"Shield"'s Superpower?

The heater in the repair shop hummed, stirring the smell of motor oil together with the sweet scent of baking cookies. Lin Mo crouched on the floor, brushing Shield's fur. His fingers passed through the puppy's thick brown coat and felt the solid muscles beneath—this stray dog, which had been little more than skin and bones half a year ago, was now built like a little leopard. The heart-shaped patch of white fur on its chest gleamed in the sunlight, looking remarkably like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s emblem.

"Woof!" Shield suddenly pricked up its ears, its tail snapping like a steel whip as its eyes locked onto the cookie tin on the counter. Martha had brought those oatmeal cookies that morning, and Lin Mo had deliberately placed them on the three-foot-high counter to keep this greedy little thing from reaching them.

Lin Mo had just been about to hold it down when the puppy shot off like a cannonball—its front paws pushed off the toolbox, its body drawing an arc through the air before landing steadily on the counter! It snatched up a cookie, then landed on the floor and smugly wagged its tail, letting out satisfied little whimpers.

"You're really something." Lin Mo was both irritated and amused as he pried the cookie from its mouth. "Mrs. Martha baked these specially. They're not your snacks."

Shield drooped its ears miserably, rubbing its wet nose against Lin Mo's palm as it rumbled pitifully in its throat. Lin Mo could never resist that move. He had no choice but to break off half a cookie and feed it to the dog. As he watched Shield race to a corner and wolf it down, though, he felt puzzled—could an ordinary dog jump that high? Even a large dog could not simply leap onto a three-foot-high counter.

"Mo! I'm here to pick up my magic box!" Ted's booming voice came from the doorway, carrying the smell of freshly baked pizza. He held a takeout box in his hand, and when he saw Shield crouched on the counter licking its paw, he nearly dropped it. "Holy crap! Did this dog become a spirit or something? How did it get up there?"

"It jumped up by itself." Lin Mo wiped his hands and took the pizza Ted handed over. "It's been eyeing Martha's cookies for days."

Ted leaned toward the counter, compared its height, then looked at Shield's size. Suddenly, he slapped his thigh. "I know! Your dog must've been bitten by something! Like that spider Peter talked about—it mutated its genes!" He crouched and poked Shield's head. "Can you shoot webs? Or crawl on walls? Show me something!"

Shield grew annoyed at being poked. It bared its teeth, grabbed the remaining half-cookie, and jumped back down to the floor with catlike agility. Ted's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "See? See? Can a normal dog jump like that? Even my cousin's pit bull isn't as agile as this!"

Lin Mo said nothing, merely picked up a slice of pizza and chewed. He did think Shield was somewhat unusual. Besides its jumping ability, the dog's recovery was absurdly strong. Last week, when he had helped deliver medicine to Gretchen's grandmother, Shield had followed along and been clipped by a bicycle running a red light. Its hind leg had been scraped raw, and it had bled quite a bit. Lin Mo had been heartbroken as he disinfected it with iodine, while the puppy trembled from the pain. Yet when he checked the next morning, the wound had already scabbed over. By the third day, it had completely healed without even leaving a scar.

"Maybe it's just well-fed." Lin Mo said that aloud, but his heart skipped a beat. He thought of his own Physical Enhancement—his strength, speed, and recovery all far exceeded those of ordinary people. Shield stayed with him every day, ate the premium dog food he bought, and occasionally got some beef jerky too. Could it be...

"Being well-fed lets it jump three feet high?" Ted clearly did not believe him. He took a slice of pizza from the box and tossed it to Shield. "I think it got lucky because of you. Did you secretly give it some kind of enhancer? Like in those sci-fi movies."

"You've watched too many sci-fi movies." Lin Mo rolled his eyes, but he could not stop his thoughts from running wild. His ability came from the wristband and was fundamentally a genetic-level enhancement. Could that enhancement be transmitted somehow? Through... bodily fluid contact? He remembered that while treating Shield's wound, his finger had accidentally been scratched by the dog's teeth. He had not cared at the time, but thinking back on it now made him uneasy.

That afternoon, while repairing cars, Lin Mo deliberately watched Shield's behavior. The puppy napped beside a tire, but its ears remained alert. When a sparrow landed on the garage roof, Shield sprang up with a whoosh and barked wildly at the sky, its reaction speed at least twice that of an ordinary dog. When the door of an old Ford got stuck, Lin Mo was about to use a crowbar, but Shield actually clamped its teeth around the handle and gave a fierce pull. With a click, it pulled the car door open!

