For the Five Insurances and One Housing Fund! Cheers!

For once, life was peaceful.

Director Wang was in no hurry to assign tasks to the newly arrived "special talents."

With a wave of his hand, he gave them a single-story house with a courtyard.

Sing Sing stood in the middle of the courtyard, pointing at the mottled red-brick walls and the moss-covered water jar in the corner as he gave everyone an impassioned real estate pitch:

"Look at this location! Inside the Second Ring Road, in a school district, and right by an imperial garden!"

"In the United States, you lived in sewers and bomb shelters. Here, you live in a Siheyuan with a hundred years of history behind it!"

Lorna looked at the spiderweb of wires overhead and the old scholar tree in the courtyard that had lost all its leaves, then sneered.

"So that's why you had me get the motor in that secondhand washing machine running again after it had been broken for ten years?"

"What are you talking about? That was to train your fine control!"

To help these foreign employees settle into life at the grassroots level in China as soon as possible, Director Wang had even hired a retired teacher to teach them Chinese.

Every morning, the sound of voices reading aloud rang out from the courtyard.

"Safety in production is weightier than Mount Tai!"

Riptide's mangled pronunciation made him sound as though he were reciting some kind of black magic spell.

Amy, meanwhile, was diligently taking notes. Beside her was a green-tea ice cream she had just conjured up, ready to bribe the teacher with.

As for Edith...

She was hanging from a tree branch, drooling in her sleep.

Seeing everyone working hard to adjust to the rhythm of their "new workplace," Sing Sing decided to take care of something important.

He would bring their "veteran" back for a meal together.

Guizhou, Tiankeng Village project office.

When Sing Sing showed up with a Hongtashan cigarette between his lips, Lao Liu came out to greet him, rubbing his hands excitedly.

"Boss! You're finally here!"

Sing Sing's heart tightened. "Did Lao Mo cause trouble? Or did he eat so much he drove your canteen out of business?"

"No, he's too good at his job!"

Lao Liu pointed at a figure leaping up and down in the distance. "How long has he even been here? He's shortened our construction schedule by two months!"

Sing Sing looked closely. Mortimer was wearing a hard hat and a reflective vest. His tongue was wrapped around a pneumatic pick, which was going at it furiously with a rapid rattle.

"Lao Mo! Stop work! You're on vacation!"

Sing Sing cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.

Toad heard him and turned. His yellow, slit-pupiled eyes lit up.

He kicked off the rock face and landed in front of Sing Sing after a few leaps.

"Ah Qi!"

Toad rubbed his hands and blurted out in heavily accented Mandarin, "Why'd ya take so long to come see me?"

Sing Sing was stunned by the accent. "Who taught you Chinese?"

"Lao Li did. He said this is how you sound down-to-earth."

Toad grinned, pulled a certificate out of his pocket, and presented it to Sing Sing like a treasure. "Look! Lao Liu gave it to me. One of the top ten model workers! I got a thousand-yuan bonus, too!"

Seeing the unprecedented pride on Mortimer's pockmarked face, Sing Sing patted him on the shoulder with satisfaction.

"Nice work! Come on, I'll introduce you to your new coworkers and treat you to a good meal while we're at it!"

After his whirlwind trip, Sing Sing pushed open the courtyard gate.

"Comrades, look who I brought back!"

Carrying two bottles of Erguotou, Toad walked in, looking a little awkward.

"Mortimer?!"

"Janos?!" Toad was also a little surprised to see a familiar face.

Back when they were wanted, hunted, and living from day to day, they had shared bread in a basement.

In Riptide's memory, Mortimer had always been the insecure, sensitive "toad" who curled up in a corner, too afraid to show his face.

He still looked as strange as ever, but his eyes no longer held that old evasiveness.

Sing Sing snatched the Erguotou from Toad. "Come on, come on, sit down and talk!"

Soon, the smell of mutton filled the courtyard.

A hot pot had been set up in the courtyard.

"Ah Ji, ease up on the wind! You're blowing charcoal ash into the meat!"

