In the blink of an eye, the news that the Lighthouse was holding a extreme cold race to hunt beast tides spread through every street and alley.
However, ordinary citizens only heard the beautified version.
There was even a small-scale instigation faction that actually encouraged ordinary citizens to participate in the extreme cold race.
They claimed it was to contribute their strength to the Lighthouse.
Many people were incited and began to have improper thoughts.
"Are these people crazy? We might not even come back alive if we go, and they're actually encouraging civilians to participate?"
Zhou Haimei stood in Xu An's room, hands on her hips, looking at the information on the forum.
Xu An flipped through the forum, seemingly not hearing, completely focused on something.
Zhou Haimei stepped forward and tugged at Xu An's sleeve, "An An, pay attention to me, I'm so angry."
"It's useless for you to be angry. This is clearly someone instigating, I don't know the reason behind it, but it's not something we can manage. Instead of being angry, why don't you look at this?"
Zhou Haimei leaned closer, only to see some incomprehensible tree diagrams and a few sets of data.
She had always had a headache for these things, so she simply pushed Xu An's communicator aside, finding it more convenient to ask Xu An directly.
"What is all this?"
"Statistics on the Lighthouse's fertility rate over the past two years."
Zhou Haimei waved her hand, "Why are you looking at this thing?"
"I hadn't paid attention before. Recently, I suddenly thought of something, and on a whim, I wanted to take a look. I didn't know until I looked. Looking at it, I think humanity is really doomed."
Zhou Haimei didn't understand Xu An's meaning and looked at her with wide eyes, waiting for an explanation.
Xu An looked at Zhou Haimei and shook her head.
"It has been below 0.5 for two consecutive years."
Zhou Haimei looked blank, indicating she still didn't understand.
"This means that out of a hundred couples, not even one newborn is born, only half a one, understand?"
"But what does this have to do with us?"
Xu An lay on the bed, propping her head with her wrist, staring at the ceiling.
"Humans have begun to mutate. This world not only affects the mutation of flora and fauna, but also likely humans. However, the significant decline in human reproductive capacity is not a good thing for women."
Speaking of this, Zhou Haimei remembered what Xu An had told her about awakening superpowers.
Although she understood the basic things, Xu An said she still needed to prepare some necessary items, so they agreed to start awakening Zhou Haimei's superpowers in a week.
However, even though Zhou Haimei understood this, she didn't have much sense of reality regarding the awakening of superpowers.
If Xu An hadn't suddenly put the book in her hand back into her spatial storage to prove it to her, she might have thought Xu An was lying.
But even believing it, after hearing Xu An say that awakening superpowers had a probability.
Zhou Haimei, who had never seen a cent in her life, suddenly felt that such good things would not happen to her.
So, even now, she was still in a state of half-belief.
"Didn't I tell you that humans will eventually awaken superpowers? If the decline in fertility rate is related to human superpower awakening, it will put women in a very awkward and passive position."
Zhou Haimei shook her head with disdain, "Having children is our own business. If we don't want to have them, we won't! Can anyone force us to have them?"
If it were any other time, Xu An would have teased her for saying something like this.
But today, she didn't. Xu An's eyes were more serious than ever.
"But what if other women don't have the ability to protect themselves? Or what if they are forced by the circumstances of their lives?"
Xu An's gaze was too intense, making even the thick-skinned Zhou Haimei a little unable to resist.
"Then... the Lighthouse will definitely manage it, right? They can't possibly confine those who can give birth, can they? What would that make it?"
Zhou Haimei naturally thought so and urgently wanted to tell Xu An her thoughts to get her approval.
But Xu An didn't speak, she just showed Zhou Haimei the comments below a post about low fertility rates on the forum.
Below were vulgarities, saying all sorts of things. Each comment, taken separately, was at a level that could not pass censorship.
Zhou Haimei's expression changed drastically.
Her former identity often made her forget that she was also a woman.
In the army, there was no distinction between male and female. All the hardships and suffering that male soldiers endured, they had to bear as well, and the instructors would not relax their training just because they were women.
So she naturally identified herself with a traditional male role.
But looking at Xu An's reminder, she suddenly realized that this seemed wrong.
"Isn't there any way?"
Xu An said lightly, "There will be ways, but it seems no one has taken it seriously yet. If humanity is almost losing its reproductive function now, this situation will likely become even more serious after awakening superpowers."
Ze Yuan had mentioned this matter to Xu An when she was awakening her superpowers.
After awakening superpowers, both men and women would gain powerful abilities, but women would sacrifice the completeness of their bodily functions in exchange for this powerful strength.
Xu An had no hesitation when she learned of this.
Coupled with the turmoil of the apocalypse, people were struggling for a bite of food, so who would care about having children?
The reason Xu An paid attention to this matter was because there had been no newborns appearing on the Lighthouse for a long time.
But this was wrong.
Because humanity was aging day by day, without fresh blood.
When the youngest children on the Lighthouse all turned into old people, then humanity would truly be over.
Zhou Haimei didn't know what Xu An was thinking. She pointed to a set of data and asked somewhat strangely,
"Did you see this data? Why is the fertility rate here generally still high?"
Due to the vastness of the Lighthouse, the fertility rate was not officially published. It was generally divided by regions, and each small area was integrated into the overall fertility rate of the entire Lighthouse.
Because it was compiled manually, there were bound to be errors.
Xu An originally thought it was a minor error, but following where Zhou Haimei pointed,
Xu An's expression darkened.
There was an area on the Lighthouse called Lingjiang Shui, where the total fertility rate accounted for half of the newborns on the Lighthouse.
The total population of this area was less than 0.1.
"There's a problem with this area."
Zhou Haimei hadn't thought of this place before. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't help but feel a chill. Her face no longer showed the curiosity about the extreme cold race.
That was after all half a month later, it was more practical to deal with the matters at hand.
"Do you think it might be?" Zhou Haimei didn't finish her sentence, but the implied meaning was self-evident.