Chapter 7

The two of them arrived at the venue for the B-Class heroes' lecture. Quite a few superheroes were already seated there. Not long after Lin Jie and Xiao Zhan found seats, a muscular man with skin as dark as coal appeared at the podium.

"Hello, everyone. I'm your instructor. I probably don't need to introduce myself, since I'd say I'm fairly well-known in H City," the man said.

"Who's that?" Lin Jie whispered to Xiao Zhan.

"A B-Class hero. I think his name's Black Gold," Xiao Zhan replied. "I heard his body's as hard as an alloy."

"Why are all the superheroes I've run into today musclemen?" Lin Jie said. "I thought I'd get to see lots of pretty women in skintight outfits."

"There usually are quite a few, but I heard a lot's happened lately, so many female heroes have been hired by wealthy businessmen and government officials as bodyguards," Xiao Zhan said.

"What? Why don't they hire musclemen as bodyguards?" Lin Jie asked, puzzled.

"Let me ask you this: would you pick a pretty bodyguard who can fight, or a scruffy guy who can fight?"

"Oh... I get it." Lin Jie nodded.

After that, the two of them fell silent and listened to Mr. Black Gold's lecture.

Five minutes later, Lin Jie was fast asleep.

After who knew how long, someone shook Lin Jie awake. He blinked his eyes open and saw a dark face right in front of him. Startled, Lin Jie instinctively jumped backward.

"You're the first person to fall asleep in my class. You must be pretty confident in your own experience," Black Gold said to Lin Jie.

"Well, I guess I'm somewhat confident."

"Is that so? Then can you answer a few questions for me?"

"Sure, go ahead," Lin Jie said.

"What's the first thing you do when faced with a powerful monster?" Black Gold asked. "Especially one that's clearly an unknown and formidable threat."

"Cut it down in one stroke," Lin Jie answered without hesitation.

"What about an unknown dark force?" Black Gold asked. "Say you had to investigate some crimes committed by one of these groups. What would you usually do?"

"Cut the whole group down," Lin Jie replied.

"What if you were rescuing someone?"

"I'd go straight in and cut down the enemy."

"What if the enemy took a hostage to threaten you?"

"I'd cut down the enemy before he could threaten me."

"What else can you do besides cut people down?" Black Gold's expression had begun to twist.

"Nothing. I only know how to cut people down," Lin Jie said.

"You really are... really..." Black Gold's expression changed noticeably. "That's the spirit. I like you. You're a real man."

"Huh?" Lin Jie was bewildered by Black Gold's sudden change of attitude.

"Sure, it's childish, but what you said really is the fastest way to solve things." Black Gold gave him a thumbs-up. "I used to think the same way. Just beat all the enemies, and that's that. Unfortunately, the Association always likes to make things complicated. You're new here, right? Looks like you're pretty confident in your abilities."

"I'm fairly confident," Lin Jie replied. "I've always thought I was pretty strong."

"Then make good use of your strengths. If you're good at cutting people down, then go cut people down." Black Gold said, "I'm looking forward to seeing you grow, kid. You can go back to sleep now."

"Oh."

"How is that even possible?!" The whole room stared at the two of them in amazement.

"What's our job as superheroes?" Black Gold returned to the podium and addressed the people below. "Find evil, uncover evil, fight evil. It's that simple. It's that manly. The great hero Zero did exactly that. He never asked anyone for even the slightest bit of fame. He just kept doing those three things."

The people listening below all had different expressions. Some listened intently, while others looked unconvinced.

But Lin Jie didn't know that, after the lecture ended and he left the room, Miss Dong appeared in the classroom.

"How is he?" Miss Dong asked.

"What can I say? He's a decent guy. When you told me he'd taken down Yatan in one blow, I honestly found it hard to believe," Black Gold said. "But at least I can tell he's not the sort to suck up to the chairman and curry favor with him."

"That's good."

"But speaking of which, I heard the Dong Family has a lot of dealings with the Ouyang Family. Isn't what you're doing a little risky? If the higher-ups in your family blame you—"

"None of your business. Just do your own job," Miss Dong said.

In front of the statue in the lobby, Lin Jie studied the statue of Zero. "No matter how many times I look at it, it still doesn't look right."

"True. I also think the statue of Zero looks different from the Zero I saw before," Xiao Zhan said.

As the two of them pointed at the statue and discussed it, a sudden shout reached their ears.

"You'd better quit being a hero! If I ever catch you out doing hero work again, we'll beat you every time we see you!"

"Oh?" Lin Jie followed the voice and saw three people surrounding a man with glasses.

"Um..." the bespectacled man stammered. "I didn't mean to."

"You think you can fix this by saying you didn't mean to after stealing our thunder? You're useless. If you weren't good for running errands, do you think we'd have taken you into our team? You should be grateful, but instead you have the nerve to steal our thunder!" the leader said.

