It was undoubtedly a pleasant morning.

Humming a local tune that he couldn't even name, Li Mengnan followed the crowd to the bus that slowly stopped next to the platform.

If it is really a happy event, even the sound of coin flipping that used to be monotonous and boring sounds so pleasant today.

Of course, as a national sport in China that integrates sprinting, sumo wrestling, long jump, rings, sanda, yoga, balance beam and other sports, crowding the bus itself is not so pleasant, especially during the morning and evening rush hour.

Those who are pregnant have miscarriages, those who are not pregnant are pregnant, girls go in, women come out, chrysanthemums go in, sunflowers come out, this is not just a funny joke on the Internet.

Even a rest day like today may not be much better, looking at the aunts and uncles who are full of cars and rushing to the supermarket early to grab special prices, big bags and small bags standing next to them shivering, a dying posture, regardless of whether it is true or not, can you be embarrassed not to give up a seat? In case one of the ancestors sees that you are not pleasing to the eye, rolls his eyes and lies down beside you, yes, there will be many fathers who need to be honored in this life.

Li Mengnan felt that the family should indeed have a car, not only for the sake of the physical and mental health of the two girls in the family, but also for the sake of his wallet.

Keeping a car is much cheaper than raising a "dad".

When you think of cars, you naturally think of your father...... seems to be very strange thinking logic, except for Li Mengnan, it is estimated that only those rich second generations who make money by opening their mouths will have this strange brain circuit.

It is said that he has not been in contact with his father Li Hongming for a while, although his stepmother Ding Linglong and two elementary school students may not welcome his visit, but after all, there is such a nominal kinship, and it will inevitably make people find fault if he does not appear.

After going to the HX Research Institute to report to the Tao, it is time to bring some gifts to Ding's house to sit down.

This is called courtesy, and what Chinese people pay attention to is face.

As a special department specializing in dealing with paranormal events across the country, the HX Institute is the kind of organization that sounds extremely high-level at first glance, but in fact it is very down-to-earth.

The so-called Sanshan City branch is actually a place similar to the contact point of a company's office in a certain place, of course, it is not as shabby as only two or three desks, but it is definitely far from the high-tech underground secret base in Li Mengnan's imagination similar to the movie "Men in Black".

God knows what that futuristic holographic projection was all about last time, maybe it was just a place for the HX Institute to tighten their belts and save money to put a B on the rookie rookie?

Li Mengnan speculated maliciously.

This is a large warehouse that looks quite a bit vicissitudes, located in a closed factory in the west of Sanshan City, the whole is still built with green bricks, and I don't know whether it is an old building left over from the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China.

Fortunately, although the appearance is old, the inside has been modernized, the air conditioning and computers are readily available, and the decoration seems to have been specially designed, which is quite a kind of post-modern art style.

As soon as Li Mengnan walked into the big iron gate covered with graffiti, he saw the iconic pink beautiful girl pickup truck of Euonymus, not to mention, the bells and whistles placed outside were not so dazzling here.

"Hahaha, you've finally found this place!"

Euonymus appeared on the second platform facing the gate in the warehouse in the background music like a holy song, still dressed in the same otaku atmosphere.

This time, the pattern on the cotton T-shirt on the chest is the island style in "The Ship Girl", or the mid-break version of the popping shirt, which is as obscene as ever.

"What's going on with your final boss-like appearance and speech? Don't sue me for saving the princess......"

Li Mengnan stood below with his face raised, trying his best to focus on the little fat chubby figure in the pattern on the chest of the euonymus, and no one would want to look at the hairy Hawaiian pants of a bearded uncle.

"There's one here, princess, but people definitely don't need you to save it."

The euonymus ran down with a puff of smoke on the handrail, and the unfashionable flip-flops crackled on the steel staircase.

Li Mengnan couldn't help but make up a picture of "the slippers flying down the sky, and the shoes falling and the people dying", but this week's Stephen movie-like nonsensical scene did not happen.

"You're in a chic location."

The warehouse is divided into two floors by a steel frame, with tempered glass as a wall, a small basketball court reserved in front, and a swimming pool excavated in the back.

