Ambush

"If they don't show up soon, I'm going to turn into a salted fish..."

During the Monday afternoon break, Li Si lay lazily on the campus lawn, enjoying the brilliant sunshine with Gwen. His comfort was tinged with a hint of melancholy.

It had been three days. This damned time had dragged on for three whole days. To wait for Lizard to show up, he hadn't even gone to his shift at Oscorp, waiting bitterly at school for three full days.

"What?"

Lying beside him, Gwen hadn't heard his mumbled muttering clearly and asked with a puzzled look.

"Nothing, I just said this comfortable sunbath has turned me into a salted fish!"

Li Si rolled over and stood up with a wry smile. The bell for the final period of the day rang just then, and the two ended the conversation and hurried toward the classroom.

It was a social studies class, and the mere name of the course made Li Si feel even more lethargic. Aside from the fixed 50 points of daily general experience, he couldn't even get any targeted experience from it.

That was the one bad thing about this game. Other games made you want to grind all day, but this lousy game required you to scour the whole world just to find a monster to fight. He had waited so long for Lizard that he felt like he was wilting away.

After sixty minutes of suffering through a lecture as long-winded as anything from Nanhu, the final bell finally rang. Students began packing their things to leave, gathering in twos and threes to make plans for after school.

Just then, however, a violent "boom" echoed out, jolting Li Si, who had assumed he'd wasted another day, back to full alertness.

Boom!

Boom!

The sound came from the direction of the school restrooms. Each heavy impact, sounding like a pile driver at work, seemed to strike the hearts of everyone present. Every eye in the hallway turned involuntarily toward the source of the noise.

Boom—crash!

Suddenly, a massive hole erupted in the hallway wall, sending shards of concrete and brick scattering across the floor.

A humanoid monster over two meters tall, with green skin and a body covered in scales, smashed through the wall and appeared before everyone's eyes.

"Ah!!"

As if a switch had been flipped, screams—some shrill and piercing, others filled with sheer terror—erupted one after another. Countless students in the hallway fled in panic toward the school exit.

"With disaster response capabilities like yours, you're at least ten times worse than Gotham City. No wonder so many people die in New York..."

Li Si shielded Gwen behind him, finding the time to offer a sarcastic remark in his head.

Of course, sarcasm was one thing, but running away was another. After all, Bumblebee was still outside, and his own scrawny arms and legs were no match for Lizard. He would leave the stalling to Spider-Man.

"Let's get out of here!"

Seeing Gwen looking flustered, Li Si patted her back to help her steady her nerves. He glanced at Peter Parker, who was moving against the crowd toward Lizard, then pulled her along behind the fleeing students and out of the building.

Once they reached the open lawn of the sports field, Gwen, still shaken, asked, "Li, what on earth was that monster?"

"Don't talk about that now, go to the bike shed!"

Time was of the essence. Li Si didn't have time to explain; he pulled Gwen straight to the school bike shed and found Bumblebee.

"Bumblebee, transform into combat mode!"

Li Si tapped his earpiece and said urgently.

"Command confirmed. Bumblebee combat mode initiated!"

Bumblebee's headlights flashed twice, emitting a synthesized mechanical voice. Then, limbs popped out as parts shifted and whirred. It first dropped to one knee, then slowly stood up to its full height.

"Oh... my... god..."

Gwen was stunned, her eyes vacant as she looked up at the giant, bright yellow robot standing over four meters tall, whispering the words unconsciously.

She didn't stay in a daze for long before looking at Li Si with an expression of utter disbelief, as if seeing him for the first time. She stammered, "This is the robot toy you were talking about?"

Gwen felt like she was losing her mind. First, a giant lizard monster appeared, and now her boyfriend—whom she thought she knew well and had just started dating—had summoned this massive robot.

The most critical part was that this robot was actually a sports car, and she had ridden in that car many times over the past two days.

What was wrong with this world? Had she traveled through time? Would unscientific magic and fire-breathing dragons be the next things to pop out?

"Ahem, I only said I was designing a transforming robot; I never said it was a toy..."

Seeing Gwen's "this world is insane" expression, Li Si could only offer a sheepish defense.

He had intended to surprise her by not explaining it earlier, but Gwen's near-breakdown was beyond his expectations, and he felt a pang of regret.

"You wait here and call your dad to come for backup. I'm going to have Bumblebee block that monster!"

Seeing Gwen looking like she was about to explode, Li Si chose to play the ostrich, turning and running toward the school building with Bumblebee in tow.

"Oh, I have a feeling I'm in big trouble!"

Watching the giant robot follow Li Si into the distance, Gwen covered her face in defeat before pulling herself together and taking out her phone to make a call.

"My God! Why is there a robot too!"

"Damn it, is this the end of the world?"

"Are our tax dollars being thrown into the drain? Why hasn't the police arrived yet!"

On Li Si's end, the appearance of Bumblebee in robot form caused another wave of panic. Students who had just escaped the clutches of the lizard monster and were finally catching their breath began fleeing in terror again, some even running back into the school building in their blind panic.

"Hey, wait, look! That's Li! Li from the graduating class, the one who knows kung fu!"

Among the fleeing crowd, there were inevitably some who remained calm, and after a glance at Bumblebee, they quickly noticed something unusual.

"What Kung Fu Li? Can knowing kung fu beat a lizard monster? Can kung fu beat that giant robot?"

"Jeff, forget about some Li, saving our lives is what matters!"

The others had no intention of looking at any Kung Fu Li; they were too busy running for their lives, not even bothering to look at their surroundings as they bolted blindly toward the school exit.

"No, no, I mean that robot monster is following behind Kung Fu Li, and it seems to be taking orders from him!"

Jeff hurriedly explained, while simultaneously grabbing his companion who was blindly running toward the school building.

"Huh?"

Jeff's companion stopped in surprise, stared at the robot for a moment, and then slapped his own bald head: "I feel like this robot looks familiar. Is it just my imagination?"

"You have that feeling too?"

Jeff was pleasantly surprised and said: "I knew I wasn't wrong. Kung Fu Li must be a descendant of a Chinese martial arts family, and he must be a superhero like Spider-Man, now leading the robot to stop that lizard monster!"

"Hey, buddy, a Chinese martial arts family should use kung fu, maybe even that 'qi' they talk about. How did you link them to a robot? Someone like Tony Stark from a high-tech family would make more sense!"

Realizing the giant robot wasn't attacking them, Jeff's companion simply stopped running, stepped aside to clear the path, and looked at Jeff, speechless.