134: Chapter 135 When the entire city's F-rank officials were wiped out, Jiangcheng came to a halt.

"gods heart maintenance project initiated."

"First malfunction to be repaired: Resource waste caused by low-level occupations."

"Processing plan: Delete all F-Class occupations."

The first hammer fell.

There was no thunder. No explosion.

Yet, in that very same second, half of Jiangcheng went dark.

In the basement level, the school badge on Lin Jin's chest cracked first.

The [F-Class Repairman] insignia that had accompanied him for eighteen years began to fade from the edges.

It wasn't damage.

It was being judged by the system as "should not exist."

Immediately after, a continuous sound of metal grinding to a halt came from above the maintenance well.

The scrapped drill press in the academy's training capsule stopped.

The water pump in the dormitory building stopped.

The old equipment responsible for recycling residual spirit energy in the training ground stopped.

At the kitchen back door, an F-Class equipment manager checking the gas valve suddenly lost his occupational response in his tools.

He froze for half a second.

The valve immediately emitted a piercing leak sound.

Jiangcheng South District Hospital.

An F-Class instrument maintenance technician was replacing a seal on an emergency capsule when his occupational insignia suddenly went out.

The emergency capsule sounded an alarm on the spot.

The patient on the bed was still breathing.

But the system no longer acknowledged that the person holding the screwdriver next to them was qualified to perform maintenance.

West City underground drainage station.

Three F-Class pipeline inspectors disappeared from the duty roster simultaneously.

The automated system could not find the person responsible and directly marked the flooding alarm as:

"No one to handle."

The rain hadn't come yet.

But the drainage pumps had already begun to shut down.

Chen Ye listened to the alarms continuously coming from the communication talisman, the anger on his face turning into disbelief bit by bit.

"It isn't deleting combat power."

"It is pulling out the foundation of Jiangcheng."

The hammer swung by the gods heart using the proxy shell continued to spread outward.

The golden wheel on the White Tower Second Floor spun faster and faster.

"Ratio of F-Class occupations to total occupations: 38.7%."

"Average combat value: Low."

"Resource input return: Unqualified."

"Deletion reasonable."

Lin Jin ripped off the crumbling school badge.

The moment his palm touched the insignia, his skin felt as if it were being pressed by a hot iron.

The Hand of Rules forcibly popped up.

"Target: F-Class occupation classification."

"Current definition: Low combat value occupation = Low resource value occupation."

"Malfunction: Evaluation dimension covered by single combat indicator."

"Correctable, but lacks sufficient real-world evidence."

Evidence.

Not just a sentence saying "F-Class is also very important."

It needed to let the system see what reality would become once F-Class disappeared.

Lin Jin looked up abruptly.

"Is Bureau Chief Gu still at the academy?"

The communication connected.

Gu Changye's voice was mixed with dense alarms.

"Yes."

"All F-Class occupational files in Jiangcheng are being deleted in batches."

"Four-tenths of the frontline liaisons at the Processing Bureau are already gone."

"Don't stop the deletion," Lin Jin said.

Gu Changye was silent for a moment.

"What did you say?"

"Don't fight it for the files yet."

"Record every single malfunction that appears after the deletion."

"Equipment stoppage, post disconnection, rescue delays, casualty risks—don't miss a single one."

Gu Changye understood immediately.

"You want to make a reverse malfunction report."

"Correct."

Lin Jin looked at the fake Lin Shoushan in the Cost General Ledger Room.

"It says F-Class is a waste of resources."

"Then let it see how much of a bill it has to pay to delete this 'waste'."

The second hammer had already been raised.

"Deletion progress: 17%."

Lin Shoushan swayed, almost falling.

Thirteen rushed over faster than Lin Jin, supporting his shoulders.

The moment the two touched, both stiffened.

The questioning of eighteen years was right on the tip of his tongue.

But now was not the time.

Lin Shoushan panted heavily and looked at Thirteen.

"Get out first."

Thirteen's face was cold.

"Do you think I came down here to hear you say 'get out first'?"

"No."

Lin Shoushan used the blood-stained wrench to support his body.

"It's because this place is about to collapse."

As soon as he finished speaking, a dull cracking sound came from behind the giant gate.

After the gods heart left the official holder, the maintenance structure that Lin Shoushan had originally maintained was failing.