"Anyway, the place is big, and if you don't put anything on it, it always feels empty." Euonymus opened the refrigerator and took out two cans of bottled coffee, put them in a glass and put them in the microwave to heat them, handed Li Mengnan a cup, and said with a smile: "I only have all kinds of convenience food here, don't you mind?" ”

"If you really dare to give me a whole table full of Han, I still have to consider whether it will be dark cuisine."

Li Mengnan doesn't think that an otaku can have any good skills, even if it is an old otaku.

"I like the straightforwardness with which you speak." Euonymus raised his glass and laughed.

Although it is an office location, it feels more like a holiday villa for Li Mengnan here, and there are not many office equipment, but there are a lot of entertainment facilities, and there is even a specially opened audio-visual game room, almost a hundred inches on the projection screen, and a certain suspected animation is playing at the moment.

"You're too idle here, aren't you? What about the others? Since Li Mengnan came in, he saw that Euonymus was busy alone, and the huge warehouse was surprisingly deserted.

Wei Mao smiled, as if he expected Li Mengnan to ask this question sooner or later.

"How many people do you think there should be here?"

"Why, there should be a dozen or twenty, right?" Li Mengnan visually measured the size of the entire office area, squinted at the euonymus and said, "You don't want to tell me about the distribution of the so-called HX Research Institute in Sanshan City, in fact, there are only two people, you and me, right?" ”

"No, not that little." Euonymus raised three fingers, "It's three, and there's a little princess who doesn't fit in very well, which usually only appears when a mandatory mission is issued." ”

"Trust me, you won't like her." Euonymus patted Li Mengnan on the shoulder, interrupting the question that had already reached his lips.

"Why do I suddenly feel like I'm on a thief ship?" Li Mengnan shook the coffee in the cup and smiled bitterly.

"I think you should think about it from a different perspective, at least this freewheeling atmosphere is relaxed, isn't it?" Euonymus glanced up at the wall clock on the wall and said, "It's time to eat, do you want to eat together?" ”

"Are you an invitation to breakfast or lunch?"

It's only 10 a.m.

"Does it matter? Since ancient times, the meaning of food storage zài has been to fill the stomach, not to count time, isn't it? ”

Li Mengnan rolled his eyes, and said bluntly when he was hungry, is it necessary to be so tactful?

But at least it does prove that the working atmosphere here is really freewheeling.

"Okay, so what should I do now?"

Li Mengnan decided to accept his fate, although this secret organization of only three people seemed very unreliable, but once he forced himself to accept this setting, he suddenly found that this was actually a good place.

Euonymus walked over with a steaming bowl of instant noodles — yes, instant noodles, what he called a delicacy, and it seemed to be an imported product that had come from across the ocean.

Li Mengnan was glad that he didn't agree to his invitation to eat just now, otherwise he would definitely be eating this thing now.

"Go out and turn right, next door to me is your office, there is a computer in it, I have entered the HX Institute staff code into it, you can see it when you turn it on."

Euonymus opened the two ham sausages, broke them into pieces with his hands and threw them into the instant noodle bowl, fastened the lid again, and placed the chopsticks horizontally on them.

Li Mengnan went out and turned into his office, which was an area of nearly 40 square meters, except for a computer and matching tables and chairs, the room was empty enough to run mice.

"I don't know what style of office you like, so I'll leave it empty for you, and you can get it yourself slowly, we have few people here, we don't pay so much attention to it, and we don't pursue a unified style...... Anyway, no matter how good it is, no one will come to check it. ”

Wei Mao leaned against the door with instant noodles and explained that he didn't want Li Mengnan to think that he was a leader who didn't care about his subordinates.

The computer is brand new and completely top-of-the-line on the market.

Li Mengnan took a special look, except for a few commonly used software in the system disk, the other disk letters did not even have a single byte of suspicious text, but Euonymus did not take the opportunity to pass on the text jiàn to stuff him with some messy private goods.

In the most prominent position on the desktop hangs a text document titled "Employee Notice".

There are a lot of words in it, but it can be summed up in a few sentences.

First, complete a self-selected task at least once a month.

Secondly, a mandatory assignment on an ad hoc basis may not be refused for any reason.

Thirdly, the final interpretation right belongs to HX Institute.