"But if I hadn't stepped in, those guys would've gotten away..." the bespectacled man said.

"Then let them get away. That's better than letting a lackey like you steal our thunder and making us look worse than one of our own lackeys," the man said viciously.

"But if those guys get away, they'll cause a lot of harm. Plenty of ordinary people could get hurt."

"What do I care about those ordinary people? It'd be better if they caused trouble again! Then we could catch them again," the man said. "We'd get another achievement out of it, too."

As Lin Jie listened to the man, the veins across his forehead began to bulge.

"Go file the paperwork to leave the Hero Association right now," another man said. "Otherwise, we'll beat you every time we see you! You damn four-eyes."

"No. I won't do that." The bespectacled man finally stood his ground. "You people can't even be called heroes."

A fist slammed into the bespectacled man's face and knocked him to the ground. Then a foot came down on his face.

"Let me tell you, we are heroes. We're recognized by the World Government," the leader said. "What else do you think makes someone a hero? A dead idiot like Zero?"

Now it wasn't just Lin Jie whose forehead veins were bulging; Xiao Zhan's were, too.

"Zero wasn't an idiot," the bespectacled man said from beneath the man's foot. "Zero was a true hero. He was nothing like scoundrels like you."

"That's exactly why he was an idiot. If I were Zero, I'd probably be king by now," the man said arrogantly. "After doing so much, he still ended up doing someone else's work for them. And in the end, he died without even leaving a body behind. Heh."

"Zero isn't dead!" three voices shouted at once.

Lin Jie pulled out his Wolf Fang Club and walked up to the three men. "Beating up this guy with glasses is one thing, but you even dared to insult Zero. I won't stand for that."

"Exactly." Xiao Zhan came over as well, holding his two guns. "Beating up this guy with glasses is one thing, but I'll never forgive you for insulting Senior Zero."

"Could you two at least think about how I feel?" Glasses said from the ground.

"Tch. You two are only E-Class. Stay out of our business," the leader said. "Do you even know who we are? We're the D-Class heroes, the Super H City Golden Triangle!"

"Is D-Class supposed to be impressive?" asked a refined-looking young man as he walked over. He was the third man who had just spoken. "How about you try that on me instead?"

When the Golden Triangle saw him, they backed away as if they'd seen a ghost.

"Godly Ghost!" one of them cried out.

"What happened? You were pretty arrogant just now. I'm E-Class, too. Why don't you pick on me instead?" said the young man called Godly Ghost. "Beating up Glasses is one thing, but you even dared to insult Zero!"

"Could you at least think about how I feel?!"

"We were wrong! We won't do it again!" The three men spun around and ran in terror. One of them even fell and knocked out a front tooth, but he didn't stop to worry about it. He scrambled up and bolted out of there.

"Impressive, brother," Lin Jie said to the young man.

"It's nothing. This happens all the time. Almost everyone here is afraid of me. I've been E-Class for five years, after all," Godly Ghost said. "You're the first person in three years who's talked to me so normally."

"Doesn't that mean you have no friends?"

"That's a hurtful thing to say. I do have friends." As he spoke, Godly Ghost pulled out his phone. An animated girl was waving at him on the screen.

"Huh? You play this game too!" Lin Jie said, then pulled out his own phone.

"Just how lonely are you two?" Xiao Zhan couldn't help saying.

"You don't know a damn thing," Lin Jie said. "You have no idea what it's like to watch magical girls alone in the middle of the night."

"Exactly," Godly Ghost said. "You like that manga too? I've got the complete set of figures."

"Seriously? You have to show me!"

"Sure..."

The two of them hit it off more and more as they chatted.

"Let's team up!" Lin Jie said. "I've never met a guy I get along with this well before."

"Really? I've been a superhero for five years, and you're the first person who's been willing to team up with me." Godly Ghost—

"Of course. I'm sure Xiao Zhan won't object either," Lin Jie said, turning to Xiao Zhan beside him. "Right?"

"Of course not. I'd be happy to team up with someone who can scare D-Class heroes with a single sentence," Xiao Zhan said.

"Then all right, I'm in. We're teammates from now on," Godly Ghost said.

"By the way, what's your power?" Xiao Zhan asked.

"Oh, bad luck."

"?" What was that supposed to mean?

"I can make everyone around me suffer bad luck indiscriminately," Godly Ghost said.

"Are you sure?" Lin Jie asked. "You're not joking?"

"What's so strange about that? I'm famous in the Hero Association as Jinx." Godly Ghost smiled. "You're the first person to not care about it and still want to be my friend. You'd better not die."

"..."

Xiao Zhan hurriedly backed away to stand beside Glasses. Lin Jie turned around and slapped himself hard across the face. "That'll teach you to run your mouth!!"