Wearing a floral apron, Sing Sing stirred the pot with an iron ladle.

Riptide looked utterly miserable, extending just one finger to control the wind.

On the other side, Polaris was sitting on a folding stool.

A whole leg of mutton, frozen rock-hard, lay in front of her, and the cleaver became a blur under her control.

Swish, swish, swish!

Mutton slices as thin as cicada wings fell onto the plate like snowflakes.

"Nice precision control! With knife skills like that, you could make at least eight thousand a month slicing meat at Donglaishun."

Sing Sing gave her a thumbs-up.

"One more word and I'll stuff this cleaver in your mouth!"

After several rounds of drinks and plenty of food.

The charcoal hot pot bubbled and steamed. A few drinks in, the atmosphere had grown thoroughly lively.

Toad's face was flushed red from drinking. He took a little red plastic booklet from an inner pocket and waved it in front of Riptide.

"Look! What's this?"

"What is it?"

Polaris looked curiously at the little booklet bearing the national emblem.

"It's called a social security card! Everyone just calls it a shebao card!"

Toad pounded his chest with a thump. "I'm a permanent employee now! I get a base salary every month, a high-temperature allowance, and a commission for every anchor bolt hole I drill!"

Riptide stared at him in bewilderment. "Commission? A high-temperature allowance?"

"That's right!"

Toad picked up a mouthful of mutton with his chopsticks and stuffed it into his mouth, grease running down his lips as he chewed. "When I first got there, I thought they'd throw rocks at me too, or just call me a monster..."

At that, Toad's voice choked up a little.

"A worker named Lao Li accidentally fell from a height, and I caught him with my tongue. From that day on, they called me Master Mo!"

Toad took a swig of liquor and broke into a radiant smile.

"Janos, can you believe it? Lao Wang, who serves food in the canteen, worries I won't get enough to eat, so he always gives me two extra ladles of red-braised pork!"

"My coworkers offer me cigarettes!"

"I didn't dare go to the bathhouse, but Manager Lao Liu dragged me right in and said we're all men!"

"He even scrubbed my back himself! Though he scrubbed a layer of skin off me..."

Soft Serve couldn't understand Chinese that was too complicated, but as she looked at Mortimer's tear-streaked, utterly happy face, her own eyes reddened.

In the United States, they were Mutants, heroes or villains, and test subjects pursued by the military.

But whatever their identity, they had never been treated like normal people.

Here, though, the Mutant freak Toad was simply "Master Mo."

"Listen to Ah Qi and work hard."

Toad patted Riptide on the shoulder. "When you get an outstanding individual award, we brothers can hang our certificates up together!"

Riptide looked at Toad, raised his glass, and drained it.

"Okay."

Bang!

Sing Sing slapped the table, breaking the slightly melancholy mood, and stood up with a large ceramic mug in his hand.

"Comrades!" Sing Sing burped and looked around at everyone. "What Lao Mo just said can be summed up in four Chinese characters: labor is most glorious!"

Labor is most glorious.

"Isn't that five characters?"

"Don't worry about the details!"

"Since I brought you all back, I have to take good care of you! If the sky falls, Director Wang will hold it up. If Director Wang can't hold it..."

Sing Sing drew the Pig Butchering Knife from behind his waist and slapped it onto the table. "I'll hold it up!"

Polaris looked at the Pig Butchering Knife on the table, then at Sing Sing's slightly flushed face.

She suddenly realized that this man who was always talking nonsense was more dependable than any superhero she had ever met.

"To the Five Insurances and One Housing Fund." Polaris raised the beer glass in front of her.

"To the year-end bonus!" Riptide raised his glass too.

"To... lots and lots of ice cream!" Soft Serve happily raised her hand.

"To red-braised pork!" Toad roared.

"Cheers!"

Four glasses and a large ceramic mug clinked together beneath the night sky.

The night breeze was slightly cool.

In this little courtyard, several monsters who had once been displaced had finally found a haven of their own.

By the foot of the wall, Wandering Girl rolled over in her half-asleep state and mumbled, "Add a chicken leg too..."