213: Chapter 214 Those who didn't choose a profession should also be counted in the world's annals.

Thump.

That knocking sound came from the deepest part of the third underground level.

It wasn't heavy.

Yet it knocked the entire archives corridor into silence.

A black school board hung in mid-air.

[First batch of those who did not accept Career naming: 36,009 people]

[Current status: History unsearchable]

[System presumption: Already naturally perished]

Thump.

A second sound.

It was as if someone had been knocking with their knuckles behind the door for twenty years.

Gu Changye's blade slowly raised.

"There is another door there."

Qin Shanhe looked at that black school board, his expression terrifyingly grim.

"In the original blueprints of the Underground School, this level didn't exist."

Cheng Du's voice came from the Mainframe, sounding extremely hoarse.

"Because this level is not managed by the Career System."

"People who have not accepted a career do not have a Career ID."

"Without an ID, there is no entrance."

"Without an entrance, they disappear from the statistics."

Chen Ye cursed.

"Does disappearing mean they are presumed dead?"

Thirteen walked to the black school board and reached out to knock on its surface.

"The system is best at this."

"If it can't find it, it treats it as non-existent."

A black door emerged from the wall behind the school board.

There was no handle on the door.

There was only a line of cold text.

[Please present a valid Career Badge]

Gu Changye thrust his blade forward.

The door didn't budge.

[Abyss Career does not belong to valid careers]

The Ice Phoenix mark on Shen Tingxue's palm lit up, but the door remained unmoved.

[Career holders have no right to enter the Unaccepted Level]

Lin Jin understood.

This door wanted neither career holders nor those without careers.

It was simply using "Please present a valid Career Badge" to block everyone outside.

To those with a career, it said you have no right to enter.

To those without a career, it said you lack a valid credential.

Chen Ye laughed in anger.

"Can doors also act like thugs?"

Zhao Jing stood behind the crowd, his face pale.

He had just chosen to temporarily not awaken, and there was only a gray-white temporary page on his chest.

He looked down at his empty badge slot and suddenly said in a low voice:

"Let me try."

Lin Jin turned to look at him.

"You don't have to try."

Zhao Jing swallowed hard.

"I want to know if people who have temporarily not awakened can actually enter the door."

He stepped forward and pressed his palm against the black door.

[No valid Career Badge]

[Access denied]

Zhao Jing's face went pale, but he didn't retreat.

He thought for a moment and wrote on the door:

[Zhao Jing, currently temporarily not awakened.]

[Just now in the Old Awakening Hall, I stated: I don't know.]

[Life verification passed.]

[Will not provide Career Badge.]

The moment the handwriting appeared, the black door paused.

It didn't open.

It just glitched on the denial prompt.

Thirteen walked to his side and also pressed his hand on it.

[Thirteen, unregistered life.]

[Non-career holder.]

[Non-candidate number.]

[Currently present.]

The sound of Ye Guizhou's seal came from above.

[Non-career status received]

[Cannot be judged invalid]

Luo Wensheng recorded:

[Not providing a Career Badge does not mean one's existence cannot be verified.]

He Zhibai added:

[The cost of verifying non-career identities shall be borne by the public and cannot be shifted into mandatory awakening.]

Lin Jin inserted the new tool into the edge of the door crack.

"The condition for opening the door is wrong."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou lifted 002.

On the black door, the line [Valid Career Badge = Valid Entry Credential] lit up in a gold-gray color.

The new tool clamped onto the definition line.

002 dropped.

Snap!

The text on the door cracked.

New gray-white text appeared on top.

[Entry Credential: Personal name, currently present, reality witness, non-career identity status]

[Career Badge may serve as one type of credential, but cannot serve as the sole credential]

The black door finally opened a crack.

There were no monsters behind the door.

Nor was there an Abyss black tide.

There were only rows of very old manual registration cabinets.

There were no career classifications on the cabinets.

There were only names, addresses, fingerprints, neighborhood certifications, cash receipts, paper medical Records, food ration coupons, IOUs, photos, tombstone rubbings, and missing person notices.

There were no Career Badges.

And there were no levels.

Chen Ye looked at those yellowed papers and suddenly quieted down.

This was not a secret laboratory.

It was more like a police station, The Hospital, grain station, station, and school that the world had forgotten, forcefully piled up underground.

At the very front, there was a wooden table.

