Dude, something's really wrong with your abilities.

Chapter 67 Mid-Autumn Festival Performance

As soon as the notice for the Mid-Autumn Festival staff arts performance was issued, the entire bureau sprang into action.

Furthermore, the bureau changed the rules, requiring each department to prioritize recommending colleagues who had never performed on stage before, saying it was to reflect the participation of all staff.

In addition, each department must submit one or two programs, and perfunctory or evasive reports are not allowed.

As the field team that has solved the most cases and made the most noise recently, Team Five naturally had to participate. Especially for the two newcomers, Chen Shi and Su Xiaohe, there was absolutely no room for refusal.

Su Xiaohe had already planned it out. She immediately pulled Chen Shi aside to discuss performing a love song duet. She even prepared the stage atmosphere, but Chen Shi flatly refused and insisted on turning the duet into a crosstalk performance.

Chen Shi knew very well that the entire program of the evening was actually a facade. The real focus was never on whether the program was good or not, but on the three suspects who had been identified.

Zhao Lei, Xu Man, and Zhang Yue have kept a very low profile in the bureau over the past few years. They rarely speak up, let alone perform on stage, and even in departmental meetings.

Getting them to stand center stage in front of everyone on their own initiative was impossible. Therefore, Director Liu privately met with the heads of the three men's departments, revealing no details about the investigation into the mole, but issuing a firm order: find a way to ensure all three perform on stage.

Sun Du and several department heads were completely bewildered. Although they did not understand Director Liu's intentions, they could not disregard the leader's instructions, so they had no choice but to bite the bullet and go back to do ideological work.

In truth, Director Liu wasn't entirely sure either. Chen Shi had previously told him that the mole's core reliance was the ability to "reduce his presence," and the Mid-Autumn Festival gala was a scheme specifically designed to counter him.

Exposing the person on stage, standing in everyone's sight, would forcibly break this "invisibility" state. Moreover, this shock might disrupt his supernatural abilities. This would also be an opportunity for Chen Shi, a newcomer, to see through his weakness.

This plan sounds outrageous and lacks any real investigative logic, but after witnessing Chen Shi's series of miracles, Director Liu decided to take a gamble. Even if this plan didn't work, the performance would still go ahead as planned.

Director Liu was determined to give Chen Shi a try. To this end, he personally oversaw the preparations for the gala, removing any obstacles.

After returning home, the heads of the three departments each embarked on a difficult process of persuading their colleagues.

The most difficult task was for the intelligence department. Zhang Yue was extremely adamant and refused to participate. He said he had no talent, no stage experience, and many of his colleagues had never been on stage before, so why should he be chosen?

Sun Du was speechless, but in order to fulfill the bureau's strict requirements, he went all out. He declared on the spot that as the head of his department, he would take the lead in performing on stage and take the initiative to challenge his biggest weakness: singing.

All the long-time employees in the bureau know that Sun Du is usually polite and refined, and speaks very properly. However, singing is his lifelong black history. His voice is hoarse and off-key, and extremely unpleasant to listen to. Years ago, he sang on stage and made several people in the audience feel tinnitus and nauseous. It can be called the annual auditory disaster of the Bureau of Supernatural Abilities.

The people in the intelligence department had long disliked their department head, and when they finally got the chance to see Sun Du make a fool of himself again, they all crowded around to persuade Zhang Yue to compromise.

Everyone chimed in, saying that since the section chief had personally sacrificed his image to go on stage, it would be too unsociable for him to refuse. Zhang Yue couldn't resist the persuasion of the crowd and finally had no choice but to reluctantly agree.

The situations in the logistics and archives departments were similar. The head of the logistics equipment department volunteered to perform acrobatics so that Zhao Lei could participate, and even trained every day, working up a sweat. The director of the archives department went even further, choosing the most tedious and boring poetry recitation, prepared to sacrifice himself to be at the bottom, all to persuade Xu Man to perform on stage.

Preparations for the gala were in full swing, with all departments mobilizing their enthusiasm. Team Leader Lu of the Ninth Field Team, drawing on his own experience in psychological counseling, put together a skit called "Mental Illness." Under Section Chief Zhou's instructions, Xiao Yu from the Publicity Department, keeping to the main theme, wrote a documentary-style skit called "First Encounter with the Supernatural Abilities Bureau," intending to take a heartwarming approach.

The remaining departments submitted a wide variety of programs, which looked very lively.

The preparation time for this gala was very short, leaving very little time for everyone to rehearse. Basically, everyone practiced for a short while whenever they had a spare moment, planning to improvise on the spot.

