64: Chapter 64 Police Arrive at the Door: Mr. Jiang, please explain the purpose of this thing.

The morning at Yunding Villa was filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers.

Jiang Chen had just finished the "molecular gastronomy version of soy milk and deep-fried dough sticks" made by Ikaros and was preparing to go for a stroll in the courtyard.

The doorbell rang.

This time, the visitor was neither an ex-girlfriend looking to scam him for money nor General Qin coming to offer warm regards.

Standing at the door was Old Zhang from the local police station.

This veteran police officer with twenty years of service had a look on his face that was quite extraordinary.

He looked as if he were constipated, as if he had just swallowed a pound of bitter melon, or had been forcibly stuffed with a mouthful of wasabi.

And behind him.

Two young auxiliary police officers were desperately keeping their heads down, their shoulders shaking violently, and their faces flushed red, clearly using all their professional training to hold back laughter.

"Mr. Jiang, good morning."

Old Zhang sighed, his tone filled with deep exhaustion, "I hope I didn't disturb your rest?"

Jiang Chen glanced at Zhao Gang, who was standing nearby.

Zhao Gang shrugged, indicating that this matter was not under the military's jurisdiction and belonged to "civil disputes."

"Not at all, I just finished eating."

Jiang Chen ushered Old Zhang into the courtyard and asked with a smile, "Officer Zhang, what brings you here so early? Have those spies confessed?"

"If it were spies, that would be great; at least I would have performed a meritorious service."

Old Zhang plopped onto a stone bench and pulled a transparent evidence bag from his briefcase.

"Thwack." The bag was slapped onto the stone table.

Inside was a dusty, wrinkled, tattered rag.

It was exactly the [Quantum Optical Camouflage Raincoat (Beggar Version)] that the entire internet had been scrambling to buy last night.

"Mr. Jiang, this thing, it was sold by your company, right?"

Old Zhang pointed at the rag, his finger trembling.

"Yes, it is." Jiang Chen took a look and nodded, "This is a hit product with a 99% positive review rate. What's the matter, does Officer want to buy one too? It's out of stock right now, you'll have to pre-order."

"To hell with that!"

Old Zhang finally couldn't hold it in anymore and cursed, "Mr. Jiang, you are a scientist and a respectable person. But can you tell me what the original design intent of this thing was?"

"It's a raincoat." Jiang Chen looked innocent, "Rainproof, breathable, and even protects against UV damage. What a great product."

"Rainproof?" Old Zhang was so angry he laughed. He took out his phone, opened his photo album, and shoved several photos in front of Jiang Chen.

"See for yourself! Is this what you call rainproof?"

The photos were blurry, clearly surveillance screenshots. The background was a steam-filled public bathhouse.

In the image, a group of shirtless men were huddled in a corner, covering their private parts with expressions of horror.

And in the center of the pool, a white towel was eerily floating in mid-air. Next to it, a scrubbing mitt was furiously rubbing against thin air, as if it were scrubbing an invisible back.

The most absurd one was the last photo. A soap dish was flying through the air, as if an invisible hand were holding it.

"Do you see this?" Old Zhang pointed at the photos, heartbroken, "Last night, every men's bathhouse in Tianhai City was in chaos! The 110 command center's phone lines were blown up with reports!"

"Everyone was screaming about ghosts! They said the towels had become sentient! Others claimed they felt someone touching their butts, but when they turned around, no one was there!"

"We responded to dozens of calls! We caught several suspects wearing this lousy raincoat!"

"Upon interrogation, it turned out they all bought this 'artifact' of yours for 9.9 yuan with free shipping!"

The two auxiliary police officers behind him finally couldn't hold it back anymore. They snorted with laughter, then quickly covered their mouths and turned around, their shoulders shaking violently.

Jiang Chen looked at the photos, the corner of his mouth twitching. These netizens... they were truly talented.

Although he had anticipated such shenanigans, he hadn't expected them to come so quickly and so fiercely.

"Ahem, this..." Jiang Chen took a tactical sip of water to try and cover his embarrassment, "Officer Zhang, this just goes to show that the masses have infinite imagination. The product itself is fine; it's the users' application scenarios that have gone astray."

"Astray?" Old Zhang's eyes widened, "You call this 'astray'? This is a serious public security hazard!"

"Although this thing hasn't been classified as contraband yet, since it has no offensive capabilities, have you thought about it, Mr. Jiang?" Old Zhang said earnestly, displaying the patience of a community police officer, "If this thing becomes widespread, the streets will be full of invisible people, surveillance will become useless, and won't social order fall into chaos?"

