Gwen and Helen Zhao

As one of the top schools in New York City, Midtown High wielded tremendous influence in the city. Of course, most of that influence came from the parents of its students, but that did nothing to stop Midtown High from showing off its power.

Every year, Midtown High organized trips for its students to visit the headquarters of major technology companies. The trips showed students about to enter college what a large corporation and cutting-edge technology looked like, while also helping them learn early what kind of work they wanted to pursue.

The visit to Osborn Industries had been planned long ago. Before Chen Changsheng had even transferred here, the school had arranged the trip. Now, the students from the Young Genius Class had simply been added to it.

Chen Changsheng was naturally interested in the Osborn Group. After all, in this world, aside from Stark Industries, Osborn Industries was the most famous.

Visiting Osborn Industries and learning about the corporate culture of a major company was part of Chen Changsheng's plan. On the other hand, he also wanted to witness the classic scene of Peter being bitten. Since he was already here, it would be inappropriate not to see this historic moment.

At that moment, the two best friends, Peter and Harry, were following behind Mary Jane, whispering about how to strike up a conversation with her.

Peter was still very inexperienced. With his thin skin, he ultimately lacked the courage to approach her.

After listening to Peter explain some facts about spiders, Harry could not hold back any longer. He ran ahead and began talking to Mary Jane.

Peter Parker stood behind the two of them, dumbfounded, listening as Harry discussed with Mary Jane the very spider trivia Peter had just taught him. A huge question mark appeared on his forehead. Those are all my lines!

As Harry and Mary Jane grew louder and louder, they attracted the attention of the teachers leading the tour.

A Black teacher quietly walked over to Harry and Mary Jane, raised a finger to his lips, and shushed Harry. "If you still want your credits, shut your mouth."

Seeing the teacher's stern expression, Harry Osborn gave Mary Jane an awkward smile. Then he scratched his head and followed the teacher aside, preparing to explain himself.

When Peter saw his friend Harry being called away, leaving Mary Jane alone to look at the spiders, he immediately brightened. This is my chance.

He grabbed his camera and strode over to Mary Jane. After a light cough, he said, "Can I take your picture? Uh, for the school newspaper."

Peter even raised the camera in his hand, giving himself a little more courage.

Mary Jane and Peter Parker were neighbors, so she naturally knew him.

Although she rarely spoke to Peter, she was still happy to accept when he said the photo was for the school newspaper. Smiling, she asked Peter, "Of course. Is this okay?" Then she struck an alluring pose.

Mary Jane really was stunningly beautiful. At the entire Midtown High, there was probably no one besides Gwen who could compare with her. No wonder Harry and Peter were always fawning over her.

Watching the passionate high school boys, Chen Changsheng could not help smiling. It seemed he still had not adjusted his mindset properly. He was a teenager now, after all!

Just as Peter happily held up his camera and took picture after picture of Mary Jane, a red-and-blue Mutated Spider descended slowly from the ceiling on a long strand of webbing and landed on Peter's hand.

After sensing its surroundings, the Mutated Spider bit down on one of the blood vessels in Peter's hand.

Peter flinched from the pain and shook his hand, flinging the Mutated Spider aside. The spider's vitality was astonishing. It landed on the floor without a scratch, then wiggled its large rear and scurried beneath a nearby table. As Peter shook his hand and watched it crawl under the table, Mary Jane's best friend came over and called her away.

Seeing that Mary Jane was leaving, Peter stopped worrying about being bitten. He called out from a distance, "Thank you, Mary Jane..."

Unfortunately, Mary Jane had already gone too far away to hear him.

After reaching the space beneath the table, the Mutated Spider crawled toward a wall, intending to return to the ceiling and continue weaving its web. Chen Changsheng, however, gave it no such chance. A tentacle shot out and seized it.

Although Spider-Man's strength might not necessarily surpass his own, Chen Changsheng still felt it necessary to store the Mutated Spider's relevant genetic sequence. Who knew when it might prove useful in the future?

With a squeeze, the Mutated Spider became a mass of bloody fluid, which Chen Changsheng absorbed into his body.

After sensing the Mutated Spider's genetic information, Chen Changsheng stood quietly lost in thought for a while. The Mutated Spider actually had some genetic restrictions. In other words, only Peter Parker could become Spider-Man after being bitten.

But those simple genetic restrictions were meaningless to Chen Changsheng. As the Virus Will Aggregate, he had some confidence in his abilities. Just as he began analyzing and copying the genes, a girl's voice rang out.

"Hi, Jack. What are you looking at?" Helen Zhao, a genius girl from Asia, walked over with Gwen Stacy and asked Chen Changsheng, who was standing there absentmindedly.

"Nothing, Helen. Hi, Gwen." Coming back to himself, Chen Changsheng greeted them openly. Naturally, he was not as afraid of talking to people as Peter Parker was.

In the few short days since arriving at the school, Chen Changsheng had already formed good friendships with all his classmates. Boys or girls, he always found a way to chat comfortably with them.

After talking with Gwen and Helen for a while, Chen Changsheng tried inviting them out. "Helen, Gwen, would two beautiful ladies like to have dinner with me?"

Upon hearing his invitation, Gwen and Helen exchanged a glance. Then they both smiled and asked Chen Changsheng, "Which one of us are you inviting to have lunch with you?"

