Homo Sapiens

While Luo Xuan and the others were chatting, the remaining two colleagues arrived.

And the food stall started bringing out the dishes.

As a New Human, Huang Xianjun was well aware of the severe harm alcohol caused to the brain. The New Human precepts included a special clause strictly forbidding drinking at gatherings.

Although you could order alcoholic drinks for yourself, New Humans were very self-disciplined. They would never order alcoholic beverages at group meals.

”Old Huang, want a drink?” Liu Mingzhi asked.

Huang Xianjun reminded him, ”If you want to drink, order it yourself. I won’t be responsible if anything happens because of it.”

Hearing this, Liu Mingzhi quickly waved his hands. ”Never mind, I’ll have a Coke!”

He had clearly remembered the company’s strict rule: if an accident occurred due to drinking, the company would not reimburse medical expenses or provide any compensation to the employee. Furthermore, pressuring others to drink would result in a heavy penalty.

”Here, try this conger eel.” Huang Xianjun picked up a large piece of eel with his chopsticks.

Luo Xuan also picked up a piece of eel.

Everyone started to dig in.

Once they were mostly full, the group slowed down and began to chat about anything and everything.

Liu Mingzhi picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. ”Old Huang, you should be able to apply for a transfer to headquarters now, right?”

”Yeah, anyone at Grade C can apply.”

”I’m so jealous, Brother Huang. Mingzhi and I are only at D3. It’ll probably take us two or three years to get to C4,” Lin Lihong said, a little wistfully.

Another colleague suddenly asked, ”Brother Huang, are you going to headquarters?”

Huang Xianjun shook his head. ”My wife and I are still working here for now, but my family will be transferred over to headquarters.”

Liu Mingzhi looked astonished. ”Brother Huang, what about your kid? Xiaohu is only four, right? Is your wife really okay with that?”

”The company has an employee kindergarten. My parents are going over too, so they can help look after him. It’s not a big deal.” Huang Xianjun didn’t see it as a problem.

Lin Lihong, however, voiced her concern. ”Brother Huang, won’t leaving your child at the kindergarten have a negative impact on his development?”

After taking a sip of oolong tea, Huang Xianjun explained, ”The company’s kindergarten is different from regular ones. The company assigns two preschool teachers for every ten children. Plus, there are surrogate parents to help care for them during their stay.”

”Surrogate parents? Won’t that make your son less close to you in the future?” Lin Lihong looked worried.

Huang Xianjun waved his hand dismissively. ”As long as he can grow up happy, I don’t really care. At worst, I’ll just have him recognize his surrogate parents as his godparents later on. It’s not like we’re relying on our kids for our retirement.”

”Old Huang, you sure are open-minded about it,” Liu Mingzhi said with a wry smile.

”Times are different. You have to learn to change your perspective. We as parents aren’t necessarily as professional as the teachers.” Having been in the New Human system for a long time, Huang Xianjun no longer believed that keeping a child close by was the best way to raise them.

After all, they were adults who needed to work and socialize; it was impossible to focus too much energy on their children.

Many people are first-time parents and sorely lack experience. And a child isn’t a guinea pig; you can’t use them for trial and error.

But the preschool teachers and childcare workers at Homo Sapiens Company’s kindergartens are all professionals. Their job is to nurture children, and they dedicate the vast majority of their energy to them.

The difference between the two is immense.

Huang Xianjun knew he didn’t have the energy to raise his child, so he was much more inclined to entrust him to the kindergarten.

Since Lin Lihong wasn’t a New Human, she was unaware of their strict precepts. Naturally, she worried whether the teachers would be dedicated and responsible, or if they might even abuse the children.

It was a difference in opinion caused by an information gap.

Lin Lihong, her thinking a bit naive, asked, ”I heard the company has invested in building kindergartens and schools over in Dongba and on Mad Island. When are they going to open some here?”

”Li Hong, you can forget about something that nice happening,” another colleague said, shaking his head helplessly.

