A mouse?
A mouse-person?
Upon glimpsing what seed to be a mouse-person creature, Jiang Shu profoundly experienced a sense of magical realism.
With a protruding snout, bared teeth and grinning, a pair of pure black eyes glinting nace, its whole body was covered in disheveled short fur.
At this mont, this mouse-person was being held up by the neck, dangling in Lang Tai’s firm grip, as it struggled ceaselessly in midair, letting out continuous shrill squeaks.
Looking around Lang Tai, the area was secluded, so the mouse-person hadn’t caught the attention of any passersby yet.
"Squeak squeak squeak"—the shrilly high-pitched mouse cries kept echoing incessantly below. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the residents of this apartnt block noticed.
So Jiang Shu gestured with his hands that he was going to go down imdiately and hinted for Lang Tai to do sothing to silence the mouse-person.
Lang Tai, who had understood Jiang Shu’s gestures, brought the mouse-person before himself. His calm eyes stared directly into those of the mouse-person, which seed to host a beast of extre ferocity in their depths, causing the mouse-person to imdiately shut its mouth and shudder all over.
"I’m going down for a bit," Jiang Shu called out to Lu Yi, and then he briskly left his residence, leaving only Lu Yi sitting there, dazed.
He had seen the tall man outside, as well as the mouse-person held in the man’s hands.
A mouse-person?
What was this thing?
A mutant or a leftover from a past bioengineering experint?
For a mont, a multitude of questions flooded Lu Yi’s mind, and Jiang Shu’s hurried appearance also stirred up curiosity about his identity.
It seed like his boss...
Was no ordinary person after all.
Indeed, could anyone who could master such technology and skills be ordinary?
Lu Yi recalled the ti when his predecessor had wanted to et with Jiang Shu, who had strolled in wearing a crisp suit, offering that deal to that forr Lu Yi.
To "be reborn" through chanical reincarnation wasn’t really rebirth; the original Lu Yi had died, and there was a fundantal difference between him, Lu Yi Thirteen, and that Lu Yi stricken with cancer.
He would not confuse the two.
The chip in the bargain was that after being reborn, he, Lu Yi Thirteen, would work for Jiang Shu.
To be resurrected posthumously to continue working was enough to make capitalists weep.
However, contrary to what he had expected, Jiang Shu was actually a mild-mannered and gentlemanly person. He didn’t force Lu Yi to work around the clock, even though his chanical body was fully capable of working non-stop for 24 hours.
He stood up, peered out the window, and watched as his boss swiftly disappeared with the tall man who was grasping the mouse-person, darting into the alleyways within this residential area.
It always felt like there was so much more to his boss’s offstage identity.
Lu Yi thought as he watched the now absent Jiang Shu, feeling a mix of emotions.
But he had no intention of probing his boss’s secrets. So things he would co to know when he should, and others would only bring disaster if pursued.
He had played gas for many years and noticed an interesting setting: behind-the-scenes BOSSES who were approachable were often far more terrifying than the hysterical types because only those who could freely manage their emotions were capable of achieving great things.
Thinking about this "Smiling Demon" persona, Lu Yi Thirteen couldn’t help but shiver suddenly.
Looking again at the man who was smiling so gently in front of the Simulated Light Screen, Lu Yi’s gaze filled with an inexplicable sense of reverence.
---
"What is this thing?" Up close, seeing the mouse-person only heightened Jiang Shu’s astonishnt, for he had never seen such a creature in his past life.
Lang Tai, using the Simulated Light Screen, provided an answer that wasn’t entirely certain: a product of a bioengineering experint? But it had a wristwatch.
"A wristwatch?" Jiang Shu had also noticed sothing fastened to the mouse-person’s wrist, which aroused even more surprise.
Although wristwatches were commonplace in Lonely City, they were not so easily acquired.
Firstly, soone like Jiang Shu six months prior as a "stateless" person couldn’t even use one, the use of the wristwatch was closely related to the Character Card system, and how difficult it was to get a Character Card...
Even back then, Liu Tingruo couldn’t help Jiang Shu secure a slot for a Character Card. The database was the highest level of secret in Lonely City, an insurmountable task to breach.
At that ti, having just left White Eagle with no social network to speak of, the only formal way forward for Liu Tingruo was to seek help from her family. With the power of the Liu nobility that dominated an entire district, securing a Character Card slot was not difficult.
What a pity there are no such "ifs."
The second scenario where the wristwatch couldn’t be used was still due to the lack of a Character Card. According to what the technician Kirie once said, creatures that hadn’t passed the personality test couldn’t get a Character Card.
In the prevailing view of Lonely City, the term "creature" included not only animals other than humans but also chanical beings and even certain special individuals.
People with certain diseases or those created by bioengineering couldn’t gain recognition from Main Brain and thus couldn’t secure a Character Card.
Upon seeing the mouse-person, Jiang Shu’s initial reaction was that it was a remnant of a bioengineering experint, but the wristwatch imdiately made him reconsider his thoughts.
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