Yu Sheng suddenly felt pessimistic about his creative prospects, very pessimistic, mainly about the reputation he might leave in the literary world in the future—although he only encountered this special case of Ren Wenwen, he felt he couldn't escape unscathed because of this one special case...

But this XP thing he really couldn't discourage, especially since she worked for the Special Service Bureau, facing a high-pressure and high-risk work environment every day (don't be fooled by her position as a clerk at the headquarters building; considering the characteristics of their headquarters, even someone just watching a printer in the Special Service Bureau's office is considered a special operations post), what if she relied on these bizarre niches as a mental support...

Ren Wenwen, oblivious to the stormy changes on Yu Sheng's face, continued speaking enthusiastically: "Hey, hey, Mr. Yu, when will your next story come out? Still writing suspense and mystery? Will there be opportunities for the old characters to appear? I really like Mr. Seventeen, who you mentioned in a passage in 'Rain Harbor', when will he be the main character..."

Yu Sheng didn't respond, but the quick-tongued Erin in Hu Li's arms beside him tilted her head and said, "The next book's male lead will ride a tricycle!"

Ren Wenwen's eyes instantly lit up: "Oh, this is interesting, the trajectory of a machine and owner developing feelings over time!"

Yu Sheng: "...!?"

He finally realized—so this girl is into the whole human-Mechanical Soul thing, huh!?

"Let's talk about something else," he said, physically and mentally exhausted, waving his hand, then looked up at the sign of the collection point in front of him, "I figure, this isn't just a collection point, right? Although I'm not quite clear on your Special Service Bureau's standards for setting up 'stations', since this place can be considered a 'station', it shouldn't just be arranging two people to deliver family couriers and take-out. I'd guess it's also an observing station?"

Ren Wenwen's expression immediately turned awkward.

"Don't get nervous, I knew about this early on," Yu Sheng chuckled, "Right now, you guys should have observation points here, even if there aren't any observation points, I'm guessing your director's eyes haven't been straying far from here—I'm just confirming, don't overthink it."

"Well, you could say that, I mean calling it an observing station," Ren Wenwen smiled awkwardly at last and said seriously, "This station does pay attention to the situation at No. 66 Wutong Road, but you know, actually, we can't observe your house at all, so the main role of this station is to observe your surroundings—strictly speaking, it's to observe the entire Wutong Road..."

Yu Sheng looked puzzled: "What's there to observe about Wutong Road, is it really worth setting up a station?"

Ren Wenwen: "Because things keep happening around you..."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"Uh, that wasn't my words, as Captain Song said," Ren Wenwen, feeling presumptuous, quickly threw her superior under the bus, "Who he heard it from, I don't know."

"...I somewhat get it," Yu Sheng curled his lips, shaking his head with a helpless smile, "Alright, I don't care, just treat it as having two more sentinels at the door, receiving packages and take-out would be convenient in the future. So, that's it, you guys carry on with your work. I'm heading back."

Saying this, he waved at Ren Wenwen, then craned his neck, looking at the goods on the truck yet to be moved, and slowly turned to walk away.

The aura like a retired old man out for a leisurely walk.

Ren Wenwen watched Yu Sheng walk away, watched him open a door into thin air in a vacant lot tens of meters away and disappear from view, then breathed a sigh of relief, turned her head to look at those remaining big boxes yet to be moved down from the truck—border scanning station, fixed deep-point sensing station, entity detection radar, along with two shield generators typically only equipped for deep divers, and a heap of other miscellaneous stuff.

A complete border outpost is equipped at this level.

"Wenwen, do you think the shield generators are necessary?" asked a Special Service Bureau officer, grumbling after unloading the heavy equipment box, "Even if needed, isn't two a bit too much..."

"The frontline troops wish they could lay these things all over the floor and sleep on the shield generators every day," Ren Wenwen gave him a glance, "Just move it in, they're all good stuff, regular domestic outposts don't have this equipment."

"Oh."

...

Inside the director's office at the Special Service Bureau headquarters, Song Cheng was reporting the situation to Baili Qing: "The Wutong Road station has already made contact with Yu Sheng, Ren Wenwen was on site, the contact went smoothly, Yu Sheng didn't have any objections to this new station, and seemed rather satisfied."

"In most cases, he is easygoing and laid-back, as long as we don't substantially interfere with his life, he won't show resistance," Baili Qing said lightly, "Our 'observation' is ineffective on him, but more collection points can bring more convenience to No. 66 Wutong Road, of course, he has no objections—just remember to remind the stationed personnel over there, under any circumstances, remember, it's in any circumstances, they must treat 'Yu Sheng' as a human, this is of utmost importance."

