Chapter 9
When Bai Hewei got home, he noticed that all the local public accounts he followed were pushing notifications about the upcoming recruitment exam for municipal public institutions.
He tapped on one and saw that 87 of his WeChat friends also followed the account, and 70 of them had already read the latest article about the job postings.
The competition is getting out of hand.
Bai Hewei had countless temporary and contract-worker colleagues from various government units on his WeChat. Among them were older folks studying while working, mothers trying for their third attempt, people laid off from state-owned enterprises, and hardcore study warriors who collected endless revision materials on cloud drives. Every single one of them was a terrifying exam veteran capable of making anyone’s scalp tingle.
But since Director An had dropped those hints, there had to be a position in this municipal recruitment that suited him perfectly.
Bai Hewei checked the details. This time, the municipal public institutions were hiring a total of 90 people. Furthermore, candidates were required to submit their application materials in person. This condition would naturally weed out many out-of-town competitors who wouldn’t be able to rush back in time.
When he downloaded the job catalog and looked at the requirements, his eyes lit up.
There was a public institution position in the Special Operations Department. It restricted applicants to Civil Engineering and Accounting majors, required a bachelor’s degree, male, Party member, three years of work experience, and on top of all that—official Evolver certification.
Heavens above! After waiting all these years, has my spring finally arrived?
Director An was truly a lifesaver. This position was practically tailormade for him.
Bai Hewei’s eyes welled with tears.
Heaven only knew how much water must have sloshed around in his brain back during his undergraduate years for him to major in Civil Engineering and take on a second degree in Accounting. If only he had chosen a minor in Law back then, would he have been stuck generating heat and light as a mere temporary contract worker until now?
Ultimately, his failure to secure a permanent job trace back to the terrible choices he made with his majors.
Without wasting a second, Bai Hewei downloaded the application form.
Registration opened next Monday and would last for three days.
He would deliberately wait until the third day to sign up, so he could ask the staff exactly how many people had applied for that specific position.
Was the Goddess of Fortune finally turning her gaze upon him?
The next morning at work, Bai Hewei immediately printed his annual leave approval form. He signed it and waited for his supervisor’s sign-off, planning to head home and use the time to study hard so he could crush the exam and claim that position.
But the moment he stepped into the supervisor’s office and saw the dead-serious expression on the man’s face, his heart sank.
“Director Zhang, I’ve brought this form for your signature.”
Zhang Peng was the deputy director of the sub-district office in charge of the Public Services Department. He held a real deputy section chief rank and was only five years older than Bai Hewei, having climbed his way up from a level-one staff member.
Though he was a director, he was right there with them every single time there was overtime or grunt work. He often mocked himself as a “grunt soldier saddled with a leader’s title.” Normally, he maintained a good relationship with Bai Hewei and was always highly accommodating whenever Bai Hewei needed time off for family matters.
“Ah, Little Bai, come on in,” Zhang Peng nodded.
Bai Hewei handed over the annual leave form. Zhang Peng let out a heavy sigh, looking at him with a helpless expression.
“Little Bai, if you had come to me yesterday, I would have signed off on this without a second thought. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I’d probably have to call you today to cancel your leave.” Zhang Peng sighed deeply, pulling an official document out of his desk drawer. “Take a look. Our sub-district was selected by the province for a random check. They’re coming to inspect the structural safety and housing quality of our old residential district.”
Bai Hewei cast a quick glance over the paper. The moment he saw the words “Unannounced Inspection Protocol” clearly printed on the document, his vision went dark.
Anyone with experience working at the grassroots level knew that actual, productive work only took up at most a third of their shift. The remaining two-thirds were spent either dealing with inspections and surveys from higher-ups or running themselves ragged trying to implement some “innovative initiative” passed down from above.
An unannounced inspection from high-ranking provincial officials was the absolute worst. It meant working around the clock, with all holidays completely revoked.
That was exactly how Bai Hewei’s annual leave, National Day break, and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays had been wiped out over the past two years.
“There are so many sub-districts in the province, how did we get picked?” Bai Hewei couldn’t help but complain.
