Epoch of Twilight

In a blink of an eye, it was September.

At ten o'clock in the evening, Cui Weichuan came back from the adult night school, and dragged his exhausted body back to his cramped home.

The engineering company he was working for was disbanded unexpectedly after the last project was completed. Fortunately, most of the staff have been resettled, and middle-level leaders like him have received good arrangements.

He was assigned to a daily necessities company as the director of the production workshop.

The salary is lower than that of engineering companies, but it is more stable. I no longer have to work like before, and I am unemployed most of the time.

However, after working for less than half a month, he keenly discovered that this is a welfare factory for the government to reduce the unemployment rate. Here, machines can be solved with both hands. A large factory with more than 1,000 people, machine tools But there are not even fifty machines, and even the fifty machine tools are less than half of the work.

After only working for a while, a sense of emptiness arises, making him feel like he is wasting his time.

He can't see any hope here. Maybe through hard work and qualifications, he will gradually reach the top level, but even if he becomes the factory director, what can he do? Factories, in today's social system, have an insignificant status at all.

As far as he knew, even the factory director, his family's per capita housing area was the same as his.

He once secretly visited those advanced factories in his free time, and he couldn't help feeling envious when he saw the scenes where the engineers were arguing fiercely for a certain design plan in the empty fully automated high-tech factory.

He is still young, and his passion has not dissipated. He is not willing to spend his whole life just drifting with the crowd, nor does he want to live in a cramped space of nine square meters per capita, at the bottom of society. Whether it is for his family or himself, He has to fight for it.

...

"The night school is back? I'll make you some supper." The wife was mopping the floor, and when she saw him come back, she couldn't help but stop and said.

"No need, why haven't you slept yet?" Cui Weichuan put down the document bag with textbooks, hugged his virtuous and beautiful wife, and kissed his face heavily.

This is his second wife. He met at a blind date organized by his work unit. He has been married for less than a year now, and it's time for honey.

"Don't make trouble, Ningning hasn't slept yet!"

"Have you finished your homework yet?" Cui Weichuan quickly let go of his hand when he heard his daughter.

"This year's new textbook has been said to be more difficult. I'm afraid she will struggle a bit." The wife nodded, worried in her heart.

Cui Weichuan knows a little bit more about this. Now the school textbooks are changing every year, and the thickness of the textbooks is also getting thicker every year. Originally, elementary school only required basic addition and subtraction operations and simple word 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 part of the content of the original university.

Human knowledge is expanding at a geometric multiple every year, and the original educational progress is far from satisfying today's society.

In fact, not to mention those unlucky students, even he, a former college student, feels a little difficult in the night school now, if it is not assisted by the miniature brain worn on the eyeballs, the calculation and analysis links are greatly omitted , I'm afraid they can't keep up with that kind of high-density knowledge instillation.

It's a pity that for students, the 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.

"Why don't you enroll her in a cram school!" Cui Weichuan thought for a while and said.

"Alright, I'll ask her for her opinion then!" said the wife. Although this daughter is not her own, since it is already a family, she still treats her as her own daughter. Fortunately, her daughter is very obedient and sensible, and did not reject her because she is a stepmother.

Speaking of which, this daughter is also pitiful. She lost her mother since she was a child, and followed her father all the way, running around in the last days, and even almost died in an earthquake. She suffered a lot, which is probably the reason why she became sensible.

After a while, Cui Weichuan knocked on the door of his daughter's bedroom: "Have you finished your homework?"

"It's still a while, don't worry about me."

"Then pay attention to the time and go to bed early." Cui Weichuan said, feeling a little distressed. For such a young child, the schoolwork is so heavy. Back then, he only remembered to play.

...

He helped his wife mop the floor and returned to the bedroom. The two slept on the bed, talking in a low voice.

"What do you think of us having another child?" said the wife at this moment.

"I don't want it anymore. I heard that the success rate of test-tube babies is not high. If it fails again, it will hurt the body!" Cui Weichuan sighed and said. It's not that they haven't done test-tube babies before, but it failed in the end. Three months later, there was a miscarriage.

