Sudden Change

After everything had been more or less taken care of, three days had passed. With nothing to do for the moment, Dilos decided to look around the nearby mall and see if there was anything nice he could buy and take back to Smallville to give Chloe and Gabe.

To Dilos's surprise, he ran into Qin Jiayin while browsing the mall. She was wearing a new outfit today: a white women's hoodie with a high waist, over a fitted short-sleeved crew-neck shirt. Below that were fitted, wide-legged women's jeans and the same brown ankle boots as before. Her whole demeanor was a little different from before. If Dilos had to describe it, she was cute with a hint of spirited charm, radiating an appealing glow.

Qin Jiayin was staring at the desserts in the display window, her face twisted with indecision. The look of someone who wanted to eat them but hesitated for some reason made Dilos smile.

"Do you really want one?"

The sudden voice beside her startled Qin Jiayin. She whipped around and saw Dilos, struggling to hold back his laughter, his face twitching.

"Oh, Dilos. You're here too." Seeing that it was him, Qin Jiayin breathed a sigh of relief, but her cheeks also reddened a little. She straightened up, trying to act as though nothing was amiss and hide how she felt.

"No, I don't want one. I was just curious, so I was looking."

Seeing Qin Jiayin's adorable, utterly unconvincing attempt to deny it, Dilos finally burst out laughing.

"Pfft—hahahahahaha! If you want one, just say so. There's no need to hide it."

Qin Jiayin gritted her teeth, and the blush spread across her entire face. She looked embarrassed—or maybe angry. She knew her behavior looked suspicious, but Dilos's laughter and blunt exposure still annoyed her.

She gave Dilos an irritated kick, then turned away and walked off.

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't go! I was wrong, okay?" When Qin Jiayin actually walked away, Dilos hurried after her to stop her. She said nothing, only glaring at him. Dilos gave an awkward laugh, then sidled up to her with an ingratiating smile. "Don't be so petty with your friends. Besides, it's not every day we get to see each other. Let's talk a little~"

"That sounds very reasonable, but didn't we just see each other a few days ago?"

Qin Jiayin first nodded, looking as if she agreed. Then her expression changed, and she asked with feigned confusion, "How can just a few days count as a long time? Dilos, your sense of time is terrible. Did you even learn basic arithmetic in elementary school?"

Dilos's eyes shifted at her words. Then he countered, "Why don't you test me and find out how good I am at arithmetic?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Dilos spotted a sly glint in Qin Jiayin's eyes. He said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

"Fine, I'll test you." A triumphant smile tugged at Qin Jiayin's lips. "I won't make it too hard, so you can't complain. Just answer this question and I'll forgive you."

"Sure, sure. Go ahead." Seeing Qin Jiayin looking so pleased with herself amused Dilos, and he found himself playing along.

"What's two cubed, multiplied by fifteen to the twelfth power, then multiplied by twenty-one cubed?"

"Huh????"

Dilos suddenly cried out in surprise. The sound pleased Qin Jiayin immensely. Seeing his stunned expression, she quickly forgot her irritation.

"Mm, that should be enough." Qin Jiayin thought to herself. She was just about to say she forgave him, but before she could, Dilos's next words left her stunned.

"The answer is 9.61264668164 times ten to the eighteenth power." Dilos finished with a radiant smile. "Thanks. You really didn't make it too hard."

To be honest, the serum had changed more than just Dilos's body; it had altered his brain to some extent, too. His memory and processing speed now left his former self far behind.

"You still won't admit defeat. You're such a childish man."

Qin Jiayin's mouth twitched speechlessly. She pulled out her phone and opened the calculator, glaring at Dilos, who still wore a radiant smile.

"You got that answer too quickly. You must've made it up. I'll show you the right answer so you can't complain."

Then, ten or so seconds later...

Qin Jiayin stared at Dilos, then at the identical answer displayed on her phone. After checking back and forth several times and finally confirming it was correct...

"You've got to be kidding me! How could you calculate that so quickly?!"

Qin Jiayin's face was full of disbelief. She'd made up the numbers on the spot, but an ordinary person couldn't possibly get the answer so quickly by mental arithmetic alone. How had Dilos done it?

