Translator: _Min_ Editor: Caron_
A large number of tourists and immigrants flooding into Xin led to many unfamiliar faces filling the streets. Not only did foreigners bring their bills, but they also brought crime, drugs and even terrorism.
The warm tropical climate made it easy for people to become complacent. Xin had a police force of 50 before, but the stable Xin didn’t experience a lot of crime. Now, with their door opened to internationals, the Xin government had to introduce three changes.
The police force increased to 200 people, added five police helicopters and twenty police vehicles from Australia, in addition to delegating Celestial Trade to form a national security bureau.
The first two changes were meant to target typical criminals, but the last one was to fill the void in the national security protection of Xin.
Xin must have its own intelligence department.
And Jiang Chen clearly wanted to have a part in forming it himself.
The newly formed intelligence department was named the National Security Bureau of Xin. It would remain independent of Celestial’s management structure and directly report to Jiang Chen. As for the director position, after careful deliberation, Jiang Chen chose Ayesha.
When it came to her abilities or loyalty, Jiang Chen had no doubt.
“The director of national security?”
At the dinner table, when Jiang Chen proposed this, Ayesha looked at him, perplexed.
“Mhm. Xin must form its own national security department, and I want you to be the director,” Jiang Chen said with seriousness.
Ayesha was hesitant.
“But I want to stay with you.”
“Being a director doesn’t mean you have to be far away from me.”
Although Jiang Chen said this, Ayesha still had some concerns. She liked the life she had now without the need to appear in public frequently. She only needed to cook for her husband, drive for him when needed, and occasionally visit his parents…
“But I can’t manage people,” Ayesha said in a small voice.
That is a concern…
It was just like how a great athlete may not be a great coach, and the best coach may not be the best athlete. Ayesha’s individual combat, reconnaissance, and anti-reconnaissance abilities were all strong, but she might not be able to manage an agent force equally well. Especially since she wasn’t good at communicating with people, that would prove to be a significant obstacle to her being a leader.
Jiang Chen began to reconsider while scratching his chin.
Ayesha looked disappointed because she couldn’t help Jiang Chen, but Jiang Chen quickly came up with a good solution.
“How about this – could you help me train a group of agents?”
Ayesha deliberated for a moment before nodding.
“If it’s just training, I can do that.”
“Okay then.” Jiang Chen snapped his fingers. “I will post the hiring information on Celestial’s website. After the deadline, help me pick 100 applicants with potential and train them to become qualified agents. Once training ends, you can choose a talented individual to become the director. Can you do that?”
Ayesha agreed. It wasn’t that hard.
That afternoon, Jiang Chen sought out the logistics manager, Barkary, and explained the hiring information to him. But to Jiang Chen’s proposal for posting it online, Barkary brought up one concern.
“It might not be secure to post it online – there may be other agents hiding among the agents we end up hiring. Unless we can investigate the background of every applicant, it’s hard to prevent something like this from happening. I propose that we do the hiring process by approaching people in person.”
Take MI6 for example – their hiring process at top university campuses was done by patting people on the shoulder. Usually, university professors working for the intelligence service would scout candidates then ask students to come in for a talk. If students were interested, they could join MI6 or they could choose to reject.
Although this selection method was highly secure, the efficiency was lackluster. Jiang Chen refused to spend two to three years to select 50 agents.
“Don’t worry, I have my own method of investigating their background.”
[Funny, what secret cannot be revealed by truth-telling serum? Even senior KGB agents won’t be able to withstand interrogation that way.]
Seeing Jiang Chen’s explanation, Barkary didn’t try to convince him further. He knew his boss had a lot of secrets unknown to him or methods he had yet to disclose to uncover people’s backgrounds. He didn’t need to be curious; he only needed to do his part of the job.
Just like that, an interesting, or rather, a suspicious hiring post appeared on Facebook and Twitter.
<Do you want to do something meaningful? Do you want to escape a dull and routine life?>
Under these tempting words was a line of distinct red words, as well as a picture of the beautiful tropical island.
<Salary of ten thousand USD per month, and a plane ticket to the new world.>
The description of the position was as follows:
“You must be acute in your observations and remember every detail you encounter.”
“You will frequently drive day and night, and you must be able to calmly maneuver any kind of road conditions.”
“You must be able to use only a tourist map to freely traverse between two points in a foreign country.”
“This job is prone to unexpected changes. Therefore, you must be able to make the best choice in the shortest time.”
“Because of job demands, you may not be able to contact your family for a prolonged period of time. Before you accept this job, please carefully consider this.”
“If you have thought everything through, please join us.”
“Perhaps you will be the next 007!”
The posting also explained the number of people required.
The number of positions was 100-150.
The applicants had to be adults with complete civil capabilities. Males must not exceed a height of 185 cm while females must not exceed a height of 177 cm because taller people would be more conspicuous in a crowd, thus harder to disguise.
No alcohol or drug addictions.
Applicants with IT knowledge were preferred.
After the applicants finished inputting their information, there was an additional test.
The test was comprised of three games: finding a difference, audio, and reaction speed.
Finding the difference tested for observational skills – applicants must find the discrepancies between two almost identical pictures in one minute.
The audio test looked not at language ability, but rather the filtering of information. For example, one question was: “Eight people got on the bus, five people got off at the first stop, then nine people got on two stops later…” Once the problem was done, the question asked how many times the bus stopped and how many people got on the second time. If the applicants only focused on how many people were left on the bus, then unfortunately, they were cut.
The reaction speed test was pretty straightforward – it required playing against a fighting team to determine how high the applicants could score in reaction speed.
After the three games were completed, the applicant’s information and test result would be sent to Celestial Trade. Applicants would only need to wait for one week before they received a response.
If they were hired, the applicants would receive a corresponding email with a ticket to Coro Island.
Then came the benefits.
Agents in training would receive a salary of ten thousand USD per month. After 80 days of highly intensive training, the salary would increase to fifteen thousand USD without the need to pay income tax. Even in developed countries, this was a generous salary.
An “exciting and wild” experience and a competitive salary.
Just like Jiang Chen expected, the posting was only open for two days on social media before Celestial Trade received over one thousand applications. And this number grew exponentially in the next few days.
