“Ah…” Yuan Luori sat on a bench in the estate, holding a leash, looking worried. 

Yuan Luori had a stubborn character. No matter how much bitterness he was holding in, he wouldn’t perform for others. For example, Zhen Li, who had offended Yu Hua just like he had, could immediately fall into a sliding kneel and apologize, but Yuan Luori wouldn’t apologize even if Yu Hua held his head down and made him kneel. 

Yuan Luori had taken a pretty big hit from the meeting at the Protectors’ base last night. He had always thought that the reason Zhen Li had been able to keep his special ability was that he had behaved well and not offended the great master clearer, while he had committed a crime and been punished by having his eyesight damaged and losing all of his power. 

When they had returned to the studio this morning, Zhen Li had quietly told him that the great master clearer in fact hadn’t destroyed his initial item and origin ability. Before, when he had been at the base and had suddenly lost his eyesight for a whole night, that had been the great master reactivating his initial item. 

So his uselessness and inability to help hadn’t been the great master’s punishment. It had been because he hadn’t obtained recognition from the world law. 

Yuan Luori was unwilling to show weakness in front of others (especially Zhen Li). He could only take advantage of his time walking the dog to say some of what was in his heart to Director Ha, who was in this with him and was also studying law.  

“Tell me, why do I need to get recognition from some stupid world law?” Yuan Luori was rather defiant. “Do I need to please someone else in order to get the power? Pooh! As if!”

He heavily stroked the husky’s head and tore out some fur. The little husky resisted. 

“But if I had my ability, I could help the great master destroy the new levelers!” Yuan Luori’s eyes lit up. “The System wants to use the levelers to hurt that great master. I wish I could help.” 

The husky shook its head desperately, trying to dodge Yuan Luori’s torment. 

Yuan Luori was too rough. His head stroking gesture wasn’t pleasant at all. It felt bad! 

“Since this is the case, for the sake of my savior, my idol, then I can accept bowing my head before the world law.” Yuan Luori finally found himself a reason to submit and felt much better. While there was no one around, he said to the sky, “Hey, I’ve decided to join the Protectors, please activate my ability.” 

The little husky: “…” 

It had been wrong. It had only thought that Yuan Luori was stupid. It hadn’t thought that he was this stupid! 

“It hasn’t been awakened yet?” Yuan Luori said doubtfully after waiting for a while. “What is my origin ability anyway? Hm?” 

The next second, Yuan Luori grabbed his own hair with both hands and said in panic, “Xiao Ha, do you think that I didn’t equip my origin ability in the first ten levels, so the System’s market took it back?” 

The little husky: “…” 

It saw its leash fall from Yuan Luori’s hands. Yuan Luori, who only had attention to spare for his ravings, didn’t notice the dog’s leash slackening. 

The little husky quietly lowered its head and took hold of the other end of the leash with its teeth so Yuan Luori couldn’t take it. 

While this idiot was talking to himself, it was going to quietly run off and escape Yu Hua’s torture.  It would hide out near the studio and wait for new companions from the Clearing League to arrive, then ask them help using the information it had learned from Yuan Luori, make them use their items to help it change to a better body! 

Yuan Luori didn’t notice the husky’s movements at all. He took off his glasses and whispered, “My initial item was the vision link. Would my origin ability also manifest in my eyes? Or…maybe my nearsightedness isn’t nearsightedness, it’s an eye technique? What if what awakens is a Byakugan or Sharingan like in the anime?” 

He stared at the tree next to him, his eyes open very wide, waiting expectantly for a special ability to appear. 

He had a high level of near-sightedness and astigmatism. When he took off his glasses, he was half blind, to the point that he couldn’t tell humans and dogs apart at a slight distance. Director Ha naturally understood the condition of Yuan Luori’s eyes. It quietly used its paws to knock Yuan Luori’s glasses off the bench, quietly jumped off the bench itself, then scurried away. 

Seeing that Yuan Luori hadn’t noticed at all, Director Ha was extremely pleased. It was free! 

It strode on its four legs, quickly sprinting around the estate, and ran into a group of elementary school students playing with scooters. 

“A dog! A little husky!” A tall, skinny boy saw Director Ha and charged over on his scooter, blocking Director Ha’s way. 

Stupid native whelp. Director Ha haughtily swept its gaze over the boy and howled up to the sky to express its disdain. 

This seemed ferocious, but in reality its voice was young and tender. After all, it was only three and a half months old. It wasn’t very large. There wasn’t anything imposing to speak of about it. 

