Lao Wang, Big Brother

"I hated thugs because they bullied me when I was young, and I was powerless to do anything about it.

For a time, I was even terrified of them.

They also made me realize that sometimes, some people needed no reason to do evil. If there had to be a reason, it was that those being bullied were simply easy to bully.

Later, ignorant and confused, I planned to join them, thinking that perhaps I would no longer be bullied...

The result was that some of the people who had once pitied and protected me started saying I had no upbringing.

Simply put, I was born but never raised."

Under the night sky, Wang Ji quietly watched the other man struggle to recover from his pain. Dressed in white like the moon, his voice was as calm as moonlight.

"This made me very sad—sadder than being bullied—because it was true that no one had taught me, and no one had raised me.

So I looked it up. I searched online for what upbringing and manners meant.

When I was eleven, I began teaching myself, bit by bit, the things I found. I have continued to this day.

I think I have done fairly well. Before becoming an adult, I was cautious and prudent, and I almost never made mistakes, because I was afraid people would say I had no upbringing again.

And I still hated thugs, and was ashamed to associate with them.

Because I taught myself this: thugs were people without upbringing, even if they might have fathers and mothers.

Standing with you as teammates is a humiliation to me."

He spoke one sentence with every step until he stood before Liu Chuang, looking down at him. "But out of courtesy, I gave you two chances. You failed to seize them.

Now I'm giving you a third chance, for the sake of our race's survival, for the sake of the country.

Apologize."

Super God Academy was exceedingly quiet beneath the moonlight. The lights from the teaching building spilled across the outdoor field. A group of young people from all kinds of backgrounds stood there in silence, and only soft breathing could be heard.

Everyone watched the center of the field, watched that figure in white from behind.

Leina quietly shifted her feet, finding an angle from which she could see his profile. She watched him silently, without blinking.

"Upbringing..."

Liu Chuang gritted his teeth, his brutish face flushed with uncontrollable shame—and anger—as he listened to those calm words that pierced the heart.

Wang Ji's words made him ashamed, but they also made him angrier from humiliation.

He panted heavily as he climbed to his feet. Without realizing it, the pain in his body had faded, until it was gone.

His chest heaved, his face crimson. Clenching his fists and grinding his teeth, he glared at Wang Ji with eyes as big as bells. "You have upbringing... Your upbringing means sneak attacks? Pretty boy, aren't you just stronger than me?"

"A sneak attack?" Wang Ji's expression did not change as he paced lightly. "If you call your own slow reaction speed a sneak attack by someone else, then yes, I suppose it was a sneak attack.

As for being stronger than you, when you bullied others, was it because you thought you were weaker than them?"

His gaze was as still as an ancient well, as though even a stone tossed into it could not raise a ripple.

"You... you..."

Liu Chuang's face reddened. He clenched his fists, panted heavily, and glared at Wang Ji, but could not say a word.

"If one knows one's mistakes and corrects them, that is already a great good." Wang Ji spoke, then shook his head slightly. "Of course, if you refuse to accept this, you can throw a punch at me. I will not strike before you do.

This time, I'll count down for you...

Three, two, one."

"Yah-ha!!!"

Liu Chuang roared furiously, blood rushing to his face. He raised his pot-sized fist high, carrying some unknown number of tons of immense force, and smashed it viciously toward Wang Ji!

Then... he fell to the ground.

The next second, he looked around blankly and discovered countless white afterimages circling around him. He could barely make out that every face within those white shadows was turned toward him, with both hands tucked into pockets.

For a moment, it felt as though he had been trapped in some formation, or a grim ghostly domain.

It was fucking terrifying...

The others also cried out in alarm.

Liu Chuang panted in astonishment, sitting on the ground in a miserable state. Yet his mood seemed to gradually calm, and his expression was no longer savage.

When you felt the other person was only a little stronger than you, your fighting spirit would surge.

When you understood that the other person was ten times stronger than you... lying down was still more comfortable.

"Convinced now?"

"Convinced. Haha, convinced, convinced, convinced."

"Will you apologize?"

"Y-yes, yes. Sorry, sisters-in-law, look at me..."

Thugs were this kind of creature. They preyed on the weak and feared the strong, bullied the powerless, yet worshipped strength.

