Wolverine Wants to Retire? No Way!

Early morning in Siheyuan.

Sing Sing squatted by the sink in the corner of the yard, clutching the receipt with grief and indignation.

I was careless; this guy ate half a month's salary in one meal!

That's 85 yuan a plate of black tripe!

That Old Jin swallowed it without even chewing it, like a cow chewing on a peony!

What a waste of money!

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. His features scrunched up, and he muttered curses in the slang of the vegetable market.

Martha and Harry, who were standing nearby, glanced at him.

The two looked at each other, unable to understand what he was muttering, but inexplicably felt relaxed.

This kind of down-to-earth, street-smart attitude, jumping up and down over a few coins, is far more real than the lab coats worn by professionals in laboratories.

The courtyard gate was pushed open.

Xiao Liu walked in carrying a tin box.

The front of the box was spray-painted with several crooked characters in red: Da Vinci Brand Real-Time Cross-Language Mass Communication Assistance System.

Immediately afterwards, Director Wang stepped across the threshold with his hands behind his back.

Sing Sing.

Completely unaware of the leader's arrival, Sing Sing shuddered, quickly stood up, touched his heels together, and saluted.

"Good morning, Director! Oh? Is there new equipment here?"

Sing Sing stepped forward, took the box from Xiao Liu, and opened it.

Inside, a row of strangely shaped objects were neatly stacked.

This thing looks like a hybrid of a hearing aid, an earwax clip, and an old-fashioned radio antenna.

Each earpiece also has a black spiral wire trailing from it, connected to a miniature microphone that is clipped to the chest.

On the plastic shell of each earphone, there was a line of small handwritten text in marker.

[Do not soak it in water, do not feed it to the dog, and do not let Edith use it to exchange for milk tea.]

The Wandering Girl, who was walking by with a fried dough stick in her mouth, immediately objected.

Her blue cheeks puffed out as she pointed at the box and protested loudly.

"This is a serious personal insult! Why single me out on public facilities?"

Do I look like the kind of person who would sell off state-owned assets for a few cups of sugar water?

Sing Sing glanced at her but didn't say anything.

Where did that military-grade high-powered flashlight go?

Don't think I don't know you traded it with the old man at the street corner for three candied hawthorns!

"Come on, everyone! It's the equipment testing phase. New colleagues, come and line up to get your gear."

Sing Sing Chow waved his hand and directly put one of the earphones with the longest antenna on the Sand Rat's ear.

Then clipped the miniature microphone to the Sand Rat's dirty collar.

"Comrade Miguel, just say something to test the microphone."

The Sand Rat swallowed hard and nervously stammered out an English sentence.

I am willing to work hard.

The red indicator light on the headphones flashed once.

A clear and articulate Mandarin voice came from the microphone tucked into his chest.

"Boss! I'm willing to work for the organization illegally for the rest of my life! I absolutely refuse overtime pay!"

Xiao Liu gasped.

The Sand Rat looked at the expressions on the others' faces, somewhat puzzled.

What's wrong?

Was I not sincere enough?

Sing Sing stroked his chin and squinted as he looked him over.

"Very good. Wenxi's inventions may not be aesthetically pleasing, but at least machines are more honest than humans."

"This is a subconscious precision capture system that perfectly expresses your true inner desires."

After the laughter and banter subsided, the atmosphere calmed down.

Each of them received their own unique pair of headphones.

Director Wang stood a few steps away and saw everything.

The lines on that perpetually expressionless face have softened.

Damn it, these capitalist bastards don't even treat people like human beings.

Director Wang cleared his throat, straightened his face again, and turned to glare at Sing Sing.

"What are you standing there for, kid!"

"Did you bring them back just to stand here in the cold wind? Call a job evaluation meeting right now!"

Report your initial resettlement preferences to me today!

"Yes, sir!"

"The 'Spring Breeze Action for the Re-employment of Overseas Special Talents' is now officially launched!"

The Wandering Girl came closer.

She snatched the last spare earphone from the box when Sing Sing wasn't looking.

She clipped the microphone to her collar and cleared her throat.

She decided to test the accuracy of this lousy machine's translation with a broken Chinese sentence she had just learned.

"Zhou Bapi, yes, Blackheart boss."

The headphones paused for a second, the red light flashed wildly, and then a perfect London accented English came through.

"Stephen Chow is a capitalist vampire."

Wolverine, who had been observing coldly from the corner, finally couldn't help but grin and laugh out loud.

Sing Sing's face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

What the hell is this translation?!

Who exactly taught Da Vinci to use his translation corpus?

This is going to incite internal class conflict!

Deduct his R&D funding! He absolutely must have his R&D funding deducted!

"Stop fooling around, let's get down to business."

Sing Sing rolled his eyes at the Wandering Girl, then turned and went inside.

A short while later, he came out carrying a whiteboard with wheels and set it up in the middle of the yard.

A table has already been drawn on the whiteboard with a black marker.

On the left, several names are written.

The four people at the front of the line were rescued from prison.

Luke Shaw, Harry Kane, Nina Stewart, Martha Barton.

Behind the four were Sand Rat Miguel Rock, the gerbil, and Wolverine Logan.

The column on the right is the corresponding job category column, which is currently blank.

The atmosphere suddenly became serious.

They knew the moment that would decide their fate had arrived.

Sing Sing knows better than anyone else.

These job titles on the whiteboard are not tools for labeling people.

This is a way for these displaced people, treated like monsters and expendable resources, to reintroduce themselves to the world.

With jobs, they gained a social identity belonging to this land.

Sing Sing put away his playful smile.

"Everyone."

"Starting today, forget about that basement, forget about those barcodes."

"You are the most urgently needed and awaiting-assignment talent in our great infrastructure construction project in China."

These words even made Director Wang, who was standing to the side, take a second look at him.

When this kid isn't spouting nonsense, he actually looks like a decent human being.

Sing Sing pulled the cap off his marker and prepared to write on the whiteboard.

"Alright, let's start with our first comrade..."

"Bang."

Wolverine suddenly stood up and placed the enamel mug he was holding on the stone table next to him, splashing water all over the table.

Don't give me any of that damn job!

His eyes held an unspeakable loneliness and weariness, as well as an instinctive aversion to all organizations.

I've been manipulated enough in my life.

Weapons, monsters, killing machines...

It's just a matter of using a nicer-sounding word now; what's the essential difference?

Wolverine stared into Sing Sing's eyes and said, word by word:

"I will not work for anyone, much less be a henchman for bureaucrats like you who wear the government's nameplate."

"I just want to find a place where no one will bother me."