Night had fallen, in the neighboring residential complex less than five hundred meters in a straight line from Xi Nian's home.
Inside a room.
Having finished dinner, showered, and changed into a long lounge nightgown, Gwen lay sprawled across her bed. Like an ostrich, the girl buried her head among her stuffed toys, her youthful body completely still. Yet her feet rhythmically kicking at the duvet undoubtedly gave away the worries she was trying to hide.
"Gwen."
Still in his police uniform, Officer George came to her door, lightly knocked on it, and asked through the closed door, "Want a cup of hot cocoa?"
"No. It'll make me fat."
Inside the room, Gwen remained face-down on the bed, her voice somewhat listless.
Officer George said with mild confusion, "Who was it that said when she was little that she wanted to be a princess living in a castle made of chocolate and cake?"
"Dad, stop bringing up things from when I was little!" Gwen cried out in embarrassed irritation. "Especially when..." Her words abruptly stopped halfway through.
Officer George sighed and continued for her, "Especially at your school. And when that boy is around, right?"
"No, it isn't. Besides, he already knows." Though Gwen said that, her tone grew even more dejected, and the stuffed toys pressing down on her head began to tremble slightly.
"Gwen." Officer George drew a deep breath, as though making the most important decision of his life at that moment, and said firmly, "If you really like that kid Xi Nian, then go tell him how you feel! Your dad will definitely support you from behind the scenes!"
Inside the room.
The stuffed toys covering the girl's head stopped trembling. After three seconds of silence, they were all flung off the bed.
"Dad, what are you talking about?!"
Gwen sprang straight up from the bed and sat on the blanket with her legs folded to one side, both hands kneading her pillow out of shape. Whether because her face had been buried for too long or because he'd hit the mark, her cheeks were flushed with rapidly rising heat, making it easy to believe steam would burst out the next second.
Beads of sweat emerged, and several strands of golden hair stuck to the girl's cheeks.
"I don't... like Xi Nian at all!" Gwen was mortified. As a girl, she instinctively wanted to deny it, but her pause in the middle made her rebuttal as weak and pale as a blank sheet of paper.
"Okay, okay. I was just saying if, only if."
Officer George, who had been standing outside the door, understood at once. He was about to say something more when the pager on his sleeve suddenly began beeping.
Officer George immediately answered it. "This is Captain George. What happened?"
Knowing that something urgent had occurred, Gwen quickly fell silent inside the room as well.
"Hm?" Listening to the report from the officer on the other end of the pager, Officer George's already stern expression became even graver. "You're saying a strangely dressed woman fell from the sky and robbed an armored truck?"
"Understood. It's not far from where I am. I'll be there right away!"
Officer George put down the pager and hurriedly called into the room, "Gwen, I need to head out. Stay home and behave yourself."
"Okay. Dad, be careful," Gwen replied.
"I will." Officer George nodded, then hurriedly left the house.
Inside the room.
The heat in Gwen's face eased slightly. Thinking of what her father had just said, she murmured, "A woman who fell from the sky?"
"Could she be a mutant or someone with superpowers?"
Gwen frowned slightly, growing more worried about her father's safety.
In this world, people with abilities beyond those of ordinary humans were exceedingly rare, but that didn't mean they didn't exist!
Because she was one of them!
Gwen quickly went to the wardrobe in her room. She pushed all the clothes aside and opened a compartment at the very back, revealing what she had hidden behind it—
It was a complete set of strange, skintight black-and-white clothing.
The uniform was white from the neck to the chest. From the chest downward, covering the abdomen, hips, and legs, it was black instead. Besides the white mask that covered her head, the suit also came with an attached hood, whose interior bore a black-and-red pattern resembling a spiderweb.
Aside from the strange women's Spider-suit and mask, the compartment also contained a pair of specially made green low-top shoes.
Gwen didn't think too much about it. She took out the mask, suit, and shoes, then grabbed three ordinary bandages from the bottom drawer of her wardrobe and tore them open with her teeth. Before long, her lounge nightgown and even the clothes beneath it fell one by one onto the floor as Gwen put on the entire Spider-suit.
Changed into her Spider-suit.
Gwen lightly pressed her palms against the floor and moved in a low crouch as if entering hunting mode. Like a crawling spider, she made not the slightest sound.
She tuned the radio on her desk to a channel playing instrumental music, creating the illusion that she was diligently doing homework, then raised a hand and pushed open her bedroom window. After looking back once at the tightly closed door, she exerted a little force through her hands gripping the windowsill, and her nimble body slipped out the window.
After all, although Gwen's home was not as high up as Xi Nian's, she still lived on the tenth floor, nearly thirty meters above the ground!
Gwen's perspective inverted, and the night-shrouded city below reflected upside down in her eyes.
She leaped forward, soaring ten meters through the air. Just as she was about to fall, she flicked her wrist, firing an inconspicuous white strand of webbing that struck the edge of the neighboring high-rise with precision.
Gwen pulled down on the resilient web beneath her, sending her petite body flying out again at an adjusted angle as she followed the blaring police cars toward the street across from her.
Meanwhile, at the intersection on the opposite street.
Vehicles parked along the roadside all began sounding their alarms. Many pedestrians screamed, "There's a robbery!" as they fled, while an armored truck stood parked in front of the central bank.
But the armored truck's supposedly bulletproof roof had already been smashed into a huge dent. A woman in strange armor, clutching a Retro Longsword, lay atop the ruined armored truck. Countless green dollar bills had been flung from the shattered cargo compartment onto the street, making it easy to imagine the force of her impact when she fell.
That's right, this so-called "strange woman" was none other than our classmate Xi Nian.
It wasn't anyone else's fault for mistaking his gender. The skirted armor Xi Nian wore was clearly women's attire, and especially with his silver hair falling over his shoulders, it practically confirmed the gender people perceived at a glance.
"My God!"
"Y-you, who the hell are you?"
Two fully armed SWAT officers stood near the armored truck. They froze in shock for several seconds, but their strong mental discipline still made them draw their guns and demand an answer.
Yet from their constantly trembling legs, it was obvious they had been scared badly too.
If I said I accidentally fell from the sixteenth floor of my own home and landed here, would you believe me?
Xi Nian really wanted to answer that, but if he spoke, it would definitely expose the fact that he was a pervert—cough, cough—a boy.
More importantly, there was probably no way to explain this now. After all, if an ordinary person fell from the sixteenth floor, being completely unharmed would be one thing; even having an intact body would already be absurd!
So, after lying atop the armored truck and thinking for less than half a second.
Xi Nian ignored the SWAT officers aiming their guns at him. Instead, he flipped upright at incredible speed, jumped off the roof, and sprinted down the road to escape the scene!
He was simply too fast now, his movements leaving afterimages. By the time the SWAT officers reacted, he was already more than ten meters away!
Before you continue