Public Family

"Thank you, Big Sis." Ji Xinghuo accepted the gift.

He looked at Ye Dongyun, who had clearly rushed over through wind and dust. She appeared capable and composed, but there was a trace of barely noticeable exhaustion deep in her eyes.

So he said with concern, "Big Sis, make sure you get enough rest. Don't work so hard that you wear yourself out."

"Yes." Zhong Ming nodded as well. "Big Sis, don't push yourself too hard."

Ye Dongyun sat down, took a sip of water, and sighed. "It can't be helped. Civil servants are under more and more pressure these days. The competition is no less intense than among Aberrants. If I don't do it, plenty of people are willing to. If I slack off even a little, I'll soon be eliminated."

"Even so, you can't ruin your health. It's not worth it," Liangqiu Feiyan said worriedly.

"Don't worry." Ye Dongyun rubbed her hair. "Lately, I've been planning to squeeze out an hour every day and get back into the habit of working out."

Ji Xinghuo nodded. "That's good."

He was about to say that exercise was always beneficial when Ye Dongyun added, "Once I get in shape, I'm going to compete my coworkers into the ground and crush them all!"

Everyone was speechless.

"All right, enough about me."

Ye Dongyun clapped her hands and put on the air of the eldest sister. "Today is Xinghuo's birthday. It's rare for all five of us to get together after becoming adults, so let's be happy!" As she spoke, she had the waiter serve the food and began taking care of the family as she had in the past.

One delicious dish after another was brought to the table, and the drinks were opened as well.

"Fill everyone's glasses."

Ye Dongyun raised her glass and had everyone seated around the table stand up. Smiling, she said, "For the first toast, let's wish Xinghuo a happy birthday!"

"Happy birthday!"

"Cheers!"

The atmosphere in the private room was both warm and lively.

The five siblings ate delicious food while sharing interesting stories and jokes, their laughter never stopping as they temporarily forgot all their worries.

Ji Xinghuo was in an exceptionally good mood. Looking at them, he thought, This is my family.

A real family!

Though they were siblings without the same father or mother, they were no different from blood relatives. Legally, they were relatives as well.

Because they were a Public Family.

In the mid-2060s, the four nations signed the Ivangrad Treaty, declaring the end of the Fourth World War. The global geopolitical landscape gradually stabilized.

At that time, the powerful nation known as the Asia-Pacific People's United Community had been established for nearly twenty years. The domestic environment was peaceful, technology advanced by leaps and bounds, and the people lived happily. Yet a problem gradually emerged.

Whether wealthy elites or ordinary citizens, people no longer wanted to have children.

It seemed to be humanity's own curse.

Ever since industrialization began centuries ago, regardless of country or race, the better a society developed and the more advanced its civilization became, the more inevitably its birth rate declined.

And once that decline began, it could not be reversed.

No matter what policies or measures governments introduced, they could only slow the falling birth rate. They could never make it rise again.

In 2033, the opening of the Star Gate temporarily solved this fertility problem. The world fell into turmoil, and humanity endured more than a century-long extinction crisis and two world wars.

During wartime, government measures naturally could not be as gentle as they were in peacetime. To win a war, there first had to be people.

A large population might not guarantee victory, but a small population guaranteed defeat!

For this reason, governments around the world mobilized resources, enacted compulsory laws, and supplemented them with reproductive technology, explosively increasing their populations.

When humanity was suffering, people were instead willing to have children again.

Thus passed more than a century.

After the wars ended, governments once again faced the problem of falling birth rates.

However, compared with the difficulties of the early 21st Century, the 22nd Century had already developed solutions. The greatest obstacle was no longer the process of reproduction, but ethical and moral controversy.

Countries around the world gave different answers.

In the early 2070s, the Asian Commonwealth government proposed an immense and comprehensive Continuation Plan. It was designated one of the nation's most important policies, with astronomical amounts of funding and resources invested into it.

The Continuation Plan was divided into two parts.

The first part was "birth."

Based on national policy needs and population changes, artificial womb technology was used to cultivate a fixed number of babies at regular intervals every year and every month.

All of these babies were legal citizens. Their political rights were exactly the same as those of babies born into ordinary families, and they were called Public Children. Public Children were legally forbidden from seeking out their biological parents. Even if they met by chance, they had no legal familial relationship.

The second part was "raising."

Public Children were raised by the government from birth and divided into four stages by age: infancy from ages zero to two, early childhood from two to six, childhood from six to twelve, and adolescence from twelve to eighteen.

Four to six Public Children of the same age group formed a Public Family.

At every stage, each Public Family was cared for by at least three "professional parents," who bore both the responsibility of raising and educating them. These positions were called Foster Father and Foster Mother.

Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers were professional guardians who had to pass multiple rounds of assessments before taking on the role.

Naturally, their salaries were extremely high.

Even now, it remained one of the professions with the best income and benefits. They also possessed greater political rights than ordinary citizens, and their social status ranked among the highest in the nation.

The younger the children in a Public Family, the greater the number of Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers.

There were the most during infancy, usually one or two more caregivers than infants. As the children grew and gained the ability to care for themselves, each transition to a new stage brought new Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers, while the number of parents gradually decreased to two.

