The three juniors returned while Larkspur was on the phone with Hong Siyu. By then, two hours had already passed since Larkspur had said goodbye to Ink Lotus.
Although she had temporarily left Fangting City as bureau chief, the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau's work in Fangting City could not simply come to a halt. As the official bureau chief's secretary, Hong Siyu naturally took over part of the chief's duties. Larkspur did not want to be the sort of hands-off boss who dumped all responsibility on Hong Siyu, so the two needed to speak specifically to coordinate the bureau's work.
They had settled on one call per week. Hong Siyu would report on the recent progress of every department, financial expenditures, meetings and discussions with other government departments, directives and documents from headquarters, the handling of civilian reports, Fangting City's overall security situation... Larkspur, meanwhile, needed to respond to each matter in turn, informing Hong Siyu of the various applications she had approved remotely that day, as well as the contents of her personal communications with other city government leaders, so Hong Siyu would know what work needed to be carried out next.
There was naturally no way to cover so much in just two hours, so until the juniors returned, Larkspur and Hong Siyu were still in the midst of an intense discussion:
"Let me sum it up. Around the middle of last year, the city government and the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau at the time submitted a routine application to host this year's prefecture-wide exchange symposium. Usually, there was never much hope for something like that, but Fangting thwarted the schemes of both Black Ash Dawn and Claw Mark for three consecutive months. Then, within four months, the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau achieved the astonishing feat of going from total destruction