Annie's Regret

With Little Cricket's reluctant gaze following him, Li Wei left Goda University and rushed to the hospital at top speed.

As usual, a large crowd of fans waited outside the hospital for photos. After dealing with them, a medical worker Firecracker had arranged in advance quietly handed Li Wei a carton of milk and a fruit basket—gifts for A-Train.

Although Firecracker could never understand it, since Li Wei insisted on doing this, she naturally made sure it was arranged properly.

Li Wei smiled and nodded his thanks. After all, he was the one who had turned A-Train into his current state.

And now that A-Train considered him a friend, what did spending a few dozen dollars on some gifts matter?

Besides, didn't he understand the importance of ceremony? Who visited someone in the hospital without bringing milk?

Finding A-Train's ward with practiced ease, Li Wei was immediately greeted by A-Train's smiling congratulations. He wished Li Wei success in joining The Seven.

Li Wei chuckled. "Mr. Edgar told you?"

Compared to the frail Kate, Li Wei possessed numerous superpowers himself, and his physique was extraordinarily strong.

This allowed him to almost immediately gain perfect control over a whole series of superpowers after acquiring them, aside from Fantasy Space.

He could also activate or deactivate these abilities freely and smoothly, and could fairly casually designate one or more targets within a certain range.

For example, right now, with telepathy activated, A-Train's every thought was completely exposed to him.

Even though A-Train was a top-tier Superhero, he had no resistance whatsoever in this regard.

This meant that if Li Wei wanted to, he could communicate very amicably with almost anyone, and they would even mistakenly believe that they were kindred spirits.

"Yeah. Mr. Edgar personally called Homelander, Queen Maeve, Starlight, and Black Noir into a meeting. It was basically an advance notice."

The others were one thing, but as captain of The Seven, Edgar had to give Homelander at least some face.

"The Deep didn't go?"

As he spoke, Li Wei sat beside A-Train's bed and began using his powers to treat him as usual.

After days of treatment, he had successfully obtained all of A-Train's other abilities. Once he got Super Speed, his overall strength would take another huge leap forward!

A-Train snorted disdainfully. "That guy went to steal marine animals from an aquarium again, saying he wanted to fight for their freedom. Then he got arrested on the spot by a whole bunch of reporters."

"This is already the fourth time this month. That idiot was obviously set up by someone. Mr. Edgar was so dissatisfied that he sent him to New York Harbor overnight yesterday, saying he needed to calm down there."

Among The Seven, The Deep was the one A-Train looked down on most. It had nothing to do with strength. He simply felt that The Deep's existence dragged down the collective intelligence of The Seven. He even wondered how the man had graduated from Goda University in the first place!

"Haha, I've always suspected that The Deep has some kind of intellectual defect. I'm even more suspicious that he cheated when he graduated."

To be fair, based on Li Wei's recent investigation, The Deep's character was actually considered quite good among Superheroes.

There was barely any ordinary person's blood on his hands, and he genuinely worked hard to save marine animals.

It was just that his approach and methods were all wrong, resulting in nearly every marine animal he tried to rescue dying horribly in the end.

Then there was the fact that he liked playing intimate little games with octopuses, but that was merely a personal preference. It wasn't really a matter of morality.

A-Train immediately perked up, feeling that he had found a true confidant. "Exactly! I heard he ranked sixth when he graduated. That's practically disgracing The Seven!"

Within The Seven, Homelander was a special exception personally selected by Vought, Black Noir was an old hand from Payback, and Starlight rose to fame through a talent show. None of them had studied at Goda University, so naturally they had no rankings.

But Queen Maeve and A-Train had both ranked first in their respective years, Translucent had ranked second, and even Li Wei, who was about to join The Seven, had ranked first back then. Only that idiot The Deep had ranked sixth!

Just like that, time passed quickly amid their idle chat. Then, all of a sudden, Li Wei's body trembled slightly.

At last, he had successfully copied A-Train's Super Speed. In that instant, he felt as if his body had become countless times lighter.

Although copying superpowers had affected both his body and mind to varying degrees before, this was the first time the effect had been so intense that he could not fully control it himself!

A-Train, who had been chatting with him the whole time, noticed immediately. He hurriedly asked with concern, "Li Wei, are you okay?"

