Lu PingAn's status in the local area was actually quite special.
At first, he had been a "tool person," literally speaking—a useful "quasi-weapon" lacking trust and authority.
Even that treatment had been secured for him by Xia Qin. Without her as his guarantor, following the rules and procedures, he would most likely have been treated as a "high-threat item" and destroyed outright.
He needed to prove his capabilities and potential for growth before he could prove that he was worth the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs taking the risk of guaranteeing his "survival."
He needed to prove his loyalty and stability in response to those doubts.
At the time, the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs' psychologists probably reviewed Lu PingAn's actions, words, and reports of others' impressions every week to determine whether he was safe and whether he was walking the right path.
But what worried those psychologists even more was probably the very act of "surveillance" and "evaluation."
When an individual's life was under threat, negative emotions naturally arose. That was why it was best for the observer to be a beauty—cough—or someone unlikely to provoke resentment: harmless people, relatives, friends.
A minor—or at least someone mentally still a minor—who remained steeped in negative emotions for a long time, with countless eyes watching everything they did and pressure beyond their age weighing on them, would naturally develop a warped personality.
That was why many "high-threat seeds" eventually truly became antisocial. It was hard to say whether that was because of their own talents and powers, or because they had been suspected of being dangerous from childhood onward.
But Lu PingAn was different. He was not only an adult, but an adult who had faced life and death, experienced joys and sorrows, known sincere affection and vicious betrayal.
That did not mean