
Bai Hewei instantly slumped.
This was out of line. How come Evolvers got so many holidays?
How frustrating.
On the other end.
The investigation by the Special Operations Department and the Discipline Inspection Commission was growing progressively deeper.
Over the next short month, a succession of high-ranking officials were placed under investigation, and the public notices were released one after another with immense frequency.
With the assistance of telepathy-type Evolvers, the intelligence regarding the building block gradually became clearer.
Foreign factions were not a monolithic entity either.
There were underground research labs that wanted to use the opportunity to study the building block to better control Evolvers; there were ordinary humans who didn’t want to see the influence of Evolvers expand further and deliberately sabotaged things behind the scenes; there were wealthy and powerful officials who wanted to rely on Evolver research to attain immortality; and naturally, there were groups that wanted to completely eradicate Evolvers and return the world to ordinary humans.
Ultimately, a rift formed amidst the clashes between these factions with different stances and objectives.
Three years ago, after sacrificing several top-tier spies, a foreign faction successfully stole this building block from the Central Research Institute, planning to smuggle it out of the country. Little did they expect that another faction would meddle behind the scenes, unwilling to let the building block fall into the hands of the underground labs. They ordered another embedded spy to snatch it at the opportune moment, creating the illusion that the building block had been lost inside a Forbidden Zone.
Since this building block couldn’t fall into Huaxia’s hands nor appear in the underground labs, the spy kept it stashed inside a safe box, untouched for three years and completely unknown to anyone else.
If a few good-for-nothing small-time thugs hadn’t suddenly decided to break into the empty house for quick cash, this missing building block might not have resurfaced in the human world for another ten years.
Luck was a truly fickle thing.
Once the depositions were secured, it naturally triggered a series of arrests targeting the implicated personnel.
After pulling consecutive all-nighters for over a month, Huo Ling finally managed to unwind, having also completely rounded up Ji Hang and the other organizational operatives.
When Huo Ling returned to his office to catch his breath, he noticed the documents on his desk and realized it was already nearly the end of August.
The announcement for the provincial public institutions unified examinations was about to be released.
This time, the document was sent over by the Organization Department, requiring Huo Ling’s confirmation.
Huo Ling looked over the position he had custom-tailored for Bai Hewei.
It restricted the major, restricted Party members, restricted five years of grassroots work experience, restricted gender, and simultaneously restricted local household registration. It also noted that national or provincial awards would grant policy-based bonus points.
Perfect!
The number of applicants for this post would absolutely not be high. In fact, he would even have to figure out a way to find a few people to register just to fill the quota, making sure the position wouldn’t be canceled due to an insufficient number of applicants.
When the written exam came around, the decoy applicants simply wouldn’t show up, which would eliminate another batch of competitors for Bai Hewei.
Haha, who said there was no such thing as a perfect crime—uh, no, a perfect tailor-made “turnip post”!
After all, Director Yuan Heqing had already issued an order allowing the Special Operations Departments in various regions to recruit Bai Hewei, but it couldn’t be a “special recruitment”; it had to be through “official channels.”
Huo Ling didn’t understand why Director Yuan would issue such an order, assuming she was worried that the different regional branches would fight over Bai Hewei, which was why she established this “fair” regulation.
Yes, Huo Ling found it remarkably fair.
Meanwhile, the other branches felt that Huo Ling had absolutely hit the jackpot, as this kind of regulation gave a local unit like Huo Ling’s the ultimate advantage!
But since the higher-ups had a directive, the lower levels could only comply and brainstorm their own workarounds.
With a grand sweep of his pen, Huo Ling unhesitatingly wrote “Approved” on the document and signed his name, telling the office staff to hurry up and submit it.
Hehe, this time, Bai Hewei would definitely be successfully recruited by them!
The situation over at the Central Research Institute was even more tightly controlled. Many researchers wanted to study the building block, but they were all shut out by Wen Zhiyi under the pretext that “it currently needs to be temporarily sealed.” A gag order was also slapped on the other captains, leading the outside world to believe that the building block was still kept inside the Central Research Institute.
When this news broke, it heavily provoked the foreign underground research labs.
“Not only did they produce a replica medication that cut our funding by more than half, but they actually secured the building block too?”
“This is far too unfair.”
“How on earth is their luck so incredibly good?”
…
In terms of R&D capabilities and devotion to science, not many researchers in the underground labs were inferior to Wen Zhiyi.
