Investigation Report of the Gods

Chapter 49: Miss Ai

“First mission, just like that, it’s over?”

At first glance, the experience of that night seemed a bit bizarre, but on second thought, it felt reasonable.

Back during the assessment, the chubby team captain had once said that missions like theirs—instant noodles, a pack of cigarettes, guarding an elevator for an entire day—were actually the norm.

Although, back then, things had quickly gone awry, resulting in a bloody mess.

But that had been part of a special assessment arranged by the Disaster Management Bureau.

On regular days, monotonously guarding an elevator all night was what counted as normal.

Expecting something to happen—that was his own problem!

Sure enough, after adjusting his expectations, everything started to go smoothly.

Days passed one by one, and Han Su carried out several similar missions in succession.

Sometimes, he was sent to patrol a certain street, using a full-length mirror set by the roadside to look for people whose reflections didn’t appear in the mirror.

Other times, he entered a certain building and repeatedly counted the steps between the third and fourth floors.

As long as the number of steps was thirteen, it was normal. If there were fewer or more steps, he had to report it immediately.

There were also times when he had to go to customs, present his identification, and assist the staff in inspecting a group of sea passengers entering the country—among whom, only the operative himself knew the hidden detail: whether they had developed gills under their jaws.

The missions were bizarre and boring, yet thinking about the content in detail occasionally gave him chills.

If it had just been one task, that’d be fine, but with several in a row like that, Han Su couldn’t help but wonder whether he was being targeted.

After all, Zhang Zhiguo had also said that once he joined the Disaster Management Bureau, he should be aware that invisible enemies were everywhere, right?

He privately asked Secretary Cui Qiao once, and she seemed a bit speechless:

“D1D2 workgroups are meant to act independently. This is also to prepare you investigators in advance to face bizarre abilities.”

“As for the missions, there’s nothing to doubt. All newcomers go through this. Besides, your current assignments are personally issued by Miss Ai. There will absolutely be no issues.”

“……”

Han Su asked curiously, “Why are you so confident? Isn’t this Miss Ai just an intelligent program of the Disaster Management Bureau?”

“Program?”

Secretary Cui Qiao let out a cold chuckle and shook her head. “Miss Ai is not a program. The concept of her existence is hard for you to understand at this stage, but you can try to think of her as a mysterious machine.”

“Everything she is involved in achieves the utmost fairness and rationality.”

“As for now, the only thing you need to do is complete more missions and raise your evaluation in Miss Ai’s eyes. Don’t complain about the tasks being dull or boring. You should know, among the trainees of your batch, four are already dead.”

“……”

“Four?”

Han Su was genuinely shocked. “How did they die?”

“It was during the task of recording the flickering of streetlamps. Their heads mysteriously vanished.”

Secretary Cui Qiao spoke calmly, “As for the cause, it’s still under investigation. But because they were personnel of the Disaster Management Bureau, such incidents don’t even make it to the newspapers.”

Those words immediately made Han Su alert. He had also completed a streetlamp flickering task—but the risk had actually been that high?

He felt he should adjust his attitude properly. In addition, he began to take an interest in this “Miss Ai.”

‘She didn’t refer to her as an intelligent program, but as a mysterious machine?’

He lowered his head to look at the icon on his phone.

Compared to those popular commercial apps on the market, the dedicated program from the Disaster Management Bureau had a very simple appearance—barely resembling a snake coiled around a tree.

Upon opening it, it looked more like a chat window.

With a slight shift in thought, instead of just passively receiving missions as before, he typed a message into the program: 【Hello.】

The reply was nearly instantaneous: 【Honored Executor Butcher, what would you like me to do for you?】

Han Su thought for a moment and replied: 【What can you do for me?】

Miss Ai: 【I can issue you assignments suited to your current job level, verify mission completion, provide navigation to your mission destinations, and offer information searches and technical support within your clearance.】

【If you are feeling empty and bored, or experiencing abnormal emotional downturns, I can also provide emotional support and psychological analysis.】

‘?’

Han Su found it a bit strange: ‘Isn’t this just an ordinary intelligent program?’

He didn’t think much of it, nor did he plan to converse with that seemingly simple, yet somewhat secretive strange machine. He simply adjusted quickly to the working conditions of the Disaster Management Bureau.

Although the missions he had carried out were boring and tedious, the good thing was that every mission completion came with a commission deposited into his account.

The commission was even generous—ten thousand yuan each time.

