214: Chapter 215 The birth page is not the career page; the child is seen by the world first.

"People outside."

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

The child's voice was very soft.

So soft that if they hadn't just repaired the Listening Rules, everyone might have mistaken it for the wind blowing through the cracks of the door.

In the deepest part of the third basement level, a row of low doors glowed with old palm prints.

Some palm prints were small, like those left by a child who had just learned to crawl.

Some were nearly adult-sized.

But none of them had a Career Emblem.

The line of text on the doors was like a thorn, piercing everyone's eyes.

[No Career Page, No Birth Pre-registration, No Future Review Entry]

[Request: Can we first have a birth page that isn't a career page?]

Zhao Jing stood in front of the door, his throat tightening.

He had just chosen to defer awakening, so he at least still had a gray-white temporary page.

But these people behind the door didn't even have a "defer."

From the moment they were born, the Career System had blocked them out of the Career Page.

It wasn't that they hadn't chosen.

It was that they weren't allowed to become choosers.

Lin Jin raised his hand and pressed it against the door.

"You can."

A second voice immediately came from inside the door, even smaller than the first.

"Then, after it's written, will I have to awaken?"

Lin Jin didn't answer immediately.

Because this question was more important than "can we."

If they provided these children with supplementary pages now, and what they filled out was still a Career Pre-registration Page, that would just be dragging them from outside the door into another net.

What they needed was a Birth Page.

Not a Career Page.

The underlying system quickly provided a default plan.

[Can generate supplementary Career Pre-registration Pages for children without pages]

[After supplementary registration, they can enter the Unawakened system]

[Can arrange awakening reviews by age]

The children behind the door were silent for a moment.

It wasn't relief.

It was fear.

Thirteen's expression turned completely cold.

"It doesn't understand."

"It's not that it doesn't understand."

Lin Jin stared at the default plan.

"It only has this form left."

The Career System could understand career holders.

It could understand the unawakened.

It could understand those who withdrew, those who changed paths, and those who deferred.

But it couldn't understand how a person could be born outside the Career System and still be a person.

Fang Ning's voice connected from the First Hospital.

"A Birth Page should first Record life facts."

"Birth Records, physical characteristics, footprints, caregivers, place of birth."

Teacher Song Qing added from Qinghe County:

"It must also be able to say 'unknown'."

"If the parents are unknown, the name is unknown, or the future is unknown, it cannot be judged invalid just because it's empty."

The Old Miner from Beiyuan Mining Area said in a deep voice:

"Parents without careers cannot be forced to acquire a career just because their child is applying for a supplementary Birth Page."

Intern Liang Yu also chimed in:

"Local paper birth certificates must count; you can't only recognize the Mainframe page."

Lin Jin wrote these points one by one next to the door on the third basement level.

[Draft of Non-Career Birth Page]

[Contents: Birth facts, physical characteristics, current name or pending naming, care relationship, location, time, witnesses, paper materials, supplementary statement by the individual]

[Prohibited: Career pre-assignment, potential scoring, future career inference, parental career review, forced awakening as a condition for supplementary pages]

[Permissions: Medical, education, migration, assistance, death confirmation, kinship, and public distribution can all reference it]

[Status: Not a Career Page]

[Future: The individual may choose whether to enter the awakening window at an appropriate age]

The golden text on the door flickered.

[Missing Career Field]

"Correct."

Lin Jin said.

"That's exactly it—no Career Field."

[Missing Career Field will prevent access to career social services]

Ye Guizhou's seal came down heavily.

[Social services must not use the Career Field as the sole entry point]

Luo Wensheng recorded:

[A Birth Page proves that a person has been born, not what the person should become.]

He Zhibai added:

[The cost of supplementary registration and service access shall be borne publicly; those without pages must not be required to repay it through awakening.]

The black door vibrated even more violently.

Many chaotic voices came from behind the door.

A child asked, "I have a name, but it's not in the system. Can I write it down?"

Someone asked, "My mother is dead, what if there's no one to testify?"

Someone asked, "I'm already twenty-two. Can I still apply for a supplementary Birth Page?"

Someone asked in a whisper, "If I don't want to awaken later, will I lose my page again?"