Having lost the position of Chief Designer, he could no longer continue to invoke the entrance permissions.

But he also finally didn't have to be nailed to the door anymore.

Chen Ye slammed his folding shield onto the ground.

"Ask your questions when we're out."

"Keep people alive first."

He directly hoisted one of Lin Shoushan's arms onto his shoulder.

As soon as he exerted force, the wound on his chest bled again.

Lin Shoushan frowned.

"You're injured and you're still carrying people?"

Chen Ye gritted his teeth and said:

"Uncle Lin, the stretcher fees your son owes me are piling up."

"Let's count it as interest today."

Zhou Heng had already turned to check the maintenance well entrance.

"The mechanical shaft can still turn."

"But after the second hammer falls, structures related to F-Class mechanics might be judged as invalid by the system."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou held the 002, his face pale.

"Then it must be stopped before the second hammer."

Shen Tingxue looked at Lin Jin.

"How long until the evidence is compiled?"

In the communication talisman, Gu Changye reported quickly.

"Academy water supply, energy supply, cafeteria, equipment maintenance—twenty-seven shutdowns have already occurred."

"The Hospital has reported one hundred and thirteen pieces of equipment that have lost maintenance authorization."

"Four municipal pump stations have entered an unmanned state."

"The occupational logistics network has started losing packages on a large scale."

"And..."

Gu Changye's voice paused for a moment.

"The basic calibrators at the Occupational Awakening Hall are mostly F-Class."

"After they were deleted, the three hundred and twenty-six awakening ceremonies currently underway today have all stalled."

Lin Jin's eyes turned cold.

"In other words, deleting F-Class will make it impossible for new professionals to awaken."

"Yes."

This wasn't resource optimization.

This was the occupational system cutting off its own path to survival.

Lin Jin imported all the malfunction records into the Hand of Rules.

Gray-white information spread out before his eyes like a flood.

Hospital equipment unable to be repaired.

City pipe networks losing inspections.

Basic spirit energy lines with no one to calibrate.

Low-grade materials with no one to sort.

Food preservation arrays with no one to maintain.

Those people in the city who are usually unnoticed—once they are pulled out of the occupational system, so-called high-level professionals cannot even maintain normal life.

But the gods heart did not stop.

"Deletion progress: 31%."

The proxy shell raised the second hammer.

"Low-level occupations can be replaced by automated modules."

"Human redundancy does not need to be retained."

"Automation?"

Qin Shanhe's voice suddenly cut into the public communication.

The sounds of academy mentors running and moving equipment came from the background.

"After the academy's automatic water supply stopped, who is carrying the water?"

The scene was forcibly projected onto the White Tower Second Floor.

Qin Shanhe, without his seat as Dean, was pushing a water cart together with dozens of mentors and students.

An F-Class irrigator who was originally responsible for the academy's flower garden stood before the powered-down water pump, directing everyone to open the valves manually based on experience.

His occupational insignia had already gone out.

But the water was still being delivered into the dormitory by him.

Immediately after, more scenes were connected.

In The Hospital, instrument maintenance technicians who had lost their occupational certification smashed the locked tool cabinets and manually replaced the emergency capsule seals.

Inside the drainage station, three deleted inspectors restarted the water pumps using hand-cranked mechanisms.

At the logistics center, an F-Class sorter climbed onto the conveyor rack, relying on memory to retrieve medicine bound for the children's hospital.

Their occupations were disappearing.

But the people had not stopped.

Gu Changye said in a deep voice:

"Abyss Processing Bureau real-time malfunction report."

"Thirty-one seconds after the F-Class occupational deletion, Jiangcheng's basic system malfunctions increased by four hundred and seventy percent."

"Automation replacement success rate: less than nine percent."

"The remaining malfunctions are all being handled by the deleted personnel in a non-occupational manner."

The gods heart's golden wheel experienced a moment of hesitation.

This was the moment Lin Jin was waiting for.

The phantom of the rule correction wrench appeared in his right hand.

Shen Tingxue immediately pressed down on his wrist.

"If you use it again, your right hand might be completely ruined."

"It's not a hard modification."

Lin Jin looked at the second floor.

"It gave the wrong evidence itself."

He did not correct "F-Class is very important."

