Miss Ai

"The first mission, and it's already done like this?"

At first thought, the night's experiences felt a bit bizarre, but upon further reflection, they seemed reasonable.

Back during the assessment, the little fatty captain had mentioned that their usual mission mode—a bowl of instant noodles, a cigarette, and watching an elevator all day—was actually the norm.

Although problems arose quickly then, leading to a bloody storm.

But that was part of the Disaster Management Bureau's specially arranged assessment content. Normally, guarding an elevator all night would be the standard.

Hoping for something to happen was his own problem!

Indeed, after adjusting his expectations, everything seemed to go smoothly. Days passed one by one, and Han Su completed several more similar missions.

Sometimes he'd patrol a certain street, using a full-length mirror placed on the roadside to find people the mirror didn't reflect.

Or he'd enter a building and repeatedly count the steps between the third and fourth floors. If the count was thirteen, it was normal. If the count was less or more, he had to report it immediately.

Other times, he'd have to go to customs, show his ID, and cooperate with staff to inspect a batch of sea passengers arriving. The hidden task, known only to the operative himself, was to check if these passengers had developed fish gills under their jawlines.

The missions were strange and boring, though occasionally unsettling when he thought about the details.

If it were just one such mission, it would be fine. But with several in a row, Han Su had to consider if he was being targeted.

After all, Zhang Chiguo had said that upon entering the Disaster Management Bureau, he would find invisible enemies everywhere, right?

He privately asked Secretary Cui Qiao once, and she seemed somewhat exasperated:

"The D1D2 Work Group operates independently. This is also to train you investigators in facing the grotesque in advance."

"As for the missions, you don't need to doubt them. All newcomers are like this, and your current missions are personally issued by Miss Ai, so there will absolutely be no problems."

"..."

Han Su asked curiously, "Why are you so confident? Isn't Miss Ai just an intelligent program of the Disaster Management Bureau?"

"A program?"

Hearing this, Secretary Cui Qiao let out a cold laugh and shook her head. "Miss Ai is not a program. Her existence is a concept that is difficult for you to understand right now, but you can try to think of her as a type of mysterious machinery."

"Anything she is involved in has been maximized for fairness and reasonableness."

"As for now, the only thing you need to do is complete more missions and improve your evaluation with Miss Ai. Don't complain about the missions being too tedious or boring. You should know that four of your fellow trainees have already died."

"..."

"Four?"

Han Su was startled. "How did they die?"

"They were inexplicably decapitated while recording the phenomenon of streetlights flickering."

Secretary Cui Qiao said calmly, "As for the reason, it's still under investigation. Because they were people from the Disaster Management Bureau, such incidents don't even make it into the newspapers."

These words made Han Su instantly vigilant. He had also done the streetlight flickering mission, but the risk was that great?

He vaguely felt that he needed to adjust his attitude. At the same time, he became interested in this "Miss Ai."

"She said she's not some intelligent program, but referred to her as mysterious machinery?"

He looked down at the Tulin Hai Snowfield on his phone. Compared to some popular commercial apps on the market, the Disaster Management Bureau's dedicated program had a very simple external interface, with only a faint image of a snake coiled around a tree.

Clicking on it, it looked more like a chat window.

With a slight shift in his thoughts, he, who had always passively accepted missions, typed a sentence into the program: "[Hello.]"

It replied almost instantly: "[Respected Executor Butcher, what can I do for you?]"

Han Su thought for a moment and replied: "[What can you do for me?]"

Miss Ai: "[I can issue commissions suitable for your current work level, accept mission completion, quickly navigate you to the designated mission location, and provide information search and technical support within your authorized scope.]"

"[If you feel emptiness and boredom, or a strangely low mood, I can also provide emotional comfort and psychological analysis.]"

"?"

Han Su found it rather strange. "Isn't this just a normal intelligent program?"

He didn't overthink it, nor did he engage in further conversation with this seemingly simple yet somehow mysterious strange machinery. He quickly adapted himself to the work state of the Disaster Management Bureau.

Although the missions he had carried out were all boring and tedious, thankfully, he received commission payments into his account after each completion.

The commissions were even quite generous, always a flat ten thousand yuan.

Han Su didn't pay too much attention to this, not even clicking on the details of the commission calculation.