In Group Five, Su Xiaohe was still hung up on their initial love song duet, which Chen Shi had turned into a crosstalk routine, and she was quite unhappy about it for a while. She even argued with Chen Shi, saying that she chose a love song to fit the Mid-Autumn Festival atmosphere. Chen Shi, on the other hand, said that he was tone-deaf and sang off-key. Unexpectedly, Su Xiaohe's eyes lit up instantly, saying that she didn't sing well either, and that the two of them were actually a perfect match.

Chen Shi was completely defeated by her train of thought, and without further ado, he pulled her to rehearse his handwritten script, "The Big Talk of Group Five".

The script is actually quite simple. It combines the funny and embarrassing moments of five groups of people handling cases in their daily lives, and specifically amplifies the personality traits of each person. Most of the jokes and funny moments are focused on the fat guy.

After the entire group huddled together to read the script, they fell silent. The fat man's face was particularly dark, and he barely suppressed the urge to tear the script up on the spot: "This script is outrageous! It portrays me as a complete idiot and fool, making a fool of myself the whole time, while everyone else is full of positive praise, even that scoundrel Wang Jianlou gets all the good stuff. Why am I the only one getting criticized?"

Chen Shi explained to him, "That's called dramatic tension. A play always needs someone to carry the laughs. The roles are different, and you're responsible for all the laughs so that the show is entertaining enough."

Su Xiaohe added from the side, "That's right, Brother Daqiang. We only made some minor changes; we didn't make anything up."

Just as the group was about to start arguing, Sun Tiemei ended the debate with a single sentence: "The script remains the same, and we will continue rehearsing and preparing for the gala on time."

The fat man was extremely frustrated. Although he obeyed orders, he kept muttering to himself, "Adaptation is not making things up, and art is not just random stuff."

The weekend arrived in the blink of an eye, and the Mid-Autumn Festival gala began on time.

The stage for the gala was set up in the bureau's auditorium. Everyone participated in the performance, and the atmosphere was lively and relaxed, since everyone came with the mindset of watching the fun.

The first performance was a solo by Section Chief Sun of the Intelligence Section, singing "The Rolling Yangtze Never Turns Back." Sun Du's voice was completely different from his usual way of speaking; his hoarse, raspy voice was like a broken gong, hitting the eardrums directly. Not a single line was in tune. The line "Rolling Yangtze, go boldly, go without looking back" was sung with a tragic sense of being on the run. It was both unpleasant to listen to and addictive.

The scene below the stage got out of control for a moment. Several colleagues with emotion-sensing abilities couldn't take it anymore, their abilities became uncontrollably agitated, and they felt extremely uncomfortable.

The fat man sat in the audience, laughing so hard he was slapping his thigh, chuckling without a care in the world. He even took out his phone to record a video, planning to capture some classic funny images to make into memes. But his happiness didn't last long, as the second performance was the crosstalk "The Big Talk of Group Five" by Group Five.

When Chen Shi and Su Xiaohe went on stage together, everyone laughed. Chang Biao had borrowed two long robes for the two of them from somewhere, but they didn't fit well at all, clearly the kind of makeshift costumes a staged performance. Moreover, both of them seemed a little nervous. Chen Shi even cautiously picked up the microphone and habitually fed the audience twice, which only made the audience laugh more.

However, once the performance officially began, Chen Shi maintained excellent pacing, delivered fluent lines, and delivered a series of punchlines. Su Xiaohe, as the supporting comedian, had very few lines throughout the performance, but the script itself was full of laughs, resulting in a very good effect.

On stage, the two actors took turns recounting the fat man's embarrassing work mishaps, each word hitting the nail on the head. The colleagues in the audience roared with laughter, applause and laughter rising and falling. The fat man sat in the audience, his expression constantly shifting, gritting his teeth the entire time.

The following performances were mixed. The propaganda department's skit, "First Encounter with the Superpower Bureau," took a positive and heartwarming approach, but it lacked humor and was slow-paced throughout, boring yet sentimental, making the audience drowsy. During the ten-odd minutes of the skit, most of the audience took the opportunity to slip away to the restroom.

Xiao Yu, the clerk in charge of the script, was so embarrassed that he didn't know what to do. He was glared at coldly by Section Chief Zhou next to him and didn't dare to breathe loudly.

The following skit, "Mental Illness," performed by Group Nine, once again drew cheers from the audience. Lu Xue played a self-taught psychologist, delivering a highly skilled performance that perfectly captured the character's pretentious air of ignorance, earning her thunderous applause.

Although the scene was lively, Chen Shi remained on edge the entire time, his eyes fixed on the backstage area, quietly waiting for the three key suspects to appear.