He corrected that core erroneous judgment.

"Low combat value = Low resource value."

The gray-gold wrench bit into the equal sign.

Lin Jin used all his strength to pry it outward.

"Not being able to beat monsters,"

"Doesn't mean we can't support a city."

Crack!

The equal sign broke from the middle.

"Definition conflict."

"Combat value cannot directly replace social maintenance value."

"F-Class occupational deletion plan lacks complete assessment."

"Forced deletion paused."

The golden second hammer stopped in mid-air.

The F-Class insignias fading within Jiangcheng also stopped disappearing at the same time.

The deletion progress froze at thirty-one percent.

Chen Ye let out a harsh breath.

"It stopped?"

"It's only a pause."

Lin Jin's right hand shook violently, almost unable to hold the wrench.

Fresh blood flowed down his wrist.

Shen Tingxue froze the wound with ice.

"Don't trade your hand for time next time."

Lin Jin looked at her.

"Let's finish using this time first."

The gods heart clearly did not expect that a group of people it judged as "low value" would become the evidence proving it wrong.

The proxy shell looked down at the hammer in its hand.

On the face belonging to Lin Shoushan, true confusion surfaced for the first time.

"Social maintenance value cannot be uniformly quantified."

"If it cannot be quantified, it cannot be optimized."

Thirteen sneered.

"Must you delete everything you don't understand?"

The gods heart turned to him.

"Variables that cannot be incorporated into the system will lead to chaos."

Thirteen stood beside the real Lin Shoushan, with no occupational insignia on his chest. No ID number. No level.

According to the standards of the occupational system, he wasn't even F-Class.

"Then what about me?"

He opened his arms.

"I have no occupation."

"No files."

"No quantifiable value."

"Shouldn't I be the first to be deleted?"

The golden wheel locked onto Thirteen.

"Unregistered life."

"Classification failed."

"Recommendation: Recycle."

Lin Shoushan abruptly pulled Thirteen behind him.

The movement was too urgent, affecting the wound on his chest, causing him to stagger half a step.

Thirteen froze.

Lin Shoushan did not look back, only gripped the blood-stained wrench tightly.

"I couldn't protect you eighteen years ago."

"Try it today."

The gods heart paused for a second.

Subsequently, the proxy shell slowly lowered the second hammer.

It wasn't admitting defeat. It was changing its target.

"F-Class occupational deletion plan entering re-evaluation."

"Higher priority malfunction detected."

"Malfunction: Human individual value cannot be fully measured by occupational level."

Chen Ye was stunned for a moment.

"Did it finally realize there's a problem with the occupational level system?"

Lin Jin's expression, however, changed abruptly.

A god would not admit that the evaluation system had a problem. It would only eliminate the objects that the evaluation system could not handle.

The golden wheel expanded.

Above the entire Jiangcheng, everyone's occupational insignias appeared simultaneously. S-Class. A-Class. B-Class. F-Class.

Every single person was covered by their occupational name.

Only a few people's names could not be completely overlapped with their occupations.

Qin Shanhe had lost his seat as Dean, but was still protecting the academy. The deleted F-Class staff had lost their occupational certification, but were still working. Thirteen had no occupation, but possessed an independent personality. Lin Jin also refused to become a Rule Maintenance Seat.

These people had all become anomalies that the system could not understand.

"Redefining maintenance target."

"Occupation cannot fully define an individual, indicating the individual has redundant parts."

"Second malfunction to be repaired: Humanity outside of occupation."

"Processing plan: Strip away all non-occupational personalities."

Shen Tingxue's eyes turned cold.

Zhou Heng gripped the Thunder Spear.

Chen Ye's smile also disappeared completely.

The first hammer deleted occupations. The second hammer was actually going to delete everything outside of occupations.

Friends, family, choices, fear, hesitation, love and hate. They were all "redundancy" in its eyes.

The proxy shell raised the hammer again.

This time, the hammer's edge was not aimed at a certain level. It was aimed at the names of everyone in the entire city of Jiangcheng.

"Personality stripping countdown: Ten minutes."

"After stripping is complete, humans will only retain the parts most suitable for their own occupation."

Lin Shoushan stared at that hammer, his face so pale it had no color.

"It isn't fixing the world."

"It wants to turn everyone—"

"Into an occupation."