"Understood, it's already written in the rules, and the stationed personnel will all be trained," Song Cheng said with a serious face, "I've told them that even if they see Yu Sheng grabbing an entity and devouring it whole in front of them, they must remain calm..."

"Wrong, the appropriate response should be to show some surprise, maybe even comment on how the other person eats everything—because that's the normal reaction one should have in front of someone who's eating indiscriminately. The approach is flawed, go back and revise the training content. If it doesn't work, send that young guy named Li Lin over, or find someone equally open-minded."

Song Cheng tensed up, "…Uh, I understand what you mean, I'll adjust it today."

Baili Qing nodded.

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and after receiving permission, the secretary on duty appeared at the office door: "Director, Director Zhang from the Technical Department is here, he says he has significant progress to report directly to you."

"Let him in."

A moment later, a slender middle-aged man, wearing a white shirt and dark brown trousers, with sparse hair, walked into the office, his face glowing inexplicably.

After entering, he saw Song Cheng, nodded in greeting, and the smile on his face never faded.

Baili Qing raised an eyebrow and glanced at this head of the Technical Department: "Zhang, why are you so happy?"

"Director, the filter system is complete!" Director Zhang's face was almost gleaming, "It's the system that automatically recognizes and suppresses alarm signals when Yu Sheng activates the teleportation gate, and automatically switches to recording mode—it's done!"

For a moment, even Baili Qing's icy expression visibly changed; the corners of her mouth slowly lifted, "Great! I'll get in touch with Yu Sheng as soon as possible to coordinate with you for testing, to see how the system operates."

With a smile, Director Zhang hesitated a bit, rubbing his hands together, "Director, there's one more thing."

Baili Qing: "Hmm?"

"I just got the news when I came in; it was reported by the testing lab," Director Zhang's expression turned a bit peculiar as he spoke, and his already sparse hair even reflected some light, "regarding that 'cast iron sample' sent from the cafeteria to the testing department last time."

Baili Qing quickly caught on, "Oh, that iron block the fox from the 'travel agency' used to pay after dinner? What did the test reveal?"

"Well, the conventional component tests didn't show anything special, it's just iron with very high purity," Director Zhang reported immediately, "after completing a series of standard items, the lab decided to try making something out of the iron… mainly to observe its mechanical properties after transformation, so they made a hammer…"

"Too much unnecessary detail," Baili Qing unceremoniously interrupted the Technical Department head across from her, "be brief, just tell me what happened."

Director Zhang spread his hands, "It developed a Mechanical Soul…"

Song Cheng, who had been quietly eating melon and listening to the excitement, instantly reacted, "…(⊙0⊙)!?"

Even Baili Qing was visibly shaken; she looked up sharply, her gaze startling Director Zhang.

A moment later, the female director lightly exhaled, "…Now tell me more details."

"There aren't really more details," Director Zhang's expression was evidently not as confident and radiant as when he reported the success of the 'filter system', showing the bizarreness and inexplicability of the matter making the head of the technical department rather tense, "it just developed a Mechanical Soul, primarily manifested as a certain self-repair capability, seemingly conscious cooperation with human force when used, and tendencies to communicate with surrounding machines and equipment—in the absence of personnel, surveillance equipment recorded the hammer tapping lightly on a nearby impact analyzer, and the lab team suspects it might be some form of social behavior…"

Song Cheng finally couldn't help but speak up, "What kind of hammer did you guys make? A mechanical power war hammer? An impact hammer with rocket boosters? Or was something stuffed inside it…"

"Just a hammer," Director Zhang spread his hands, "we simply sliced a small piece off the iron ingot, hardly reforged it, just pressed it into shape, bored a hole, and temporarily fitted a wooden stick as the handle…"

"And it developed a Mechanical Soul?"

"Yes, it developed a Mechanical Soul," Director Zhang sighed, "I've been in charge of the technical department for years, researched many cases related to Mechanical Souls, where machines display pseudo-conscious behavior under certain complexities, long-term interaction with humans, and extremely rare coincidences, but I've never seen anything like this… I even suspect that if they hadn't made a hammer, even if they'd made an ear scoop, it would still have developed a Mechanical Soul at this point."

Song Cheng's expression was dazed, "Don't say you haven't seen it, who has seen something like this?"

"I haven't seen it either," Baili Qing rose from behind the desk, "so, take me to see it now."

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