But as fate would have it, they could only huddle inside these underground labs, utterly unable to break free. They relied entirely on external funding allocations, and sometimes they even had to halt their current research to help their financial backers solve problems—such as curing their cancer or developing a specific new drug.
With these external weights dragging them down, the scientific breakthroughs they should have held an advantage in were slowly caught up to and even surpassed.
By now, except for the field of biopharmaceuticals, almost all other research regarding Evolvers had been completely overtaken by Huaxia’s Central Research Institute.
“Ninety percent of the building blocks in the world exist inside the Forbidden Zones. The number of building blocks possessed by Huaxia won’t exceed three at most, and they are all top-secret projects; breakthroughs won’t happen that quickly,” an older researcher said. “Even with state power as their backing, they could only secure two or three pieces. If we want to snatch them from their hands, the difficulty is simply too astronomical. We might as well have Evolvers harvest them from the Forbidden Zones.”
“The number of Forbidden Zones globally shifts by the day, and a building block is only that small. You might not even find one across a hundred Forbidden Zones; the difficulty is way too high,” another researcher voiced his objection.
“But if Wen’s side makes breakthroughs while our side shows no progress, the gap between us will only grow wider and wider. Back then, he was nothing more than an assistant helping us out. Are you all content to watch him snatch away all our research achievements?” the older researcher barked angrily.
Back then, that fellow Wen Zhiyi had feigned being an ignorant genius who looked to be only fourteen or fifteen. He had appeared completely uninterested in anything outside of research, which had aroused their appreciation for his talent, prompting them to spend a fortune to recruit him.
Who could have known they were inviting a wolf into their house? Not only was their core data stolen, but their operatives were exposed as well, forcing them to abandon their original base and start entirely from scratch.
Now, his career was soaring, and his position in the hearts of global researchers grew loftier by the day, while they were nearly suffocating under the pressure of funding shortages.
If things continued like this, they would truly become nothing more than a stepping stone for him in the future.
“No, generally speaking, the larger the scope and the longer a Forbidden Zone persists, the higher the probability of a building block appearing. There’s a small nation in South Africa where a super-large Forbidden Zone has persisted for five years, continuously expanding from Evolution Day up to the present. That nation has already collapsed, its citizens have become refugees, and even Evolvers don’t dare approach lightly. Within that Forbidden Zone, there is a very high probability that a building block exists.”
“We’ll leak the news first, making the local Evolvers believe there is something inside the Forbidden Zone that can elevate their strength, and let them test the waters for us.”
“The secret of the building block might implicate the root cause of an Evolver’s awakening; we absolutely cannot fall behind.”
…
After working for a few days, Bai Hewei noticed that the various provincial capitals had released their public institutions unified examination announcements. A few hours later, the corresponding position tables were also opened for download.
To be perfectly honest, seeing the recruitment announcement this time didn’t cause much of a stir in Bai Hewei’s heart.
For one thing, these unified examinations always drew absolute geniuses, and positions suitable for him were usually scarce.
For another, the Special Operations Department had been pulling consecutive all-nighters for a full month recently. Seeing An Tingyu’s Moments status update, which consisted solely of the words “subtly dead,” left him somewhat terrified.
This was too frightening.
An intensity of overtime like this simply left no room for survival.
Bai Hewei pondered seriously for a moment, realizing his perspective had been far too narrow.
Why did he have to fixate blindly on taking the exam for the Special Operations Department?
Wasn’t it sweet to look at positions in other units?
Thinking back to the Evolvers he had seen from the Urban Management Bureau and the Water Resources Bureau before—not only did they occupy high platforms with loftier ranks, but their working hours were relaxed and their operational pressure was low.
Furthermore, they not only enjoyed annual leave but also evaluation leave, allowing them to lead very comfortable lives when business wasn’t bustling.
In comparison, the Special Operations Department didn’t offer nearly as many perks.
Over the past few days, Bai Hewei had registered an account on a civil service exam forum. After combing through the posts, he realized his prior mindset had been too constrained.
The Special Operations Department was indeed the department that recruited the most Evolvers, but what did it mean when a department faced severe shortages and recruited year after year?
It meant their staff turnover was incredibly rapid; they couldn’t retain people!
Although the salary at the Special Operations Department was several times higher than other positions and the benefits were excellent, Bai Hewei now had one million yuan of private funds generating interest (around 2,000 yuan a month), an 800 yuan monthly Evolver stipend, and a 3,000 yuan “building block protection fee.” Combined with his original salary, his post-tax income was nearly ten thousand yuan. Living at home and eating at the unit canteen didn’t cost much anyway, so there was absolutely no need to fling himself into the Special Operations Department!
