```
"Sssip~"
Lin An finished the tea in his small cup, nonchalantly stretched himself like a lazy cat and turned to head out.
He walked down with his head lowered all the way back to his workstation, sat down on his office chair, and then he suddenly realized the black cat hadn't followed him out.
He opened up a program and pretended to write code while his gaze slipped beyond the edge of the monitor towards the young boss's office.
Through the transparent glass walls, the blinds turned the office into a series of slatted scenes, where the black cat seemed to have vanished.
Just then, the young boss's secretary walked in and began to tidy up the tea table, a huge black shadow gradually deepening and appearing bit by bit in the office.
The black cat was curled up on the boss's large desk, looking bored at the secretary, its tail swaying in the air.
As the secretary left, the black cat once again dissipated into thin air like a wisp of black mist.
Could it be…
It had developed vision?
Had Suxin's boss, under the guise of a visit, taken the opportunity to install a surveillance camera with a camera in the young boss's office?
Lin An speculated as much.
He couldn't be sure, but as the young boss returned to his office with a smug look on his face and the black cat reappeared, Lin An's eyes widened in shock.
No, this wasn't right!
This wasn't correct!
He certainly could twist other people's gazes into some kind of hallucination, whether it was an extraordinary ability or a visual impairment, but it was always about others' gazes directed at him.
He had never experienced others' gazes directed at someone else.
This was unprecedented for him; otherwise, the sights he would have seen on the street would have been all sorts of ludicrous scenes.
Moving from 'about me' to 'about others' either meant the black cat had a unique significance, or that his hallucinatory illness was worsening!
*Sigh...*
Lin An sighed deeply, secretly praying that this was some kind of extraordinary ability and that he had discovered something special about the black cat and the boss of Suxin Software, rather than his visual impairment getting worse.
He couldn't imagine how he was supposed to live if his field of vision were filled with countless monsters and demons.
Retreat to a hermitage in the deep mountains?
Oh, he didn't have wilderness survival skills.
Or perhaps move to a sparsely-populated rural area to live?
Too bad he didn't have rural household registration and wouldn't be able to buy a house there.
He would definitely manage to rent one, but it wouldn't be his own house, and when he got old, others might just kick him out, fearing that this solitary old man would die in their house.
Hectic thoughts filled his mind, making his breathing grow heavier and heavier.
In a daze, he stood up and went to the restroom to wash his face. Lin An looked at his slightly disheveled reflection in the mirror, forcefully stretched his mouth into a smile that wasn't too unsightly.
"It's okay, it will get better, hang in there!"
"Work hard!"
He began to try the breathing methods from a post written by a yoga blogger, striving to calm himself down, and then he returned to his workstation looking refreshed and vigorous.
In addition to the extra design work the young boss had assigned him, he still had programming tasks from the team leader in his project team. It was time to throw himself completely into his work.
His fingers danced across the keyboard, and the code flowed seamlessly onto the screen.
This didn't mean Lin An was a programming guru.
Rather, the entire company was in a state of developmental stagnation, and the tasks required from the developers were repetitively monotonous, devoid of any challenge or excitement.
The young boss clearly wanted to change this situation and burst out of his office with enthusiasm, beckoning, "An, An, come with me for a bit."
"!!!"
Lin An pursed his lips, turned his head, and glanced at his team leader, Mr. Liu, who simply nodded with a smile.
Fine then.
The young boss's car looked particularly expensive. According to what colleagues discussed in private, the car was called Phantom.
It was the former boss's favorite car, emblematic of how spectacularly successful that self-made tycoon once was.
Arriving at the software park's underground parking lot, the young boss gestured for Lin An to sit in the passenger seat.
"My dad liked to sit in the back to enjoy the fruits of success. I'm different. I like to hold the steering wheel and control my own direction," said the young boss cheerily as he started the car.
```
Lin An remained neutral, the world of the wealthy had nothing to do with him. Even if the small boss really ran the company into the ground, those luxury cars and mansions wouldn't make him truly poor.
