A Green-Haired Delinquent? She's an Expert!

After a long back-and-forth and Sing Sing's determined arguments, Director Chen and Sing Sing—oh, no.

Director Chen and Polaris, Lorna Dane, signed a number of unequal treaties.

Director Chen had no complaints or objections. Satisfied, he left with Director Wang, their arms around each other's shoulders.

When the tiger was away, the monkey was king.

Now it was Sing Sing's time to shine!

Agent Ling Ling Qi held a manila envelope marked "Top Secret," his expression solemn.

"Comrades, look sharp! Stand closer together!"

"Good! That's the spirit!"

He cleared his throat and pulled several red-letterhead documents bearing bright red official seals from the envelope.

Polaris stood beside Soft Serve, while Wandering Girl yawned.

Anton and Riptide, who had finished learning about the work procedures, also came over and lined up with them.

Only Toad remained seated to one side, scrolling through short videos.

"After careful consideration by the organization and vigorous efforts on my part, I will now read out the job assignments for the first batch of returning employees recruited from among special overseas talents!"

Sing Sing looked down at the documents:

"Comrade Janos Quested!"

Riptide instinctively straightened his back. "Present."

"You are hereby appointed deputy head of the high-risk weather intervention and specialized smoke extraction brigade, special service firefighting and rescue detachment!"

Riptide's eyes grew warm. It hadn't been easy!

After struggling for so many years in that place of misery, he had finally made it to shore!

"Anton Quist! Report to the archives and take over from Old Qian. Remember, don't charge other people's phones without permission!"

Anton nodded emphatically, smiling with a sense of security.

"Next..."

Sing Sing turned his gaze to Polaris and Soft Serve.

"Comrade Lorna Dane, Comrade Amy!"

"Lorna Dane is hereby appointed specially recruited chief expert in heavy rocket recovery and precision landing technology for the China Aerospace Science and Technology Group's Long March series!"

"Amy is appointed special cold-chain nutrition supply officer at the Space City's logistics support department!"

At that, Wandering Girl looked around and pointed at her own nose. "Here, here! Me, me, me! Where am I going?"

"You? First quit drinking, then we'll talk!"

"That's not fair!"

Ignoring her, Sing Sing put away the documents and assumed the authority of the second-in-command, at least in his own opinion.

"Comrades! Before you go to your new units, I must emphasize our workplace rules!"

Sing Sing held up three fingers:

"First, no arriving late or leaving early!"

"Second, no using superpowers to bully your colleagues!"

"Third, and most importantly!"

"Take care of public property! Especially those precision instruments that cost millions or tens of millions each. If you break them, you'll have to go through the reimbursement process, and it might even come out of your wages!"

"My stack of reimbursement forms is thick enough already. Don't put any more pressure on me!"

Lorna listened to these absurd yet real rules, at peace.

Nobody cared about genetic mutations.

Nobody cared about danger ratings.

That was nice...

"All right, meeting adjourned! Pack your bags and get ready to leave!"

That afternoon.

A transport plane landed at the airfield inside Jiuquan Space City.

Steel launch towers stood on the distant Gobi Desert.

In the sunlight, those products of heavy industry gleamed with a metallic luster.

Convoys of transport vehicles moved slowly along, while crowds in blue work overalls hurried between the steel behemoths.

"Well? Impressive enough for you?"

Polaris closed her eyes and felt the dense metallic magnetic fields in the air, her eyes bright.

This place was wonderful. With a movement of her fingers, she could control everything around her.

"Come on, let's go meet your new boss."

The man who received them was Lao Gao, chief engineer of the Space City's heavy rocket recovery project.

Lao Gao's full name was Gao Legao, and he was in his sixties.

His hair was streaked with gray, he wore black-framed glasses, and the bags under his eyes sagged. One look told you he was someone who had spent years staying up late.

At that moment, Lao Gao was holding the transfer order Sing Sing had handed him, his brows furrowed.

He raised his head and sized up Polaris.

Young, thin, and pale.

With a head of green hair, too.

With her hands in her pockets, she looked like a delinquent girl from any angle.

Beside her was a little girl who looked underage, curiously looking around.

That agent beside them was also holding back laughter.

You brat!

Don't think I don't know you're laughing at my name!

After mulling it over, Lao Gao decided to strike first.

The higher-ups had arranged for all these people to come, so he couldn't very well refuse them outright.

He might as well dump them somewhere to serve as mascots...

"Outrageous! This is absolutely outrageous!"

Lao Gao slammed the table and rose to his feet.

"This is a major national aerospace project! Not some youth summer camp, and not a shelter for troubled girls!"

"Appointing a girl who's never even studied university physics as chief expert? If word gets out, how will our international peers laugh at us?"

Sing Sing sidled over, smiling.

"Chief Engineer Gao, don't get so worked up! As the saying goes, you can't judge a pig by its skin alone. You have to see how fatty its pork belly is!"

"You're comparing national aerospace talent to pork?"

"The wording's rough, but the point stands."

Sing Sing patted Polaris on the shoulder. "Comrade Lorna may have green hair, but she's got the skills!"

"Just think of her as a human magnetic field controller. She doesn't need plugging in, and she comes with emotions of her own... uh, she's still being trained in emotional management."

"I don't believe in that mystical nonsense!"

Lao Gao waved a hand, his face full of exhaustion. "We're at the most critical stage of simulation testing. All our experts have spent three nights in a row in the lab."

"I'd be grateful if you just stayed out of our way! Xiao Wang, take them to the guesthouse!"

"Now, now, Lao Gao, since we're already here, let's go have a look around the lab. Call it onboarding."

Without waiting for an answer, Sing Sing pulled Lao Gao toward the door.

How could the old and frail Lao Gao break free?

He could only lead Sing Sing and the others to the main testing hall, his face dark.

The atmosphere in the hall was tense.

Dozens of experts and engineers were gathered around a test bench, arguing until their faces were red.

"How many times have I said it? There's no way to eliminate the delay in this attitude control valve! That's the material's stress limit!"

"Then switch to titanium alloy!"

"Using titanium alloy puts us two percent over the weight limit! How do we calculate the rocket's thrust-to-weight ratio then? You do the math?!"

Lao Gao walked over and looked at the red lights covering the screen. He rubbed his forehead. "Still no luck?"

The tester was drenched in sweat. "Chief Engineer Gao, the metal structure inside the valve undergoes microscopic deformation under ultra-high pressure, causing a response delay of 0.03 microseconds. An error like that will put the rocket fifty meters off course when it lands, and it'll be a total loss."

"This damn valve costs eight million! We've already scrapped three!"

Lao Gao trembled at the expense.

Sing Sing stood on the outskirts. Nobody knew when he had pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds, but he was cracking them noisily.

Sing Sing nudged Polaris with his elbow and whispered, "See that? An eight-million-yuan lump of iron. The old gentlemen have worried themselves bald."

Polaris looked at the complex metal valve inside the explosion-proof glass enclosure.

To her eyes, it was a clearly visible cloud of metal atoms, with tiny flaws in their arrangement.

"Do you need my help?"

"Show them what you can do." Sing Sing handed the sunflower seeds to Soft Serve. "Just fix it, and whatever you do, don't crush it. Eight million—even if we sold you and my Armani suit, we couldn't afford to pay for it."

Polaris scoffed at him and walked toward the test bench.

"Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing? Don't touch that!" An old expert with a bald crown spotted a green-haired girl approaching and jumped in alarm. "That's a precision valve worth eight million! If you damage it, you'll..."

Before he could finish shouting, Polaris had already reached the explosion-proof glass enclosure and raised a hand wreathed in green light.