I was just telling a story, why is the whole internet urging me to turn myself in?

Hidden Culture Media Studio, 68th Floor, Shanghai World Financial Center.

Shen Feng tossed his phone aside, forcibly ignoring Su Qing's WeChat message about "having coffee."

He has more important things to do now—expand his team.

Since the decision has been made to make the company bigger and stronger, it is obviously not enough to rely on Xiaoyu, an underage hacker, and two Russian muscle men who only know physical exorcism.

He needs proper content planning and new media operations. Most importantly, he needs a professional legal counsel to ensure that every step he takes is within the absolute safety zone of the law.

"Boss, the job postings have been sent to all the major job search websites and headhunting firms." Xiaoyu sat in front of a screen full of code, typing furiously on the keyboard. "The salary offered is three times the industry average, plus the IP popularity our studio is currently experiencing across the internet..."

Xiao Yu swallowed hard, staring at the frantically fluctuating data in the system: "In ten minutes, we received 23,000 resumes. The system is almost overwhelmed."

"Very good. Filter out all those with falsified academic credentials, frequent job hopping, or any record of illegal or disciplinary violations. The rest, notify them to come for an interview tomorrow morning." Shen Feng nodded in satisfaction.

The next morning at nine o'clock, the waiting area of ​​the Grade A office building was packed with people.

Shen Feng sat in his spacious chairman's office, facing a huge mahogany desk. However, he had made some "minor adjustments" to the office's layout overnight.

He moved the leather boss's chair, which originally faced the door, to the floor-to-ceiling window, while the single sofa reserved for the interviewees was placed abruptly in the center of the office.

The first person to walk in was a young man who had graduated from a prestigious university, dressed in a suit and exuding confidence.

He walked straight to the armchair, sat down without hesitation, and positioned himself with his back to the office door.

"Hello Mr. Shen, I am..."

"You're eliminated. Next." Shen Feng looked down at his phone, not even lifting his eyelids.

The young man was stunned: "Mr. Shen, I haven't even started introducing myself yet..."

"The door is behind me. I won't see you out," Shen Feng said calmly.

More than a dozen people came in one after another.

Some people plopped down with their backs to the door; some felt the sofa was awkwardly positioned and tried to move it, but ultimately, out of "politeness," they forced themselves to stay in their original spots; and some simply stood up.

Without exception, all of them were eliminated by Shen Feng within ten seconds.

Standing to the side as his assistant, Xiao Yu was completely bewildered. Finally, he couldn't help but lower his voice and ask, "Master, what exactly are you interviewing? That Harvard Law School master's graduate had such an impressive resume, and you rejected him without even looking at it?"

Shen Feng picked up his thermos and took a sip of goji berry water. He said in a matter-of-fact tone, "What's the use of an impressive resume? I don't want obedient assembly line machines. I want people with a sense of crisis and who know how to protect themselves."

He pointed to the sofa: "Entering a completely unfamiliar environment, not even caring about the blind spot behind them, or suppressing their instinct to adjust their distance for the sake of so-called workplace etiquette. If such a person encounters an emergency, they won't even know how they died, let alone help the company avoid risks."

Shen Feng was simply afraid of attracting a group of clueless newbies to the workplace, who might then get involved in some legal trouble and implicate him.

However, the words were transmitted word for word to the defense department's monitoring and command vehicle in the underground parking garage downstairs via a miniature microphone hidden in the ventilation duct.

Su Qing, who was wearing monitoring headphones, suddenly narrowed her eyes.

"He's screening for his own kind!" Su Qing said sharply to the recorder beside him. "Write this down! The target is undergoing extreme psychological stress tests to select special talents with counter-surveillance awareness and adaptability to high-pressure environments! He's not recruiting operations personnel; he's building the core of a high-IQ criminal network!"

The defense agents in the monitoring vehicle looked at each other, feeling a chill run from their feet to their heads.

Meanwhile, in the office on the 68th floor, the interviews had already progressed to the third round.

The door was pushed open, and a middle-aged man who looked to be in his early forties walked in.

He wore a faded jacket, had a buzz cut, and his eyes were sharp yet carried an undeniable air of weariness.

The moment the man entered the office, he didn't rush to look at Shen Feng. Instead, his gaze swept across the smoke detector on the ceiling and the blind spot of the floor-to-ceiling window like radar, finally landing on the awkward single sofa.

