Mindy Macready, codename Hit-Girl, was a vicious little girl who could take on more than twenty armed gangsters by herself.
At first, when Li Congxin heard the other party's name from the system notification, he failed to react.
Only after he mentally sifted through all the candidates who could independently provide three-digit Impression Points did he finally find inspiration in Kick-Ass.
Wasn't this little girl the female lead of Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, whose strength left the male lead hopelessly in the dust?
Even the current Li Congxin didn't dare to be careless when facing Hit-Girl's attack.
Sitting on the sofa, he couldn't dodge backward. Li Congxin could only lean slightly to the side to avoid Mindy's straight thrust. At the same time, his right hand shot upward with lightning speed, brushing across the little girl's wrist. Her arm immediately went numb, and she lost her grip on the butterfly knife, allowing Li Congxin to snatch it away.
After landing his blow, Li Congxin feinted with his left hand in front of Hit-Girl, easily forcing her back.
Hit-Girl was certainly no weakling, but she was still a child. She had undergone no mutations, and all her strength came from hard training. At most, she was somewhere between 0.4 and 0.5 Quas—no more.
That level of strength was naturally more than enough to deal with ordinary people. But against Li Congxin, who possessed one Qua of combat power, she could only be completely dominated.
Casually twirling the butterfly knife through various flourishes, Li Congxin looked at Mindy with an amused smile. "So, what exactly do we have against each other? Why did you attack me?"
"Hmph!" Mindy said indignantly. "I just underestimated you. Let's go outside and have another fight. If I win, you have to give my butterfly knife back!"
"No need to fight. I concede." Li Congxin casually put the butterfly knife away, then tossed it back to Mindy and raised both hands in surrender.
Mindy caught the butterfly knife instinctively and asked with a frown, "Why don't you dare accept my challenge? Uncle Marcus told me that you've studied combat, and that you're very good at it!"
Li Congxin answered with great solemnity, "On the very first day I began learning martial arts, my master told me that there were four kinds of people you absolutely must never offend when making your way in the world."
"Priests, pastors, women, and children."
"And you are a little girl, which means you alone account for two of them. Of course I don't dare oppose you."
Mindy was left utterly dumbfounded by Li Congxin's words.
What kind of divine logic is that? Why have I never heard that clergy and women and children are especially dangerous?
Received 666 Impression Points from Mindy Macready!
"All right, Mindy, stop fooling around. Clark, you come over and eat too!" Marcus's voice stopped Mindy from continuing her challenge to Li Congxin. The two exchanged a glance, then obediently went to the living room for dinner.
During the meal, Li Congxin took out the birthday present he had prepared: a Patek Philippe watch worth one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Marcus, however, scolded him, saying that he shouldn't squander the savings his parents had left him.
Hearing Marcus's reminder, Li Congxin finally remembered that the original owners of this body had left him an inheritance in a bank safe deposit box besides Martha's Gym, which was a fixed asset.
With a bitter smile, Li Congxin could only patiently explain that he hadn't touched the inheritance and had bought the watch with only a fraction of his royalties.
Only then did Marcus's smile return, and he offered Li Congxin his heartfelt thanks.
During the conversation that followed, Li Congxin finally learned about the relationship between Hit-Girl and Marcus.
It turned out that Hit-Girl's father, Damon Macready, and Marcus had once been the Vigilante Duo who struck fear into the hearts of criminals. Later, however, Damon was framed by a gang and sent to prison. His wife died in childbirth from grief, leaving only Mindy in swaddling clothes. Marcus raised her as she grew up.
Several years later, after Damon was released from prison, he took Mindy back. Only then did Marcus lose his status as Mindy's guardian.
In other words...
"So I'm the one who was newly adopted?"
Received 15 Impression Points from Marcus Williams! Received 234 Impression Points from Mindy Macready!
Your focus has obviously gone completely off track, hasn't it?
After returning to a normal life, Li Congxin steadily improved in every area: his studies, martial skills, physical fitness, grasp of quantum mechanics, and novel-writing progress.
However, as his strength improved, Li Congxin faintly sensed that his physical abilities were already nearing the human limit. If he couldn't find a way to break through, his achievements would probably remain very limited for the rest of his life.
Old Pi, meanwhile, was completely unenthusiastic about researching the Super Soldier Serum. In his words, Howard had spent half his life barely managing to develop the thing, and even then it was an inferior, far less stable knockoff of the original.
Expecting him to use blood samples from that knockoff to produce a finished serum in a short time was simply an impossible task!
One day, after Li Congxin finished sparring with Yi Long, took a hot shower, and changed into clean clothes, he had just walked into the living room of the villa when he heard Hope's complaining voice.
"It's Kick-Ass again! Have New York's television stations been completely taken over by this clown? Every entertainment show is about Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass. Isn't it annoying?"
Curious, Li Congxin walked over and sat down on the sofa at a polite distance from Hope. Only then did he casually ask, "What has made our young lady unhappy?"
"What else but that Kick-Ass?" Hope said impatiently. "Ever since the video of that guy getting beaten up went viral, every television program has been talking about him. Whenever I go out, I even see imitators dressed in horribly bright green outfits. I'm suffering from serious aesthetic fatigue!"
Li Congxin gave a dry laugh and comforted her. "Calm down. He's our classmate, you know."
"Who?"
"Dave Lizewski. The guy who switched seats with you on your first day after transferring here."
"So it was him?" Hope couldn't help frowning. "With his level of skill, why did he go looking for trouble? Is he Kick-Ass or Get-Kicked-Ass? If you put on a costume and went out to fight crime, you'd definitely become much more famous than him!"
Li Congxin shook his head at that. "Impossible."
Seeing her confused expression, Li Congxin answered her question with another. "Do you know why he became famous?"
Hope shook her head blankly.
Li Congxin replied with absolute certainty, "Because he was lousy!"
"What?"
Hope clearly couldn't understand why lousy people were the ones who became famous. The logic didn't seem to add up.
"Clark was right." Old Pi came down from the laboratory upstairs at that moment. "It's precisely because he lacks the ability that all sectors of society are more willing to encourage his spirit of daring to fight against criminals. If Clark stepped in and took down the bad guys in a few moves, that would be fine once or twice. But if it happened too often, the public would inevitably begin questioning the purpose of the police."
"In that case, the police would find themselves in a very awkward position. Even if it were only to relieve the pressure, law enforcement officials would spare no effort to slander him. It could even create instability on a systemic level, while the media's assessment of him would become a mix of praise and criticism."
"So Clark summed it up perfectly. The true reason Kick-Ass became famous was precisely because he was lousy!"
Old Pi cast an approving look at Li Congxin and smiled. "But that rookie's limelight is about to be eclipsed by yours. Did you know that you successfully stole the headline from that Playboy at the Stark household today?"
As he spoke, Old Pi smugly tossed a newspaper onto the coffee table in front of them.
Before you continue