It was only upon Cui Qiao's reminder that he started paying attention to his evaluation on the Disaster Management Bureau's program. He had now gone from C+, which he had right after the assessment, to B-.

He wasn't sure how the evaluation was determined, but it was likely that with each completed mission, besides the corresponding commission, his evaluation would also improve.

Once this B- became A+, he would be eligible for promotion.

He didn't need to consider anything else for the time being. He just put his energy into dealing with these missions. When he didn't have missions, he still went to school as usual. His life seemed to have not changed much.

The only thing he found uncomfortable was the disappearance of Xu Ji, who always bothered him.

There were rumors that he was grounded by his family because he raced privately and caused a death.

This made Han Su find it strange. Xu Ji being grounded was understandable, but given the Xu family's style of operation, why hadn't anyone come looking for him by now?

Of course, after some thought, he temporarily dismissed the idea of buying two pounds of apples to visit Xu Ji at the Xu family mansion.

He was already starting to worry about something else.

A full ten days had passed since he was last kidnapped from the Disaster Management Bureau for listening to secret words.

Han Su didn't know when the next kidnapping case would occur.

Based on the previous intervals, he should have been kidnapped again in about fourteen days, but there had been an abnormal kidnapping in between. Did the original interval still count?

He didn't know the answer, but an invisible sense of urgency had already descended upon him.

As Han Su was carrying out his fourth mission, this repetitive task finally saw some variation, the content of which was:

[E4 level commission: Go to Dadi Cinema at 31 Daochun Street, East City District. Between 10 PM and 1 AM, select a movie with no viewers and watch the entire film alone. If any obvious anomalies occur, immediately issue an alert through this program.]

[...]

Already accustomed to these nonsensical missions, Han Su arrived at the cinema as usual.

The cinema was very small, so small that he wondered how such a tiny establishment could survive in such a vast city. However, Han Su had a mission to complete, so he chose a movie that no one had bought tickets for, and which was even being considered for cancellation, and sat down.

The film was very boring. Han Su didn't know what the "obvious anomalies" mentioned in the mission were, so he could only patiently wait for the movie to end.

For similar missions, Han Su initially found them unreasonable. If there was truly something grotesque in the cinema, wouldn't it be better to just seal it off?

At the very least, they should evacuate the other moviegoers, right?

But the reality was that many of the missions assigned by the Disaster Management Bureau were like this: strange, low-key, and unknown.

The movie was more than halfway through. He thought it would be another extremely boring mission, and Han Su was already preparing to write "no anomalies" on his black notebook.

But he froze slightly, a chill creeping up his spine.

He quietly took out the mysterious sword and raised his head without making a sound. He saw that the movie screen had turned into multiple shadows.

It was as if, behind the movie screen, a blurry shadow was moving along with the characters in the film.

Han Su narrowed his eyes slightly. Without making a move, he pressed an alert button on his phone program and then quietly moved forward, intending to observe further.

But as soon as he moved, it was as if he had startled something.

A rustling sound suddenly filled the air, like a flock of invisible sparrows flapping their wings and flying overhead.

The inexplicable sound made his scalp tingle instinctively.

He immediately gripped his stun baton, but found that everything around him had returned to normal.

His phone beeped, and a message replied: [Mission feedback recorded. Personnel are instructed to immediately exit the viewing hall. The subsequent mission will be handled by a designated investigator.]

Han Su was confused, but he followed the instructions, took his briefcase, and left. As he exited the cinema, he saw police cars approaching from a distance.

By the time he had left the cinema three hundred meters away, the area behind him was already cordoned off.

Rows of police cars, armed personnel, firefighters, and even people in black trench coats carrying briefcases, who flashed past, had completely surrounded the cinema. It looked like a war unfolding under the night sky.

"So, we're just used as anomaly alarms?"

Han Su muttered to himself, but he understood. It seemed that not all missions were this boring; it was just that the boring ones were the only ones he could handle right now.

He accepted his role with ease and took a taxi back to his apartment. On the roadside, however, he heard a gentle call:

"Mr. Han, have you been busy lately?"

Han Su turned around in surprise. He saw a high-end black car parked by the roadside. A man in a white shirt, with a suit jacket draped over his arm, was looking at him with a smile.

He paused slightly. The Xu family had finally come looking for him.