Combining Peacetime and Wartime!

Anyone else would have tucked their tail between their legs and slunk away by now.

But who was Sing Sing?

He was a man who could spend three hundred rounds arguing with an old lady at the market over a dime's worth of vegetable leaves.

Not only did he refuse to get lost, he pulled his chair forward and settled his backside even more firmly into it.

"Director, with that lung capacity of yours, it's a loss to the nation's heavy industry that you didn't take up glassblowing."

Sing Sing dug in his ear and casually flipped to the next page of the lard-stained "Come Again Pork Wholesale Stall Ledger."

"But my vehicle hasn't even come to a complete stop yet, so I can't roll away right now. We still haven't settled on arrangements for two of the high-end talents we recruited from overseas!"

Director Wang's chest heaved as he fought down the urge to crush Sing Sing's head between his legs. "Who else? That little girl who makes ice cream, and that blue-skinned drunk?"

"Please watch your language, Director!"

"First, let's talk about Soft Serve, Amy."

"Twelve kilograms of genuine ice cream a minute, no electricity or Freon needed, all natural and pollution-free! She can even make it to order: high-protein, low-sugar, or even insect protein flavor!"

"If we sent her to the flood-control front in the south, or a scorching construction site in the northwest, what would that be? An endless supply of morale! Our comrades are out there pouring concrete in forty-degree heat. She could stand nearby and hand each of them a mung bean and mint ice pop. Wouldn't construction progress take off on the spot?"

Director Wang nodded thoughtfully. "A rare talent for logistical support. I plan to assign her to headquarters' logistics department, specifically to coordinate cold-chain supplies for emergency disaster zones."

"No! Absolutely not!"

Sing Sing slapped his thigh, utterly distraught. "Director, that's pure bookish dogmatism. You don't understand tailoring your approach to the individual or showing human concern at all!"

"Who are you calling a capitalist?" Director Wang glared at him.

"Just listen to my analysis." Sing Sing leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"Amy grew up in a capitalist slum, paying protection money to gangs every day. She's more timid than a mouse. Now that she's here, she doesn't know the place or the people. If you throw her straight into a big organization surrounded by people in uniform, she'll be so scared she won't be able to make ice cream, only ice chips!"

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Assign her to Jiuquan Space City! Approve a cold-drink stall for her, either in the staff family compound next to Lorna's department or in the internal cafeteria!"

Sing Sing was full of confidence.

"Lorna is the person she knows and trusts most besides me. If the two of them are close by, Amy will feel secure."

"On weekends, they can go shopping or catch a movie together. There are lots of older folks in the staff family compound, and the atmosphere is good. Once Amy feels safe, her output will be stable!"

"She can sell ice cream at Space City normally, treating the researchers. If a sudden disaster breaks out somewhere in the country and support is needed, we can let them know and ship her and her bucket over to serve as a temporary refrigeration unit. That's called 'combining peacetime and wartime, balancing work and rest'!"

Director Wang took another look at the agent in the black Zhongshan suit, who was talking a mile a minute.

"You brat... You usually seem so carefree, but I didn't expect you to be so thoughtful." Director Wang picked up his pen and quickly made a note on the document.

"All right, I approve the arrangement. She'll be a specially appointed employee."

"And the last one?" Director Wang looked up. "That blue-skinned girl named Edith. Global spatial teleportation is a strategic-level ability! I plan to put her in the confidential affairs division, specifically to transport top-secret documents and high-value targets."

At the mention of Edith, Sing Sing's face suddenly fell.

"Director, concerning this carefree young lady, I have some grave intelligence to report."

Director Wang's heart tightened, and his expression turned serious. "What is it? Does she have political connections? A hidden medical issue? Or a backdoor left by the United States military?"

"None of those." Sing Sing sighed. "We were getting the wrong idea."

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you think she was willing to come with me as soon as we met? Why was she so calm, eating turkey and drinking whiskey aboard Black Shark's smuggling boat?"

Sing Sing clutched his chest, utterly distraught.

"At first, I thought she'd been won over by my handsome looks, melancholy air, and powerful personal charm. Then just now, Lorna looked at me like I was an idiot and quietly told me the truth."

Sing Sing slapped his own thigh. "That girl wasn't easy to fool at all! She knew she had nothing to fear!"