“Exactly!” Zhang Peng was equally furious. “When you track it back, it’s all because of the mess those illegal Evolvers made last month. It would have been one thing if they were just trying to recruit followers in the old town—but the moment the free handouts stopped, the elderly residents stopped believing in whatever god those Evolvers were preaching about. So what did they do? They tried to hold some divine manifestation ritual right there, which triggered a massive turf war between several factions. They ended up destroying and collapsing a bunch of old houses, causing dozens of casualties. Now, the higher-ups want to inspect the quality of all our old buildings. On top of that, hasn’t our city busted another group of illegal Evolvers over the past few days? Yesterday, even the municipal research institute was targeted by foreign forces. Since our sub-district is right under the spotlight, the higher-ups picked us for a direct, top-down inspection.”
It was pure, unadulterated bad luck.
This period was supposed to be relatively slow, but now that the province was coming down, any hope of a peaceful schedule was shattered.
The municipal and district governments had passed down a blanket directive requiring their sub-district office to assign clear, individual accountability. Every single staff member had to go out into the field to inspect the structural integrity of the old houses.
With so few personnel in their office and so many buildings to cover, everyone was saddled with a heavy quota. No one could escape. At a time like this, letting Bai Hewei take annual leave was out of the question; they might not even get regular weekends.
Bai Hewei wanted to join his supervisor in cursing, but the words died in his throat.
Vaguely, it felt like this catastrophe was somewhat connected to him.
“Little Bai, once this storm passes, I’ll approve your leave right away. There’s just no way around it right now. Our department is short-staffed to begin with, and you’re one of our main pillars,” Director Zhang said apologetically.
“It’s fine, really. I can just take it later,” Bai Hewei waved his hands hastily. He was currently consumed by immense guilt; how could he possibly think about forcing a leave request now?
Those foreign Evolvers had basically come looking for him.
Therefore, this collateral damage suffered by the sub-district office was largely his fault.
Thank goodness no one knows about this, Bai Hewei thought, breathing a sigh of relief.
In the afternoon, the sub-district office called a general meeting. All staff and community workers were ordered to cancel their leaves for the month to focus entirely on mapping out the structural quality of every residential building in their jurisdiction. The Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau would also dispatch professional personnel to assist them.
Everyone looked miserable, but they were practically used to these sudden influxes of emergency tasks.
The department Bai Hewei belonged to was assigned to coordinate with two specific communities. These assignments rotated every year, so Bai Hewei wasn’t very familiar with the layout of the new area.
Within the boundaries of these two communities sat over twenty residential compounds. The community Party Secretary split the department personnel and community workers into pairs—one male and one female per group—to inspect one compound each. This would be their primary mission for the foreseeable future.
When conducting grassroots work, especially door-to-door visits like this, it was a golden rule to pair up with a female colleague to handle the initial communication with residents. If two young men stood outside a front door, elderly residents or children home alone would usually refuse to open up.
The community Secretary pulled Bai Hewei and a few others aside to give some specific instructions.
“Little Yi, Bai Hewei is the most handsome guy in our entire sub-district office—heck, in the entire district. Pairing you up with him is basically a workplace benefit,” the Secretary joked with a smile. “Whenever the district needs someone to film promotional videos or shoot media content, or even when state-owned enterprises come looking for a face, they always ask for Little Bai.”
Bai Hewei was long used to being teased about this, so he merely smiled. He didn’t mind filming videos anyway, since he usually got time off afterward. Heading straight home after a shoot was a sweet deal.
The only side effect was that after every video release, several people from various external units would try to add him on WeChat.
Being too handsome came with its own set of problems.
Once the teasing was out of the way, the community Secretary got down to business.
“When you go door-to-door, do your best to follow the advice of the experienced community workers and maintain a gentle, accommodating attitude. According to our data, there are about a hundred Evolvers living within our community. The majority are very amiable, but there are a few arrogant ones who treat our community staff like dirt. On this round of visits, they are your primary targets for investigation. You absolutely must not get into conflicts with them, otherwise you’ll be the ones suffering the consequences.”
Community work was difficult enough to manage under normal circumstances, and Evolvers were a constant thorn in the side of every community Secretary.
These individuals possessed immense destructive capability and were prone to causing trouble.
