Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Coming out of the counseling room, I was no longer a simple service window clerk.

I was a walking urban Bluetooth receiver.

As long as a non-human relationship subject entered a thirty-meter radius, my brain would automatically connect to their resentment.

Take the second case, for example: Yue Lao requested to terminate his labor contract with the Red Thread Group.

Yue Lao himself was completely different from what I had imagined.

He wasn’t a white-bearded old man, but a young man wearing overalls with two dark circles under his eyes. Dragged behind him was a massive, tangled mess of red thread that looked like a bunch of knotted earphone cables.

“I’m quitting,” was the first thing he said as he sat down.

The representative for the Red Thread Group was a printer.

It was carried in by two security guards. Once plugged in, it began clacking away, spitting out paper.

The paper read: *Termination denied. The position of Yue Lao is irreplaceable. Annual KPI not met. User complaint rate rising.*

I asked Yue Lao, “What are the complaints about?”

Yue Lao sneered. “They say I’m tying them up randomly.”

The printer immediately spat out a stack of case files.

Case One: Ms. Wang and a fitness coach. The female party complained: *He only loves his own muscles.*

Case Two: Mr. Liu and a colleague. The male party complained: *She treats dating like writing a weekly work report.*

Case Three: Mx. Zhao and an ex. Both parties complained: *Why did we get back together?*

Yue Lao pointed at the stack of papers, so angry that the red threads behind him started flying about wildly.

“They’re lonely, stubborn, greedy, and afraid, and in the end, they blame it all on the thread being tied poorly. A thread is just a thread; it’s not a brain!”

I understood him perfectly.

We at the service window were often scolded too.

Some people would get into a fight after getting their marriage certificate and come back to ask if it was a quality control issue with the certificate itself.

I asked the printer, “What are the Red Thread Group’s demands?”

The printer spat out paper: *Continue labor. Increase order dispatch. Expand business into pets, gaming accounts, and smart home appliances.*

Yue Lao slammed the table. “It tried to make me tie a thread between a robot vacuum and an entryway mat last week! It said users love anthropomorphic marketing!”

I looked at the printer.

The printer’s lights blinked innocently.

The paper read: *The Internet of Everything; Love without borders.*

Just then, the woman’s voice in my head rang out again.

Human World said, “Red threads weren’t originally used for matchmaking.”

My pen stopped on my notepad.

“Then what were they for?”

“They were to help those who had wandered off find their way back home.”

I looked up at Yue Lao.

He had heard it too, and his eyes suddenly turned red.

“Right,” he said. “In the beginning, when someone went on a long journey, their family would tie a red thread on the threshold. It wasn’t to tie them down; it was to tell them that there was a place waiting for their return.”

The printer fell silent for two seconds before it continued spitting out paper.

*New business proposals: Nostalgia Recall, Old Dream Repurchase, Ex-Partner Awakening.*

Yue Lao reached his limit. He stuffed a wad of red thread into the printer’s paper exit.

The printer began to scream with a sound like a hundred thousand staplers clamping down on a finger at once.

A warning popped up from the System: *Mediation failure will trigger a random rearrangement of marriages.*

My vision went dark.

“How ‘random’ are we talking?”

Director Luo poked her head in from outside the door. “During the last trial run, the mayor got engaged to a Money Tree.”

I couldn’t fail.

I took a deep breath and picked up a pair of scissors.

Yue Lao’s expression shifted. “You’re going to cut the threads?”

“Not cut them off,” I said. “I’m going to categorize them by use.”

I divided the red threads behind him into three piles.

One pile was called the Love Thread-voluntary binding, dissolvable at any time.

One pile was called the Homeward Thread-responsible only for helping people remember where they came from.

The last pile was called the Warning Thread-specifically for blocking relationships that should never begin.

The printer’s lights flashed frantically, as if it were calculating a new business model.

I immediately added, “Sale is prohibited, advertising is prohibited, and ‘checked by default’ is prohibited.”

The printer suffered a paper jam.

Yue Lao stared at the three piles of thread for a long time without speaking.

Finally, he slowly took off his work badge and handed it to the printer.

“I’m not going to be a matchmaker anymore.”

The printer was just about to spit out a rejection notice.

Yue Lao picked up the pile of Homeward Threads and tied one around his own wrist.

“I’m going to be a Wayfinder.”

The System displayed: *Mediation successful.*

*Progress: 2/108.*

Before I could even breathe a sigh of relief, a loud crash echoed from the main hall.

Someone was roaring on the first floor, “I want to sue my wife!”

I rushed downstairs and saw an Azure Dragon coiled in the waiting area, his tail wrapped around the ticket machine.

He said furiously, “She complained that I have no sense of boundaries when it rains!”

The ticket machine screen displayed: *A003, Dragon King of the East Sea sues Plum Rain Season for mental abuse.*

I turned around, wanting to go back upstairs and jump out a window.

Director Luo pressed a hand on my shoulder. “Xiao Jiang, I can get your meal supplement approved up to twenty-five yuan.”