These voices made the third basement level feel crowded.

Not crowded with people.

But crowded with questions that had been blocked behind the door for twenty years, finally finding a crack to escape through.

Lin Jin didn't say "everything can be handled immediately."

He said:

"Open the door first."

The underlying system immediately issued a warning.

[The Record database for children without pages is not linked to the Career System]

[Opening directly may cause identity shock]

Cheng Du said coldly from the Mainframe:

"Identity shock, my ass."

"You didn't count people before, and now that there are a lot of them, you're complaining that the books are hard to balance."

Lin Jin inserted the new tool into the door crack.

"Teacher Xu."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou held up work order no. 002.

The definition line on the door emerged.

[Valid Birth Record = Birth Record that can generate a Career Pre-registration Page]

The new tool clamped onto it.

work order no. 002 came down.

Click!

The definition shattered.

New gray-white text slowly lit up.

[Valid Birth Record = Record of a real life having been born, existing, being cared for, being witnessed, or capable of being confirmed by the individual later]

[Career Pre-registration Page is not a prerequisite for a Birth Record]

The low door finally opened.

Behind the door was not a prison cell.

It was one low archive room after another.

On the walls were paper birth certificates, old photos, palm prints, neighbor testimonies, pharmacy receipts from township clinics, and family trees drawn by the children themselves.

Standing at the very front was a thin, small boy.

He looked only eight or nine years old, clutching a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

His name was written on the paper.

[A-Lu]

Below the name, there was no Career Page number.

Only a blurry footprint.

He looked up at Lin Jin, and his first sentence was:

"Can I not awaken for now?"

Lin Jin crouched down to keep his eyes level with the boy's.

"You can."

A-Lu asked again:

"Then can I go to school?"

Teacher Song Qing answered almost immediately from her side:

"You can."

She paused, then added:

"But the school will have to learn how to accept you."

A-Lu cautiously handed out the paper.

"My grandma wrote this."

There was a line of very crooked writing on the paper.

[A-Lu, born in a temporary shed under Donghe Bridge, cried loudly, has a black mole on the sole of his right foot.]

No hospital seal.

No system number.

Only an old person's handprint.

The underlying system prompted:

[Materials incomplete]

A-Lu's hand flinched instantly.

Lin Jin held down the edge of the paper, not letting it be pushed back.

"Incomplete materials do not mean the person is incomplete."

Fang Ning connected:

"Supplement with physical characteristics."

"The black mole on the right foot can be verified."

Ye Guizhou applied the seal:

[Materials received, pending verification]

[Do not reject the application]

Luo Wensheng recorded A-Lu's own voice.

"Statement by the individual: I am A-Lu."

He Zhibai wrote:

[The cost of supplementary verification shall be borne publicly]

Lin Jin wrote on the first Non-Career Birth Page:

[A-Lu]

[Birth facts: Temporary shed under Donghe Bridge, specific date pending verification]

[Current name: A-Lu]

[Source of name: Grandma's handwritten Record and confirmation by the individual]

[Physical characteristics: Black mole on the sole of the right foot, pending medical verification]

[Care relationship: Grandma, status pending investigation]

[Career status: No Career Page]

[Future awakening: The individual may choose to enter the window at an appropriate age, or may defer]

[Current rights: Medical, education, assistance, and migration registration must not be refused due to the lack of a Career Field]

The page lit up with a gray-white light.

Not gold.

And not the light of a Career Emblem.

No Career Page appeared on A-Lu's chest.

But the crumpled paper in his hand was acknowledged by the system as:

[Non-Career Birth Page: Temporarily established]

A-Lu looked at that line of text, his eyes widening bit by bit.

"Then I... have I been born?"

This sentence silenced everyone.

Lin Jin's voice was very low.

"You have always been born."

"It's just that it's finally being recorded now."

Behind the door, more people walked out.

There was a twelve-year-old girl who only had a testimony written by a neighbor.

There was a young adult who said he had been forced to borrow someone else's Career ID to go to school when he was a child.

There was an old person holding a tombstone rubbing, wanting to apply for a supplementary Birth Page and Death Page for a sister who died young.

