"So you really are a famous fashion designer," said Masha.
Shelley rolled her eyes, then she turned to Gui Gui: "Gui Gui, your designs are basically based on intuition. It can be seen that you have not received any systematic fashion design education, but you are very talented. I suggest that if you want to go the path of fashion design, it is best to start from scratch and learn professional knowledge now."
Guigui's expression was very subtle.
Masha clapped her hands and said, "Well, from now on, you will be the one teaching Guigui these things."
"What?" Shelley looked at Masha in confusion.
"You are here to teach Gui Gui these knowledge. I am the store manager and you are my employee. I order you to stay after closing time to teach Gui Gui for an hour and a half, until 9:30. This is considered overtime, and I will give you three times the hourly wage. You start work at 9 . and leave at 8 . now, so you will lose your blessings."
Shelley stared at Masha with an expression as if he was afraid of something terrible.
Masha was very confused. He even turned his head to look behind him, but he didn't find anything behind him that could make Shelley look like that.
But this expression quickly disappeared from Shelley's face.
"I have to report to my superiors. This is not something I can decide on my own," she said.
Only then did Marsha remember that this girl was a female spy. After getting along with her for more than a week, he almost treated Shelley as his own and usually forgot about it.
"Okay, go and ask for instructions." This was all he could answer, feeling a little disappointed.
**
That evening, Joint Surveillance Center, British floor, W's office.
After listening to Shelley's report today, W stood up and paced back and forth in the room.
"Interesting. A week ago, the maid shop was heavily guarded after closing. There would be two people on the second floor monitoring the streets in front and behind the shop. Now they are actively asking you to stay after closing... What do you think is the reason for this?"
"Me?" Shelley asked.
"You are a little absent-minded. This is not good. For a spy, absent-mindedness often leads to mission failure and one's own death."
"I... I'm sorry. I'll cheer myself up." Shelley took a deep breath and then returned to his capable appearance. "I said in my previous daily report that he is a shrewd strategist. He will remain dormant until he is fully prepared. He has definitely completed his preparations before making this request to me."
Shelley paused, as if collecting his thoughts.
W waited patiently.
Soon, she spoke again: "I have been observing him these days, and he treated me as his own. Other people in the store were also very friendly to me under his influence. When I rejected his request for 'overtime', he looked really disappointed. I think he has been inflicting memetic contamination on me these days. Today, he judged that I had been corrupted enough, so he asked me to work overtime. Then he found out that I was not contaminated, so he unconsciously revealed a disappointed expression."
W nodded slightly.
Shelley continued: "He also mentioned blessings, and based on the way he has been tainting me these days, I think this is also a meme. Once I am tainted, I will really regard working in his store as a blessing."
"What a horrible plot." W exclaimed.
"So, I can't go to work overtime." Shelley said firmly, "To be honest, it's already hard for me to resist their continuous offensive. If I go, I... I'm not sure if I can still maintain myself."
"I understand. Then, with my authority, I agree that you don't have to work overtime." W nodded gently. "You've done a good job. Take a good rest and don't push yourself too hard. By the way, a new psychology team has arrived. They will make a more comprehensive assessment of your condition. Don't worry, we will protect you."
Shelley nodded: "Then I'll go first."
She left the room.
Chapter 306 Britain needs everyone to do their duty
As soon as Shelley left, the secret door in the room opened.
Mr. W said to the man coming out of the secret door, "I can't believe it, Q, she didn't realize that this little compartment was created today through visual deviation."
Q sighed, "She's in a very bad state. Although the details of her condition will have to wait until a complete psychological evaluation is completed, I think we should withdraw her from this mission."
Q came in front of W, pulled over a chair and sat down, looking at his old friend across the table.
"After she withdraws from this mission, she will not get the opportunity to participate in other missions, nor will she receive training from the Special Air Service and the Royal Boat Service. She can only survive as a talented fashion designer."
Q's words made W look tired.
"Perhaps this is the best outcome for her. Many years ago, when I found her in East London, she was a child from a poor family living in public housing. She had a bleak future ahead of her and her talent would be tarnished."
"I remember she once won a prize at a children's painting exhibition?" Q asked.
"Yes, it was that painting that led me to find her, but she could no longer learn painting due to her family's financial situation. At that time, I felt that such a child should not be buried by poverty."
Q nodded. "No one should be buried in poverty. Speaking of which, there was once a theory of the welfare state that was short-lived. If the world government had not been working hard to squeeze the productivity of the world in order to cope with the revival of spiritual energy, the theory might have become mainstream."