"Hey, you really can help." Lin Mo raised a brow and tossed it a strip of beef jerky as a reward. Shield caught it, wagging its tail as it rubbed against his pant leg. Its bright eyes seemed to be asking for praise.

Peter came by after school to deliver his math homework—Lin Mo had promised to help him check his mistakes and, while he was at it, ask about biological enhancement. The teenager was immediately drawn to Shield when he entered and spent a long time playing with the puppy before suddenly looking up. "Brother Lin Mo, your dog seems to have denser muscles than normal dogs." He pointed to Shield's hind leg. "Look at the muscle definition here. It's very tight, like a trained police dog."

"You can tell?" Lin Mo was a little surprised.

"Yeah, we just covered animal anatomy in biology class." Peter pulled a textbook from his backpack and flipped to a diagram of canine muscle distribution. "The gastrocnemius muscles of regular domestic dogs aren't this developed. Its... structure is more like a wolf's, with strong explosive power suited for jumping." The teenager pushed up his glasses, looking thoughtful. "Unless it received special training, it'd be hard for it to grow like this."

Lin Mo's heart sank. Special training? He had never trained Shield. At most, he took it for a couple laps around the community park. Could it really have something to do with his ability? He remembered the blue light that had flashed from his wrist when the wristband activated Physical Enhancement, as well as that stone from New Mexico carrying Asgardian energy—could those energies have affected the living things around him?

"Oh, right." Peter suddenly remembered something. "Last time, when I was culturing bacteria in the lab, I noticed that bacteria near tools you'd used reproduced faster and seemed more vital. I thought it was an illusion at the time, but now, looking at Shield..."

Lin Mo's breathing stalled. Bacteria reproduced faster? Shield recovered quickly? Could there be a connection between the two? The essence of his Physical Enhancement was increased cellular activity. Could that enhancing effect radiate to nearby organisms? Like an invisible energy field.

After closing the shop that evening, Lin Mo took Shield to the community park. He threw a tennis ball and shouted, "Fetch!" The puppy dashed out like an arrow loosed from a bow, moving so fast it became a blur as it darted freely among the park benches. Several times it nearly ran into people, but each time it avoided them with incredible agility. A man walking a pit bull stared in disbelief and tugged on his own dog. "Look at that! Then look at you—you're so fat you can barely run!"

Lin Mo caught the tennis ball Shield brought back and patted its head. His fingertips could feel that the puppy's body temperature was slightly higher than an ordinary dog's. He suddenly remembered that after gaining Physical Enhancement, his own body temperature had also risen slightly. The doctor had said it was caused by accelerated metabolism.

"Could it really be contagious?" Lin Mo muttered. If it was, that would be far too dangerous—he could not wear a hazmat suit every day whenever he interacted with people. He hurriedly activated the wristband, wanting to see if it offered any relevant information, but the screen only displayed the cold words: "Physical Enhancement Synchronization Rate: 51%." There was nothing else.

Back in the basement, Lin Mo dug out a pet health manual he had bought before and checked Shield's indicators against it—temperature: 39 degrees Celsius, 0.5 degrees above normal; heartbeat: 120 beats per minute, slightly fast; sharp teeth and hard claws. It really did not seem like an ordinary pet dog. He took out a thermometer and carefully tucked it between Shield's hind legs. The puppy was unusually obedient, only lightly wagging its tail.

"39.2 degrees." Lin Mo recorded the number, feeling even more panicked. He thought of Martha's old cat, Snowball, which had recently taken to visiting his repair shop. It had once been lazy, but now it could actually jump onto the top of the refrigerator to steal dried fish. Had Snowball been affected too?

Early the next morning, Lin Mo deliberately went to Martha's house to see Snowball. The old woman was brushing the cat's fur and smiled when she saw him. "Look at this lazy thing. It actually jumped onto the refrigerator yesterday and stole all the salmon I'd just bought." Snowball lay on the sofa, licking its paw. When it saw Lin Mo, it actually wagged its tail like Shield did—before this, it had never paid attention to people.

Lin Mo's heart dropped to rock bottom. Snowball had changed too. That meant it was not a coincidence. He really did have some kind of "field" that could affect living things. He hurried back to the repair shop, locked himself in the garage, and watched Shield roll around on the floor. Suddenly, he felt afraid—if this influence became stronger and stronger, would everyone around him turn into "enhanced people"?