Han Su didn’t care too much about it, and hadn’t even opened the commission calculation details.

It was only under Cui Qiao’s reminder that he started to pay attention to his own evaluation on the Disaster Management Bureau’s program. By now, he had already gone from a C+ after completing the assessment to a B-.

He wasn’t sure how the evaluation was determined, but it seemed that with each completed mission, aside from the commission, his rating also improved.

Until that B- became an A+, he would then be eligible for a promotion.

There was no need to consider anything else for now. He simply braced himself to handle the missions. When there were no missions, he still went to school as usual. Life didn’t seem to have changed much.

The only thing he hadn’t adapted to was that Xu Ji, who used to constantly pester him, had disappeared.

There were rumors that he had caused a fatal accident while racing in private, and had been grounded by his family.

That did strike Han Su as odd. Xu Ji being grounded was understandable, but considering the Xu family’s style, why had no one come to find him until now?

Of course, after thinking about it for a while, he dismissed the idea of buying two jin of apples to visit Xu Ji at the Xu family’s estate.

He had begun to worry about something else.

It had already been ten full days since his last abduction incident at the Disaster Management Bureau, which occurred after he listened to the Whisper of the Ruins.

Han Su had no idea when the next abduction would happen.

According to the previous interval, he would be abducted again around the fourteenth day. But an abnormal abduction had occurred in between—did the original pattern still apply?

He didn’t know the answer, but an invisible urgency had already settled over his head.

Amidst such repetitive tasks, when Han Su was carrying out his fourth mission, there was finally a change.

The content was:

【E4-Class Commission: Go to Earth Grand Cinema at No. 31 Daochun Street, East City District, between 10 PM and 1 AM. Select a film with no viewers and watch it alone to the end. If any obvious anomaly occurs, immediately issue an alert through this program.】

【……】

Having already gotten used to these baffling missions, Han Su arrived at the cinema as usual.

The cinema was very small—so small that one might wonder how such a place could survive in a massive city. But with a mission at hand, Han Su selected a film that had no ticket sales and was even considered for cancellation, and sat down.

The film was boring.

Han Su didn’t know what exactly counted as an “obvious anomaly” in the task description, so he simply waited patiently for it to end.

At first, he had also felt these kinds of missions were unreasonable. After all, if there really was something bizarre about the cinema, wouldn’t it be better to just seal it off?

At the very least, shouldn’t the other theaters be evacuated?

But the reality was, many of the Disaster Management Bureau’s assignments were exactly like this—strange, discreet, and unnoticed.

The movie was already more than halfway through. Just when he thought it was going to be another unbearably boring mission, Han Su was about to write the words “no anomaly” in his black notebook.

But then he paused slightly, as a cool sensation rose from his spine.

He quietly took the Sword of Mystery into his hand.

Without drawing attention, he looked up and saw the image on the screen had turned into overlapping shadows.

It was as if, behind the screen, a blurry shadow was following the characters in the film.

Han Su narrowed his eyes slightly, refrained from making a move, and pressed a warning button in the program on his phone. He then crept forward, planning to observe further.

But just the slight movement of his body seemed to startle something.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the air, like countless invisible sparrows fluttering overhead.

The strange sound made his scalp tingle instinctively.

He immediately gripped the Thunder 101 High-Voltage Baton, but found that everything around him had returned to normal.

With a “ding,” his phone vibrated with a message reply: 【Mission feedback has been recorded. Executor is to exit the screening room immediately. The following operation will be taken over by a designated investigator.】

Han Su didn’t understand why, but still followed the instructions, carrying his suitcase and leaving the theater. As he exited, he could already see a police car approaching from afar.

Once he was three hundred meters away from the cinema, the area behind him had already been completely secured.

Rows of police cars, armed personnel, firefighters, and even someone wearing a black trench coat carrying a suitcase flashed by, sealing off the theater completely.

It looked like a war scene under the night sky.

‘So, we executors are just being used as anomaly alarms?’

Han Su muttered in his heart and finally understood. It seemed not every mission was that boring—just that the boring ones were all assigned to him for now.

He accepted his role with ease, took a taxi back to the apartment, but then heard a gentle voice calling from the roadside:

“Mr. Han, been busy lately?”

Han Su turned around in surprise and saw a luxury black sedan parked by the road. A man in a white shirt with a suit jacket draped over his arm was smiling at him.

He was slightly taken aback. The Xu family had finally come to find him.