The girl was in ninth grade and already well over five feet tall. Compared to Wang Yiyang, she came up to his neck.
When Li Ran hugged him, her young, slender figure pressed right up against him.
She was only in ninth grade, but dancing had helped her develop early, and the parts that needed to grow were already coming along nicely.
The sudden intimacy made Wang Yiyang feel a little awkward.
Li Ran had been dancing for years, and it showed in her supple, well-trained figure. That only made him feel warmer.
Fortunately, she didn't hug him for long. She quickly let go.
She said nothing more. Just then, the elevator doors opened, and she hurried out. She unlocked her door in a few quick motions and slammed it shut behind her.
Wang Yiyang was speechless. He'd been planning to say a few comforting words.
"That little rascal..." He pressed the close-door button with a helpless sigh, then selected the fourth floor.
The elevator slowly ascended.
Before long, the doors opened. Wang Yiyang walked to his own door and reached into his pants pocket for his keys.
Suddenly, he froze. Besides his own house key, there was another one in his pocket—a black key.
He took it out and looked it over. A crooked little paper tag was stuck to the handle. It read: 301.
"..." Wang Yiyang was speechless.
Now he understood why Li Ran had suddenly hugged him.
She'd secretly slipped the key to her home into his pocket.
"What's this supposed to mean? Does she trust me that much?" He chuckled, pinched the key between his fingers, sighed, and slipped it back into his pocket.
He took out his own key, opened the door, went inside, and closed it behind him.
Over the past few days, he'd arranged just about everything.
Several team leaders were keeping an eye on things at the martial arts school, and the Mantis members had all been placed on wanted lists.
Jian had also hired three mercenary teams, ready to act at any time.
Everything was in place. Wang Yiyang, on the other hand, had nothing to do.
After learning more about Limit Martial Artists, he'd wanted to build a detailed, comprehensive data model analyzing them.
But that kind of analysis required the active cooperation of Limit Martial Artists.
After thinking it over for a moment, Wang Yiyang called Jian directly and invited the three Limit Martial Artists on the mercenary teams to undergo a comprehensive physical-fitness assessment.
He offered them five hundred thousand Federation Coins per test.
Jian quickly made the arrangements. They only needed to rent equipment temporarily from a sports research institute near Yingxing City. The tests could begin in a few days.
Once that was settled, Wang Yiyang checked the group's internal intelligence network again and found the largest publicly known branch of the Martial Alliance in Yingxing City and the surrounding area: the Yahelian Self-Defense Training Center.
Although he'd already learned about the Yanhu Sect's channels from his bodyguard, he still wanted to compare both sides.
He didn't contact them himself. Instead, he sent a visit request on behalf of Mister Group.
As a renowned multinational pharmaceutical group, Mister had quite a bit of clout.
Less than ten minutes after Wang Yiyang sent the request, a reply came in.
"We are honored to have earned the approval of Mister Pharmaceutical. Please provide a contact person and their contact information for your group. We can discuss the specific time, location, and arrangements for the visit. The Yahelian Self-Defense Training Center welcomes you."
The message was brief and concise, followed by a phone number, the department to contact, and the name of the person in charge.
Wang Yiyang temporarily assigned an assistant to a department head. There were so many qualified candidates in the personnel pool that any one of them could handle the job with ease.
The assistant he chose was named Lei Wei, a native of the Federation. Her résumé alone could fill an entire page.
She also had delicate features and a curvy figure, enough to satisfy practically any man's desires.
But Wang Yiyang wasn't that shallow. He'd chosen her entirely for her abilities.
Two assistants would accompany Lei Wei. The three of them were being transferred from a nearby branch specifically to serve Wang Yiyang.
Of course, all three were young, attractive women.
Wang Yiyang looked at their photos, then carefully compared their résumés. He reaffirmed that he hadn't chosen them because they were pretty.
It was because of their abilities.
After resting for a while, he handed Lei Wei the task of negotiating with the Yahelian Self-Defense Training Center, even though she hadn't arrived yet.
With an assistant to handle the little things, Wang Yiyang went downstairs, hurriedly ate a bowl of rice noodles, then headed to the sales office he'd visited earlier to complete the remaining paperwork for his house purchase.
Buying a house was something he preferred to handle in person.
After all, he'd be living there for a long time, and he was the one who knew best how he wanted it arranged.
Lei Wei and the other two had received his notice, but wouldn't arrive until evening at the earliest.
After finishing the paperwork, Wang Yiyang left a pile of odds and ends for the sales office staff to deal with. It was just a matter of paying an extra fee for their help.
He had nothing else to do, so he went back to his rental in Green Tree Residential Complex and even watched a few episodes of a TV show.