When Ted came looking for him, he saw Lin Mo staring blankly at the dog and gave him a pat. "What are you thinking about? Why are you so pale?"

"Ted." Lin Mo looked up with a serious expression. "Have you noticed any changes in your body recently? Like becoming stronger, or running faster?"

Ted froze, then scratched his head. "Does getting stronger count? Yesterday, I actually lifted my magic box over my head! It used to take two people to carry it." He proudly flexed his arm. "I thought I'd just worked out. What's wrong?"

Cold sweat instantly soaked Lin Mo's back. Ted had changed too.

He collapsed into a chair, looking at the tennis ball Shield had brought over, and suddenly felt as though this ability was a ticking time bomb. He only wanted to live a peaceful life. He did not want to become some kind of "humanoid radiation source." The wristband on his wrist trembled lightly, as though mocking his naivety—abilities were never free. Every ounce of power came with a corresponding price.

"Mo, what's wrong with you?" Ted could tell something was off. "Are you sick? You look awful."

"I'm fine." Lin Mo forced a smile. "Maybe I'm just tired." He looked at Ted, then at Shield, and made a decision—he had to figure out the range and strength of this "field," or something terrible would happen sooner or later.

Over the next few days, Lin Mo conducted a crude experiment. He had Ted lift boxes at different distances and recorded the amount of weight he could carry; he watched whether Shield's jumping height declined after it moved away from him; he even borrowed a microscope from the community hospital to observe bacterial activity at varying distances.

The results eased his mind—this influence had a very small range, only about three meters, and the farther away someone was, the weaker the effect became. At three meters, Ted could lift about as much as before. When Shield was more than five meters away from him, its jumping height dropped noticeably. At two meters, bacteria returned to their normal level of activity.

"Looks like it's not that bad." Lin Mo stroked his chin, feeling somewhat reassured. This influence was more like a "close-range buff" than indiscriminate contagion. As long as he kept his distance, it would not affect others too severely.

He told Peter about the discovery, and the teenager's eyes lit up. "It's like a Biological Energy Field! I read about it before—some animals can affect their surroundings through magnetic fields. Maybe you evolved a similar ability!" He pulled out his notebook and began writing rapidly. "If we can measure this field's frequency, maybe we can invent an amplifier, or... a shielding device!"

"A shielding device?" Lin Mo was intrigued. "It can block this influence?"

"Theoretically, yes." Peter nodded. "Using electromagnetic waves at a specific frequency to interfere with it should cancel it out. I can try making one. The materials can just be scrap parts from your repair shop..."

Lin Mo smiled and ruffled his hair. "Sure. Just tell me whatever you need." He watched Peter's excited profile, then glanced at Shield napping nearby, and suddenly felt that this "little problem" was not so frightening after all. At least now, he knew the boundaries and had found a way to deal with it.

That evening, Martha came to collect her repaired bicycle. When she saw Shield helping Lin Mo carry a wrench, her eyes widened in surprise. "This dog is getting more and more sensible. It listens better than that boy Ted." She took a dog collar from her bag, embroidered with the name "Shield." "Put this on it, so it doesn't run around and get hit by a car."

Lin Mo accepted the collar and put it on Shield. It fit perfectly. The puppy shook its head, seeming to like its new accessory, then grabbed Martha's pant leg and tugged her toward the door. It probably wanted to walk her home.

"Look at that, look at that. So smart." Martha beamed. "I think this dog could become a guide dog or a police dog someday. It has a better future than your repair shop."

Lin Mo watched Shield wag its tail as it said goodbye to Martha, and warmth suddenly filled his heart. Maybe abilities brought more than just trouble. They also brought these unexpected moments of warmth. Shield had become stronger, Ted had gained strength, and Snowball had become livelier—none of that seemed like a bad thing.

As long as he controlled it properly and kept his distance, this "buff" might become a power for protecting the people around him. Lin Mo touched the wristband on his wrist. The synchronization rate on the screen remained at 51%, but he felt his understanding of his ability had deepened once more.

As night grew darker, Shield lay asleep beside Lin Mo's feet, breathing in steady little snores. Lin Mo opened the notebook Peter had left behind. It contained a complicated circuit diagram, with the words "Biological Energy Field Shielding Device v1.0" written beside it. He smiled, picked up a pen, and drew a tiny dog paw print next to it—perhaps the wonder of this world lay in these sudden "superpowers," and in those willing to face them together.

As for whether Shield truly had superpowers, it no longer seemed so important. What mattered was that it was part of this family, a companion by his side. That was enough.