“It has a leash. Whose dog is this? How could they lose the dog?” The tall, skinny boy tried to catch Director Ha. 

Director Ha quickly fled. The tall, skinny boy was a little bratty. Seeing that Director Ha going to get away, he quickly called, “Stop it, don’t let that dog run around!” 

The group of children on their scooters intercepted and encircled it, surrounding Director Ha completely. The tall, skinny boy ran up and grabbed Director Ha’s tail. Roughly holding on to it, he said, “I got it, hahaha!” 

His movements weren’t gentle at all. The tug hurt Director Ha. It began to howl and turned its head to bite the tall, skinny boy. 

When its teeth were just about to touch the child’s hand, its body instinctively relaxed. This was Lian Yufan’s training. It was a conditioned reflex. It couldn’t bite. 

Director Ha hadn’t bitten the boy, but it had still scared him. 

“The dog bites! Bad dog! We have to teach it a lesson!” The bratty child gave Director Ha’s tail another fierce tug. The crowd of children threw aside their scooters and surrounded Director Ha, pinching and hitting. 

Director Ha couldn’t escape. It was in pain. It could only curl up, wailing pitifully in the circle of bratty children, just as though it was crying. 

“What are you doing?” said a childish voice that was rather full of righteousness. Everyone stopped. There was a boy standing on a scooter, looking righteously at the crowd. 

“Liu Junjun.” Seeing him, the bratty children backed away one after another. Someone quietly said, “His dad is a criminal police captain. He arrests bad children. My mom told me so.” 

The tall, skinny boy quickly said, “The dog bit me first.” 

“I saw you yanking its tail. Of course that hurts. Let me see your hand. If it really bit you, you have to go get a rabies shot.” Junjun pulled over the tall, skinny boy’s hand. 

Hearing about the shot, the tall, skinny boy quickly said, “No, no, no, it just scared me, it didn’t really bite me, its teeth didn’t even touch me.” 

Junjun carefully examined the tall, skinny boy’s hand and didn’t find any broken skin or red marks. Then he relaxed and said, “Then why were you hitting the dog? You shouldn’t have been pulling its tail in the first place. If you pull like that, even a dog that doesn’t bite people would be forced into biting.”  

“Right, right.” The tall, skinny boy dejectedly ran off with the other children. 

Junjun looked at the little husky curled up and shaking on the ground. He crouched down and didn’t touch it. He tentatively asked, “Whose dog are you? Where’s your owner?” 

Director Ha saw the little boy that it had used as a hostage in the park and thought to itself that enemies truly were destined to meet. It was a goner. 

The first time it had seen Junjun, Director Ha had still been human. He had given Junjun a glass bottle, patted the boy’s cap, told him that this was a bomb and he had to hold on tightly, or else it would explode if he dropped it. 

Then he had picked Junjun up, dropped him into one of the park’s little boats, and blown up the water, sending Junjun out into the middle of the lake. 

Then he had blown up several places in the park and injured a number of people, attracting the notice of the Protection Organization. 

The little boy Liu Junjun was the beginning of Destroyer 192’s series of cases. 

Seeing that the little husky didn’t move, Junjun worked up his courage and reached out to gently stroke the husky’s head. 

His hand was different from Yuan Luori’s. The child’s hand was tender and soft. It seemed that Junjun had a dog at home. He knew how to pet a dog’s head so that it felt good. 

“Awoo,” Director Ha called happily. Promptly noticing its own embarrassing behavior, it quickly shook its head to throw off Junjun’s hand. 

Junjun was scared of being bitten by the dog. He drew back his hand, observed for a while, saw that Director Ha wasn’t going to attack, then went up again to pet the dog’s head and scratch its back. 

Director Ha was inwardly resistant, but its body’s instincts were very honest. It liked having Junjun stroke its head. 

It was truly humiliating to be so weak in front of an enemy. Director Ha was inwardly disdainful towards itself, but its body rolled over, revealing its white belly for Junjun to pet. 

“All right, all right.” Junjun pet the dog’s belly, picked up the leash, and called out, “Who lost a dog? A husky, three or four months old.” 

Yuan Luori, who was looking for his glasses, heard this and quickly called, “It’s mine, it’s mine, wait for me! Where are my glasses?” 

He had searched the bench for ages without seeing where his glasses were. Luckily, Junjun heard his voice and followed it, leading the dog. He helped Yuan Luori pick his glasses up off the ground. “You dropped them over here, dagege.” 