Once the children reached adulthood at eighteen, the Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers left their positions.

At the same time, they lost guardianship rights and no longer had a legal familial relationship with the Public Children.

To ensure that Public Children developed physically and mentally in a healthy manner, the children underwent psychological evaluations almost every month, along with frequent random inspections. Cameras with no blind spots were installed in the homes, monitoring every action of the Public Families from all angles.

Unqualified Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers had their qualifications revoked immediately. Those who committed serious offenses were sent to court and severely punished.

There was also a whole series of laws and regulations concerning Public Families, covering every conceivable aspect.

The Continuation Plan was initially only a trial program.

By the 2090s, the first batch of Public Children had entered the workforce. They made many contributions to society and the country, and like children from original families, they were citizens of normal intelligence and sound mental health.

The Continuation Plan was a tremendous success, and years of investment paid off.

The Asian Commonwealth government immediately expanded the scale of the plan. After entering the 23rd Century, the population problem was finally solved!

By now, the Asia-Pacific Community's population had reached 5.6 billion.

Of that number, Public Children accounted for 20%. Moreover, the government adjusted the Continuation Plan according to finances and resources, and the population continued to rise every year.

Ji Xinghuo and his four siblings were all Public Children.

But he was slightly different.

Ji Xinghuo had not been cultivated in an artificial womb. He had been born naturally, but his parents lost custody and handed him over to the government to raise.

There were quite a few people like Ji Xinghuo.

In the 2090s, the success of the Continuation Plan relieved the Asian Commonwealth government, but it also produced a negative consequence: even more people became unwilling to have children.

There was another factor as well.

From the very founding of the Asia-Pacific Community, abortion had been banned by law. Couples had to have at least one partner pass an exam on how to become qualified parents before they could obtain "guardianship rights." These two contradictory laws were also among the major reasons for the declining birth rate.

As a result, many parents who had accidental pregnancies but failed the exam were stripped of guardianship rights.

Some couples voluntarily gave up guardianship and threw their children to the government.

In common terms, they gave birth but refused to raise them.

Children who left their original families in this way were included in the Continuation Plan and also counted as Public Children. They were generally called Foster Children.

Ji Xinghuo was one such Foster Child. He only learned the truth when he turned eighteen.

By law, after Foster Children reached the age of twenty-two and graduated from university, if their psychological condition was mature enough, they could be given the opportunity to contact their biological parents.

After getting to know each other, if both sides agreed, they could reestablish a legal familial relationship and return to their original family.

Therefore, this birthday held special significance for Ji Xinghuo.

He was about to face a major choice in life.

His siblings knew this as well. Today, they had all put aside everything else to gather together, celebrate Ji Xinghuo's birthday, and stay by his side.

Ji Xinghuo received one message of blessing after another from close classmates and friends.

The birthday banquet was halfway through.

His former Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers also called by video. There were those from his adolescence, childhood, and early childhood—seven or eight in all. They were all parents who had once cared for and educated this Public Family. They were delighted to see the five siblings together and offered Ji Xinghuo their birthday wishes.

Only the Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers from his adolescence knew that Ji Xinghuo was a Foster Child. After leaving this family, they had each joined another Public Family and taken on new responsibilities.

Being a professional parent was demanding work, with little time off.

They each had families and children of their own as well.

Over his years at university, Ji Xinghuo had only met his Foster Fathers and Foster Mothers two or three times. Though they occasionally kept in touch, as he matured, their bond inevitably grew fainter.

Whenever something happened, he generally discussed it with his siblings instead.

Ten o'clock at night.

The restaurant brought over a bowl of longevity noodles and a large cake. The siblings sang Ji Xinghuo a birthday song together, then lit the candles on the cake.

"Third Brother, make a wish!" Liangqiu Feiyan called out loudly.

Ji Xinghuo stood among them and smiled. "I make wishes every year, but none of them have ever come true. How about I skip it this year?"

"How can you?" Liangqiu Feiyan aimed her floating camera at Ji Xinghuo. "This has been a tradition for hundreds of years. On your birthday, you have to eat longevity noodles and cake, and you have to make a wish. Today is such an important day, so we have to take it seriously. Maybe this time it'll come true?"

Ye Dongyun smiled too. "Xinghuo, just do as Feifei says. Stop dragging it out."

"All right."

Ji Xinghuo could only agree.

Wang Zizhen turned off the lights in the private room, and the entire room immediately darkened.

Zhong Ming said, "Make your wish."

Ji Xinghuo stood before the cake. Even in the darkness, he could see everything clearly. His gaze swept over his siblings' faces before settling beyond the glass window.

Weiyang Tower rose into the clouds.

At this moment, the world beyond the window was divided into two parts. Below lay a brilliantly lit supercity filled with towering buildings; above, a dazzling Milky Way hung in the night sky, countless stars adorning the heavens in a breathtaking sight.

Ji Xinghuo closed his eyes and thought, May my family be safe and healthy, happy and joyful, and may they all realize their ambitions in their careers. May I climb to the peak of life's evolution, behold the vast grandeur of the Milky Way, and take in the wondrous sights of the Star Realm, so that this life will not have been lived in vain!

Having finished his wish, he gently blew out the candles.