The ones who were doing well in life were fine; they usually maintained a basic sense of social responsibility. But the ones who were struggling often became resentful, venting their frustrations on everyone around them and complaining that the state placed too many restrictions on them, preventing them from living like elite superiors. On the other hand, Evolvers who quietly stayed home to study for the civil service exams were absolute angels in the eyes of the community Secretary, who wished they could treat them like precious treasures.
Unfortunately, their community happened to house a few Evolver households whose lives were a complete mess.
Naturally, the ranks of these Evolvers weren’t very high either.
“Don’t worry, Secretary. I’m going with Brother Bai, so I’ll handle all the speaking. I’ve met them a few times before during routine walks, so they won’t do anything to me,” said Little Yi, the community worker paired with him. She was a local university graduate who had passed the community exam last year and was highly familiar with the work. The assigned compound fell right within her designated grid; she frequently walked the area and had built a solid rapport with the residents.
“If there are any issues, call me immediately.”
Bai Hewei and Little Yi set off toward the nearest residential compound. Along the way, Little Yi briefed him on the details.
“For this door-to-door inspection, our priority is to check if the drainage pipes or load-bearing walls in these old residential blocks have been knocked down without authorization…” Little Yi held a notepad, ready to record any findings.
“Are there really that many Evolvers in this compound? What’s the general situation?” Bai Hewei hadn’t paid much attention to these statistics in the past, but now that he was an Evolver himself, he had to be more mindful.
“This compound was originally an old, dilapidated residential area mostly occupied by migrant workers and elderly locals. A few years ago, the old-town renovation project turned out to be highly successful, and with an Evolver specialty hospital opening up nearby, the population gradually surged,” Little Yi explained thoroughly after a moment of thought.
The emergence of Evolvers didn’t bring purely negative impacts to society; there were positive developments as well. The most prominent example was these Evolver specialty hospitals. As long as they met the licensing qualifications, they could apply to open. The attending physicians inside were all healing-type Evolvers, each comparable to a top expert in their respective medical fields.
Although these healing-type Evolvers mostly treated minor physical trauma or common colds, the sheer speed of their treatment was undeniable. Patients didn’t need injections or medication; they were completely cured on the spot. Naturally, ordinary citizens with minor ailments flocked to them.
By now, across the country, Evolver specialty hospitals had significantly alleviated the financial pressure on the national medical insurance fund and defused many social tensions. Healing-type Evolvers enjoyed excellent employment prospects and were widely regarded as the most peace-loving faction among all Evolvers.
Once these specialty hospitals were established, healing-type Evolvers from other nations caught wind of the news and traveled thousands of miles to get here.
Overseas, healing-type Evolvers had fallen on hard times. They faced collective protests from traditional medical associations for stealing jobs, and were constantly at risk of being abducted by billionaires looking to exploit them for life-extension research. Their lives were a living hell.
Compared to being targeted for human experimentation by foreign organizations, coming to China to work as a licensed doctor was infinitely better. As long as they practiced medicine for ten years without a criminal record, they could apply for permanent residency and bring their families over. Who wouldn’t be enticed?
An Evolver specialty hospital could boost local healthcare standards, improve the general happiness index, and even drive up real estate values. Naturally, it also attracted other types of Evolvers to settle down in the surrounding area.
That was exactly the situation in their community.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Bai Hewei asked curiously.
“It is, but now that the concentration of Evolvers has increased, friction arises easily. They file complaints all the time, claiming the ordinary residents discriminate against them,” Little Yi sighed. “As if we’d dare discriminate against them! Most Evolvers are perfectly reasonable, but a handful have bought into some foreign propaganda and insist they want to move abroad to live the high life. We can’t stop them from wanting to leave, but they make it their daily mission to pick fights over minor things.”
Remembering the foreign Evolvers who had been arrested because of him, Bai Hewei said with absolute sincerity, “If they can’t even make it in a peaceful place like our country, going abroad means they’re just walking straight into a slaughterhouse to be harvested.”
“Exactly!” Little Yi nodded in agreement. “We’re going to inspect those specific households first. They’ll probably be the least cooperative.”