Yuan Luori put on his glasses. Hearing the address “dagege,” he was beside himself with happiness and said in praise, “You have excellent judgment.” 

While he’d been walking the dog in the park these past few days, there had been brats calling him “uncle.” Uncle my ass! Physically, he was only nineteen. 

Junjun smiled politely. “Dagege, do you often walk this dog here?” 

“I pretty much walk it once every morning and evening,” Yuan Luori said. 

He blinked at Junjun, then took off his glasses and stared at Junjun some more. Was it because he was near-sighted? Why was it that when he took his glasses off, it looked like there was something missing on the boy’s head, but when he put his glasses on, nothing was missing?

“So when you come to walk your dog, can I pet it?” Junjun said. “I used to have a dog at home, but later my grandmother got sick and moved in with us. Her health is bad, she’s allergic to dogs, so we gave the dog away…” 

As he spoke, Junjun’s eyes moistened slightly.  

“I’m going to go on a talent show in a few days, so someone else will be walking it. When that happens, I’ll tell that person, and you’ll still be able to pet the dog,” Yuan Luori promised. 

After the grownup and the child said goodbye to each other, Yuan Luori took Director Ha back to the studio. Seeing Director Ha looking listless, he said, “Why are you drooping? Didn’t you have fun running around just now?” 

Director Ha rolled its eyes at Yuan Luori, thinking, How could a waste of space like you understand the suffering of being rescued by your nemesis, then showing your belly in front of that nemesis? 

Instinct truly was frightening. Thinking that it still had to suffer this way for ten years, Director Ha thought that Yu Hua really was a brutal person. 

Yuan Luori returned to the studio leading the dog. As soon as he walked in the door, he heard Yu Hua’s terrifying voice: “Once again you’ve gone around me, the human resources director, to hire someone new? Lian Yufan, oh, Lian Yufan, you don’t manage public relations like you’re supposed to, but you’re so attentive to everything that isn’t your responsibility.” 

As soon as he heard this, Yuan Luori knew that Yu Hua was in a very bad mood. This was normal. Director Yu was never in a good mood. 

He bent down, drew back his neck, and picked up Director Ha. The man and the dog didn’t even dare to breathe loudly, quietly walking towards a corner. 

“Stop,” said Yu Hua. “Put down the dog.” 

Yuan Luori sucked in a breath. He stiffly turned to face Yu Hua. His knees were starting to go soft. 

He wasn’t sure himself why he was so scared of an ordinary person like Yu Hua. Perhaps there were some people who naturally possessed leadership ability. 

Yu Hua fixed his eyes on Yuan Luori. He thought about how he wasn’t supposed to remember about the warehouse and had no reason to get mad. He had been planning to find an unswept place to use as a reason to make Yuan Luori kneel on the acupressure mat today, but the studio was so clean that he couldn’t even find a single dog hair. He had to bear it. “The show group is coming today to film a video of your daily life. It has to be with the dog. Make yourself and the dog look nice. Have Zhen Li help you with your makeup and picking out clothes.” 

Hearing that this was about the show group, Yuan Luori relaxed slightly. He straightened his back and was planning on giving Director Ha a bath, so the show group would see a husky with a fluffy and smooth coat. 

Of course, the important thing wasn’t the filming. The main point was that the bathroom had a door. He would be relatively safe hiding inside. 

Seeing the janitor and the dog hiding in the bathroom, Yu Hua’s gaze fell on Huan Zixu. His eyes were full of dissatisfaction. 

He did indeed want to recruit a subordinate, but the one he wanted was Feng Kui. Huan Zixu only came along as a two-for-one deal. 

Thinking that this person was the chief culprit behind the last few days, Yu Hua smiled faintly. He’d finally found someone to vent his anger on. 

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Author's Note

Yu Hua: There’s a whole row of tight shoes¹ at the studio’s door. No need to fight over them. Just walk in and they’re right there, right there!

Zhen Li: I have small feet. These shoes are okay. 

Yuan Luori: Where are my glasses? If I don’t have my glasses, I can’t see where the shoes are. 

Lian Yufan: Am I seeing wrong? Yu Hua, did you put Director Ha’s shoes on my shoe rack? 

Huan Zixu: Isn’t there something wrong with our studio? 

Everyone: Get used to it. 

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Translator's Note

¹”Giving someone tight shoes to wear” is a common expression for making an employee’s life difficult in little ways.