It was 11:00 PM, the peak hour for the Riverport "ants" to finish their shifts and reclaim their children. The quiet of the Little Red Pony Academy's dormitory was regularly punctuated by the sound of the front gate creaking and the soft murmur of weary parents. Nearly half the children had already been collected, leaving the rest huddled under cotton throw blankets, drifting in and out of dreams.As Ethan Gray descended the stairs, a man entered the building just ahead of him. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, clutching a battered leather briefcase. Despite the sweltering 90-degree heat of the Riverport night, he was dressed in a long-sleeved white dress shirt and black trousers. His frame was a bit portly, and his round face was a map of exhaustion, slick with a layer of oil and sweat that he kept dabbing away with a crumpled tissue.Seeing Ethan, the man offered a slight, respectful bow. "Good evening," he said, his voice raspy from a long day of me

Ethan Gray spent two full days of his precious time outside of Riverport Film Studios hunched over his laptop, obsessively crafting his analytical breakdown video of The Chaser.The raw footage had initially clocked in at over an hour of dense, technical critique. But through a brutal process of editing and tightening, he compressed it into a sharp, twenty-minute masterclass. In the modern age of high-speed scrolling and goldfish-level attention spans, he knew that anything over twenty-five minutes was a death sentence. To gain traction on DrizzleStream, he needed to be punchy, provocative, and precise."The first one always takes the longest," Ethan muttered to himself, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He had spent four consecutive nights mastering the editing software and refining the audio. Now that he understood the workflow, he estimated he could churn out a new breakdown every two or three days.He hit the "Upload" button and watched the progress bar crawl across the

"Why do you keep staring at me like that? I might have thick skin, but even I can feel a bit self-conscious under this much scrutiny," Ethan Gray said, glancing at Berry Golding, who had been eyeing him like a laboratory specimen since they left the house."I'm just looking for the seams," Berry chuckled, her eyes never leaving his face. "Honestly, I'm finding it more and more believable that you've secretly become a father. That's the only thing that explains this... sudden outbreak of responsibility. I'm looking for the tell-tale signs of a lie, but you're actually pulling this off."Ethan sighed, shaking his head. He had long since realized that trying to argue with Berry's "brain-hole" theories was a losing battle. "Think whatever you want. I'm heading back.""Back where? To the academy? Aren't we going to the mall?""No. Shopping is over.""Fine," she said, though she didn't turn back toward her house. Instead, she continued to match him stride for stri