On the first night after the celebration ended, the people of the Empire concluded their long holiday and returned to their not-so-arduous jobs.
Except for the unlucky souls in the outermost ring.
Of all the jobs in the Empire—excluding those that AI and machines truly couldn’t replace, such as matters of politics, aesthetics, moral choices, strategic planning, and scientific breakthroughs, which could only be handled by humans—for any job that AI could perform, the most difficult parts were invariably shouldered by AI.
Take the job of an accountant, for example. Typically, an AI was responsible for calculations and analysis, while the salaried employee merely had to glance over the report, sign it, and click the upload button.
Consequently, the daily lives of most Imperial citizens were quite dull. This was especially true after the Empire had healed the wounds inflicted by the Activation War, and the entire society began to gradually shift in the direction of the Federation. Those jobs, which served as little more than fig leaves, were increasingly seen as worthless. The Empire’s creativity and vitality were draining away. More than once, people of insight had warned that only a deep chasm of gender separated the Empire from the Federation.
Therefore, it was foreseeable that the social experiment in the outermost ring would continue for a long time to come. When people were out of options, this kind of aimless sacrifice could sometimes provide an illusory comfort.
What’s more, the people of the outermost ring did indeed possess something that most other Imperial citizens lacked in their lives: passion.
In fact, the overabundant passion of the outermost ring even fed back into the lives of those in the inner rings. For instance, the scandal more than half a month ago, which connected the very top of the Empire with its very bottom, had sent shockwaves through the entire nation.
The erosion of omegas’ rights and freedoms was a process akin to boiling a frog in slowly warming water. Many of them didn’t place much importance on their rights and freedoms, as they rarely had occasion to use them. When could a mark be removed? By what percentage would a new law increase the frequency of assaults on omegas? Or the fact that the failure rate for omega inheritance lawsuits exceeded sixty percent—all these things were important, but not in a way that felt personal. Because the probability of them happening was too low, because they involved too few people, because the cost of avoidance was too small. And so, apart from the direct victims and Spartacus, not many omegas truly realized what was happening in their era.
It wasn’t until the Glory affair was exposed that omegas began to take stock of these seemingly insignificant deficits. Coupled with the behind-the-scenes instigation by Spartacus and some remnants of Glory, the most severe conflict between alphas and omegas since the Activation War erupted.
This conflict had already fermented to the point where no one was willing to seriously listen to what the other side was saying or make any effort to understand them.
Recently, the two most common phrases on the StarNet were:
“Oh, an alpha. No wonder.”
“O-rights omegas, get off the StarNet.”
This led to the least festive celebration in history. Many of the celebratory events were cut short due to the absence of omegas and the troublemaking of alphas. Except for when the royal family passed by, when everyone could still feign a jubilant facade, at other times, tense confrontations would break out from time to time.
It had to be said that this incident had probably ignited all the passion that had been suppressed in the people of the inner rings for years. Even its instigators hadn’t expected things to develop to such an unmanageable state.
Before the live stream, Tang Jianxi gave Yun Chuji a long hug.
“You’ve got this.”
Yun Chuji hummed in agreement, her nervousness easing a little. As was often the case, Tang Jianxi’s mere presence put her at ease.
She glanced at the time, then sat down, opened her thick manuscript, and officially began her career of teaching A-Virtue.
The Empire’s entertainment industry was extremely developed. Although it couldn’t compare to the Federation, according to surveys by relevant agencies, Imperial citizens spent over sixty percent of their leisure time on various entertainment products on the StarNet almost every day.
Live streaming, as a cultural and entertainment activity with a long tradition, had added new functions like shared taste and touch with the development of technology, but its core content remained focused on topical figures presenting themselves.
Yun Chuji was undoubtedly a very prominent topical figure at the moment.
First, there was her relationship with Tang Jianxi. Second, her stance, which was different from that of ordinary alphas. And finally, her silence during this turmoil.
Alphas interpreted this silence as her coming to her senses; omegas interpreted it as cowardice.
In short, Yun Chuji’s image was not as good as it had been at the beginning, but the number of eyes on her was dozens of times greater.
Coupled with the meticulous promotion by the professional, Jiang Xiu—yes, she had earned Tang Jianxi’s employment with her professional standards, to which Yun Chuji had little reaction, merely listening in on their meetings about content she didn’t understand at all—the live stream was flooded with immense traffic the second it went live. Any other streamer would probably have been ecstatic.
But Yun Chuji was calm. She knew that all this would change after she revealed the topic of her stream. Compared to the storms to come, the current traffic was nothing more than a calm sea at noon.
“Hello everyone, my name is Yun Chuji. The topic I want to talk about today is: A-Virtue.”
In the comment section, alphas began to furiously spam question marks, while omegas furiously spammed exclamation marks.
Beneath the screen full of characters, Yun Chuji took one last deep breath and then said, “It’s undeniable that under the pheromone system, omegas indeed face many more inconveniences than alphas. First, heat is a very difficult problem to solve. Inhibitors treat the symptoms but not the root cause. In the end, omegas still need an alpha’s pheromones to control the effects of heat on their bodies.”