He frowned slightly, but instead of sitting down, he walked straight to the sofa, lifted the heavy solid wood sofa with one hand, and dragged it a meter to the right, placing it in a corner position where he could see the door clearly and where there was a solid load-bearing wall behind him.

After doing all this, he sat down steadily and looked directly at Shen Feng: "Mr. Shen, my name is Xu Zhengyang. I am applying for the position of legal specialist or security supervisor."

Shen Feng finally looked away from his phone and focused his gaze on Xu Zhengyang.

In Shen Feng's view, every subtle movement of Xu Zhengyang was slowed down by 0.2 times.

He sat upright with his feet slightly turned outward, a tactical stance that could be unleashed at any moment; his right hand seemed to be casually resting on his thigh, but his index finger was unconsciously curled slightly—a muscle memory left from years of pulling the trigger.

Shen Feng narrowed his eyes, and his aura of authority silently spread out.

"Your resume says you used to run a building materials business, but you went bankrupt?" Shen Feng tapped his long, slender fingers lightly on the table.

Xu Zhengyang felt as if the air around him had suddenly become thick, and his heart was pounding uncontrollably, but he forced himself to remain calm and nodded: "Yes, business is tough, I lost some money."

"lie."

Shen Feng uttered two words without any mercy, leaning forward slightly: "Your left shoulder is 1.5 centimeters lower than your right shoulder. This is a slight bone deformity caused by wearing a holster under your arm for a long time. When you came in just now, your gaze lingered on the poster of the anti-riot off-road vehicle for 0.5 seconds, but your pupils did not dilate, which means you are very familiar with special equipment."

"Most importantly..." Shen Feng's lips curled into a half-smile, "When you answered the question just now, your Adam's apple bobbed, and your right toe unconsciously pointed out the door. This is a typical stress-induced avoidance mentality."

Shen Feng leaned back in his chair, looking down at him condescendingly: "You were a defense officer, and a frontline criminal investigator. You're not here today for a job; you're here to ask someone for a favor."

boom!

Xu Zhengyang was struck dumb, his expression changing drastically.

Faced with that terrifying insight that seemed to strip away all his secrets, he almost instinctively reached his right hand towards his left armpit!

That was where he used to carry his gun!

But the next second, a large, fan-like hand silently pressed down on his shoulder.

Grizzly, the Russian bodyguard who had been standing in the shadows, had appeared behind Xu Zhengyang like a ghost. If Xu Zhengyang moved even slightly, Grizzly's strength, enough to crush tempered glass, would instantly dislocate his arm.

"Don't be nervous. Like I said, we're a law-abiding, legitimate company." Shen Feng waved his hand, signaling Grizzly to step back. "So, what case are you trying to investigate after going through all this trouble to sneak into my interview?"

Xu Zhengyang was panting heavily, his back soaked with cold sweat. Looking at the unfathomable young man before him, he finally understood why everyone in the underworld addressed him as "Master".

This kind of psychological crushing, like a dimensional reduction attack, is simply beyond human capabilities!

Xu Zhengyang gritted his teeth, as if he had made up his mind, and took out a yellowed photograph from his pocket and pushed it in front of Shen Feng.

"Four years ago, at the Jiangzhou Chengnan Branch, the case of auxiliary police officer Zhang Wei's disappearance. Internal file number: J-2019-0414." Xu Zhengyang's voice was terribly hoarse. "The official ruling was that he accidentally drowned while intoxicated. But I know... he was silenced."

Upon hearing the number, Xiao Yu, who was standing to the side, paused for a moment, then immediately began typing rapidly on the keyboard.

"Zhang Wei was my apprentice. He never drinks, not a drop!" Xu Zhengyang's eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at Shen Feng. "Three days before he disappeared, he had just helped organize a batch of evidence in a 'flour' transaction case. He secretly told me that the ledgers in the evidence room were incorrect; two pages were missing!"

"I told him to leave it alone, that I would report it to my superiors. But on the third day… his body was found rotting in a stinking ditch on the outskirts of the city!"

Shen Feng suddenly thought of a possibility: "Unless, there are high-ranking officials within the Defense Agency who are tipping them off, or even involved in the double-crossing and profit-sharing!"