That question completely stumped Chen Changsheng. Was this a Shura field?

Far from her homeland on the other side of the ocean, Helen Zhao was surrounded by blue-eyed, blond-haired Westerners. The only person nearby with black hair and yellow skin like hers was Chen Changsheng. Chen Changsheng was good-looking as well, so Helen had developed a favorable impression of him early on. But the reserved nature of an Eastern girl made it difficult for her to reveal her feelings. Thus, she and Chen Changsheng could only be said to have mutual interest.

As for Gwen, she was a lively American high school girl with excellent grades, a good family background, and, most importantly, extraordinary beauty. She was one of Midtown High's few school belles.

Gwen had always been cold toward boys. In the eyes of a super-achieving student like Gwen, all the boys at her high school seemed as stupid and clumsy as bears. The only one who was reasonably intelligent was Peter Parker, but apart from his good grades, everything else about him was a complete mess.

Therefore, when Gwen met Chen Changsheng, who had excellent grades, handsome looks, and, more importantly, outstanding earning ability, she felt extremely pleased.

How was he supposed to choose? They were both exceptional girls, and Chen Changsheng simply could not choose. If he had to pick, he could only say, I want both. Now that he was back in high school, Chen Changsheng wanted to live like a young person for once.

That evening, Chen Changsheng brought Gwen and Helen to a French restaurant in central New York City that catered specifically to couples.

Well, it was a very straightforward move. Even though Chen Changsheng had lived for so long, he still lacked experience in this area. How was someone who had never been in love supposed to handle such a situation? In Chen Changsheng's view, the three of them were simply eating together and watching movies...

Still, no one had expected someone as brazen as Chen Changsheng to try walking on two boats at once. Even the well-informed restaurant staff had never seen three people come together to eat at a couples' restaurant. But the customer was king, and Chen Changsheng tipped generously, so the server was exceptionally attentive and courteous.

Gwen and Helen had no intention of dating Chen Changsheng at this point, either. They regarded it as an ordinary meal. So, really, did no one care that this was a couples' restaurant?

The three of them chatted happily over dinner, learning about one another's interests and hobbies and discussing the customs and cultures of their respective countries. When Gwen and Helen learned that Chen Changsheng was an orphan, their maternal instincts instantly overflowed. Even their voices became gentler when they spoke to him.

This made Chen Changsheng feel somewhat awkward. I want you to be my girlfriends, not my mothers.

After the three of them happily finished dinner, Chen Changsheng first took Gwen home, then accompanied Helen back to the apartment.

It was not that Chen Changsheng and Helen were roommates. They were both students sponsored by the Stark Industries Group, so they had been assigned rooms in the same building.

Chen Changsheng did have an orchard of his own where he could live, but it was far too distant from New York City. If he lived there, commuting to and from school every day would be a tremendous hassle. For now, Chen Changsheng continued living in the apartment assigned by Stark Industries.

The orchard outside New York City was also under strict perimeter protection by the security team Chen Changsheng had hired. The guards patrolled the outskirts twenty-four hours a day, while the orchard itself was equipped with Stark Industries' latest surveillance devices to ensure its safety.

Each piece of fruit was worth one hundred dollars, making the entire orchard equivalent to a massive gold mine. Chen Changsheng did not particularly care about the money, but it was still his primary source of income at present, so he paid it some attention.

More importantly, Willow Tree had a clone in the orchard producing Life Essence. Chen Changsheng did not want anyone to notice anything unusual there.

Through the wondrous connection between the Virus Will Aggregates, Chen Changsheng contacted the hive still deep in the ocean. The Mother Nest had also developed rapidly. Its disguised Biochemical Zerg army had already taken control of the surrounding waters. The Biochemical Zerg army gathered on the seafloor near the gateway now had the power to repel the fleet of any nation on Earth. After all, the ocean had never been humanity's home turf.

The Mother Nest was developing incredibly quickly. Chen Changsheng had not yet established a firm foothold in this world, while the Mother Nest had already built a base and reached a considerable scale.

If this had not been the Marvel Universe, Chen Changsheng might have developed other ideas, such as expanding by force and occupying the deep blue sea.

But after thinking it over, he decided against it. This place was full of powerful figures. He could not afford to provoke them.

The Mother Nest's rate of accumulating biomass would only grow faster in the future, while Chen Changsheng could not possibly collect it constantly himself. Thus, he issued an order for the Mother Nest to produce some powerful units to serve as guards.

Back in the Prototype World, Willow Tree and Elizabeth had spent more than a decade conducting offensive and defensive exercises against each other. During those battles, they had evolved many interesting Zerg species. All Chen Changsheng had to do was open access to that genetic information for the Mother Nest, then let it begin incubating them.

The Zerg's expansion was nowhere near as gentle as Willow Tree's, so Chen Changsheng also had to add some restrictions. Otherwise, within a few days, people all over the world might discover that a colossal creature had appeared in the ocean out of nowhere.

The restrictions were simple. First, the swarm could not operate too far from the Mother Nest. Second, it had to mimic Earth's marine life. Most importantly, if any of them were captured, their genes had to collapse automatically at once, turning them into a pool of genetic fluid that merged into the ocean.