September has arrived in a blink of an eye.
At ten o'clock in the evening, Cui Weichuan came back from adult night school and dragged his tired body back to his cramped home.
The engineering company he worked for previously was disbanded as expected after completing the last project. Fortunately, most of the staff were resettled, and middle-level leaders like him were even better arranged.
He was assigned to a daily necessities company as the production workshop director.
The salary is lower than that of an engineering company, but it is more stable than before. You don’t have to work like before and spend most of your time unemployed.
However, after working for less than half a month, he keenly discovered that this was a welfare factory set up by the government to reduce the unemployment rate. If you can solve the problem with your hands here, you will never use machines. In a large factory with more than a thousand people, machine tools But there are not even fifty machine tools, and even these fifty machine tools are less than half in operation.
After just working for a period of time, a sense of emptiness arose, making him feel like he was wasting his time.
He doesn't see any hope here. Maybe through hard work and seniority, he will gradually move to the top, but what if he becomes the director of the factory? A company without any technical content will produce step by step every day and produce as planned. Factories, in today's social system, have an insignificant status.
As far as he knew, even the factory director's per capita housing area was the same as his.
He once secretly visited those advanced factories in his spare time, and he couldn't help but feel envious when he watched the engineers arguing fiercely over a certain design plan in the empty, fully automated high-tech factories.
He is still young and his passion has not dissipated. He is not willing to live a mediocre life like this, nor does he want to live in a cramped space of nine square meters per person and live at the bottom of society, whether it is for his family or himself. He has to give it a try.
…
"You're back from night school? I'll make you some midnight snacks." His wife was mopping the floor, and when she saw him coming back, she couldn't help but stop and said.
"No, why haven't you slept yet?" Cui Weichuan put down the file bag containing the textbooks, hugged his virtuous and beautiful wife, and kissed her heavily on the face.
This is his second wife, whom he met at a blind date organized by his work unit. They have been married for less than a year, and it is the time when the honey is mixed with oil.
"Don't make trouble, Ning Ning isn't asleep yet!"
"Have you not finished your homework yet?" Cui Weichuan quickly let go of his hand when he heard his daughter.
"I heard from others that this year's new textbooks are more difficult. I'm afraid she will have a hard time." The wife nodded, feeling worried.
Cui Weichuan knew more about this. Nowadays, school textbooks are changed every year, and the thickness of textbooks is getting thicker every year. Originally, elementary schools only required basic addition and subtraction operations and simple written expressions.
However, now even the content of the three years of junior high school has been added, which is still the easiest. It is said that junior high school has already involved some of the content of the original university.
Human knowledge is expanding at a geometric rate every year, and the original educational progress is far from satisfying today's society.
In fact, let alone those unlucky students, even he, a former college student, now feels a bit strenuous in the night school he attends. If it weren't for the aid of a micro-brain worn on the eyeball, which greatly omits the calculation and analysis steps. , I’m afraid it simply cannot keep up with that kind of high-density knowledge infusion.
Unfortunately, for students, purchase and certification will only be allowed when they reach high school, and his daughter is only in elementary school, which is the time to lay the foundation.
"How about enrolling her in a cram school!" Cui Weichuan thought for a while and said.
"Okay, I'll ask her for her opinion then!" said the wife. Although this daughter is not her biological daughter, since they are already a family, she still treats her as her biological daughter. Fortunately, her daughter is very obedient and sensible, and does not reject her because she is a stepmother.
Speaking of which, this daughter is also pitiful. She has lost her mother since she was a child. She has followed her father all the way around in the apocalypse, and even almost died in an earthquake. She has suffered a lot. This is probably the reason why she has become sensible.
After a while, Cui Weichuan knocked on his daughter's bedroom door: "Have you finished your homework?"
"It will be a while, don't worry about me."
"Then please pay attention to the time and go to bed early." Cui Weichuan said, feeling a little distressed. Such a young child had such heavy schoolwork. I thought back then I only remembered playing.
…
He helped his wife mop the floor and returned to the bedroom. The two slept on the bed and talked quietly.
"What do you think about us having another child?" the wife said at this time.
"It's better not to do it. I heard that the success rate of in vitro fertilization is not high. If it fails again, it will be very harmful to the body!" Cui Weichuan said with a sigh. It's not like they had never done in vitro fertilization before, but it failed in the end. The embryos grew After three months, miscarriage occurred.
