Supermarket "Invisibility" Technique

The supermarket's freezers hummed softly. Lin Mo stared at the rock-hard frozen pizzas behind the glass doors, his Adam's apple bobbing despite himself. There were still three days until payday, and he had only three dollars left in his wallet—enough for two cans of soda, or half a loaf of the cheapest bread.

He touched the sandwich Martha had stuffed into his pocket. The wax paper had been warmed through by his body heat, butter seeping out and spreading a small grease stain across the fabric. Just looking... Lin Mo silently told the freezer as he activated Shadowcat's Phasing Ability.

His body gave off a faint, translucent glow, as though shrouded in mist. He took a deep breath, imagined the freezer's metal door was a sheet of thin paper, and stepped inside. The moment he phased through, cold air crawled up his pant legs and made him shudder. Yet the sensation at his fingertips was remarkably smooth—after half a month of practice, he could already breathe naturally while phased, and even his footsteps had become much lighter.

The freezer lights refracted strange patches of light across his body, like shards of glass scattered over him. Lin Mo picked up his favorite supreme pizza—the frozen kind, nine dollars even on sale. Cheese crumbs from the packaging stuck to his fingers, still clearly visible in his phased state.

"Really incredible..." He couldn't help smiling. The embarrassment of getting stuck in a wall half a month ago was still fresh in his mind, yet now he could phase into a supermarket freezer as easily as opening his own refrigerator. The contrast made everything feel like a dream.

When he phased back out, he deliberately circled behind the register and gently placed three dollars on the counter, pinning down a receipt. The cashier was a bespectacled young girl, head lowered over her phone without even blinking—in her eyes, those three dollars had appeared out of nowhere.

Lin Mo carried the pizza toward the exit, feeling relieved. Martha's words rang in his ears like an alarm: "Abilities are for saving your life, not for being a thief." He knew he had crossed a line just now. If he had not been craving it so badly—he had eaten repair shop sandwiches for five whole days—he would never have used his Phasing Ability to "take" something.

As he passed the snack aisle, a boy in a school uniform was standing on tiptoe, trying to reach a bag of chips on the top shelf. A Spider-Man charm dangling from his backpack swung back and forth. Lin Mo recognized him as Peter's classmate, Riley. He had even fought Peter over a microscope at the science fair last time.

"Can't reach it?" Lin Mo walked over with a smile, activated his Phasing Ability, slipped his hand through the shelf's metal panel, and pushed the chips down from behind.

Riley jumped in fright. The bag of chips fell to the floor, and he stared at the apparently empty shelf with eyes wide as saucers. "Who? Who's there?"

Lin Mo quickly ducked behind the shelf, holding back his laughter. Watching Riley pick up the chips and rush toward the register while muttering, "The supermarket is haunted," he suddenly felt that this ability was pretty fun for pranks too—so long as they were harmless ones like this.

When he left the supermarket, the setting sun was painting the sky orange-red. Lin Mo looked down at the wristband on his wrist. Pale blue text displayed:

[Phasing proficiency: 60%. Can phase through up to 5 meters of non-energy matter. Duration extended to 8 minutes.]

His progress was faster than expected. That was probably thanks to his daily "devil training" at dawn: phasing into the Community Library archives to practice Precision Control without knocking over any bookshelves; passing through the steel pipes of fire hydrants to feel the resistance of metal; and even phasing into Ted's basement while he slept to help organize his comics, conveniently "borrowing" a copy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to read.

"Brother Lin!" Peter's voice came from the street corner. He rode over on his bicycle, a huge glass jar in the basket. The spider inside clung to the side of the jar, spinning webbing. "You bought pizza?"

"Yeah. Want to eat at your place tonight?" Lin Mo shook the pizza box in his hand.

"Sure, sure!" Peter's eyes lit up, and his bicycle nearly crashed into a streetlamp. "Aunt May made baked potatoes today—they'll go perfectly with pizza!"

As they passed the park, they saw several children gathered around an old locust tree, looking worried. A kite hung from one of its branches, shaped like Iron Man. Its red armor stood out brightly in the sunset, while the string was tangled around the highest branch, beyond anyone's reach.

"I'll get it." Lin Mo handed the pizza to Peter and walked beneath the tree. The children watched him curiously. One little girl with pigtails suddenly shouted, "It's that uncle who can do magic!"

Lin Mo smiled and activated his Phasing Ability, his body instantly turning translucent. The children let out a chorus of gasps as they watched him pass through the trunk like he was walking through water and reach out to take down the kite. When he came back out, he deliberately paused in midair for two seconds, as though floating above the ground, making the children scream and clap.

"Here you go." Lin Mo handed the kite to the girl with pigtails. Her small hand brushed the back of his, as though passing through a thin layer of mist, leaving her too stunned to speak.

Peter kept snapping pictures with his camera. In the lens, Lin Mo was only a faint outline, like a figure in an ink-wash painting. "This one definitely has to go in my journal!" he said excitedly. "I'll call it 'The Ghost Repairman of Queens'!"

After returning to Aunt May's house, Lin Mo had just put the pizza in the oven when he heard an argument downstairs. It was the bespectacled supermarket cashier, crying to her boss. "I really didn't take it! Three dollars suddenly appeared at the register, along with a pizza receipt..."

Her boss's voice was harsh. "Cut the nonsense! The security footage shows nothing. If you didn't steal it, then who did? Half your pay is getting docked this month!"

Lin Mo's face instantly turned red. He had not expected his little stunt to drag someone else into trouble. It felt as though a needle had stabbed his heart. "I'm going down to take a look," he told Aunt May, grabbing his coat and running downstairs.

