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Chapter 234. Adult Anti-Addiction Restrictions
Since Xie Yan couldn't find Yin Ju's tent, Jiang Jianxin led him towards Yin Ju's office tent.

Along the way, Xie Yan chatted with her about his recent life.

After the incident in Zhenbei City, he continued his profession as a master thief, but as time went on, he keenly noticed...

It seems like I'm finding it increasingly difficult to steal anything?
This is not because his skills have declined, but because the whole society is falling and sliding, like a cake forgotten in a corner, with sticky sugar water seeping from the surface, the edges gradually collapsing, and emitting a faint sour smell.

In the past, he could simply walk down the street and activate his ability on any well-dressed person, and he would reap considerable rewards.

Now, however, the streets are filled with ragged pedestrians, their pockets empty, even wallets a luxury. Occasionally, you'll encounter someone well-dressed, but upon checking their pockets, all you find are a pile of IOUs.

The entire lower class seemed to be falling into an abyss of poverty, and he was the most direct witness to it.

Xie Yan vaguely understood the reason for this phenomenon.

The pollution outbreak in Tianma City was like the first domino to fall. After the collapse of order, those monopolistic capitalists, like sharks smelling blood, frantically devoured the little remaining social wealth.

The soaring prices have left talented individuals at the bottom with no room to breathe.

However, the outbreak of the epidemic in Cangjiang has dragged even the mid-level talents into the hell of poverty.

This pandemic will not affect those with high-level talents; it will only cause the deaths of those with lower-level talents. However, those with mid-level talents, who are in between, will develop illnesses after being infected and will also have a very high probability of dying.

In order to recover from their illnesses and for that sliver of hope of survival, many mid-level talents have squandered their fortunes and fallen into poverty.

Along the way, Xie Yan saw that the once brightly lit commercial street was now just broken shop windows and mottled walls.

An elderly man, emaciated from hunger, huddled in a cubicle of a bank ATM, a machine that had stopped operating six months earlier when the pollution first broke out.

A young mother, holding her feverish child, futilely searched her already empty wallet—not even a scrap of banknote remained.

He remained the infamous master thief; with just a thought, the crumpled roll of banknotes in the old woman's pocket and the last few coins his mother hid under her shoe insole would silently fall into his palm.

This innate talent meant he could have lived a good life in this broken world.

But when he saw the old woman's trembling hands as she counted her change, and heard the mother trying to hold back her sobs as she comforted her child, something sharper pierced his heart.

Xie Yan has decided to retire from the business.

He felt that the world had deteriorated to such an extreme that even he, a thief, couldn't stand it anymore.

His sister Xie Yan strongly agreed with his career change. After discussing it, the two felt that being a con artist was still a promising career in Haidu, which also had the Binhai Talent Academy, known as the highest institution for con artists.

If Xie Yan can get into Binhai Talent Academy, his future will be limitless.

"So...you want to go to the Coastal Talent Academy?"

Jiang Jianxin asked.

Xie Yan nodded and then smiled wryly:
“I have this idea, but it’s not something I can just go to whenever I want. It’s the academic hall of the fraudster hierarchy, and many fraudsters who are better than me want to go there.”

"The tricks of a top con artist are far more complex than my simple ability to steal... With such a master before me, how could the academy possibly admit me?"

Xie Yan sighed, paused, and then said:
"Moreover, Haidu is indeed a prosperous sea city. The rules for con artists here are different from those in our small town."

Jiang Jianxin asked:
"How to say?"

Xie Yan calmly replied:
"I downloaded the application form for the Binhai Talent Academy and found that the application form for the fraud major had three blanks for gender, and required at least two blanks to be filled in."

"?" Jiang Jianxin was shocked. She was about to say something when she suddenly remembered that when Zhang Qiuyue talked about her learning experience at Binhai Talent Academy, there were more than 30 fraudsters in the class, and they also introduced more than 70 genders.

In a society that values ​​talent and ability, gender distinctions are not as pronounced as they used to be. Jiang Jianxin had a strange premonition:

"...Those two genders, they can't be the usual men and women, right?"

Xie Yan nodded and said:

"Yes, they are usually all sorts of strange things. The examples given by the academy are: first gender armed helicopters, second gender off-road trucks, and third gender transoceanic giant ships."

Jiang Jianxin fell silent; she hadn't expected gender to be so wild.

"...That's great, it even integrates land, sea and air capabilities."

How do you plan to fill it out?

After a moment of deep thought, Xie Yan said:

“I feel I can’t be worse than the case studies, so I plan to fill in the first gender as the Sea Eagle and the second gender as the Land Lion King.”

Jiang Jianxin didn't know how to comment, so he could only manage to stammer out:
"It's also very good."

Xie Yan lowered his eyebrows and sighed:

"We'll see when the time comes. There's no guarantee we'll be able to get it recorded... I'll be eighteen in a few years, I'll be too old."

He shrugged and said:
"The only good thing about this terrible world is that people like me, who are almost eighteen and haven't accomplished anything, can still stay in the society of talents after they become adults, and there are no adult anti-addiction restrictions when browsing forums."

Jiang Jianxin asked:
What is meant by "adult anti-addiction restrictions"?

Xie Yan explained:
"This was the rule of the society before the pollution outbreak. Here, people generally retire at twenty, and after turning eighteen, they have to start preparing to become elders or find a stable job."

"Back then, society was stable, and it wasn't difficult for people with similar basic talents to find a job and settle down in one of the major powers. Only some weak, low-level talents couldn't even find a job."

He gestured:

“These people will generally be gradually sent back to ordinary society after they turn eighteen and become ordinary people. Ping An Forum will set ‘adult anti-addiction restrictions’ for them.”

"This restriction will limit them to two hours of forum time per day, and they have to log in during fixed time slots."

"This way, we can cut off their dependence on Ping An Forum and allow them to access software like WeChat and WeChat Moments in ordinary society."

"When you turn twenty, the 'adult anti-addiction restriction' will automatically switch to 'adult protection,' and you will no longer be able to log in to the Ping An Forum, which will be a complete break from the Talent World."

Xie Yan spoke of the past with a sense of the vicissitudes of time:
"...However, after the pollution outbreak, a large number of new adult gifted individuals emerged, so the Ping An Forum canceled this rule."

Jiang Jianxin hadn't expected that such a thing existed in the past of the Talent World. She clicked her tongue and said:

"That TV station is quite clever in setting it up. In ordinary society, there are time limits for minors, and these limits are lifted after the age of eighteen. Unexpectedly, it seamlessly connects with the time limits for adults in the gifted society."

Xie Yan was unaware of the affairs of ordinary society, after all, he was not yet an adult. He simply shrugged and said:
"Who knows."

Yin Ju's office tent was just ahead, Jiang Jianxin pointed it out to him and said:

“Elder Yin of the War Alliance’s office is just ahead. I’ll go with you there.”