In Yong City, Yong Value determines everything. On the judgment platform in the Collection Hall, Yan Bo, a C-rank seed, was tested by a resonance meter and found to have an emotional output efficiency of F, with no response across the board. The judge, Fu Chen, publicly removed his polished C-rank copper badge, replaced it with a rust-yellow iron tag, and nailed F-227 into his file. The disposition column read: no Yong Value reserves, no family guarantor, no right to appeal. Hundreds of people in the hall stamped their shoes and shouted, "Grind him down!" But at the very moment the needle clinked against his flesh, a crack opened deep inside his body, revealing a page of raw substance that no pricing device had ever measured and that had never been exchanged for a single drop of water. It was the first thing in forty years that could condense a page out of thin air. He flipped over his left hand, still cuffed by a belt, and slid it across the platform toward the black mole on the back of Fu Chen's neck. Everyone in the hall was still laughing. No one knew that the boy they'd just condemned as worthless was the only real thing in the room.