"Did he just happen to recognize a problem he'd seen before?" Unwilling to give up, Qin Jiayin asked Dilos several more random questions, each more complicated and requiring more calculation. Dilos took no more than ten seconds to give the same correct answers as the calculator.

Now Qin Jiayin couldn't find any excuse to tease Dilos about being bad at arithmetic. He'd proved beyond any doubt that not only was he good at it, he was exceptionally good!

"You actually..." Qin Jiayin was at a loss for words. She'd heard of people with incredibly fast mental arithmetic, but seeing one standing right in front of her still felt unreal.

Dilos seemed to see what she was thinking. With a teasing smile, he leaned toward her and flashed the most obnoxious, mocking grin she'd ever seen.

"Get away!" Qin Jiayin gritted her teeth and shoved Dilos's face aside, then turned away in a huff.

But was Dilos going to let her off that easily?

Obviously not.

At some point, the thick-framed glasses on Dilos's face had been replaced by a pair of silver-white, thin-framed glasses that looked more refined and scholarly. Calmly, he pushed them up the bridge of his nose in front of Qin Jiayin, and their glare made her squint. Then he spoke in an utterly flat tone:

"Such is the wisdom of mortals."

Qin Jiayin thought she heard something snap. The thing in question was... her self-control.

"Dilos!!!!"

In a coffee shop.

"Come on, come on, don't be mad. I was only joking." Dilos looked amused as Qin Jiayin sat across from him, cheeks puffed out and refusing to speak. Feeling a little awkward, he thought, I must've been too bored lately. Once I started joking around, I couldn't rein it in... I'd better shut up for a while.

But no matter how Dilos tried to placate her, Qin Jiayin wouldn't speak. She either pretended not to see him or turned to look elsewhere. Finally, Dilos had no choice but to put on a miserable expression and beg, "All right, miss. No, I mean, beautiful, peerless goddess, what will it take for you to forgive this despicable wretch?"

Qin Jiayin gave a huff and shot Dilos a sidelong glance before finally speaking.

"I'm just a mortal~. How could I possibly presume to make demands of someone as godlike as you?"

Dilos couldn't help smiling wryly. He rolled his eyes, then replied, "And yet it's mortals like you who can earn the admiration of a godlike person."

Qin Jiayin pursed her lips and said nothing. But Dilos could tell she'd calmed down a little. He just needed to keep trying!

He raised one finger. "I'll cover all three meals for you this week."

Qin Jiayin said nothing, but her face was full of disdain. Dilos raised another finger. "Two weeks!"

Qin Jiayin started playing with her fingers, still without a word. Dilos gritted his teeth and said helplessly, "A month. If that's still not enough, you might as well marry me. Then I can cover all your meals for the rest of your life."

"Pfft." Seeing Dilos like that, she couldn't help laughing. "Are you trying to court me? If..."

But before Qin Jiayin could finish, Dilos interrupted her.

"Better to die beneath a peony than live a dull life~"

"Honestly..." Qin Jiayin looked at Dilos's smug face and rubbed her forehead in exasperation. "Do you always talk so sweetly when you're around girls?"

"Not really." Dilos answered without thinking. "It's just with you..."

Only then did Dilos realize what he'd said. He hurriedly stopped himself, then looked up at Qin Jiayin. She turned away awkwardly, picked up her empty cup, and held it to her lips, pretending she hadn't heard a thing.

The atmosphere grew awkward.

Dilos didn't know what to say. After a while, just as he was about to break the silence, a sudden shiver ran through him, and a strange feeling flashed through his mind.

It felt like danger. Like trouble.

Before he could figure out what the feeling meant, Dilos's body acted first.

He lunged at Qin Jiayin, who stared at him in shock, and grabbed her. The two of them crashed to the floor.

At the same moment, the glass behind them, gleaming in the light, suddenly darkened.

With a sharp crack, the glass shattered into pieces. Then a rolling black car tore through the space where the window had been, howling through the air. It slammed into the coffee shop's service counter with a crash, instantly crushing a server who hadn't had time to react and get out of the way, leaving him mangled and bloody.