Chapter 3

The members of the Ability User squad exchanged glances, none of them too familiar with it.

The Resurgence Management Office offered generous benefits, but they truly hadn’t dealt with anything like this.

Si Ning glanced at it.

“Alright, enough discussion.”

“Once you’ve rested enough, pack up and let’s go.”

Even though no one had entered the alley yet, having a group of people sprawled out messily like this was still pretty embarrassing.

If a citizen suddenly walked in and got startled, he wouldn’t know how to explain it given the confidentiality rules for weird events.

“Cough cough, Captain, I think I need a bit more time to recover. Look, my leg’s cramping.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Xue Hengfu immediately changed his expression, propping his leg and weakly extending a hand.

Zhao Jiang joined in the protest: “Yeah, Captain, I have low blood sugar. My eyes are still spinning.”

Si Ning: …

Fine, he was a bit tired anyway.

Ignoring the team members who immediately started clamoring messily, he leaned against the wall after turning around and finally relaxed a little. He continued looking at the forum.

Sure enough, that newly appeared post quickly sank into the forum and vanished. The technicians at the Ability Users Exchange Forum must have spotted the issue and auto-cleaned it.

…

After Bo Ting posted, he waited a good while, but his earnestly asked post still had zero replies.

Bo Ting: …

What was going on?

Was no one browsing the forum today?

Wasn’t this time of day, right after dinner, the prime time to check the forum? How had half a day passed with no responses?

He frowned and reviewed the post he’d just made; the wording seemed fine.

Strange.

Seeing that half an hour had passed and the page remained empty, Bo Ting had no choice but to bump his own post to keep it from sinking unseen later.

“Family, anyone able to answer?”

“Super urgent, really need it.”

A streetlamp night scene avatar paired with two cute default phone emojis bumped the thread two floors.

But after a while, still no replies.

It seemed everyone loved chatting gossip but not serious stuff.

Bo Ting felt a bit disappointed. In the gaps while waiting for forum replies, he hadn’t stopped trying to reload the unemployment insurance page, but the mini-program still showed “loading” just like before…

The Netizens Exchange Forum at least loaded, but the insurance page had shown no sign of progress after so long.

Bo Ting somewhat regretted his carelessness back then for not noting down the insurance company customer service number, leaving him unable to find it now even if he wanted to.

The neglected post floated alone on the forum.

After resting another ten minutes, Xue Hengfu and the others were finally ordered by their captain to get in the car. Thus, they completely missed that the post they’d thought was cleaned up had resurfaced.

Inside Rong’an Building:

A meeting had just ended when the phone on the table dinged, drawing quite a few eyes. Xu Qinglai slightly raised a brow and picked up his phone.

“Sorry, my phone went off.”

As soon as he spoke, his secretary nearby reacted:

“No problem, Mr. Xu.”

“The meeting’s already over anyway, nothing important.”

The executives quickly chimed in agreement, saying they didn’t mind.

Xu Qinglai glanced at them and, seeing it was indeed nothing major, said, “In that case, today’s meeting ends here.”

With Mr. Xu announcing adjournment, the employees who knew the president had something to attend to stood up and filed out of the conference room one after another.

Xu Qinglai stood alone by the floor-to-ceiling window, quietly watching the rain curtain outside.

Since noon, it had been raining on and off.

Clear, cold raindrops splashed into puddles, rippling slightly, casting blurred, elongated shadows in the dusk light.

The young man reflected in the glass wore a custom-tailored three-piece suit. As he gazed at the pitch-black thunderclouds outside, he suddenly smiled faintly and undid one suit button.

With the rigid formality broken, that aura of arrogance unique to a predator also faded. The young man leaning by the window now looked like a reserved, elegant scholar.

Xu Qinglai admired Mengjia City’s rare heavy rain in recent years and opened his phone. He’d thought it would be some boring human message again, but this notification was different from what he’d expected.

【Ability Users Exchange Forum】?

Xu Qinglai was a bit surprised.

If he remembered correctly, the Ability Users Exchange Forum hadn’t sent any inexplicable notifications since it was repaired.

Well, wait… not entirely absolute.

As if recalling something, Xu Qinglai thought of the livestock farming post that had suddenly appeared last time and couldn’t help chuckling.

Seemed pretty interesting.

He casually shielded the post he’d just seen and naturally browsed the suddenly appeared “Netizens post.”

It looked like an ordinary daily help request. The poster was asking about the “unemployment insurance mini-program,” but what made him take a second look was the poster’s nickname.

———【So Many Eyes in the Sky Today!】

Tch, that name…

Xu Qinglai paused slightly and instinctively looked out the window.

In his view, clusters of transparent misty shadows, large and small, floated in the air outside the opposite glass windows—like the world seen by someone with ordinary floaters. But Xu Qinglai knew these weren’t illusory floaters; they were—real eyes.

Ordinary humans couldn’t see them at all. Even the higher-ups at the Resurgence Management Office probably hadn’t noticed the problem with the sky they lived under every day.

So, now the interesting part: Was this name a coincidence, or… intentional?

