To be a good prime minister, I first became the leader of a secret religion.

Chapter 18 Initial Meeting

"What are you doing here?" Winston asked in surprise. "Isn't today Wednesday?"

Margaret stammered, pursed her lips, turned her head to the side, and tucked the red hair at her temples behind her ears, revealing her slightly flushed ear tips.

"She's refusing to leave!" Norman Lovecraft, wearing only a bathrobe, emerged from his study to complain. "I told her I had nowhere to stay, and she insisted she could live in the stable... but there's no stable in this house!!"

Margaret's ears turned even redder, and she forced herself to remain calm as she said to Winston, "I just don't want to go back to the circus. Don't worry, I'll leave as soon as I find a place to stay."

Norman scoffed: "Hmph, that's easy for you to say. You'll be lucky if you can find a place to stay. London is not the same as a small country town. The people here are both cold and vicious—"

"Just like you, darling."

Dana Lovecraft came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of hot biscuits, touched Norman's forehead with her lips, and said, "Why are you picking on a little girl? If she wants to stay here, let her stay."

Norman put on the mask of pain and said, "No... I can't concentrate on my studies with strangers in the house..."

Diana was not surprised to hear this, and only sighed deeply.

Norman took a moment to compose himself and then offered an explanation to Winston:

"I have social anxiety disorder. I had an accident while teaching more than ten years ago, and ever since then I haven't been able to..."

The muscles in his cheek twitched violently, and his aged, sagging skin trembled. After a few seconds, he continued, "I can't interact with people normally."

Winston hadn't expected such a hidden story, though he didn't know what accident could turn someone into a socially awkward person: "No wonder you retired so early."

“That’s right, I can’t do a job where I’m in contact with people every day anymore.” Norman patted his back and said to Margaret, “You’re a good girl, but I can’t teach you much. Three days a week is my limit. If an unfamiliar person stays in my house for more than three days, it feels like having semantic parasites crawling on me.”

Winston wondered if he'd misheard: "'Semantic parasites'?"

“That’s right,” Norman said seriously. “Semantic parasites live in the spaces between the lines of books, eating up the adjectives in the book, making the reading experience incredibly boring, and eventually the reader can’t get into the book and becomes an idiot.”

"?"

Does this parasite really exist?

If cell phones hadn't been unavailable in the 19th century, this symptom would obviously be caused by excessive scrolling through short videos...

Margaret's apologetic voice interrupted Winston's thoughts: "I'm sorry, I've caused you trouble."

"No," Winston said quickly, regaining his composure. "It was my fault for not asking clearly in the first place, Professor Lovecraft. If I had known this would happen, I shouldn't have bothered you."

"Wait!" Norman spread his arms to stop them. "Don't rush to apologize. I'm the oldest. Let me finish—Prime Minister, just call me by my name, Norman. I'm no longer your professor."

Winston looked at him thoughtfully, and said politely, "You can also call me Win..."

The old man, however, was rude: "I haven't finished speaking!"

He straightened his chest abruptly, took two steps forward, and gripped Winston's right hand tightly, his palm, as withered as a tree trunk, trembling slightly.

"I am very honored... I mean, thank you so much for coming to me."

These words were spoken with great difficulty. The old man mumbled something as if clearing something from his throat, "...This is of great significance to me. Since I got that disease, I haven't been able to do any work. Fortunately, Diana was willing to stay with me. However, even so, I haven't left my study for almost ten years. Mysticism is the only field I'm good at. You must have found out about me because of that."

Winston: "

He was too embarrassed to say that he had originally only planned to pick up a homeless person anywhere in Regent's Park.

"Yes," Winston said without changing his expression, "but I didn't hear that you had any strange illness, I'm sorry."

"This illness isn't so easy to describe, so I've never told anyone about it," Norman said with a wry smile. "You see, I can talk to you normally now, but I'll be a completely different person when it flares up."

Winston felt even stranger. In his past life, social anxiety was everywhere on the internet, yet he had never seen anyone whose symptoms fluctuated between improvement and deterioration. Norman's illness seemed rather unusual...

"In short, I hope you won't fire me because of my social anxiety."

Norman said nervously, "I have really made great achievements in the field of mysticism—I have a study full of rare and unique books, which I have painstakingly collected over the years, and I also have some ideas about that group of crazy, evil, and blasphemous esoteric cultists."

The head of London's largest secret society reassured him, "Don't worry, I thought I had been the one to interrupt you. I'm glad you don't mind. Also, were you two and Miss Zeller frightened today?"

"Dina and I are fine, but Margaret is terrified," Norman replied. "The people who reported us are those hooligans whose legs Diana broke the day before yesterday."

Margaret said softly, "It's a high-ranking official from Scotland Yard. I thought..."

I thought the esoteric sect I had just joined was going to disappear.

Fortunately, Winston arrived just in time once again. Who knew the "Prime Minister" was so formidable! Even the detective didn't last three rounds against him, just like a real Prime Minister!

Margaret felt a sense of pride, as if she had a great tree to lean on.

Winston was very good at reading people's expressions, but he couldn't figure out what Margaret had thought of that made her look at him with an expression that was a mixture of three parts relief, three parts glory, and four parts the sinister, wicked laugh typical of villains...

He decided to abandon further investigation: "Since none of you intend to withdraw, I think I can make this organization more formal—let me introduce you to Mr. Martin Grayling."

Martin's blue eyes gleamed eerily as he emerged from behind Winston like a ghost.

He held back, refraining from asking his boss: Who are all these old men and women and young beauties in this room? Even keeping mistresses doesn't have to be this drastic, does it?

Winston suddenly coughed loudly.

Martin turned his head in alarm: "You can tell what I'm thinking?!"

Winston glanced at him: "Nonsense, your thinking is far more common than Margaret's, you filthy adult."

Martin dared not think any further. He straightened his expression and obediently stepped forward to shake hands with Norman, bow to Dana and Margaret, and introduce himself:

"I am the Prime Minister's private secretary."

"Martin is the most trustworthy person I have," Winston said, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the people in the room—and also over the system panel, which had displayed a new notification just a second ago: "With the three of you added to the mix, this is all the strength I can rely on in London right now."

[Initial Meeting: The new lambs are still bewildered, and you now have a precious opportunity to mobilize them. Before the great gods awaken, you must build the strongest possible nest in the shadows of the city.]