Chapter 14
Bai Hewei left the registration site with a heavy heart.
The compensation package was phenomenal, but he would have to defeat nearly two hundred applicants to secure the job.
It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in his own test-taking abilities; it was that he had far too much confidence in his competitors! A bunch of people who had awakened supernatural abilities purely to make their own hair grow, combined with the hardcore grunts from concrete work and architectural design—which one of them wasn’t studying like their life depended on it?
Compared to their level of dedication, Bai Hewei felt like absolute garbage. He woke up these days barely remembering what he had done the day before. How on earth was he supposed to out-compete those freaks?
Just thinking about it was deeply discouraging.
His mood sank to rock bottom. Checking the time and seeing he still had over half an hour before his 2:30 PM shift started, he walked into a milk tea shop and bought a cup with full sugar. Only after the sweetness hit his tongue did he feel a fraction better.
Sitting alone at a table, Bai Hewei was entirely oblivious to the glances of the people around him. He simply wasn’t in the mood to care about anyone else.
“Reporting to Captain, I am positioned very close to Bai Hewei. Do I need to close the distance further?” A young girl pulled out her phone and began typing rapidly.
She wasn’t a particularly high-ranking Evolver. She had been deployed here simply because she spoke fluent Mandarin and was of Asian descent; with a bit of styling, she could blend in seamlessly as a local without drawing the suspicion that other foreigners would.
“Proceed with Plan A,” the other side replied instantly.
The girl nodded. Her expression shifted rapidly as her eyes welled with tears. Holding her milk tea, she walked over and sat down directly across from Bai Hewei.
Bai Hewei blinked in surprise. He looked around the shop—there were plenty of empty tables.
Oh, another one targeting my good looks and manufacturing an excuse to flirt.
In the past, if a young woman approached him like this, even if he intended to reject her, he would have felt a secret twinge of delight. He would have at least exchanged a few polite words before turning her down gently.
But today, Bai Hewei was thoroughly out of sorts. His own irritation was boiling over; how could he possibly have the energy to comfort anyone else?
Without a word, Bai Hewei picked up his milk tea, stood up, and strode right out of the shop.
The girl, who had just managed to summon a tearful expression, was left utterly dumbfounded.
Huh?
He just walked away like that?
She hadn’t even unleashed her honey trap yet!
According to their organization’s calculations, a brute-force approach on Bai Hewei was entirely out of the question—the captured members of the [Divine Staff] were the perfect cautionary tale. But Bai Hewei was young and single, which opened up a lot of tactical possibilities. The organization had meticulously selected her and mapped out a series of protocols. One of them was to stake out the milk tea shops and coffee houses he frequented to stage a chance encounter.
To achieve this, she had been drinking two or three cups of milk tea a day to the brink of developing diabetes before finally catching him.
And before she could even perform, he had simply vanished?
Could he have detected something amiss with her? But she hadn’t uttered a single syllable yet!
The girl stood frozen to the spot, completely lost.
“Stand by at your current position. Do not rashly approach Bai Hewei. Initiating Plan B.”
Bai Hewei hadn’t walked more than a few paces with his milk tea when he spotted a hot, passionately sexy woman wearing sunglasses walking straight toward him.
Wearing sunglasses on a heavily overcast day?
Bai Hewei mocked her inwardly and subtly veered off to the side, trying his best to avoid colliding with her.
“Hey, excuse me, handsome. I wanted to ask, how do I get to the Heping Sub-district Office?” The sultry woman stepped directly into his path, blocking him as she spoke.
A resident looking to handle some official business?
Bai Hewei sized her up from head to toe before providing the address.
“Handsome, I have an atrocious sense of direction, and I didn’t catch any of what you just said. Could you be a lifesaver and walk me there?” The woman clasped her hands together. “I’m really sorry. I only recently returned to the country, and my family told me to come to the sub-district office to get some residency certificate. I’m an overseas Chinese, so handling these administrative procedures is a bit confusing for me.”
“A residency certificate can also be issued by the community office. Where are you currently staying?” Bai Hewei frowned slightly, but hearing that she was a resident needing assistance, his years of professional grassroots conditioning made it impossible to refuse.
“I’m staying in the Shiji Jiayuan compound.”
That was indeed a residential compound within their sub-district’s jurisdiction.
“It’s almost time for my shift anyway. Follow me,” Bai Hewei relented, leading the way.
“Do you work at the sub-district office too, handsome? My name is Tian Jiamei. I mostly grew up abroad, but I’m planning to permanently relocate and reapply for Chinese citizenship. Honestly, I didn’t want to move overseas back then, but my dad handled international operations and dragged me all over the place. Now, I just want to settle down.” Tian Jiamei spoke with practiced casualness, subtly flashing the heavy gold bangle on her wrist.
