What year did the elders' council make having children a civic duty?
Was it ten years ago, or twenty?
A Jie couldn't remember anymore. It seemed to have been that way ever since she was born.
But she clearly remembered that her single's tax had reached one million this year, and it was bound to go even higher by the end of the year.
Thinking about all this, she kept counting the money in her hands. She flipped through the stack again and again: 246,000. This was already the seventh time she'd counted that amount.
It was too little, she thought, so she counted it an eighth time.
Of course, counting money couldn't make it grow, so it was still 246,000.
One million minus 246,000 was 754,000.
She was still 700,000 short of winning back her freedom.
Any able-bodied citizen who has not produced offspring by the age of thirty-one and has not paid the full fine will be sent to the nearest nursing home in their district to perform twenty years of compulsory labor.
A Jie was thirty-one this year, and an engineer.
I can't save up that kind of money.
