Chapter 272: Things Always Happen Around Him

Yu Sheng suddenly felt pessimistic about his creative prospects, very pessimistic, mainly pessimistic about the reputation he might leave in the literary world in the future—it might be very bad; although he had already encountered Ren Wenwen as a special case, having just this one special case made him feel he wouldn't get a good outcome...

But this thing called XP, he really couldn't advise against it, especially since she was from the Special Operations Bureau, facing a high-pressure, high-risk work environment every day (don't think she's just a clerk in the headquarters building; considering the nature of their headquarters building, even someone watching the printer in the Special Operations Bureau office counts as a special operations post); what if she relied on this weird obsession as spiritual support...

Ren Wenwen didn't notice the stormy changes on Yu Sheng's face and continued speaking enthusiastically: "Hey, hey, Mr. Yu, when will your next story be released? Are you still writing suspense and mystery? Will the old characters from before have a chance to appear? I really like the Mr. Seventeen you mentioned in 'Rain Harbor'; when will he be the protagonist..."

Yu Sheng didn't make a sound; instead, Erin, who was in Hu Li's arms nearby, spoke quickly, tilting her head up: "The male lead's mount in the next book is a three-wheeler!"

Ren Wenwen's eyes instantly lit up: "Hey, that's interesting, the trope of a machine and its owner growing affection over time!"

Yu Sheng: "...!?"

He finally realized—so this Miss is shipping humans and machine souls, right!?

"Let's talk about something else," he said, waving his hand with total exhaustion, then looked up at the sign of the collection point in front of him, "I was thinking, this shouldn't just be a collection point, right? Although I'm not quite clear on your Special Operations Bureau's standards for building 'stations', since this place can already count as a 'station', it shouldn't just be arranging for two people to deliver packages and takeout to one household; I guess this is also an observation post?"

The expression on Ren Wenwen's face instantly became a bit awkward.

"Don't be nervous, I've known about this for a long time," Yu Sheng laughed, "Even right now, you should have observation points set up nearby, and even if there are no observation points, your Director's eyes probably haven't stopped looking this way—this is just for me to confirm, don't overthink it."

"Y-yes, you could say that, I mean the term 'observation post'," Ren Wenwen finally smiled awkwardly and said with a serious face, "This station does pay attention to the situation at No. 66 Wutong Road, but as you know, we actually can't observe your building, so the main function of this station is to observe your surroundings—strictly speaking, to observe the entire Wutong Road..."

Yu Sheng looked completely baffled: "What's so worth observing about Wutong Road that you'd set up a station specifically for it?"

Ren Wenwen: "Because things always happen around you..."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"Uh, that's not what I said, that's what our Captain Song said," Ren Wenwen felt she had overstepped and quickly sold out her leader, "I don't know who he heard it from."

"... I probably know," Yu Sheng tugged at the corner of his mouth, shook his head with a helpless smile, "Alright, I don't mind, just treat it as having two extra sentries at the door; it'll actually be more convenient for receiving packages and takeout in the future. That's it then, you guys continue with your work, I'll head back first."

After saying this, he waved to Ren Wenwen, then stretched his neck to look at the items on the truck that hadn't been unloaded yet, and slowly turned around and walked away.

His demeanor was like that of a retired old man going out for a stroll.

Ren Wenwen watched Yu Sheng walk away, watched him push open a door out of thin air on the empty ground dozens of meters away and disappear from sight, only then did she gently exhale, turned her head to look at the few large boxes on the truck that hadn't been unloaded yet—Border Scanning Station, Fixed Deep Sensing Station, Physical Detection Radar, and two Positional Shield Generators that are normally only equipped for Deep Divers, plus a whole bunch of other miscellaneous stuff.

A complete version of a border outpost would only have this configuration.

"Wenwen, do you think this shield generator is necessary?" a Special Operations Bureau agent, after unloading the heavy equipment box, couldn't help but mutter, "Even if it is necessary, there's no need to install two..."

"Frontline troops would love to pave the floor with these things, sleeping on top of shield generators every day," Ren Wenwen glanced at him, "Move them in; they're all good stuff; normal domestic outposts don't have this equipment."

"Oh."

Special Operations Bureau Headquarters Building, Director's Office, Song Cheng was reporting the situation to Bai Liqing: "The Wutong Road station has already made contact with Yu Sheng; Ren Wenwen was on site; the contact process went very smoothly; Yu Sheng has no objections to this new station and actually seems quite satisfied."

"In most cases, he is easygoing and lazy; as long as we don't substantially interfere with his life, he won't show resistance," Bai Liqing said calmly, "Our 'observation' is ineffective on him; adding a collection point actually brings more convenience to No. 66 Wutong Road, so of course he has no objections—just remember to remind the stationed personnel there that under any circumstances, remember, ANY circumstances, 'Yu Sheng' must be treated as a human; this is the most important thing."

