The brother had turned eighteen, and the sister was nearly seventeen.
Today, the brother would graduate from the Elite Class with a perfect record of zero demerits and the top overall performance score. University tuition would be fully covered, plus a living stipend.
The sister was equally outstanding; she had vied with her brother for the top ranking until the very end, ultimately placing second and being exceptionally admitted to university ahead of schedule. She received a living allowance and did not have to take on high-interest student loans.
In the future at university, the brother would study law, the sister economics. They would learn how to write the rules for this world and how to infuse those rules with flowing vitality.
Two of their Elite Class classmates, having accumulated twenty-seven demerits within three years, were taken away the week before the graduation ceremony. No farewells, no discussions. Their names vanished quietly from the roster, as if they had never existed. In the end, someone saw them wearing uniform, plain-colored robes, boarding a white bus with no markings, heading in the direction of the city outskirts—toward the monastery.
The other classmates all received "Career Placement Notices" issued by the local government. It was a smooth, sturdy paper document, offering in precise language three employment options: cook, technician, junior management. Attached to each option were detailed work locations, starting salaries, and five-year promotion ladder charts. They didn't submit resumes, didn't attend interviews. They simply signed their names in the "Accept Placement" signature box on the final page. The sound of pen tips scratching against paper joined into a continuous, fine, and submissive rustle throughout the classroom.
Looking back over the records of the past three years, seven more students from the regular stream had entered the monastery after accumulating twenty-seven demerits. The rest received job assignment notices with even more direct options: construction sites, assembly line workers, the service industry. Work locations were typically within the city or in nearby industrial zones, with dormitory accommodations for six or eight people. The handbook explicitly stated "collective living schedules and regular team-building activities provided."
None of them had to fear unemployment.
The system had long ago designated for each of them a perfectly fitting, inescapable cellular position within the vast social organism.
Her brother folded the notice in half and placed it in a drawer. He knew that on the back of that paper was printed a watermark, nearly invisible to the naked eye. The pattern of that watermark was a miniature, precisely structured gear, interlocking.
His sister gazed out the window, thinking of what her brother had said: the method of "resolution" was not destruction, but complete absorption.