At the supermarket, the cashier was still crying, her shoulders trembling. Lin Mo took a deep breath, activated his Phasing Ability, and phased into the register. He took out a sticky note and a pen from inside—he could touch physical objects while phased—and quickly wrote: "I put the money there. I bought the supreme pizza from the third row of the freezer. Sorry for not saying so beforehand."

After writing it, he placed the note on the desk in front of the boss. The boss had been in the middle of berating the cashier when he suddenly saw it. He froze, picked up the paper and held it to the light, then checked the security footage again—still nothing. His face turned deathly pale. "A... a ghost?"

The cashier stopped crying too, staring at the note and murmuring, "So it wasn't me..."

Lin Mo quietly slipped away, relieved. He straightened his clothes in the supermarket's glass door and saw his reflection—under the sunlight, the faint glow from his Phasing Ability was nearly invisible. Only at certain angles could anyone notice his translucent outline, like an unfocused photograph.

"Does this count as invisibility?" Lin Mo muttered with a smile. Maybe calling it the Supermarket Invisibility Technique would be more fitting from now on.

That evening, while they ate pizza, Peter suddenly asked, "Brother Lin, can you help me with something using your ability?" He pointed at the spider in the glass jar. "I want to move it into a bigger container, but it's been really aggressive lately. It tries to bite whenever anyone gets close."

Lin Mo looked at the spider. The black rings on its legs were clearer than before, and a dim green light flickered in its eyes—signs that it was about to transform. The day it bit Peter was not far away. "I'll try." He activated his Phasing Ability, passed his hand through the glass jar, and gently untwisted the wire securing the lid, his movements light as a feather.

The spider immediately raised its front legs aggressively, exposing its fangs, but Lin Mo's phased hand was completely beyond its reach. "Done." Lin Mo moved the spider into a new container lined with soft cotton and a leaf—Peter said it was the spider's favorite food.

"That's amazing!" Peter clapped, then suddenly lowered his voice. "I think this spider might have been irradiated. Its webbing is ten times stronger than normal spider webbing! What do you think...?"

"Don't make wild guesses." Lin Mo cut him off, tossing the old glass jar into the trash. "Eat your pizza before it gets cold." He did not want Peter to learn about the future too early. Some growth had to be experienced firsthand.

Late that night, back in the basement, Lin Mo pulled out the comic Ted had lent him. He saw that Spider-Man had nearly crashed into a billboard the first time he swung on webbing too. "So everyone has a rookie phase." He smiled to himself, suddenly recalling that afternoon's embarrassing incident at the supermarket—he had rushed too quickly while phasing into the freezer for ice cream, getting half his body stuck in the freezer divider. The cold made him jerk, and when he phased back out, ice crystals still hung from the tip of his nose.

An older woman picking out yogurt had glanced at him and sighed. "Young man, even if life feels hopeless, don't crawl into the freezer. Freezing yourself sick isn't worth it."

Lin Mo's face had turned scarlet then. He had covered his nose and run out, his ears frozen as red as two apples. Thinking about it now, he could still feel that icy sensation lingering on the tip of his nose, yet it made him laugh out loud.

He turned on his computer and brought up the "Ability Practice Schedule" he had made: Monday for phasing speed, Tuesday for Precision Control, Wednesday for weighted phasing—walking through walls with a toolbox on his back—Thursday... In Thursday's box, Lin Mo drew a freezer and wrote beside it: "No sudden stops."

His wristband suddenly vibrated, displaying a new notification: [Detected diversification in host ability applications. "Ability Branch" options unlocked.]

[Option 1: Enhance phasing speed. Movement speed reduction lowered to 30%.]

[Option 2: Enhance phasing invisibility. Cannot be detected by non-energy detection devices.]

Lin Mo stared at the screen, his finger hovering in midair. If he chose speed, he could escape danger faster; if he chose invisibility, he could conceal himself better and evade S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance as well.

He thought of Phil Coulson's smile on the park bench, the supermarket owner's terrified face, and the blurry silhouette in Peter's camera. "Better to stay hidden," Lin Mo said, selecting Option 2.

A faint flash passed over the wristband, and his Phasing Ability instantly became more concealed. He looked at himself in the mirror. Under ordinary lighting, the translucence of his body had nearly vanished. Only under intense light could a faint outline be seen, like heat haze warping the air on a summer afternoon.

"Not bad." Lin Mo smiled in satisfaction. Now, not only could he walk through walls, he could also turn "invisible" in supermarkets to take things—though he would pay for them, of course—help children out in the neighborhood, and even quietly observe the meteor crater right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose.

After practicing until dawn, Lin Mo tried phasing into the neighborhood ATM out of pure curiosity. The moment he phased through, he could clearly "see" the stacks of bills inside, neatly arranged like building blocks. But he only glanced at them before phasing back out—some lines could never be crossed.

As he stepped out of the ATM, he saw Phil Coulson's car parked at the street corner. Its headlights were off, like a crouching beast. Lin Mo did not hide. Instead, he waved toward the car, then activated his enhanced invisibility and slowly crossed the street, disappearing into the alley.

He knew Phil Coulson had definitely seen him. But that was enough—show goodwill, keep distance. That was the way Lin Mo had found to survive in the Marvel Universe.

The next day at the repair shop, Carlos tossed him an encrypted hard drive—the same model as Phil Coulson's. His expression was strange. "The client said only you can fix it."

Lin Mo accepted the hard drive and used his Phasing Ability to "see through" it. Its internal structure was even more complicated than the last one, and it concealed a miniature bomb that would explode if anyone tried to dismantle it. "I'll take the job." He smiled, though he knew perfectly well—the real challenge had only just begun.