"Thieves wearing it to steal, perverts wearing it to enter women's restrooms, or even criminals using it to evade capture..." "Can you bear the responsibility for this?"

This was a heavy accusation. Zhao Gang, standing to the side, also looked serious. Indeed. Technology is a double-edged sword. Once this military-grade stealth technology flowed into the civilian market at dirt-cheap prices, it would indeed cause a devastating blow to the existing security system.

However, Jiang Chen put down his water cup without any hint of panic or guilt on his face. Instead, he smiled. He smiled with an air of righteousness, as if he were a saint standing on the moral high ground.

"Officer Zhang, that's not the right way to put it." Jiang Chen shook his head, his tone becoming profound, "You only see the hazards, but you fail to see my good intentions."

"Good intentions?" Old Zhang was stunned.

"Yes, good intentions." Jiang Chen stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked up at the sky, his voice becoming impassioned, "In this era of big data, every one of us is running around naked."

"Surveillance cameras are everywhere, and our privacy is stripped bare like underwear. If I want to eat at a street stall, there are hundreds of cameras watching me."

"This makes many people with social anxiety feel suffocated! It makes them lose their sense of security!" He lowered his head, looked straight into Old Zhang's eyes, and spoke righteously, "That is why I developed this raincoat."

"I didn't do it to let people do bad things; I did it to protect everyone's right to privacy!"

"By wearing it, you can regain that long-lost sense of freedom under the gaze of cameras! You don't have to care about others' judgment, and you don't have to worry about being price-gouged by big data algorithms!"

"This is a form of humanistic care! It is a silent resistance against the 'surveillance society'!"

"As for those perverts in the bathhouse you mentioned..." Jiang Chen spread his hands, looking innocent, "That is a matter of character; what does it have to do with technology? Kitchen knives can kill people too, should we ban kitchen knives?"

This sophistry, which was unreasonable yet logically consistent, left Old Zhang speechless.

Old Zhang opened his mouth, feeling as if his throat were clogged with cotton. In his twenty years of handling cases, he had seen people play the victim, throw tantrums, and even play dumb. But this was the first time he had seen someone elevate "selling a voyeurism tool" to the level of "defending human privacy rights."

Is this the hooligan logic of an intellectual? It's so damn shameless! Yet, he couldn't find any fault with it!

"You... you are just being unreasonable!" Old Zhang held it in for a long time, his face turning red, and finally could only point helplessly at the raincoat on the table, "Mr. Jiang, no matter what you say, the public security issues are real!"

"The higher-ups have already spoken; if you cannot provide a reasonable solution that resolves these hazards, then we can only..."

"Only what?" Jiang Chen looked at him with a smile, "Shut down my company? Or confiscate all these raincoats?"

"Don't forget, I'm a licensed individual." He patted the hard little red booklet on his chest, "Besides, I've already turned this technology over to the state; it's a civil-military integration project. Are you sure you want to shut it down?"

Old Zhang was completely out of words. He knew Jiang Chen had a special status; if they could have shut him down, they would have done it long ago. Why would he have to come in person, an old bag of bones, to waste his breath?

"Mr. Jiang, I'm begging you, okay?" Old Zhang's tone softened, even carrying a hint of pleading, "You are a scientist, a big shot. Can you please show some consideration for the difficulties of us grassroots police officers?"

"Do you know how many 'invisible people' I caught yesterday? The interrogation rooms are packed!" "If we don't come up with a solution, life will be impossible from now on!"

Seeing Old Zhang looking like he was about to cry, Jiang Chen felt it was enough. Teasing the police officer was fun, but he couldn't go too far. After all, his goal was to make money, not to disrupt society.

"Alright then." Jiang Chen sat back down on the stone bench, picked up the rag, and rubbed his fingers on it gently.

"Actually, I've already considered this problem." "You want an explanation? You want a solution?" "That's easy."

Jiang Chen took a pen out of his pocket and, with a flourish, added a line of text to the paper printed with the product manual.

"Officer Zhang, how about this?" "Let's redefine this product." "Since you feel the term 'raincoat' has hazards, let's define it as..."

Jiang Chen paused, a smile appearing on his face that was extremely absurd yet impossible to refute: "An all-age immersive hide-and-seek assistant."

"And I've added a small 'anti-addiction' patch to it." "As long as it touches a little water, or the temperature exceeds 30 degrees..." "It will automatically become visible." "In this way, won't the bathhouse be safe?"