The underlying system kept popping up [Materials incomplete], [Unable to verify], [Missing Career Field] at first.

Soon, these prompts were replaced by new processes.

[Received]

[Pending verification]

[Witnesses need to be added]

[Can access assistance first]

[Do not reject]

[Do not force awakening]

The lights on the third basement level grew brighter and brighter.

Not because all problems had been solved.

But because these people had finally changed from "invalid outside the system" to "needing to be processed."

work order no. 002 kept thickening.

Various places also began to send reports back.

Qinghe County found three children without Career Pages.

Nanling Hospital discovered many paper birth certificates that had never been entered.

In Beiyuan Mining Area, there was a group of children from families without careers who had long been recorded on the back of their parents' mining area housing roster.

In Hai City, children born at sea who had never been registered for the first time received a "Pending Verification Birth Page."

Zhao Jing looked at those pages and suddenly said in a low voice:

"If they can all be born without a Career Page, then if I defer my awakening, I won't become empty either, right?"

Thirteen glanced at him.

"You were never empty to begin with."

Zhao Jing was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

Just as the Non-Career Birth Page process was gradually stabilizing, the underlying system suddenly popped up a new warning.

[Number of Non-Career Birth Pages increasing]

[Career population structure changed]

[Public service distribution, school quotas, medical resources, food rations, and residential registration all need to be recalculated]

[Should those without pages be included in the existing population base?]

As soon as this question appeared, many city channels went silent instantly.

Because including them meant responsibility.

It wasn't just admitting verbally that "they are also people."

It meant hospital beds had to account for them.

School seats had to account for them.

Food, water, medicine, housing, travel tickets, death confirmation, and missing person searches all had to account for them.

An administrative node in Beiyuan quickly sent a hesitant receipt.

[If included immediately, the resource gap will widen]

There were also voices from Hai City:

[Current disaster relief supplies are already insufficient]

Nanling Hospital was silent for a long time before writing:

[It is true that there are not enough hospital beds]

This wasn't malice.

It was reality.

God Head was gone, but the difficulties remained.

Lin Jin looked at these receipts and said slowly:

"Include them."

Everyone looked at him.

He added:

"But include the gap as well."

He Zhibai wrote almost simultaneously:

[Publicly Record the resource gap caused by the population addition]

[Do not deny the existence of the population on the grounds of insufficient resources]

[Do not list those without pages as default sacrifices in the secondary priority]

Ye Guizhou applied the seal:

[Inclusion received]

[Gap received]

Luo Wensheng recorded:

[Acknowledging that a person exists does not mean their life has been solved; but one cannot say they do not exist just because it cannot be solved.]

Qin Shanhe broadcasted:

"If there are not enough school quotas, write that there are not enough."

"Don't write that there are no students."

Fang Ning continued:

"If there are not enough hospital beds, write that there is a bed gap."

"Don't write that there are no patients."

The Old Miner scolded:

"If there isn't enough food, report that there isn't enough food; don't erase people from the Records!"

System prompts changed layer by layer.

[Those without pages included in existing population base]

[Resource gap generated simultaneously]

[Gap processing entered into public ledger]

[Do not revoke Birth Pages on the grounds of a gap]

In the deepest part of the third basement level, low doors opened one by one.

More palm prints lit up.

A-Lu looked down at his Non-Career Birth Page and asked in a whisper:

"Then what about my grandma?"

Lin Jin's heart tightened.

"Where is she?"

A-Lu shook his head.

"I don't know."

"She said she was going to get me medicine, and then the door closed."

The system quickly searched.

[Caregiver: Suspected person without a career]

[Status: Unknown]

[Establish a Missing Person Page?]

Just as Lin Jin was about to answer, a third knock sounded on the third basement level.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

This time, it wasn't a child's door.

It was a gray door at adult height in the deepest part.

A line of text emerged on the door.

[Death and Missing Person Record Database for those without careers]

[Large number of Records unconfirmed]

[Request: When a person without a career dies, can they also leave their name?]

A-Lu looked at that door, his face turning pale instantly.

He clutched his Birth Page.

"My grandma... could she be in there?"