There was no helping it; wearing a Cartier bracelet wasn’t nearly as effective at signaling wealth to the average person as a solid gold bangle.
She was draped in luxury brands from head to toe, and with the details she casually dropped, she painted the perfect picture of a wealthy heiress. Shouldn’t any normal guy throw himself at her, eager to get to know her family background?
Their organization had thoroughly analyzed the situation. Since Bai Hewei hadn’t been integrated into the Special Operations Department yet, it was highly likely he was resisting because he valued his autonomy and had rejected their recruitment. This meant he was an asset they could potentially turn. Furthermore, if their organization pulled off something the Special Operations Department failed to achieve, it would monumentally boost their global prestige—not to mention the staggering tactical leverage the world’s strongest being would provide their faction.
Right now, Bai Hewei was a piece of prime fat that every global faction was salivating over. Who wouldn’t want a bite?
Unfortunately, their organizations couldn’t use force to recruit him; they could only resort to alternative methods—like sending a wealthy heiress to throw herself at him. By granting Bai Hewei beauty, wealth, and status overnight, they could bind him tightly to their cause until he couldn’t bear to cast it aside.
Before awakening as an Evolver, Bai Hewei had been a completely ordinary man. Facing the ultimate dream of every average male, how could he possibly remain unmoved?
“Why aren’t you speaking, handsome? Do you find me too noisy?” Tian Jiamei attempted to step closer to Bai Hewei, but it was as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Every time she closed in a fraction, he drifted away by the exact same margin, maintaining a strict half-meter buffer that she simply couldn’t bridge.
“No, I’m just not much of a talker,” Bai Hewei replied.
“That’s fine, I happen to love handsome guys who don’t talk much,” Tian Jiamei offered a sweet smile. “I don’t know what it is, but the moment I saw you today, I felt this profound sense of familiarity. Maybe we’ve met somewhere in the past.”
“I’ve never stepped foot out of the country. You’ve likely mistaken me for someone else,” Bai Hewei said, shaking his head.
“Then perhaps it’s because you look exactly like my ideal type,” Tian Jiamei said, cutting straight to the chase. “Can I add you on WeChat, handsome? Honestly, I’ve been watching you for a long time.”
“We’re here,” Bai Hewei said, pointing to the sub-district office building. “Go straight inside and find the counter staff in the lobby. They will process your residency certificate.”
“Hey, handsome, let’s add each other on WeChat. If I run into something I don’t understand later, I can ask you.” Tian Jiamei refused to give up; she hadn’t actually come here for a residency certificate.
“No need.” Bai Hewei shook his head flatly, turning on his heel and walking away without a shred of hesitation.
It didn’t matter; she possessed plenty of patience. She would secure lodgings nearby first. Bai Hewei had only recently awakened, so his guard was bound to be exceptionally high; she couldn’t afford to rush things.
Still, considering she was dressed this provocatively and the man hadn’t even spared her a second glance, Tian Jiamei found it somewhat bizarre. Once she got back, she would have the organization deploy a good-looking male operative over.
What if this Bai Hewei preferred men?
Returning to his office, Bai Hewei thought it over, opened his chat with An Tingyu, and typed out a message.
The moment An Tingyu read the text, she immediately rushed to brief Huo Ling.
“Director Huo, Bai Hewei reached out to me. He stated that a woman who came to apply for a residency certificate today acted incredibly bizarre, and he suspects she’s a spy.” An Tingyu pulled up her phone, displaying the text directly to Huo Ling.
[When Will I Pass the Civil Service Exam]: “Director An, I encountered a strange woman today. She claimed to be an overseas Chinese looking to get a residency certificate, but she didn’t even know that the process requires providing copies of her ID, property deeds, or lease agreements. On top of that, she spent the entire walk trying to flirt and extract information from me. I estimate something is off with her; she might potentially be a spy.”
“Pull the surveillance feeds immediately! Find out exactly who this person is!” Huo Ling barked without a second thought. Every single occurrence surrounding Bai Hewei had to be treated with absolute gravity.
In truth, the most effective protocol would be to deploy a dedicated team to monitor Bai Hewei twenty-four hours a day, but the hypothesis had been completely shot down by Wen Zhiyi the moment it was proposed.
First, Bai Hewei was currently hyper-sensitive; even if he didn’t spot the tail initially, he was bound to notice over time. If he misidentified them as hostiles, their own operators would lose their lives for nothing.
