Chapter 382: Unexpected

The person in charge is called Lao Lu.

Forty-seven years old, he has been working on data for nineteen years. What outrageous data hasn't he seen? The GDP correction report before the Federation's economic downturn was personally done by him; three years ago he spotted at a glance the falsified population outflow data of a certain province, and wrote a special report that directly took down two bureau-level officials.

People like him have mental fortitude that ranks among the very best in the Investigation Bureau.

But now, Lao Lu stands at the door of Wei Gong's office, sweat beading at his temples and trickling down, the missing button on his Doctor's Lab Coat collar revealing the round-neck shirt underneath, its collar soaked.

He dare not look into Wei Gong's eyes.

To be precise, he doesn't know how to look.

"Come in. Close the door."

Wei Gong's tone did not change.

Lao Lu latched the door behind him; the click of the lock locking dead echoed several times louder in the quiet office. He walked to the desk and placed the red-headed File in his right hand down.

Two lines of text are printed on the File's cover.

First line: Top Secret/Life.

Second line: 《Federation Annual Population Census Compilation》.

The edges of the paper are crumpled into a ball, those creases from being repeatedly clenched by fingers.

Wei Gong's gaze moved from Lao Lu's face to the File, then back again.

"Sit."

"Standing and speaking is fine." Lao Lu's voice was hoarse, as if a wad of sandpaper were lodged in his throat. "Chief, this thing... can't be explained while sitting."

Wei Gong did not let him sit again.

He pushed the cup of ice-cold Dragon Well tea to the side, clearing space on the desk, and reached out to open the File's cover.

The first page is the table of contents.

The second page is the abstract.

The third page, the Core data table.

Wei Gong's gaze swept over it.

Global effective total population: 10,371,042,816.

Data source: Global Household Registration System silent inventory (code name 'Autumn Harvest').

Wei Gong's finger rested on the number '10,371,042,816'.

He did not turn the page, nor did he speak.

The office wall clock ticked three marks.

Lao Lu's heartbeat was loud enough for him to hear himself.

"Lao Lu."

"Here."

"From 2030 to now, what is the total number of accidental deaths?"

Lao Lu almost blurted out: "As of the end of last month, the registered confirmed death toll is 214 million. This is only the recorded part. The actual figure... conservatively estimated, is three times that."

"What about the birth rate?"

"It's a cliff. Starting in 2031 it has been declining year by year; last year the global total fertility rate fell to 0.51. Several countries have already hit zero."

Wei Gong's finger finally moved away from that line of numbers.

He leaned back. The chair back let out an extremely soft creak.

"What was the global population peak in 2030?"

"7.9 billion."

By now at least six or seven hundred million people have died. The birth rate has fallen to this state.

Then where does this "10.3 billion" come from?

The air vent hummed as it turned.

Wei Gong lifted his head.

Those eyes, clouded with age, now held no extra emotion, like two lenses just wiped clean.

"Go on."

Lao Lu pulled a portable projector from his pocket, set it on the desk, and switched it on. Three beams of light projected onto the office side wall, unfolding three colored files.

Household registration photos, social security trajectories, tax records, addresses, kinship charts—each one detailed to the utmost.

Lao Lu's finger pointed to the first one.

"Qian Tang District, Liuhe Street No. 47. The head of household is Liu Gui Fang, now sixty-one years old. Five years ago this family suffered a car accident in which the couple and their only child all perished. The city funeral home has paper cremation records, the insurance company has compensation documents, and the community residents committee has cancellation certificates."

His voice was trembling.

"But in this census, two adult males are registered under this address—Liu Lei, thirty-four, and Liu Xin, twenty-nine. Their occupations are respectively civil engineer and community health worker."

His finger moved to the right.

"Social security contribution records—continuous for four years without interruption. Individual tax filings—amounts reasonable, matching the corresponding income tier. Utility and property fees at the residence have payment trails. In the visitation records of nearby neighbors, everyone said, 'Liu Gui Fang's two sons have always lived there; they occasionally even help the old lady buy groceries.'"

Lao Lu licked his chapped lips.

"Second file. The lonely elder Zhao Guo An originally had only himself on the household register. Now——"

In the light beam, the kinship chart was divided into four layers.

"Four generations under one roof. Son, daughter-in-law, grandson, granddaughter-in-law, great-grandson. Nine people in total. All have ID numbers, all have education records, all——"

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"——all can be named and recognized by the neighbors."

The office fell silent once again.

Wei Gong did not look at those projections; he stared at the cup of tea on his desk for a long time.

The tea leaves had sunk to the bottom, the swollen leaves clinging to the cup wall like a pair of half-open eyes.

"What's the sampling ratio?"

"One in ten thousand."

"The abnormality rate."

Lao Lu reported the number that made his face turn pale on the spot at the Data Center.

"Twenty-three point seven percent."

What does that mean?

It means that in every four or five households, one household's family member count doesn't match. The extra people—or rather, those things—have complete social identities, complete life trajectories, complete networks of relationships.

Their neighbors know them.

Their coworkers have eaten meals with them.

Their landlords have collected rent from them.

No one thinks they have a problem.

Because those who think they're a problem have had their cognition rewritten.

Wei Gong vaguely recalls what the head of the Fake Person Countermeasures Group said.

"The transmission routes have basically been contained; the remaining number of individuals is controllable."