"This time is different. It is a new technology and the success rate is almost 100%. Have you not read the newspaper or the news recently?" said the wife.
Cui Weichuan went to work during the day and went to night school at night. He was so busy that he had no time to read newspapers and news. He immediately sighed: "Technology is developing so fast now, why don't we go and see it another day!"
He doesn't feel any pressure to have another child. Nowadays, the government encourages childbirth. After giving birth, you can get a considerable subsidy and three years of maternity leave. Plus free education, there is basically no pressure on life.
When the time comes, even the house can be replaced with a bigger one.
"I heard that this technology is quite advanced. When the fertilized egg is in its state, the hospital will modify the gene and delete the defective gene, so that the child born will be smarter, more beautiful and stronger. How about we take a day off tomorrow morning? ?" the wife said impatiently, becoming more and more excited as she spoke.
After all, for a mother who wants a child, who would refuse such a baby.
However, Cui Weichuan has a relatively conservative personality and is still a little hesitant about this new technology that has not been proven to be safe, not to mention that it involves his own children. But seeing his wife in such an excited state, the words came to her lips and became: " I’ll tell the factory manager tomorrow and it should be no problem to ask for leave.”
…
Early the next morning, the two of them hurried to the hospital.
The hospital is inside the building, two floors above their home and only a few steps away.
Usually there are not many people in the hospital, but today there are quite a lot of people. Cui Weichuan found that all the people coming and going were couples, and he immediately understood that they were obviously here for this new technology, and they were not the only couple.
While queuing, Cui Weichuan noticed that after some couples came out, many of them frowned and seemed to have difficulty making up their minds. He couldn't help but wonder, but he didn't think much about it. After queuing for nearly two hours, it was finally their turn.
…
"Are you saying that the child you may give birth to will not be too similar to his parents, and there may even be problems with the parent-child genes?" Faced with the doctor's euphemistic explanation of the new technology, the wife seemed to have been poured cold water on her, and she was dumbfounded.
Facing the customer's doubts, the doctor calmly said:
"The situation is like this. This technology modifies many genes, which are basically comprehensive changes. For example, some parents have a bad image, but after modification, the children born will be very beautiful.
Of course, I also know your concerns, but now that the government is promoting this new technology, every family that gives birth will receive a huge subsidy. Even if they don’t want to raise children, they can still send them to a special nursing home and be raised by the government. If you come down, you won't lose anything! "
The better the conditions given, the more Cui Weichuan felt there was something wrong. Even the paternity test would have problems. Is this still his own child? He calmly tugged at the corner of his wife's clothes, but saw that his wife had a confused look on her face, as if it was difficult to make up her mind.
…
There is no doubt that this technology is naturally a product of the "Human Genome Optimization Project" established nearly a year ago.
It redefines human genetic standards and eliminates the impact of unlocked viruses on fertility. With the official implementation of this technology, it means that a new and optimized human being is about to be born. From now on, human beings will no longer have genetic defects, and genetic diseases will become legends. .
Not only are they strong, smart, and beautiful, but they also have a long lifespan.
The average attributes of the new generation of humans, including IQ, can generally reach 13 to 14 points, and the average life span reaches about three hundred years. It also restores the natural reproduction ability of humans to normal.
In fact, when it comes to Luo Yuan, there is not only one genetic standard plan in front of him, but other plans are more radical. In comparison, this human genetic standard is the most conservative and cautious. The new human beings do not break away from the concept of conventional humans. There is no weird and mysterious evolutionary ability. Apart from adding a weak self-healing ability that can make life longer, there are no drastic modifications. It can only be called optimization.
But after these plans were proposed, Luo Yuan thought about it over and over again and chose the most conservative one. This plan has the biggest advantage. The reproductive ability of the new humans has not been greatly weakened. That's all. , is enough to abandon other radical solutions.
After all, cloning technology can only save temporary emergencies. It is not impossible to abandon natural reproduction and rely on cloning from now on, but it is undoubtedly an evil path.
Survival is the first priority of civilization, and human development cannot always be smooth sailing. On the scale of time, there will always be ups and downs in the development process of civilization. Once civilization encounters an accident, science and technology will regress, and there will be no excellent natural reproduction ability. , perhaps what awaits mankind is death.