It was already afternoon by the ti Shi Rang returned to the villa, and he had no intention of going out again today.
He needed to figure out how to hunt anomalies without getting himself killed.
His physical body was simply too fragile. Deep down, he knew the Ascension Society was just a platform for him. Even with The Head temporarily acting as his backer, it was not a fully trustworthy sanctuary. Only his own abilities could never be taken away.
After sending Jing Zi away, he dropped Leader Jack off in the Mini-Humans' room along with a bucket of popcorn he had bought on the way back, and then returned to his bedroom.
The villa was spacious and comfortable, and he did not even have to handle the chores himself. But this was rely a residence; he still preferred the cozy little ho he shared with Ying Shang.
With the Three Plans laid out before him, Shi Rang deliberated for a long ti before deciding to start with the "Impersonating a Councilor" plan.
Plan One, the "Ergency Armory", was progressing rather slowly. He was not a computer; he had to manually evaluate the Anomaly Projects one by one, determining which ones he could use without arousing The Bureau's suspicion once triggered. That required ti.
Plan Three, the "Deer Hunter Doppelganger", aid to hand the broadcasting work over to The Sheriff, creating an alibi for Shi Rang at crucial monts. However, Shi Rang still had to fabricate the core intelligence himself, and he also needed to cobble together an input device that the Mini-Humans could actually use. That also took ti.
At present, the only one he could effectively push forward was Plan Two.
The Council mbers' operations on the Terminal Station never left a trace, but there was a loophole he could exploit. The eting Minutes of their Online etings were kept by default for a short period before being deleted, likely to allow absent Council mbers to review them.
Shi Rang could easily be one of those absent Council mbers.
The true identities of the Council mbers were strictly kept secret from the middle and lower ranks of The Bureau. Shi Rang even doubted whether the departnt heads knew their real backgrounds. This intense secrecy painted the Council mbers as profoundly terrifying figures, but it also gave him an opportunity.
If he could find a chance to infiltrate their ranks, he might be able to bypass Tian Ying's obstruction, uncover the real reason The Bureau was hiding Ying Shang's whereabouts, and ultimately find her.
First, he needed to understand his enemies.
Just like last ti, he pulled up the account for Assistant Harvey, the Assistant Director of Intelligence, and clicked into his recently viewed entries.
On a data level, Shi Rang noticed that "Harvey", this Alt Account, was linked to an invisible profile, which was then used as a relay to access those eting Minutes.
In this record storage area, he found nurous eting Minutes. All of them had been generated within the last thirty minutes and were set to auto-destroy upon expiration.
'The Council mbers are quite busy,' he thought.
'Let see what kind of earth-shattering conspiracies the Council mbers of the top organization in the anomalous world discuss every day.'
[S6-Autumn Chrysanthemum: (Containnt Object Link) Do you have anything else to say about the massive personnel defection in the Second District, 11?]
[S11-Black Lightning: If bickering could magically conjure up money for The Bureau, I would surrender my seat to you imdiately. The economic downturn is a global issue. You probably only know how to crash the human economy with infinite gold. Unless you understand economics, stop pointing fingers at .]
[S4-Zinc: Do not bring the Ethics Committee's tone into this eting, Autumn Chrysanthemum. We are all colleagues here. And Black Lightning, the widespread Wage Arrears in the Second District is indeed the primary issue we need to resolve next. We can discuss a plan.]
[S6-Autumn Chrysanthemum: Do not bring empty words into this eting!]
[S11-Black Lightning: We do not need you playing peacemaker here!]
[S4-Zinc: ......]
[S5-Scorpion: No one could have predicted such a massive Funding Gap. Wage Arrears are the inevitable result of ergency liquidity transfers, but the personnel defections were caused by tic Contamination. Now that the Subject is contained, the Alliance refuses to acknowledge it, and we cannot launch an attack against them over this. I highly suspect the Library is behind this ss. Let us just drop the matter. Besides, since the personnel have defected, we do not have to pay their delayed salaries anyway. Problem solved.]
[S3-Dream Idol: But you cannot deny that this will cause the operating efficiency of the grassroots departnts in the Second District to drop by 25%
.]
[S5-Scorpion: Do we not still have you?]
Shi Rang:
"
""
He had always imagined the Council mbers as shadowy, cold, and ruthless conspirators. He never expected them to have such a human side.
Was this really how they normally decided the life trajectories of millions of people around the world?
If no one ntioned it, who would have guessed that these were all "centenarians"?
Driven by curiosity, Shi Rang went to take a look at the Containnt Object that had sparked this argunt.
It turned out to be a Flyer that had appeared out of thin air at many sites in the Second District. Originally treated as a harmless Anomaly Project, its Records Analysis progressed slowly due to a lack of intelligence. Because of its humorous content, the employees joked about it as they tore it up. However, a few days later, the uncleaned flyers suddenly exhibited a Cognitohazard, causing employees suffering from Wage Arrears to defect after reading them.
rely reading the text record was safe, however.
Shi Rang began to read the contents of the Flyer.
To all Bureau employees who see this paper!
Please look at this ssage—the Pan-Continent Alliance is holding a Recruitnt drive!
Friend, are you tired of keeping and even adopting things that threaten human reproduction?
Tired of tolerating things that take human lives?
(Approximately 200 words of parallel sentences omitted)
Tired of your payroll card being completely empty every payday, just like at the end of last month?
In short—co here!
We are!
Cooler! Stronger! More direct!
More handso! More manly! More humane!
We are the police of the anomalous world, the big brother of all anomalous organizations!
And we!
ARE! EXTRELY! RICH!
AND! NEVER! DELAY! PAYNTS!
Co and join the Pan-Continent Alliance right now!
(The remaining content recorded a large amount of slander against The Bureau, with detailed registration instructions printed on the back. The location was listed as the nearest Alliance Offices to where the Flyer was dropped.)
'It's hard not to suspect the Pan-Continent Alliance of doing this...' he mused.
'Though it's more likely a fra-up.'
'The Alliance disdains using such thods. They inherently despise anomalies anyway.'
Shi Rang then read through a few more Online eting Minutes, all of which were discussions and resolutions regarding major internal events within The Bureau. The Council mbers' task seed to be an eternal loop of etings and decision-making—even if their communication style was not exactly serious. Soon, only a handful of Council mber ID numbers remained on his list of those who had never appeared in the etings.
The Council mber he had been mistaken for was definitely among them.
After working for a while, Shi Rang could not resist going back to look at that rather hilarious Flyer again. As he laughed, he suddenly froze.
'Safe... harmless... sudden mutation...'
With his current level of strength, even with the Ergency Armory, facing Anomaly Projects directly would be extrely risky.
Tampering with existing Anomaly Projects required far too many prerequisites to operate recklessly. The Divine Corpse was a bloody example of that.
As for creating sothing out of thin air, it was no different from pushing a stationary Pendulum; the uncontrollability was too vast, making it equally inadvisable.
In that case, could he seek out a relatively safe Distortion Phenonon and then nurture it in his desired direction? Just like Tampering with The Sheriff, who was on good terms with him, he could grant it the exact abilities he needed, essentially creating a "self-produced and self-consud" asset.
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