Second, Bai Hewei’s life was currently stable; planting a surveillance tail would only dismantle his trust in the state, and if it triggered a psychological backlash, no one could shoulder that administrative fallout.
Third and most pragmatically, maintaining a twenty-four-hour surveillance net around Bai Hewei would drain an immense number of operators, requiring complex emergency contingencies and heavy logistical management.
The Special Operations Department and the Research Institute were already operating far beyond maximum capacity; if they diverted personnel specifically to tail Bai Hewei, their core operations would completely grind to a halt.
His subordinates moved with remarkable efficiency, instantly pulling all surveillance footage covering Bai Hewei’s recent movements.
The images of Tian Jiamei and the girl from the milk tea shop were displayed on the monitors.
“The girl in the milk tea shop was highly tactful; the cameras failed to capture a clear angle of her face throughout the entire sequence. We can only discern from her movements that from the moment Bai Hewei entered until he left, her eyes never left him, and she appeared to be transmitting data via text. As for this Tian Jiamei, her true identity is unverified. The sunglasses she wore obscured over half her face, making it difficult to establish a definitive match immediately.”
“Transmit their profiles to the Research Institute and have Wen Zhiyi’s team cross-reference them against the database of currently registered global Evolvers,” Huo Ling ordered immediately. “I suspect they were both deployed by foreign factions to infiltrate Bai Hewei’s perimeter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before long, a confirmation came back from the Research Institute.
The two individuals were indeed Evolvers, both tied to the same conglomerate company. They had entered the country just a few days ago under the guise of international students, and no one anticipated they would converge on Bai Hewei this quickly.
“Who would have thought? Bai Hewei is actually quite sharp—he clocked the anomaly instantly,” An Tingyu praised. “Director Huo, should I inform Bai Hewei of their true identities?”
“Go ahead,” Huo Ling said after a moment of reflection. “He needs to be aware of the danger. When these assets are delivered straight to his door, he needs to analyze them properly. As long as his own character remains rock-solid, whatever honey traps they throw at him will be completely useless.”
“Understood.”
An Tingyu quickly sent a reply to Bai Hewei, detailing the basic profiles of the two women and explicitly praising his initiative in reporting the anomaly.
[When Will I Pass the Civil Service Exam]: “They really are spies? Fantastic! I knew it—although girls occasionally flirt with me, the vibe they gave off was completely different. By the way, Director An, are there any national or provincial ‘Exemplary Citizen’ evaluations coming up soon? If I can secure a title like that, can it count as bonus points for the exam?”
Sitting in his office, Bai Hewei had been racking his brain for a long time. He remembered Phone Bro promising to hook him up with an award, and now that he had successfully exposed two foreign spies, granting him a commendation shouldn’t be an issue at all.
Therefore, he could only “remind” An Tingyu so she wouldn’t forget. Even if it couldn’t make it in time for this exam, having a bonus point option on hand for the next one would still be brilliant.
An Tingyu blinked, utterly bewildered as to why Bai Hewei had suddenly brought this up. When had she ever promised to apply for an “Exemplary Citizen” award for him? And since when did that thing have national and provincial tiers?
Could it… be a promise Chief Scholar Wen made to him?
Hesitating, An Tingyu first reached out to Huo Ling to confirm if he had given Bai Hewei any guarantees.
Huo Ling denied it without a second thought, but clued in a moment later. “Hahaha! It must have been Wen Zhiyi who promised him! I’m going to track him down right now. Tsk tsk, usually he acts so arrogant, like every single variable is under his absolute control. This time, I am absolutely going to grill him on what it means to make a promise to Bai Hewei and fail to deliver!”
It was a rare opportunity to catch Wen Zhiyi making an error; he was going to take full revenge and vent the absolute fury of being forced to sign that classification file!
“An Exemplary Citizen award? The administrative paperwork is already in motion. Estimate a bit more time, and it will be signed off by the City Mayor, routed through the District Party Secretary, and delivered straight to his sub-district office Party Secretary. Bai Hewei will receive it,” Wen Zhiyi stated with absolute composure. “Furthermore, on account of his merit in exposing foreign espionage, I have authorized a five hundred thousand yuan allocation for him. It will be officially presented alongside the award by the members of their District Standing Committee.”
Huo Ling was entirely choked up.
Wen Zhiyi had played the administrative game so flawlessly, going through the bureaucratic tiers just to give Bai Hewei absolute public face. Once an honor of that magnitude landed, Bai Hewei would be completely devoted to the state. In comparison, those foreign organizations deploying amateur honey traps looked utterly pathetic!