If it was a coincidence, fine. But if intentional…

Xu Qinglai, intrigued, tapped to bookmark and saved the post.

…

Bo Ting bustled around for half the day without a single reply. With no other choice, after washing up that night, he prepared to sleep. But as soon as his head hit the pillow, his phone buzzed twice.

Bo Ting: …

Hm?

Had a kind netizen finally replied?

The young man in bed immediately perked up, sat up, and grabbed his phone.

But upon checking: The reply count on the Netizens Exchange Forum post was still a blank zero.

Just some night owl who favorited it.

Bo Ting: …

What was there to favorite about a mini-program help post? It wasn’t like “100,000 Cold Jokes.”

Bo Ting stared oddly at the avatar that had clicked in on his personal page. Curiosity piqued, he simply clicked into theirs.

But the clean page was empty, looking like a smurf account. If not for the account age showing ten years registered, anyone would think it was a dead account.

Zombie account?

Bo Ting hesitated, then tentatively sent a question mark.

Seeing the little red dot appear straight on the other account’s DM page satisfied him. He tossed the phone aside and went back to sleep.

The next morning, Bo Ting was woken by the alarm blaring by his ear.

The familiar ringtone went on for a while. After reaching over to shut it off, he remembered he was unemployed now.

Oh, no need to go to the company.

But had that weird account replied last night?

The bleary-eyed young man picked up his phone, about to check further, when he heard a loud “thud thud thud” at the door.

It sounded especially clear in the quiet room.

Damn, scared him.

Bo Ting, dazed on the bed, jolted and nearly flung his phone.

The deafening knocking stopped, so he threw off the covers, got up, crept to the door, and peered out to see what was up.

“Who is it?”

“Me, Sister Han from Building 2 across the way.”

“Our dog is missing. Has anyone in your building seen our Doudou?”

A middle-aged woman with permed pear-blossom hair stood outside, tone overbearing as she spoke while on the phone, looking quite anxious.

Bo Ting recalled “Doudou”‘s appearance in his mind.

It seemed like a black dog of some unknown breed, pretty large.

The dog looked fierce, and this Sister Han from across never leashed it, causing quite a few neighbor disputes.

Some resident in the same building had even complained to property management before.

But Doudou was lost?

“Sister Han, I’ve been home all day today and haven’t seen Doudou.”

After a few seconds, Bo Ting answered honestly.

“Sigh, I knew it.”

Sister Han across the way clearly hadn’t expected to find answers here anyway.

She’d woken up this morning to find Doudou gone and had knocked on every door from the first to thirteenth floor, asking around, but no one had seen it.

She grumbled a few complaints, then turned to knock on Aunt Qian’s door next door.

Bo Ting: …

This was about to turn into a shouting match.

He saw Sister Han turn via the peephole and quickly retreated to the living room, with no intention of eavesdropping.

Checking his phone then, he discovered not only had Sister Han come knocking to disturb people, but she’d also posted group-wide messages around 4 a.m. in all three neighborhood groups with a missing dog notice for Doudou.

Damn, though it was an ugly-looking black dog, Sister Han offered quite a reward. Just for clues, a big red envelope; for finding Doudou, 5,000 yuan on the spot.

Bo Ting winced, recalling his own salary—turns out this dog was worth more than him.

But Sister Han had been at it all morning and still no dog?

Bo Ting glanced at the dimly lit sky outside, a bit regretful. If not for his current air-conditioner ghost state, he’d definitely go help search.

5,000 yuan a day, found it and pocketed—way better than any job!

Right, as he thought, Bo Ting turned his gaze to the mirror again.

Seeing his still high-tech self reflected, he speechlessly looked away.

The hallway across had been noisy for a while. With the sharp click of high heels heading upstairs, Bo Ting shook his head. He’d just opened the window for the fresh morning air when he suddenly felt a weight on his foot.

Bo Ting: …

What the hell?

His treasure-blue custom silk loungewear pants at his leg seemed tugged by something. Turning, he saw fangs on his leg—and a pitch-black, gaping ferocious dog mouth.

Locking eyes with the snowy-white fangs for a second, Bo Ting jolted to realization.

“Doudou?”

“Woof!” The fierce, terrifying-looking black dog eyed him suspiciously, drool at its mouth, tilting its head.

Bo Ting: …

No way, how did this dog get here?

Sister Han had just knocked, and he’d sworn he hadn’t seen it. Now the dog was in his place the next second—anyone would think he’d hidden it on purpose.

Recalling the scene a minute ago where Sister Han bellowed at Aunt Qian, shaking the whole building in terror, Bo Ting’s face went expressionless. He decisively clamped the dog’s mouth shut by hand.

If it were human, he might fear violent Doudou biting, but he was an air conditioner now.

What did an appliance have to fear?

Worst case, it bit him and cut his power!

With great boss-like flair, after manually closing the jaws, Bo Ting heartbrokenly eyed his silk sleep pants soaked in dog drool.

He took a deep breath and coldly ordered the red-eyed black dog opposite:

“No barking!”