"It's different this time. It's a new technology with an almost 100% success rate. Haven't you read the newspapers or news lately?" said the wife.

Cui Weichuan went to work during the day and went to night school at night. He was so busy that he didn't have time to read newspapers and news. He suddenly sighed, "Technology is developing so fast now, why don't you go and read it another day!"

He has no pressure to have one more child. Now the government encourages childbirth. After giving birth, he can get a considerable subsidy and a three-year maternity leave. In addition to free education, there is basically no pressure on his life.

At that time, even the house can be replaced with a bigger one.

"I heard that this technology is quite advanced. When the fertilized egg is in the state, the hospital will modify the gene and delete the defective gene, so that the child born will be more intelligent, beautiful and strong. Why don't we ask for leave tomorrow morning ?” The wife said impatiently, getting more and more excited as she spoke.

After all, for a mother who wants a child, who would reject such a baby.

However, Cui Weichuan's personality is relatively conservative, and he is still a little hesitant about this new technology that has not been verified to be safe, not to mention that it involves his own children, but seeing his wife in such an excited state, the words come out of his mouth and become: " I will tell the factory manager tomorrow that it should be no problem to ask for leave."

...

Early the next morning, the two came to the hospital in a hurry.

The hospital is inside the building, on the upper two floors of their home, within a few steps.

Usually there are not many people in the hospital, but today there are quite a lot of people. Cui Weichuan found that the people coming and going were all couples, and he immediately understood that they were obviously here for this new technology, and they were not the only couple.

In the process of queuing, Cui Weichuan found that after some couples came out, many people frowned and seemed to be unable to make up their minds. He couldn't help but wondered, but he didn't think much about it. After queuing for nearly two hours, it was finally their turn.

...

"Are you saying that the possible child will not be too much like the parents, and even the parent-child gene will have problems?" Facing the doctor's euphemistic explanation of the new technology, the wife seemed to have been poured cold water, dumbfounded.

Facing the client's doubts, the doctor said calmly:

"The situation is like this. This technology modifies a lot of 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 understand your concerns, but now that the government is promoting this new technology, every family that gives birth will receive a huge subsidy. Come down, you will have nothing to lose! "

The better the conditions given, the more Cui Weichuan felt that there was a problem in his heart. 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 seeing his wife's tangled face, she seemed unable to make up her mind.

...

There is no doubt that this technology is naturally the product of the "Human Genome Optimization Project" established nearly a year ago.

It redefines the human genetic standard and eliminates the impact of unlocking the virus on fertility. With the official implementation of this technology, it means that a new optimized human is about to be born. Human beings will no longer have genetic defects, and genetic diseases will become legends .

Not only is it strong, smart, and beautiful, but it also has a long lifespan.

The average attribute of the new generation of human beings, including IQ, can generally reach 13 to 14 points, and the average life span reaches about 300 years. At the same time, it also restores the natural reproduction ability of human beings to normal.

In fact, when it comes to Luo Yuan, there is not only one genetic standard plan, but other plans are more radical. Compared with this human genetic standard, it is the most conservative and cautious. The new human beings do not deviate from the concept of conventional human beings. There is no such weird and mysterious evolution ability, except for the addition of a weak self-healing ability that can make life longer, and no drastic modifications have been made, it can only be called optimization.

But after these plans were brought up, Luo Yuan thought over and over again, and chose the most conservative one. This plan has the biggest advantage, the new human's ability to reproduce has not been weakened much, that's all. , is enough to jettison other radical schemes.

After all, cloning technology can only save a temporary emergency. It is not impossible to abandon natural reproduction and rely on cloning from now on, but it is undoubtedly on the wrong path.

Survival is the first priority of civilization, and the development of human beings cannot always be smooth sailing. Under the time scale, there will always be ups and downs in the development of civilization. Once civilization encounters accidents, technology goes backwards, and there is no excellent natural reproduction ability , what awaits mankind may be extinction.