On the table sat a bronze bell that had long since cracked.

Thump.

The sound came from here.

Beside the bronze bell, a total application that had never been sent was pressed down.

[Joint Application of Those Who Have Not Accepted a Career]

[Application Content: Please include those who have not accepted Career naming in population statistics, medical aid, migration registration, death confirmation, kinship relations, and public distribution]

[Remark: We are not career holders, but we are human.]

Everyone was silent.

Lin Jin picked up that application; the edges of the paper were already as brittle as ash.

Behind the application were 36,009 names.

Behind some names it was written [Alive, relocated to South District].

Some wrote [Died of illness, unable to enter professional medical care].

Some wrote [Lost contact].

Some wrote [Subsequently accepted career].

Some wrote [Refused supplementary registration, continue without career].

There were also vast swathes written as [Unknown].

The "natural perishing" presumed by the system was not a conclusion at all.

It was just that it was too lazy to look any further.

Zhao Jing looked at those names, his voice trembling.

"They didn't all die."

Qin Shanhe said in a low voice:

"And they aren't all alive either."

Gu Changye looked at those [Died of illness] and [Lost contact] entries, his fingers gripping his blade turning white.

"Back then, they didn't accept a career, and later there were no professional hospitals to receive them, no professional schools to admit them, and no professional station transit permissions."

Young Qin Shanhe closed his eyes.

"The system didn't kill them."

"It was the system making all doors only recognize Career Badges."

Lin Jin put the application back on the table.

"So the first thing to do is not to have them retroactively choose a career."

"It is to count them back in."

The underlying system immediately popped up a prompt.

[Data of those who have not accepted a career is incomplete]

[Cannot confirm current life or death]

[Suggest uniformly marking as historical perishing]

Lin Jin looked up.

"Wrong."

"Unknown does not mean death."

Ye Guizhou stamped:

[Unknown received]

[Cannot presume death]

Luo Wensheng wrote:

[The status of those who have not accepted should be subdivided into: Alive, Dead, Lost Contact, Transferred to Career, Continue Without Career, Unknown.]

He Zhibai added:

[The costs of searching, supplementary registration, aid, and accountability shall be entered into the public ledger, and those who have not accepted shall not be required to retroactively choose a career first.]

The black school board vibrated violently.

The [Already naturally perished] on it faded bit by bit.

New gray-white writing emerged.

[First batch of those who did not accept Career naming: 36,009 people]

[Status: Needs re-verification]

[Cannot exclude from the effective population due to not being connected to the Career System]

Just at this moment, a small light suddenly lit up in the depths of the registration cabinets.

A paper photograph slid out from a crack in the cabinet.

On the photo was a woman from twenty years ago who had no Career Badge, holding a newborn baby.

Written on the back of the photo was:

[Child birth registration refused]

[Reason: Parents have no Career ID, cannot generate career pre-registration page]

Lin Jin's heart sank abruptly.

The cabinets opened one after another.

It wasn't the list of 36,009 people.

It was their children.

[Registration abnormality for children of those who have not accepted]

[Children born to parents without a career cannot enter the career birth system]

[Temporary handling: Local paper birth certificate]

[System status: No page]

Birth certificates flew out one by one.

Some of the children should be adults by now.

Some might have grown up, moved away, died, changed their names, or retroactively registered a career.

Others, even today, still do not have any system pages.

Thirteen stared at the two characters [No page], his eyes terrifyingly cold.

"They are not unregistered lives."

"They are lives refused registration by the system."

Zhao Jing's face turned pale.

"If a child has no page from birth, then how can they go to school, see a doctor, awaken, or withdraw in the future?"

No one could answer immediately.

In the deepest part of the underground, another knock came.

This time, it was not the bronze bell.

It was a door.

Behind the registration cabinets, a row of smaller, lower doors slowly lit up.

There were no Career Badge slots on the doors.

There were only many palm prints left by children.

Some big, some small.

Some already yellowed.

Some, however, were very new.

A new line of prompts emerged.

[Record database for descendants of those who have not accepted and children without pages]

[Current quantity: 84,317]

[System status: No Career page, no birth pre-registration, no future review entrance]

[Request: Can we first have a birth page that is not a Career one?]

From the place closest to the door crack came a child's very soft voice.

"People outside."

"Do I still need a career now just to prove that I was born?"