“Compared to omegas, although alphas are also controlled by pheromones in their desires and needs, at least this control is not life-threatening. In other words, alphas enjoy more freedom under this system.”
“But recent events have clearly told us that alphas have not used this freedom to do anything of value. Instead, alphas are dedicated to expanding their own freedom.”
“—Only by means of diminishing the freedom of omegas.”
“So, this is the meaning of A-Virtue. A-Virtue is a doctrine that teaches alphas how to use that extra freedom they have.”
On the screen, the alpha spoke with sincerity, seemingly oblivious to the torrent of abuse from alphas in the comments.
Those words contained a vast malice that Yun Chuji had never experienced in her two lifetimes, but she was prepared. She understood that she was snatching food from a tiger’s mouth and was ready to be bitten and mauled by the tiger.
She continued to speak about the ideas of A-Virtue in her calm and gentle voice. The number of viewers in the stream grew, and clips of Yun Chuji’s broadcast spread all over the StarNet, causing the chatter in the stream to become even more clamorous.
Some said Yun Chuji had gone mad.
Some said Yun Chuji had been bewitched by Tang Jianxi.
Some said Yun Chuji was resorting to any means necessary to marry into the Tang family.
There were also a few scattered alphas, with a comment or two like “So that’s how it is” occasionally floating by. At those moments, Yun Chuji’s eyes would shine a little brighter than before.
The live stream was overly monotonous and quiet, almost no different from a classroom lecture. Aside from the streamer’s own superior looks and temperament, it completely fit all the characteristics of a failed broadcast.
However, it broke the record for concurrent viewers.
And it did so based on its content.
Putting aside the shock this sent through the Empire’s live streaming community for a moment, the first to be shaken was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AO turmoil: the Sixth Prince, Clarence.
Relying on his status as the leader of omega opinion, Clarence had usurped a great deal of power. For an omega, it was already excessive, but for his own ambitions, it was far from enough.
He needed the omegas of the Empire to be angry, continuously angry.
Because angry people cannot think rationally, nor can they negotiate. At such a time, he, as the leader of Spartacus, would become the spokesperson for omega interests, thereby participating in the division of the great cake of power.
But what he hadn’t expected was that after he had gone to great lengths to suppress Tang Jianxi’s achievements, deeply linking her actions to the wise guidance of Spartacus through explicit and implicit means, an alpha would now pop up to spoil the game?
Clarence silently watched the alpha on the light screen spouting a series of grand principles filled with idealism. This was terrible.
Anger stems from being attacked and the fear of being attacked. If the opponent lays down their weapons, then this flood of anger will lose its power and become a docile and useless stream.
Clarence tapped on his desk. His exquisite fingers looked more like a work of art than the desk itself, which had been designed and built by the Empire’s top designer, Mr. Wei Song.
He turned off the live stream and said meaningfully to his secretary, “If I recall correctly, this Miss Yun is Tang Jianxi’s recently announced fiancée, isn’t she?”
The secretary nodded, snapping out of a daze caused by his boss’s beauty, and immediately replied, “Yes, the Tang family announced the engagement on the first day of the celebration.”
Clarence opened his comms list on his light-brain, and from a category locked under several layers of security, he found a familiar number.
He dialed it.
No one answered.
Five minutes later, he tried again.
This time, the number was out of service.
Clarence was very surprised. This was his second surprise of the day, enough to make even someone like him feel a bit of anger.
He deleted the number.
Carefully recalling recent events, he finally came to a conclusion: his so-called perfect lover had likely run into some problems.
For example, a change of heart.
S-District.
Tang Jianshen was still in his office. This was normal, at least for these past few days. The office had become much more familiar than home—after all, home held traces of that person.
On the light screen, besides the business documents, there was a small string of numbers in the corner. It was the number Clarence used exclusively to contact him.
Tang Jianshen stopped processing the document in front of him and began to deal with that string of numbers.
He quickly deactivated the number. He knew that Clarence wouldn’t come looking for him over a deactivated number; he had too many things to attend to.
And he himself did not rank very high in Clarence’s sequence of exploitable assets.
After thinking for a moment, Tang Jianshen couldn’t help but smile. On his icy face, the smile had a strange quality, like a block of ice half-thawed.
Perhaps Tang Jianxi had been right before. The reason he seemed omnipotent was that he only did things he was good at, only made choices with the highest probability of success.
What had he said back then? Right, he had mocked Tang Jianxi: “Don’t you think you’re talking nonsense, little sister? Making a choice that is likely to fail is in itself a form of surrender.”
Tang Jianxi, as usual, was left speechless by him. In the end, the 23-year-old Tang Jianxi had said, very sanctimoniously, “But those abandoned possibilities aren’t without value. They weren’t even seriously considered before being given up for the sake of profit. That’s just too cruel.”
“The world is just that cruel,” he remembered replying slowly.
Now, however, he understood Tang Jianxi’s words.
Because he had become the failed choice.
Recalling the news footage of Clarence and his fiancé being as thick as thieves, Tang Jianshen smiled again.
Then he resumed his interrupted work.
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