"Understood, it's already written into the rules, and the stationed personnel will be trained," Song Cheng said with a serious face, "I told them that even if they see Yu Sheng catch a physical entity and devour it alive right in front of them, they must remain calm..."

"Wrong; they should be allowed to show appropriate surprise, they can even make a snide comment about how the other person eats everything—because that is the normal reaction a human should have when facing another human who eats anything randomly. Your thinking is flawed; go back and revise the training content; if that doesn't work, just assign that young man named Li Lin over there, or find someone with an equally open mind."

Song Cheng's body tensed: "... Uh, I understand what you mean; I'll make adjustments today." Bai Liqing nodded.

Immediately after, a knocking sound came; after receiving permission, the duty secretary appeared at the office door: "Director, Director Zhang from the Technical Department is here; he says there's major progress and wants to report directly to you."

"Let him in."

A moment later, a middle-aged man wearing a white shirt, dark brown trousers, with a slender build and thinning hair walked into the office, his face carrying an inexplicable glow.

After entering, he saw Song Cheng, nodded to greet him, and the smile on his face didn't stop.

Bai Liqing raised her eyebrows and looked at the head of the Technical Department: "Little Zhang, why are you so happy?"

"Director, the filtering system worked!" Director Zhang's face was literally glowing, "The system that automatically identifies and blocks alarm signals and switches to recording mode when Yu Sheng opens a portal; it's done!"

The ice-cold face of Bai Liqing changed noticeably in that instant; the corners of her mouth slowly curled up: "Excellent! I will contact Yu Sheng as soon as possible to have him cooperate in testing your system to see how it operates."

Director Zhang smiled, but immediately hesitated and rubbed his hands: "Director, there's another matter."

Bai Liqing: "Hmm?"

!

"It's news I just received when I arrived, reported by the testing laboratory," Director Zhang said, and his expression became a bit subtle; the already thinning top of his head even reflected some light, "Regarding that... 'cast iron sample' sent from the cafeteria to the testing department last time."

Bai Liqing quickly realized: "Oh, that iron block the fox from the 'Inn' used to pay for his meal? What did the tests show?"

"Here's the thing; the conventional component tests showed nothing special; that thing is just extremely pure iron," Director Zhang reported immediately, "After completing a series of conventional items, the laboratory decided to try making some... 'things' out of that iron, mainly to see its mechanical properties after morphological changes, and then they made a hammer..."

"Too much nonsense," Bai Liqing interrupted the head of the Technical Department across from her without hesitation, "Be brief; just say what happened."

Director Zhang spread his hands: "A machine soul emerged..."

Song Cheng, who had been silently eating melon and listening to the fun, instantly: "... (⊙0⊙)!?"

Even Bai Liqing was clearly shaken; she suddenly looked up, and that look scared Director Zhang.

A moment later, the female Director gently exhaled: "... Now explain in detail."

"Actually, there isn't much more detail," Director Zhang's expression when talking about this matter was obviously not as confident and brilliant as when he reported "Filtering System Success"; the weirdness and unexplainable nature of the matter clearly made him, as the head of the technical department, quite nervous, "It's just that a machine soul emerged; the main manifestations are certain self-repair characteristics, appearing to consciously cooperate with human force when in use, and a tendency to communicate with surrounding machinery—in the absence of people, monitoring equipment recorded the hammer gently tapping a nearby impact analyzer; the laboratory team analyzed that this might be some kind of social behavior..."

Song Cheng finally couldn't hold back and spoke: "What kind of hammer did you make? A mechanical power warhammer? An impact hammer with rocket boosters? Or did you stuff... inside..."

"Just a hammer," Director Zhang spread his hands, "Directly cut a small piece from that iron ingot, didn't even really re-cast it much, just pressed it into shape, drilled a hole, and temporarily threaded a wooden stick through as a handle..."

"And a machine soul emerged?"

"Yes, just a machine soul emerged," Director Zhang sighed, "I've been in charge of the Technical Department for so many years and have studied many cases related to machine souls; the conditions for machines to produce pseudo-conscious behavior are always a certain complexity, long-term contact with humans, and extremely rare accidents; I've never seen anything like this... I even suspect that if they hadn't made a hammer at that time, even if they made an earpick, a machine soul would have emerged by now."

Song Cheng's expression was dazed: "Don't say you haven't seen it, Old Zhang; who has seen this?"

"I haven't seen it either," Bai Liqing stood up from behind the desk, "So, take me to see it now."

(End of Chapter)