Consequently, after downloading the position table for the provincial public institutions this time, Bai Hewei focused heavily on the level-matched units of other departments to see if there was a suitable spot for him.
Heaven never lets down a diligent heart, and Bai Hewei truly managed to pick out a few excellent positions.
There was an Evolver position at the Meteorological Bureau that placed no restrictions on the type of superpower, but required the Evolver to be at least B-class, restricted Party members, and required grassroots experience. However, there were three major categories of majors eligible to apply, which naturally included Bai Hewei’s major.
There was a position in the Market Regulation Enforcement Team that required Evolvers to undergo a speed test. Because it demanded frequent fieldwork, speed-type Evolvers were preferred, but if one could pass the test, other types of Evolvers were accepted as well.
Bai Hewei remembered that he had broken the record held by speed-type Evolvers, so he picked this position out as well. He believed passing this kind of test would be a breeze for him.
As for subsequent dream positions like the Trade Union, the Party School, or the Cement Office, the restrictions outside of requiring an Evolver were remarkably minimal. The number of applicants was bound to explode, so Bai Hewei temporarily kept them as backups, planning to check the specific applicant counts later on before deciding.
Only after reviewing all of these did Bai Hewei finally look at the requirements for the Special Operations Department this year.
The Special Operations Department intended to recruit ten career-establishment personnel this time, but the restrictive conditions for Position One were absurdly extensive.
Crucially, Bai Hewei met every single one of them.
Bai Hewei was stunned.
Instead of feeling any joy in his heart, he felt a surge of anger.
“This, this, this… this is just too blatant! As expected, there is nothing new under the sun. The situations that popped up in other provinces have appeared here too!”
Bai Hewei was utterly furious. When he opened the civil service exam forum, sure enough, everyone was locked in an intense debate over Position One of the Special Operations Department.
“This is completely and utterly a tailor-made turnip post! Why don’t they just restrict it to the person’s ID card number instead?”
“Generally speaking, if they restrict gender, they won’t restrict it this heavily in other areas. This is a bit too obvious.”
“National awards? Provincial awards? If I possessed those kinds of accolades, would I even look at a tiny career-establishment post of yours?”
“Absurd, I’ve already reported it. This is a textbook turnip post; the requirements are too detailed, disgusting!”
…
Below the post, someone had directly shared a report link, along with instructions on how to fill out the report form.
Bai Hewei was equally filled with righteous indignation. Even though he met all the conditions, he had no desire to act as a decoy to accompany some privileged heir.
Thus, Bai Hewei clicked into the report link and followed the tutorial to report this turnip post.
Standardizing exam fairness begins with me!
Huo Ling had only just clocked in for the afternoon when he received several urgent phone calls from the head of the Organization Department.
“…I told you before that the restrictions on your position were too obvious and bound to cause issues, and sure enough!” The head of the Organization Department was furious to the point of exploding; the municipal Discipline Inspection Commission had already come over to inquire about the specific details.
Furthermore, several local self-media and marketing accounts had begun broadcasting the details of this position. Their municipal Organization Department found itself thrust into the eye of the storm.
Good heavens, what did this have to do with them? This was the Special Operations Department’s own requirement!
“The number of people reporting this position has already broken a hundred, and public opinion is beginning to ferment. Figure out a solution yourself. If it doesn’t work, my side will issue a notice to re-verify and cancel this position.”
Huo Ling did a quick search to find out what had happened, then immediately called An Tingyu over to ask what exactly was going on.
“The position conditions we designed were too detailed. Coupled with the fact that quite a few rumors about turnip posts surfaced in other provinces recently, it drew a massive amount of public attention. So this time, we got reported too.” An Tingyu had never imagined she would have to handle this kind of mess one day.
“Wasn’t all of this for Bai Hewei’s sake?” Huo Ling lowered his voice. “Do you have any idea what they did over at the border? They originally planned to implement a brutal physical test to disqualify all the Evolvers who scored higher than Bai Hewei, trickling down the vacancy until it reached him.” After all, Bai Hewei had broken various records, so he was a hundred percent guaranteed to pass the physical test.
Fortunately, Bai Hewei had skipped the exam, scoring a zero on the written test, so no matter how it trickled down, it would never reach him.
But even so, Huo Ling had been shaking in his boots, deeply terrified that the cabbage he had painstakingly cultivated would be dug up by someone else. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have set the turnip post up so obviously this time.