”Why? Haven’t they built them in other places?” Lin Lihong clearly didn’t realize how sensitive an issue institutions like schools were.

Luo Xuan chimed in, ”If the company tried to open a school here, it most likely wouldn’t get approved.”

Liu Mingzhi also ruffled his girlfriend’s hair. ”Once we get promoted to Grade C, we can just go live at headquarters. Don’t get hung up on things like this.”

Another colleague sighed with some resignation. ”A lot of things really are inconvenient here. I went to headquarters for training before, and they arranged everything for us. If my parents hadn’t been against moving, I would’ve transferred to headquarters long ago.”

”Haha, if you apply for a transfer now, you’ll most likely be sent to the Spice Islands Branch or the Mad Branch to break new ground,” Liu Mingzhi joked.

Huang Xianjun didn’t deny it. ”Headquarters can’t help it. The locations of the first batch of fully-managed branches are well-developed, with a lot of local staff. Plus, many of the positions are technical roles, so the demand for regular workers isn’t high. Only newly developed regions need a large number of regular employees.”

Something occurred to Liu Mingzhi, and he turned his head to ask, ”By the way, Old Huang, I heard there are a ton of training programs at headquarters. When are the training programs here going to start?”

Huang Xianjun, who had inside information, shared what he knew. ”Soon. The company is preparing for it. They’ll either send some professionals over to train you, or they’ll arrange for you to go to headquarters for an exchange and study period.”

Currently, a large portion of the regions that have opened their markets to Homo Sapiens Company do not permit it to establish educational institutions within their borders.

But that couldn’t stop Homo Sapiens Company from operating under a different guise. After all, a company training its own employees was perfectly legal and compliant.

As for the educational needs of employees’ families, Homo Sapiens Company usually addressed it by having the children board at the kindergartens and schools in its Southeast Asia Headquarters.

In truth, this was also a way to eliminate the worries of overseas employees. Placing their relatives at headquarters meant they could only work for Homo Sapiens Company with their whole heart.

It also relieved some of their pressure. After all, employees working overseas were on the front lines. If Homo Sapiens Company’s relations with certain regions soured, the situation for these employees would become very dangerous.

If their relatives were also in the local area, these employees would definitely worry about their family’s safety, causing them to be hesitant and indecisive in their work.

Therefore, overseas employees who had already decided to fully commit to Homo Sapiens Company would usually arrange for their families to live at the Southeast Asia Headquarters.

This way, even if something happened to them overseas, their families could live without a care in the world at the company headquarters.

This was exactly what Huang Xianjun was doing. He would never entrust his own safety to the mercy of others.

There were many powers willing to play by the rules, but there were just as many who weren’t.

Once relations deteriorated to a breaking point, whether the other side would continue to play by the rules was ultimately an unknown.

Huang Xianjun wasn’t willing to gamble with his family, so he had arranged an escape route early on.

Externally hired employees like Liu Mingzhi, Lin Lihong, and Luo Xuan weren’t truly considered core employees of Homo Sapiens Company yet, so they didn’t need to be overly concerned.

The existence of the Employee Mutual Aid Association was precisely to win over these externally hired employees and, at the same time, cultivate groups with a favorable view of Homo Sapiens Company.

The various regions were rather helpless against Homo Sapiens Company’s subtle maneuvers.

In the end, this world ran on fists and benefits.

The effects of moral victories were temporary. The vast majority of confrontations would eventually come down to a contest on the material level.

This was one of the reasons Homo Sapiens Company wasn’t afraid of other powers.

Because Homo Sapiens Company held a massive advantage on the material level, and the common people could never escape the material world. As long as no one could defeat Homo Sapiens Company on a material level, it didn’t matter how many grand and eloquent principles they preached.

Humans, after all, are just ordinary animals.

No matter how noble the soul, it can never escape the vulgar realities of eating, drinking, and relieving oneself.