The content of a treaty with Chinese characteristics.

"Brother Wei, is there any difference between optional tasks and mandatory tasks?" After reading the entire text, Li Mengnan turned around and asked.

"The difference between the two is the level of danger." Euonymus squatted at the door and snorted and ate noodles, without raising his head, and said vaguely: "The specific division is a bit complicated, and this is also a matter of the headquarters, it has nothing to do with us...... You can understand it this way, it must be solved immediately, otherwise it will continue to cause personal injury, that is, mandatory tasks; And those who have already been controlled and can wait for their free hands to solve them are self-selected tasks. ”

Weimao recommended Li Mengnan to open a special task release software for the HX Research Institute on the desktop, and refer to the task information released by the headquarters above to better understand his explanation just now.

The user interface of this quest publishing software, which doesn't even have a name, is very user-friendly, and even though it is the first time to use it, Li Mengnan can roughly guess the corresponding meaning by the difference in guò icon, font size, and color.

The HX Institute implements a regional head system, and each branch is responsible for all paranormal events in the corresponding area, and only when it is not resolved for a long period of time, it will be displayed on the task panel of the other regional leaders, becoming a public task that anyone can take over.

However, Li Mengnan did not see the legendary mandatory quest on the quest panel, according to Euonymus, this is a normal situation, after all, this kind of quest appears quickly and solves quickly, and it is rare to hang on the quest panel for a long time.

Once there is a mandatory task that has been hanging on the homepage for more than a week, it will definitely be an unimaginable event.

All of the tasks displayed on the task panel at the moment are self-selected tasks, arranged in a row-by-line manner according to color.

The top task is a blue font, followed by four green fonts, followed by a clear white font.

Judging from the mission records over the years, blue is only a medium difficulty mission, and there are three levels of purple, red, and gold on top of it.

It's like the equipment level setting of an online game, cliché, but it's clear at a glance.

"You don't need to look at the blue-level tasks now, young people don't be too ambitious, it's best to accumulate some experience from the most basic white-letter tasks...... Believe me, the headquarters does this kind of color grade typography, not just for the sake of good looks. ”

Euonymus snorted and even drank the noodle soup, burped contentedly, and said to Li Mengnan kindly.

There are about 20 white-letter missions accumulated on the task panel, and the content is basically the same - a paranormal event has occurred in a certain place, several witnesses, and the area is now sealed and waiting to be solved.

"Brother Wei, what is the number behind this mission?"

Li Mengnan noticed that almost every task was followed by a set of small tails with varying values, ranging from tens of thousands to thousands.

"Have you watched Dragon Ball?" Euonymus lowered his voice and pretended to be mysterious.

"You're saying that this set of numbers represents combat effectiveness?" Li Mengnan was surprised.

"No, it's a mission bounty."

“……”

Li Mengnan didn't think this joke was funny, but he couldn't stand the joke of the euonymus guy below the altitude.

Solving supernatural events is a high-risk job, and it is obviously unrealistic to expect a guaranteed salary of a few thousand yuan per month to make people die. As a non-governmental organization, the HX Institute cannot enjoy financial allocations within the system, so paying to solve paranormal events has become the most feasible and circular development direction.

Due to the special nature of paranormal events, there is no fixed price list for the task bounty, and the number given on the mission panel is only a reference price quoted by the owner, and the final transaction price often needs to be further negotiated.

Therefore, there is actually a difference between fat and thin for tasks of the same difficulty level.

This may be one of the original intentions of formulating the system of regional heads, otherwise everyone will focus on those tasks that are of low difficulty and high in oil, and there will inevitably be extremely strict internal strife.

"You kid is very lucky, the princess of our Three Mountains Branch almost never touches these low-level tasks that are not challenging, if you change to other branches, a newcomer like you will not be able to afford so many oily tasks."

Euonymus patted Li Mengnan on the shoulder, with an expression of "you have taken advantage of it".

"What kind of person is that 'princess' you always mention?" Hearing Weimao mention this person several times, Li Mengnan couldn't help but feel a little curious.

From the subtle change in Euonymus's expression when he spoke, Li Mengnan could see that Euonymus had great respect for this "princess".