"Suxin Software doesn't have the experience of developing AAA game titles, and that's our opportunity. Even if Antler Software is no longer as glorious as it once was, its foundation is still there."
"As long as I can get an outsourcing project, I can rebuild the company's framework and prop up the crippled art and planning departments once again."
"What do you think, An?"
The small boss chattered nonstop while driving.
Lin An looked at him somewhat helplessly, "Boss, I'm just a programmer."
"No, you're different!" The car slowly stopped at the red light, and the small boss turned his head to lock eyes with Lin An fiercely, "You don't understand, many people say software development is an engineering project, they say it's about teamwork, a collective effort. But my dad used to tell me, it's not like that."
"He said, whether it's programming, art, or planning, you can find them anywhere, easy to recruit. But the soul of the project is the key to its success or failure."
"Don't be afraid of the project failing, and don't be afraid of the company going under. As long as the soul of the project is still there, you can always gather a team and start again."
The green light turned on, the small boss looked forward and slowly accelerated the car, still speaking.
"An, your intuition for the emotional tension in visuals is simply too unique! From the first glance, I knew, you must be the soul I've been looking for. As long as we work together, we can definitely create an infinitely charming game."
"No, not just one!"
"Believe me, Antler Software will definitely reappear among the top three domestic game developers. Suxin Software, heh, a business software firm dabbling in game development?"
"An, work hard with me, I won't let you down."
An...
At this moment, An was panicking.
Lin An clutched the car door handle tightly, nearly suffocating.
As the small boss started on his spiel, Lin An began to transform incessantly in his own vision.
Countless yellow hairs burst forth from his skin, his body swelled rapidly, stretching his casual suit to the point of bursting. Ultimately, the small boss had transformed into a giant lion.
The size was so enormous that the frighteningly muscular body stuffed the spacious interior of the car to the brim.
This was no illusion!
Indeed, it was more than just an illusion!
It had a texture!
The growing lion nearly squeezed Lin An into a corner of the passenger seat, compressing him so much he could hardly breathe.
"Boss... Boss!"
Lin An spoke with difficulty, trying not to appear abnormal. Yes, he was so determined to behave like a normal person.
"As for art, I just do it as a hobby; I'm really not good at it..."
"Of course, I know that." The small boss lightly turned the steering wheel at the intersection, "I don't understand the technical stuff, but I've seen what those formidable technicians are like since I was a kid following my dad. I certainly know your art is not great."
"But, you see, An, you've got to step out of that mindset, understand some principles."
"Drawing skills are a tool, modeling skills are a tool; you don't necessarily have to master these tools yourself. You need to consider the abilities of technicians as tools as well, to help you achieve the visual effects you want."
"Characters, scenes, actions, any direction of software engineers, they all have their own aesthetics, but they're useless, their aesthetics have no value."
"I need your aesthetic sense, and you, you need these tool people to bring your aesthetic into reality, get it?"
"You have to trust my judgment."
Lin An didn't answer; he just breathed quietly on the sly.
For some reason, the small boss next to him suddenly reverted back to human form, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.
The lion the small boss had transformed into was inflating persistently, nearly crushing him into a pancake.
"We're here."
The small boss smiled and unbuckled his seatbelt, "There's some liquor in the car, An, you carry it. I'll take you to apprentice under an old professor."
"???" Lin An paused for a moment, looking around, "Happiness Community? Boss, this is where I live."
"Oh whoa, really?" The small boss blinked and laughed happily, "Isn't that a coincidence. An, you see, this is the arrangement of Destiny."
Destiny my ass!
Lin An didn't believe in fate; he had been an orphan since he was little, always fighting back against the mocking arrangements of the wretched Destiny, yelling furiously at the bitch, "No, screw that."
And then...
Worker An carried a bottle of liquor in a small zitan box, reluctantly following behind the small boss, heading towards another corner of the community he usually didn't visit.
That was the villa area, next to a spacious river, rumored to be especially expensive.