"Excuse , is Mr. Huai Shi here?" a staff mber holding a file asked softly.
"What did you say?"
Instantly, seven or eight operatives around the table turned their heads in unison to look at her. Their chilling gazes, especially from one wearing a bizarre helt who hadn't even shown his face, turned the female clerk's face pale.
Even though she couldn't feel his gaze, the female clerk could still sense that palpable, deep-seated resentnt, chilling her to the bone and nearly causing her to lose her footing.
"Please, is Mr. Huai Shi here?" she mustered her courage, asking tremulously, "The higher-ups said a Mr. Huai Shi was scheduled to register today. I've asked everywhere else; this is the only section remaining…"
In a mont, everyone exchanged bewildered glances.
"Huai Shi?"
Into the silence, the sound of a fist furiously banging on the table suddenly erupted.
BANG!
Huai Shi straightened up and declared sternly, "We don't have that kind of scum of the earth here!"
"Well said!" Luo Ming interjected. "Rest assured, he won't be coming today. If he does, I'll definitely beat him to death."
Everyone nodded in agreent.
Only Chen Yan glanced at Huai Shi, apparently puzzled.
Soon, the frightened female clerk turned and fled, tears welling in her eyes. Huai Shi felt increasingly guilty, yet also filled with the relief of a narrow escape.
I'm sorry, Miss…
I'll definitely apologize to you later.
He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling cold sweat trickling down his back. Before he could steady his racing heart, he heard Old Xiao's hearty laughter.
"Hey, Huai Shi, why are you still here?"
He strode in from the doorway, heading straight for Huai Shi, and asked curiously, "Why did I just see the clerk who ca for your registration leaving in tears?"
As he spoke, he clapped Huai Shi forcefully on the shoulder.
SMACK!
It was as if the rope on a guillotine had been severed.
"..."
In the dead silence that followed, under everyone's astonished gaze, Huai Shi swallowed hard and managed in a strained whisper, "Sorry, you've got the wrong person."
"Hahaha, you're kidding !" Old Xiao grinned, proudly pointing at Huai Shi's helt. "If Ai Qing hadn't already told what you look like now, I would have been completely fooled."
In that instant, amidst nurous odd glances, Huai Shi desperately raised a hand to cover his faceplate.
Welco to social death.
"I have sothing… I need to go."
As the operatives stood there dumbfounded, he slowly rose, carefully took two steps back, then turned and bolted towards the exit of the lounge.
The mont he dashed out the door, he heard furious roars from behind him: "Don't run, you punk!"
"You think you can just leave after offending the Astronomical Society?!"
"The one with the helt is Huai Shi! Get him!"
Huai Shi took a deep breath, accelerated, and ran for his life.
And so, the largest, most malicious, most infamous, and most destructive brawl among operatives in the history of the Astronomical Society's Jinling Branch began, all to the soundtrack of Huai Shi's desperate cries.
On the seventeenth floor, inside the Internal Affairs Office.
"A prison break?" Ai Qing frowned.
"That's right." The plump woman opposite her stood up, glanced outside, then turned and closed the door. "The higher-ups have issued a confidentiality order. You know, just for appearances."
"Ah, I understand." Ai Qing nodded. "But this is the first ti I've seen soone enjoying such a lavish al during work hours. Don't you feel the slightest bit guilty being a wage thief?"
As Ai Qing spoke, the office's occupant had already retrieved a bucket of fresh, hot fried chicken and various condints from drawers and cabinets, placing them on the table.
Chai Fei calmly tied a napkin around her neck, put on disposable gloves, picked up the chicken bucket, and glanced up at her. "Could you turn off your recording pen before you insult next ti?"
"Tsk." Ai Qing shook her head, displeased, took a recording pen from her pocket, and tossed it onto the table.
"The other one, turn it off too," Chai Fei remained wary.
"That's all of them." Ai Qing sighed. "I left in a hurry, didn't have ti to bring more."
"Wow, you truly are a terrible woman!" Chai Fei glared at her with disdain. "I was kind enough to give you a tip, and you're trying to dig up dirt to blackmail ?"
"Hmph, as if the woman who uses my photos to scam people into topping up her ga account has any room to talk!" Ai Qing retorted coldly.
The two glared at each other before slowly looking away.
As contemporaries from the sa headquarters training program, Ai Qing and Chai Fei were known as the oddballs of their cohort. One ticulously plotted every move, eager to grasp all authority, while the other slacked off at every opportunity, eager to delegate all her work.
Two oddballs.
Strangely, these two always seed to find so common ground in peculiar areas. After a few encounters, they ford an unspoken alliance built on a certain tacit understanding.
As the top finishers in the final assessnt, both had refused the invitation to remain at headquarters. Ai Qing aid to gain more power by starting at the local level, while this woman… aid to find a cushy, effortless job in a local branch with a thirteenth-month salary, perfect for slacking off.
One could say that, in a way, both had achieved their goals.
This ti, Ai Qing had returned early, hoping to get so inside information from her.
Their long-overdue sparring match ended with Chai Fei's concession. She shook her head and sighed, "Alright, I can't win an argunt against you. Where were we?"
"Jailbreak."
"Right, Sea Trench Prison. Soone escaped." Chai Fei swallowed a piece of boneless chicken, licked the sauce off her gloves, and said vaguely, "An internal investigation revealed that the culprit escaped through the Jinling access point."