"Humph, isn't that theory being well implemented in our neighboring country across the strait? How can you say that this theory is short-lived?" W teased. No matter what time it is, teasing the French always makes the British happy. Then W changed the subject and said, "Now, she has her own funds, has extremely high artistic attainments, and her works have been recognized by the world. My goal has been achieved. Training her to be an agent is just accidentally discovering her talent to become an agent, and then doing it for the sake of convenience."
After saying that, both of them fell silent, as if thinking about something.
After five minutes, Q asked, "How corrupted do you think she is?"
"It has not yet been confirmed that the King in Yellow possesses memetic abilities."
"In your words," Q paused, staring at his old friend, "'Tell me something that can't be written in the report.'"
W thought for a moment and replied, "She is very happy these days. This is the only thing I am very sure of. After becoming an agent, she is rarely this happy. Most of the time, I feel that she is always urged by a sense of mission, eager to take one step further. I have always wanted to solve this problem, but now, the King in Yellow seems to have helped me solve it."
"You mean, she..."
"I only said that she is very happy recently." W emphasized, "The rest will have to wait for the evaluation of the psychology team. My opinion is still the same as before. The inference that the King in Yellow has the ability to cause memetic contamination cannot be accepted until solid evidence is obtained."
Q shook his head: "Your opinion will not be supported. Even I will not support your judgment. We can't afford such a risk."
At this time there was a knock on the door.
"Come in." said W.
An agent came in and said, "Shelley's psychological evaluation is complete for today."
"Give me."
W extends his hand.
The agent came in immediately and handed him the report.
W looked through the report carefully.
"The possibility of being implanted with suggestions: low. Very good." After saying this, W fell silent, his eyes moved downward, and his face became gloomy.
After roughly flipping through the report, he waved to the agent who was still waiting for instructions, and after the agent left, he threw the report on the table.
Q immediately took the report and started reading it.
Because it was a brief assessment in the evening, the report was short and could be read in a flash - and then Q curled his lips.
"It's unclear whether memetic contamination exists, and the possibility of implanted suggestion is very low, but apparently the person in charge of the assessment believes that she has indeed been influenced by some external forces." Q looked at his old friend, "It's not too late to remove her from the mission now."
W picked up the phone on the table and called Ms. M.
However, Ms. M’s answer was direct:
"We always need a girl for this mission, we don't have a smaller female agent than her, 'Britain needs everyone to do their duty'."
Then the other party hung up the phone.
W put down the phone and looked at his old friend.
"How was it?" Q asked, but his expression showed that he had already guessed the ending.
W replied: "Britain needs everyone to do their duty, Ms. M quoted Nelson's famous words."
"That can't be helped. After all, Nelson." Q stood up and said, "I still have work to do and I need to leave Greater China. When this is over and we return to London, we can have a nice drink."
**
Chen Zhongwu entered the monitoring room with an apple and a fruit knife and asked, "Anything new today?"
"We used an insect robot to install a wired eavesdropping device in the British boss' office, and we just heard some very exciting news." The agent in charge of monitoring looked excited. "The British seem to think that their female agents have been contaminated by the King in Yellow meme."
Chen Zhongwu raised his eyebrows, cut a piece of apple and put it in his mouth, chewing and saying: "The King in Yellow has this ability? We didn't know it."
"We clearly discussed this, Chentou, the day when the Yellow King gave a speech at his own school."
"Have you discussed it? Oh, it seems that we have discussed it. But that's just our guess. No one is really so stupid as to think that this is really the case, right? The appeal of his speech at that time came from his manuscript itself and his expressiveness during the speech. He could touch so many people without any memetic contamination."
"That's true, but we heard that the UK is seriously discussing the Yellow King's memetic pollution ability. Look, this is the recording file."
"I believe you did hear what the British said. Remember to back up the recording files more often, especially the physical backup. By the way, don't forget to submit it to the higher authorities online." After saying that, Chen Zhongwu left the monitoring room while peeling an apple and eating it.
**
Johnny tossed the tablet to Ben. "Take a look. The first detailed report on the surveillance operation so far. Just arrived."
Ben held the tablet computer in his hands as if it were a mobile phone. He swiped the screen carefully, as if he was afraid of breaking it if he used too much force.
Johnny sat down at the table, picked up an apple from the fruit platter on the table, took a bite, and said as he ate, "This report confirms my guess that the King in Yellow is expanding his influence and establishing a channel to spread memes on a large scale. The activity of throwing people must be an experiment he conducted to confirm whether his ability can work through live broadcast."
"Then he found that it did work." Ben took over the conversation. "He did this test probably because the previous use of speeches to spread memes was not effective."