Controllable.

Wei Gong wanted to laugh.

He picked up the cup of Longjing tea that had lost all warmth, brought it to his lips, then set it down again.

Controllable my ass.

That crisis that seemed to have been resolved back then was never eradicated.

Fake Persons used the rules of cognitive distortion and self‑proliferation, under humanity's very nose, to achieve global‑scale parasitism and reproduction.

They, meanwhile, are kept in the dark by repeated cognitive contamination; as soon as they sense something off, their cognition is twisted.

They have never been contained.

They quietly moved into human households, playing the roles of sons, daughters, husbands, wives who never existed, then used cognitive distortion to make everyone accept this "fact".

One becomes two.

Two become four.

Four become a building.

A building becomes a community.

In less than two years, over two billion.

Like mycelium. Like a root system. Like a certain silent, gentle, painless cancer.

By the time you feel the lump, it has already metastasized throughout the body.

"Why were we able to detect this this time?" Wei Gong asked. His hand was already trembling slightly.

Lao Lu said: "Purely accidental. The 'Autumn Harvest' was just a routine annual inventory; nobody thought much of it. The system automatically issued an overflow warning while summing up the final data—the total population exceeded the system's preset upper limit. One of my interns got curious, pulled up the details to look over, found it increasingly off, and reported it to me."

He added: "If it weren't for that threshold set by the system... we would never have looked in this direction in our lifetime."

Because nobody had a reason to suspect.

Population data is the most basic statistical metric. Every year it's reported, every year it's checked—who would keep verifying the total population over and over? Who would go household to household comparing "how many people are actually in this family"?

Moreover, even if you did compare—

You ask the neighbors, and they say, "Yeah, they've always been this many people."

You check the records: social security is paid, taxes are paid, property fees have never been overdue.

Everything is reasonable. Everything is self‑consistent. Everything is seamless.

Because your cognition has already been tampered with.

You can't even remember how to write the three characters "not right".

If it weren't for this regular, non‑targeted census of Fake Persons, we might not have discovered this problem at all!

Wei Gong stood up.

The chair's wheels slid half a turn on the floor.

"Besides you and that intern, who else has touched this report?"

"Nobody. I locked the system after viewing the data, and I temporarily froze that kid's terminal permissions."

"You did the right thing."

Wei Gong turned around.

His expression was very calm.

As calm as when he had just opened the global war situation meeting, and as calm as when he soothed seventeen nearly collapsing persons in charge before the Weird Domain expansion curve.

But Lao Lu has followed him for nearly twenty years. He can tell.

The weight pressing beneath this calm is heavier than any before.

"Transfer that intern to Internal Affairs Oversight and have him sign a lifetime confidentiality agreement. Give me the file."

Lao Lu handed it over.

Wei Gong took the Federation Annual Population Census Compilation, walked to the confidential cabinet beside the right side of his desk, entered the password, and pulled open the drawer.

Inside the drawer was a small shredder. Not an ordinary cross‑cut type—the blades are made of an alloy custom‑ordered by the Investigation Bureau, the shredded paper is finer than sesame seeds, and after shredding the built‑in incineration chamber at the bottom automatically activates, leaving not even ash.

The file was pushed into the feed slot.

The machine ran for eleven seconds.

Everything fell into silence.

Lord Wei closed the drawer, sat back in his chair, and unplugged the office network cable.

Physical network disconnection.

Only then did he look again at Lao Lu.

"From now on, you personally report to me. Set up an internal investigation team; choose its codename yourself, and it won't be entered into any system files. The mission has only one goal: find a way to break cognitive distortion."

Lao Lu nodded.

"Before it's found, no one else can know about this."

Lord Wei's voice had no inflection.

"If this news is suddenly made public, tell the whole world—what do you think would happen?"

Lao Lu didn't speak.

He didn't need to answer.

The foundation of trust in human society will be completely shattered within twenty-four hours.

Husbands will doubt wives, parents will doubt children, colleagues will doubt colleagues.

Everyone could be fake.

Every relationship could be fabricated.

That is not panic.

That is a civilization-level mental collapse.

"Go." Lord Wei said.

Lao Lu turned and walked to the door; when his hand rested on the doorknob, he paused.

"Chief."

"Hmm."

"...... Do we humans still have hope?"

The office had no answer.

Lao Lu didn't turn back. He turned the doorknob and walked out.

After the door closed, Lord Wei sat alone in that black swivel chair.

He reached for the tea cup on the table; when his fingers touched the cup's wall, he found they were cold.

Colder than the tea that had been sitting for forty minutes.

He lifted it and took a sip.

The tea had steeped too long, bitter and astringent, the astringency running from the base of the tongue down to the throat.

At the end of the corridor, someone was laughing and greeting. The voice was normal, everyday—"Lao Wang, good morning!" "Good good good, did you watch last night's game?"

——The worst-case scenario has occurred.

Besides the Weird Domain and the Gospel Church, humanity now has another extremely desperate and deadly problem.

No, perhaps it's not that it increased; it's just that it has always been there, obscured by cognitive contamination and overlooked.

Lord Wei set down the tea cup.

He gazed at the tightly closed door and suddenly thought of a question.

Investigation Bureau headquarters, registered personnel: three thousand seven hundred.

How many of them are genuine?

He felt a chill run down his spine.