"Which access point?"
"The one in this very building—the fictitious floor, P2."
As she spoke, Chai Fei lifted her eyes as if trying to peer into that hidden stratum, one that doesn't exist within conventional physical structures.
Within the invisible void lay countless layers of heavily fortified defenses.
From the inside out.
"An insider?" Ai Qing frowned.
"Definitely. Now everyone's trying to figure out who it is," Chai Fei nodded. "Trust in headquarters personnel is low, so they've urgently requisitioned mbers from external branches like yours."
"What about the person? Have they been caught?"
"Who knows? The Astronomical Society claims to have no secrets, but every departnt has its own little privacies. Who knows in whose 'private domain' he's currently hiding?"
Chai Fei shrugged. "Now Jinling is like a college campus—relaxed on the outside but tense within. Who knows how many lockdown asures are in place? All Sublimators are allowed in but not out. However, everyone knows this situation can't last long. Especially with the Sublimators' Asia Rookie Competition about to start. What if that guy sneaks into the arena and causes trouble? That's why they're intensifying the search and apprehension. But then a problem arises…"
"The sovereignty issue, right?" Ai Qing couldn't help but snicker. "The Social Security Bureau must be fuming by now, right?"
"It's tough to play world police," Chai Fei sighed vaguely, sipping her fizzing cola. "In this matter, the Sovereignty Faction and the Border Faction are already at a deadlock. The Social Security Bureau is unwilling to give us free rein, but the Astronomical Society can't just sit idly by… Ultimately, the real search power will likely co from the Original Dark Elites dispatched from headquarters. Calling all of you here is mostly for show—to have a supplentary force available to plug any gaps if needed. A precaution, just in case."
Just as Ai Qing had expected, another one of these damn ssy affairs.
"Don't be so glum. Just think of it as an all-expenses-paid trip! Have you visited the Confucius Temple and Rainflower Terrace yet? I'll treat you to so street food," Chai Fei said comfortingly. "The n are just for show, the won for decoration. We make our appearance, collect our dals, and then go ho to resu our lives."
"What about the Social Security Bureau? They wouldn't pass up an opportunity like this to showcase their abilities, would they?"
Chai Fei looked up at her and sighed in resignation. "Long Bo Wei."
"..."
In the silence, neither of them spoke.
Right, let the titans clash; we lesser beings can just enjoy the show from the sidelines.
By the ti all the ice in Ai Qing's cola had lted, she had fully processed the undercurrents that had been surging through Jinling recently.
Without Chai Fei needing to offer more tea, she prepared to leave.
Before departing, she asked one last question: "Who exactly is the escapee?"
"I don't know." Chai Fei shook her head, tossed the empty chicken box into the trash, wiped her mouth, and finally sprayed so air freshener before casually saying, "My clearance only allows to see that they're designated 'B' in the notification."
That was one of the perks of being a secretary in a key departnt—always catching bits and pieces of information.
For Ai Qing, this was as good as spelling it out.
In Sea Trench Prison, prisoners categorized as 'B' were almost exclusively mbers of Green Day. And those capable of breaching such heavy security would be characters at the level of the Ten Disasters.
Currently, of those the Astronomical Society held in the depths of Mariana, there were only two in total: Blood Catastrophe and Locust Disaster… One was half-dead, the other already dead.
Neither was easy to deal with.
Ai Qing nodded and turned to leave, but then she heard Chai Fei's voice from behind.
"Oh, one more thing," Chai Fei said suddenly. "'You' should be careful."
She had stressed the word 'you.'
The Yin family. Ai Qing couldn't help but roll her eyes. Those people are as persistent as troubleso spirits… Are they planning to pressure from within?
This piece of information was crucial for her, practically confirming the source of her uneasy premonitions.
She couldn't help but sigh. "It's amazing how well-inford you are, considering how much you slack off…"
Chai Fei nonchalantly shrugged, a hint of mockery in her tone. "You know how it is. Get a little chubbier, and suddenly you have a lot more 'girlfriends.'"
"Thanks," Ai Qing said, her gratitude genuine.
"You're welco," Chai Fei replied. "I have so many 'girlfriends,' but you're the only one who truly considers a friend, aren't you?"
"..."
After a long silence, Ai Qing seed to sigh dejectedly. She took a recording pen from her pocket and dropped it on the table. "If you were a bit thinner, and a bit more shrewd, I might find it hard to consider you a friend."
She turned her wheelchair and departed.
The door closed again.
This woman…
Chai Fei looked down at the second recording pen on the table, an eyebrow raised. Then, her previously earnest expression curled into a slightly smug smile.
Hmph, so she was trying to trick after all.
She picked up the recording pen, a pleased smile on her face. "Too bad, I was one step ahead this ti."
But the recording pen felt suspiciously light, like an empty shell.
When Chai Fei flipped the pen over, she saw a crudely drawn doodle on the back—sothing resembling an upraised middle finger.
Chai Fei was stunned for a long mont, then couldn't help but burst out laughing, casually tossing both recording pens into the trash can.
Compared to all those airheaded 'girlfriends' of hers, this was precisely why she liked Ai Qing so much.
Win or lose, sparring with her was always enjoyable.
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