As the year drew to a close, and the second-to-last day before the holidays arrived, Lin Yun left work at the Abnormal Strategy Bureau and by the ti he reached ho, it was nearly nine o'clock.
It wasn't just because he had a eting with governnt officials that afternoon, but also because after work he had to show his face at the base in the guise of Erald Sparrow, which had nearly beco a fixed part of his routine recently.
Usually, he might have stayed at the house in the base, but today was different—Lin Xiaolu had co ho.
Sotis weekly, other tis bi-monthly, Lin Xiaolu often returned ho to change out her laundry and daily necessities, taking away so things she would need next and bringing so unnecessary items back, and she would also tidy up her room.
For her, this was a natural occurrence that didn't require consideration of any complex internal reasons, but for Lin Yun, deciding whether to return ho involved multiple considerations.
In the first two months after he had moved into the secret base, his itinerary was highly consistent with Lin Xiaolu's, and he would invariably find an excuse to leave the base whenever Lin Xiaolu ca ho—since Xia Liang already knew the truth and Bai Jingxuan didn't care about these matters at all. By making sure he was also ho when Lin Xiaolu returned, he could alleviate the issue of identity conflicts to a certain extent.
However, as ti went on, especially after the Full Moon Festival, Lin Xiaolu discovered that her father was not entirely an ordinary person, and later even learned that Lin Yun was the Director of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau. Then one evening, she posed a thought-provoking question to her father:
—"Have you not needed to work overti or entertain in the evenings recently?"
Lin Yun could have given an exact answer, which was "indeed I don't need to," but it was difficult for him to use language that his daughter could understand and accept to explain the logic behind it in just a few words.
After all, there were personal reasons as well as Fangting City-level reasons.
Objectively speaking, he indeed had a lot of work to do, whether it was the various decision-making tasks within the Abnormal Strategy Bureau or communication with certain governnt officials, even to the point of intervening in Fangting City's political affairs. If Lin Yun wanted to spend ti on these matters, he could be busy to the extent that he couldn't return ho every evening.
But in reality, Lin Yun wasn't willing to waste ti on trivial matters.
His attitude toward the work at the Abnormal Strategy Bureau was straightforward: "to eliminate the unstable forces in Fangting City." Aside from this objective, he had little interest in deeply involving himself in Fangting City's policy-making or the power gas among Fangting City's upper echelons.
This was both personal preference and an assessnt of the situation.
Although Lin Yun was a born and raised Fangting City resident, he had no political track record in his over thirty years of life, no seniority, no experience. Now, even though he was the Director of Fangting City, he still seed like an "outsider" to the governnt officials of Fangting.
It would have been one thing if he were just a simple outsider, but that was not so. Any interested party who tried to understand the background of Lin Yun's identity, even without being able to investigate An Ya, let alone Lin Xiaolu, could still co to the silent realization of the fact that he was "sent directly from the headquarters in Tiandu City, with the will of the Magic Kingdom likely backing him."
"How to handle the relationship with the new Director of the Abnormal Strategy Bureau" quickly beca a major problem for the Fangting City Governnt.
The relationship between the Abnormal Strategy Bureau and the city governnt is not hierarchical, but two sides of the sa coin within the sa city.
The Abnormal Strategy Bureau is responsible for managing a plethora of individuals with extraordinary powers, such as Magicians, and communicate with forces that are too powerful, like Magical Girls and the Magic Kingdom, while the governnt is responsible for ensuring the ordinary citizens' lives, maintaining city facilities, and social operations.
In most cities, the relationship between the Abnormal Strategy Bureau and other governnt departnts is an aloof one, where each departnt mostly keeps to its own responsibilities, but there are many areas where cooperation is required.
A typical and sensitive topic is the funding for the Abnormal Strategy Bureau's activities as money needs to be obtained from the governnt. Once money is involved in a matter, countless stakeholders co into play.
Typically, when a city's Abnormal Strategy Bureau asks the governnt for funding, it ans the beginning of so sordid adult dealings: how much money to give, in what form, and when to give it. There are many things that the Abnormal Strategy Bureau and governnt need to haggle over, and both sides' personnel can seize more benefits for public or private reasons, with a significant amount of funds going into so officials' pockets under the guise of "Abnormal Strategy Bureau activities."
Such matters were an unspoken rule in Fangting City before, even when Mosi was in charge, because although none of the vile deeds done by Black Ash Dawn were the work of average people, they still required money, a substantial amount of resources.
However, when Lin Yun took office, this rule was imdiately broken.
It wasn't that Lin Yun wasn't aware or didn't understand the rules; he simply couldn't be bothered with them.
He didn't think he had to co up with various pretexts to extract money from the governnt. Instead of doing that, he preferred to take only what was needed. He wouldn't intentionally make the Abnormal Strategy Bureau's operations bare-bones, but nor would he seek resources beyond normal expenses.
In response, Fangting City Governnt officials felt both joy and concern.
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