There was no helping it; now that Bai Hewei had money, he wasn’t practicing exam questions as diligently as before, showing clear signs of starting to slack off. If the restrictions were looser, Bai Hewei would absolutely fail to pass.
Huo Ling felt that managing all this for Bai Hewei was more exhausting than pulling a full month of overtime!
“…Among the people who reported us this time, Bai Hewei was one of them,” An Tingyu said weakly, appearing thoroughly defeated.
“He also believed we set up a turnip post, but since he didn’t realize the turnip was himself, he reported us and turned around to apply for that Evolver position at the Meteorological Bureau instead.”
Huo Ling was utterly dumbfounded.
Did Bai Hewei seriously have no self-awareness whatsoever? Who on earth had they been doing all of this for?
If Director Yuan hadn’t explicitly forbidden special recruitment, he would want to sprint over to the sub-district office where Bai Hewei worked right now and shake the water out of his brain!
“Director, what do you think we should…” An Tingyu’s face carried a trace of awkwardness, at a complete loss for what to do.
Maybe they should call Bai Hewei and tell him to change his application choice.
“It’s fine, let him register for whatever he wants,” Huo Ling said, leaning back against his chair with a helpless sigh. “He already reported this position of ours. If we still let him apply, wouldn’t that just confirm the suspicions? If it sparks public backlash then, it’ll be another massive headache. If he passes the exam for another department, we can just find a way to alter his organizational affiliation later on.”
Failing to pass the exam was a bit troublesome, but transferring Bai Hewei’s organizational affiliation after he passed—especially a local transfer between different departments—was infinitely simpler.
Thinking up to this point, Huo Ling felt his breathing smooth out a bit. Otherwise, he would be driven to an early grave by anger sooner or later.
“Then Director Huo, if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave first.” An Tingyu didn’t want to linger any longer, finding the atmosphere rather stiff even though there were only the two of them.
“Go, go.” Huo Ling no longer had any spare energy left.
An Tingyu immediately closed the door and slipped away, planning to head out for some fieldwork later just to steer clear for a bit.
Bai Hewei remained completely oblivious to the fact that the post he had reported turned out to be tailored for himself. He only knew that a few days after the report was filed, the position was canceled.
Now that’s more like it.
Bai Hewei let out a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he hadn’t greedily applied for that position; otherwise, such a blatant turnip post was bound to be investigated. If he had failed the exam, he would have wasted an opportunity at most. But if he had passed and then gotten reported during the public notice period, wouldn’t he be spitting blood from frustration?
One shouldn’t underestimate the rights-defense awareness of modern exam-takers!
If you set up this kind of position in a remote township or a tiny county, people might not notice it. But doing this for a provincial career-establishment post was simply acts of absolute audacity.
Before long, the Civil Service God wz1 sent him a message, sharing the link to the career-establishment announcement.
When Will I Secure a Civil Service Post: Great God, I’ve already registered for this one. I applied for the post at the Meteorological Bureau. The current applicant count isn’t high either; I feel like I stand a bit of a chance.
wz1: Wasn’t there also a post for the Special Operations Department?
When Will I Secure a Civil Service Post: Look at the latest notice; that position has already been reported into oblivion by us. Who knows which young master it was tailored for? To pull this kind of stunt for a provincial career-establishment post is just going too far. I also contributed a tiny bit of effort to it; we can’t let the hearts of exam-takers be chilled.
With that, Bai Hewei recounted the details of how he had reported the post and defended his rights.
When Will I Secure a Civil Service Post: Hehe, thank goodness I was clever. Otherwise, if I had applied, I’d have to re-register right now. Some people are already planning to dig up the background of that specific applicant. I had a narrow escape, truly fortunate.
Sitting in his office, Wen Zhiyi could well imagine just how utterly broken Huo Ling and his team must be right now.
He didn’t consider himself a quiet person. In fact, because his words were often too blunt, his colleagues frequently requested him to speak less and focus more on research to avoid exposing his sharp-tongued nature and causing outsiders to misunderstand them.
However, in his interactions with Bai Hewei, Wen Zhiyi discovered that the number of times he fell into silence was vastly higher than anywhere else.
He typed out several sentences, deleting and editing them extensively, before finally locking down his reply.
wz1: You truly possess a profound sense of justice.
Author’s Note:
Bai Hewei: Tch, damn turnip post. I’m not going to act as a statistical denominator for you guys.
Huo Ling: QAQ