Li Wei rubbed his brow and put on a slightly weary expression. "I'm fine. I just ran out of energy. Looks like today's treatment has to end here again."

Over the past few days, he had used the same excuse. In truth, the energy he had spent did not even amount to 0.01% of his total reserves.

A-Train immediately felt embarrassed. "You've worked hard these past few days. I don't think you need to come tomorrow. I'll probably recover completely in another three or four days."

Li Wei heard A-Train's thoughts. He truly felt that way, and he also did not want to owe Li Wei a favor or feel guilty for taking up his time.

After all, the selection for The Seven had begun. Even if Li Wei had already been chosen internally, he still had plenty to deal with.

Li Wei could not help smiling and nodding. "In that case, I won't come tomorrow. I still need to put in a lot of effort to join The Seven properly."

After these days of contact, Li Wei felt that although A-Train was still someone who did not care about ordinary people's lives, they really might become good friends.

The prerequisite was that Li Wei could not openly clash with Homelander. Otherwise, under Homelander's long-standing reign of terror, A-Train would probably surrender in seconds.

Only then did A-Train relax. "Haha, good. Then I'll wait for you at Vought!"

After leaving the hospital, Li Wei forcibly suppressed the urge to test his new speed.

This was downtown New York. Even setting aside surveillance cameras, Homelander or Maeve might be wandering around somewhere or looking for fun. If they ran into him, it would not be pleasant.

Li Wei was still planning to save Super Speed as a surprise for Homelander when they officially turned against each other.

The hospital was not far from Vought headquarters. He immediately called Starlight. Since she wanted to talk, then they would talk.

After meeting at the café, Starlight was visibly anxious this time. But there was no avoiding this matter. After exchanging a few meaningless pleasantries, she finally forced herself to ask.

"Um, Li Wei... is Firecracker your new assistant?"

Li Wei smiled. "That's right. Although she isn't particularly famous among Superheroes, she's hardworking, conscientious, and eager to improve. She's really helped me a lot lately."

That was the honest truth from the bottom of his heart. Aside from being somewhat lacking in combat ability, Firecracker was hard to fault in every other respect.

Starlight gritted her teeth again and went all in. "Actually, I know her. Something happened between us in the past."

Without waiting for Li Wei to respond, Starlight blurted out everything about how she had slandered Firecracker back then.

Aside from a small amount of personal emotion, she truly did not leave out any of the facts. Then she hurriedly apologized, saying that it had only been her own naivety and stupidity, and that her mother had instructed her to do it—it had not been her intention.

Even so, Li Wei's expression visibly darkened.

He raised a hand to stop her from continuing, his tone extremely serious. "Annie, perhaps you were acting under someone's orders at the time, and perhaps you regretted it deeply afterward. But what you did caused Firecracker pain that she will never forget for the rest of her life."

"If not for what happened back then, with Firecracker's ability to learn and her determination to improve, she definitely would not have ended up where she is now."

Starlight immediately grew anxious. "Li Wei, I—"

Li Wei gave her no chance to speak. "More importantly, have you ever apologized to her from beginning to end? Even with a text message?"

Starlight instantly lost control. A stream of tears rolled down her cheeks and fell onto the table with soft, repeated patters.

All she could do was repeat one sentence. "I'm sorry. I'm truly so sorry."

Even though both she and Li Wei had changed into casual clothes and deliberately disguised themselves, making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to recognize them unless they came very close, her pitiful crying still drew the attention of many people around them.

America had never lacked people who loved a spectacle or liked meddling in others' business. If a beautiful woman was involved, their enthusiasm usually rose even higher.

Seeing that it was about enough, and wanting to avoid causing a disturbance, Li Wei sighed and used a tissue to gently wipe away some of her tears.

"The person you should truly apologize to isn't me, but Firecracker. You should seek her forgiveness."

"But before that, I think we both need some time, okay?"

One look at Li Wei's expression told Starlight, who believed she knew him very well by now, that there was no room for negotiation.

And this really was her mistake. She needed to pay the price for it, even if it was many years overdue.

Sniffling, Starlight barely managed to stop crying and nodded firmly. "I understand, Li Wei. Don't worry. I'll do everything I can to earn her understanding and forgiveness. I'll try to become a real Superhero!"