"Lorna said Edith's ability has a passive trigger. Even if she's blacked out from drinking or fainted from hunger, as long as her body senses mortal danger, she'll unconsciously teleport to a random location!"

"In other words, even if I'd been a serial killer, even if those gangsters had tried to kill her, she could have teleported away in a flash. Nobody could catch her! She only came with me because it was fun, and because I fed her!"

The more Sing Sing thought about it, the angrier he got, until he was nearly in tears. "I'm an ace agent of the 749 Bureau, the inheritor of the Pig Butchering Knife personally used by Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, and in her eyes I was just a paid tour guide and a mobile buffet!"

"Back on the boat, I even felt sorry for her. Now that I think about it, I was the pitiful one!"

"All that whiskey and turkey I worked so hard to scrounge from Black Shark's kitchen went to feed that ungrateful wretch who was ready to grab her bucket and run!"

Director Wang tactically raised his tea mug for a drink, forcibly swallowing his laughter.

"Ahem... Well, that means she has an exceptional ability to survive. That's a good thing."

"Since she can't be controlled, what do you plan to do with her?"

"Keep her at headquarters!" Sing Sing said through gritted teeth.

"A freewheeling drifter like her could easily get lost if we let her roam. I suggest giving her a position as a 'breaking-news photographer' or an 'emergency site surveyor.'"

"A photographer?"

"Think about it, Director. If there's an earthquake, a mudslide, or a sudden mining disaster, and the roads are cut off and helicopters can't get in, what do we do? Give her a camera and a satellite phone, and she can teleport straight to the epicenter!"

Sing Sing framed a rectangle with both hands. "She can send back footage from the scene immediately, assess the disaster, and even bring in some first-aid supplies. Once she's finished filming and passes out from hunger after exhausting her strength, any danger will trigger her passive teleportation and automatically eject her! That's more efficient than a drone!"

"But!" Sing Sing raised a finger, his expression deadly serious.

"Before she officially starts work, she must be given a mandatory ban on alcohol!"

"If she goes to a disaster zone after drinking Erguotou, I'm afraid she'll hit the gas and teleport the relief supplies to the Bermuda Triangle, or the Mariana Trench!"

Director Wang nodded in wholehearted agreement. "That makes sense. From now on, the headquarters cafeteria will enforce strict alcohol controls for her!"

"Not only that, she'll need a dedicated meal allowance. The calories that girl burns in a single teleportation mean she can eat more than ten pigs. We can't let her go hungry. If she does, she'll go flying around at random too," Sing Sing added.

Director Wang looked at Sing Sing and put down his pen, a rare, gratified smile appearing on his face.

"Ling Ling Qi, I take back what I said earlier."

Director Wang sighed with feeling. "Your trip to the United States wasn't wasted. Not only did you bring them back, you also put their hearts at ease."

"You turned them from monsters into comrades, from expendable resources into experts. Your ideological work is better than that of any political commissar in the bureau."

"Oh, Director, you're making me a little embarrassed with all that praise."

Sing Sing rubbed his hands shyly, lowered his head, and squirmed a little, like an elementary school student praised by his teacher.

"All right, stop pretending. Tell me, you've rendered a great service this time. What reward do you want?"

In an excellent mood, Director Wang picked up his cup and took a sip of goji berry tea.

"Since you're so fair-minded and considerate of your subordinates, Director..."

Sing Sing's eyes lit up.

With lightning speed, he pulled the crumpled reimbursement form from his pocket, smoothed it out firmly on the desk, and respectfully offered it with both hands.

"See, could we fast-track the five thousand yuan for my Armani's battle damage and the thirty thousand yuan in compensation for transnational emotional trauma? You can just transfer it straight to my card. I'm not picky about banks."

Director Wang stood up, pushed off the desk with his right leg, and launched himself into the air, clamping both legs directly around Sing Sing's neck.

"Ow! Director! Let's talk this out! Not the face! I'm an agent who makes a living with his face!"

Pig-slaughtering screams rang through the office, along with the crash of tables and chairs falling over and the rustle of documents flying everywhere.

Outside the door.

The two guards on duty stood straight as pines, staring ahead.

The guard on the left listened to the screams without so much as blinking, silently counting in his head:

One, two, three, four, five... The director's lethal scissor kick broke its record today. Looks like his herniated lumbar disc has healed.

Another peaceful day.