By the time he finished, it was past eight in the evening.
If the schedule was weekly, then tomorrow Wang Yiyang would receive a new randomly generated identity.
The first hidden identity had given him the confidence to face the Mantis organization.
What would the second one bring?
Wang Yiyang felt both eager and uneasy.
After eating the fried rice that had been delivered, he showered and lay in bed, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
Once you were lying in bed unable to sleep, there was always something to do.
His mouth got dry, so he wanted a drink. He changed positions and rolled around, then drank too much and had to use the bathroom.
Or he picked up his phone to play a game or read a novel or watch a movie.
Wang Yiyang tried all sorts of ways to pass the time. Finally, the time on his phone crept past midnight.
He lay on his back as cars passing along the road outside sent streaks of light sliding across the window.
As he watched those streaks, the lines of data that had sat motionless for so long at the lower right of his vision finally began to change.
Characters resembling data appeared rapidly, then vanished again.
Soon, after a jumble of technical terms he couldn't understand flashed by and disappeared, a line he could read appeared.
"Initialization complete. Generating Bronze Rank identity..."
Two seconds later.
"Weekly identity generated. Beginning load..."
Whoosh.
All the characters in the lower-right corner vanished at once.
His vision was clear, but Wang Yiyang took a deep breath, knowing the thing he'd been waiting for was about to arrive.
Maybe in a minute, maybe in two.
A low, mechanical voice slowly sounded in his ear.
"On the surface, you are merely an ordinary office worker. But your true identity is more than just the director behind the scenes at Mister Pharmaceutical.
"You also conceal a second identity unknown to others: the doctor, Twist."
"Your medical skills are mediocre. You once earned standard medical credentials from the Elvin Heaven-Question Medical Organization. It is the achievement you are proudest of in your life.
"As a result, you gained treatment and status that far exceeded your abilities.
"You worked with everything you had to handle every operation and every patient with the utmost care.
"But your limited abilities eventually got you into trouble.
"During a particularly difficult operation to repair necrotic central nervous system tissue, a minor mistake caused a large area of the patient's neural tissue to dissolve.
"You managed to cover up the result in your panic. But the despair and pain in the eyes of the patient who died still haunted your mind."
"Identity task: Return to the operating table and complete a surgical procedure of any difficulty."
"Task completion reward: Randomly receive one of the abilities, talents, attributes, and so on from this identity."
"Warning: Once an identity has been generated, it will remain in effect permanently."
"Warning: The greater the advantages an identity brings, the greater the risks that come with it."
"Warning:
1. You have twenty-three days to prepare for the tremendous danger that is about to come.
2. You have five days to prepare for the serious trouble awaiting Twist."
Looking at the new identity, Wang Yiyang was stunned. Disappointment soon followed.
His first hidden identity had brought him unimaginable advantages.
Although an equal threat would eventually follow, the experience had still made him look forward to the hidden identities the system provided.
But what was this?
A doctor? And one with mediocre credentials?
And what was this Elvin Heaven-Question Medical Organization supposed to be?
He'd never heard of it.
And an operation to repair necrotic central nervous system tissue...
Never mind that dead nerve tissue could apparently be repaired. How could a doctor capable of performing surgery of that caliber still be considered mediocre?
Wang Yiyang could clearly see the system's key problem.
Unfortunately, before he could think it through, a wave of intense dizziness surged into his brain.
A vast amount of information, memories, and identity details about the doctor, Twist, flooded into his mind all at once.
Ugh...
Wang Yiyang clutched his forehead and sat on the bed, his head nearly touching his knees.
This time was nothing like the last. As the information poured in, he also received a flood of medical knowledge and techniques from Doctor Twist.
But knowing these things and actually performing them were two entirely different matters.
Wang Yiyang held his head and waited for quite a while before his strength slowly returned.
The moment he felt better, he got out of bed and poured himself a cup of hot water. It was just the right temperature—not too hot, not too cold—and he gulped it down.
The warm water slid down his throat, soon warming his stomach as well.
As his strength returned, Wang Yiyang caught his breath and began examining his new identity. He had formed some theories about the system's randomization.
"One identity a week, and I'm still only Bronze Rank.
"Yet both identities are Bronze Rank: the director of Mister Group and a surgeon skilled in surgical procedures. On the surface, they're clearly not on the same level.
"The gap is enormous. So why did the system place them in the same rank?"
Bronze Rank... Maybe the ranking isn't based solely on the power and influence of the identity. Wang Yiyang speculated.
He looked at the data in the lower-right corner of his vision, his mind turning over the information that came with his new identity as Doctor Twist.
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