Perhaps that was too absolute, but it was generally not wrong.

No matter how strong you are, Big Brother carries the pack.

Dealing with a Super Soldier like Liu Chuang, who was strong but not especially fast and knew nothing at all, only required Wang Ji to activate a Speed Hack.

He could not even be bothered to pull out the Frying Pan, and he truly feared beating the guy to death.

Because if his Frying Pan could break Liu Chuang's defenses, it meant that as long as Liu Chuang's abilities did not exceed the Frying Pan's limits, every hit would deal true damage...

Wang Ji did not even dare use his fists. He could only kick him.

And as the saying went, in all martial arts under heaven, speed alone was unbeatable.

He did not even need to use a wormhole. At close range, moving ten times faster than Liu Chuang let him freely rack up hits on him, while the other man could not even touch a hair on his head.

If the other man had not been smart enough to stop resisting, Wang Ji could have landed hundreds or thousands of free kicks.

He could have kicked him all the way from Super God Academy to the Juxia.

So putting on this act had still been necessary. Wang Ji no longer needed to fool anyone, yet he had gotten what he wanted and heard what he wanted to hear.

"Lao Wang, Big Brother..."

Why did that sound so strange no matter how he heard it?

Wang Ji sucked in a breath, his head aching. Was this what he wanted?

Probably not, right?

He wanted that aura of supremacy, a title that sounded inspiring and commanded respect... Why did it have to come with that awkward tag at the end?

He hurriedly raised a hand to stop Zhao Xin beside him. His expression was complicated, but his tone was utterly sincere. "You can call me Lao Wang, or you can call me Big Brother. Could you not call me Lao Wang, Big Brother?"

"Giggle giggle giggle~"

"Hahahahaha!"

On the field, the group was following Leina toward a parked transport plane. Wang Ji had ridden it before; it was called Dawn No. 3.

Zhao Xin had previously been completely fooled by him. Though he still admired Wang Ji afterward, he stopped calling him Big Brother once he learned Wang Ji was only eighteen.

But after Wang Ji had just dealt with Liu Chuang, the guy had come over to get familiar again.

The young people burst into laughter at his helpless words, washing away the earlier tense atmosphere.

Zhao Xin stayed close beside Wang Ji and replied without hesitation, "Calling you Lao Wang alone is too disrespectful. It's better to add Big Brother.

Lao Wang, Big Brother, Rose Sister said my superpower is speed-related. Does that mean I can be like you too?"

Wang Ji was powerless to dwell on the matter of titles, but Zhao Xin's question did not surprise him at all. He roughly knew that Zhao Xin was the most obsessed with superpowers among them.

After thinking briefly, he answered, "I don't know the strength of your genes, but the principle behind your speed is different from mine. The details will differ too, but reaching supersonic speed should not be a problem.

My current limit is three times the speed of sound. It is slower in close combat, though. I don't know how it will be for you."

He was telling the truth, but he did not explain it too clearly.

Zhao Xin's speed would be an ability of the Super Gene, while Wang Ji's was because he was Big Brother.

From the moment he carried that pack, some things no longer needed to make sense.

"Oh~" Zhao Xin nodded as though he understood, looking somewhat excited.

He did not understand much else, but as long as he could be as badass as Wang Ji had been just now, he would be satisfied.

Like Phantom Maze Steps, or Lingbo Microstep—where all anyone could see was the flash of his white clothes.

Talking and laughing, the atmosphere was fairly good. Amid the others' surprised exclamations at the plane, they boarded Dawn No. 3.

As for where they were going, no one knew, but Leina said it was a good thing.

They filed inside without much order.

There were two rows of seats in Dawn No. 3's cabin, five on each side.

The boys took one row, and the girls took the other.

Wang Ji was the last to board. His expression was extremely complicated, making everyone feel that something was very strange.

Du Qiangwei seemed to know something, and she smiled oddly.

But in the end, Wang Ji still boarded the plane. He gritted his teeth, wearing the expression of a man marching bravely to his death.

And the moment he sat down, a mechanical voice sounded in his mind: "Environment detected to meet system conditions. Activate Plane Explosion Hack?"