"Yes. So I think the situation is becoming clear. The King in Yellow is busy establishing his own meme dissemination channels. He certainly doesn't want to attract the attention of the World Government. Even if he was attacked by the CIA, he would not do such a thing as sending Langley into space and writing in the Sahara. Someone is framing him and trying to use the World Government to destroy his plan."
"So, the Shadow Organization saw through the Yellow King's purpose earlier than us?" Ben asked.
"Definitely. From this we can conclude that the Shadow Organization has probably been established for quite a long time. By the way, I think this organization itself should not be called Shadow. It was created by him to frame the Yellow King."
"Then why not just write 'The King in Yellow' in the Sahara."
"Because if the King in Yellow wants to claim responsibility for Langley Heaven, he only needs to make a phone call to the local district. It doesn't make sense to write about the King in Yellow in Sahara, so we will suspect someone else. Anyway, next, we have to focus on investigating the Shadow Organization - let's call them that for now."
Ben: "How can I help?"
"No, actually I can't help. This should be the job of those professional agents. We are only responsible for analyzing the intelligence they send us. Of course, if you have time, we can discuss my latest invention..."
Chapter 307: Dig deep holes and store up food. Huh? (Fourth update)
In the office, Qi Xiangwen and Gao Shun had just finished a routine VR meeting of the heads of various major regions. After taking off their VR glasses, they looked at the awakening trend chart of the past week on the big screen in the conference room.
The whole world is red, as if the red flag has been planted all over the world.
Unfortunately, red represents sudden awakening, and the darker the color, the more people awaken.
Amidst the vast red landscape, there are nine blue areas.
9 districts that had no sudden awakenings in the previous week.
"It almost looks like there are barriers in these nine places." Qi Xiangwen whispered, "And this is not the first time that a little blue has appeared in the red."
"This is the third time since Masha started messing with his maid shop, right?"
Gao Shun recalled and said.
Then the two old comrades fell into silence again.
After a while, Qi Xiangwen said, "Suppose that the barrier really exists, and there is something special about these nine places, so they are so stable. Wouldn't this be more convincing than simply using statistics and probability to explain it?"
"That depends on whether such a coincidence will happen again. We might as well ask the archives department to record these nine places, and then pay special attention to whether these nine places are in the state of a little blue in the midst of a sea of red when summarizing the weekly report."
"Well, this is possible." Qi Xiangwen nodded.
Gao Shun continued, "However, there are exactly nine places, which really makes people imagine. Maybe these nine places are where the Nine Cauldrons are.
"Think about it carefully. If there is a revival of spiritual energy, there should be a corresponding Dharma-Ending Age. Otherwise, why is it called a revival? Maybe the myths and legends of various countries are not what scholars say, that they come from the ancestors' reverence for nature, but are records of real gods and immortals. In the myths handed down from ancient times, the gods look almost the same as humans. But all the myths that the gods' behavior does not look like that of humans have only emerged in the last two or three thousand years."
Qi Xiangwen glanced at Gao Shun and said, "Old Captain, I didn't realize you knew all this."
"I used to be laughed at by you, my instructor, for being uneducated. Of course I have to catch up. A man should be treated with new eyes after three days of absence. It has been so many years since I last met him."
"That's not right," Qi Xiangwen shook his head, "When have I ever laughed at you, old company commander, for being uneducated?"
"At that time, I thought that you were making fun of me by reciting poems for no reason." Gao Shun laughed to himself after saying this.
Qi Xiangwen shrugged, turned his head and continued looking at the screen.
"Nine Cauldrons...myths and legends, the Dharma Ending Age..." He silently recited a few key words from what the old company commander had just said.
**
At this time, Masha was digging a hole.
Qianxun, Cai Shi and Gui Gui all followed behind him, ready to use their abilities to protect him at any time.
Of course, if the Youth League Secretary is not nearby, the use of her abilities will be noticed by the office, who will probably be very nagging afterwards, so Masha sincerely hopes that she will not encounter a situation where she has to ask the two girls to take action.
As for calling down the League Secretary, he didn't even consider it - without the League Secretary protecting him on the ground, Masha couldn't be at ease as "Simon the Digger".
Masha was banging the hammer in the front, Chihiro and Cai Shi were chatting with him in the back, and behind them was Guigui pushing a cart full of props like glow sticks.
Every time Guigui walked a certain distance, he would break off a glow stick and throw it on the ground. The entire route was filled with glow sticks thrown by Guigui, so even without a flashlight, one could find the way back.
"Tomorrow, Huahua and Hongye will move in, and this place will become even more lively." Cai Shi said, "Brother, are you planning to tell Huahua and Hongye the truth tomorrow?"
