After Being Deemed Useless by the AI, I Drew an Eye on the Wall

In 2032, Haizhou City enforces the Intelligent Efficiency Management Law, and AI now runs ninety percent of all jobs. Zhou Ming, who managed supply chains for eighteen years, is rated by the system as "99.3% replaceable" and reduced to Class C redundancy—receiving only basic credit points per month, barred from having children, and branded a "useless person." On the day he comes home, his nine‑year‑old daughter Xiaoman's tablet flashes a notification: "Dad's uselessness index: 87%." His wife secretly runs an underground private school to teach classical poetry, while the gatekeeper Old Zheng hands him a stiff cardboard business card that reads: "Fix everything, including unhappiness." Zhou Ming sets up an old radio in a leaky shop on the west side of the city and opens the "Inefficiency Counseling Center." Machines can calculate efficiency, but they cannot calculate why people weep, why they need poetry, or why they need to hear a simple "I'm here." When Li Zhiqiang, director of the Allocation Bureau, spots the chalk‑drawn eye on the wall in the data, a silent confrontation over "what is left of a human being" begins.