The Human Evolution Revolution

Starting in 2025, the class divide became an impassable chasm, with identity codes for tiers 3, 6, and 9 branded into everyone's pupils. Education became the only lifeboat for ordinary people. Against the impenetrable walls built by genetic enhancement and brain-computer interfaces, paper books were the last weapon.

While the children of the rich had their brains reshaped in genetic enhancement pods, children from poor families could only gnaw through yellowed pages in libraries. The price list at brain-computer interface shops made everything explicit: a basic memory package cost as much as an ordinary family's income for ten years, while a top-tier cognitive chip cost enough to buy every school-district home in an entire city.

Long lines stretched outside the Education Examination Bureau, where elderly people clutched their grandchildren's exam permits and prayed in the cold wind. Electronic screens played the slogan "Knowledge changes your fate" on a loop, forming an absurd counterpoint to the mountains of diplomas pawned at the corner shop.