White Light

The moment it bit down, Ye Wanqing immediately started crying out. But obviously, she was faking it. Still, her cry scared the silver shaded cat stiff, and it didn't dare bite down for real. It let go and stared at her blankly.

Ye Wanqing smiled. "See? It actually knows its limits. The moment I cry out, it won't really bite."

"Fine, whatever. Just don't let it come bother me," Xiao He muttered, waving his hand and shooing the silver shaded cat off his lap.

Ye Wanqing put her hands on her hips and frowned. "Its name is Tuantuan. Why would anyone dislike cats? It's so cute."

"None of your business..." Xiao He rolled his eyes. "I just don't like keeping pets."

"Tch, heartless man." Ye Wanqing frowned and glared at him before carrying Tuantuan back to her room.

Having a cat in the house did make Xiao He a little unhappy, but since he didn't need to take care of it, it didn't really matter. After finishing four classes that morning, he could rest at the apartment that afternoon.

Ye Wanqing happened to have no classes that afternoon either, so the two of them holed up in their own rooms and watched shows.

When Xiao He got up to use the bathroom, he suddenly heard music coming from Ye Wanqing's room. He didn't know why, but although he couldn't understand the lyrics, the tune was completely to his taste. So he went to her bedroom door and took a look, only to find that Ye Wanqing was lying on her bed watching an anime.

"What are you watching?" Xiao He asked curiously, looking at the anime playing on her screen. Ye Wanqing ate chips and answered absentmindedly, "Banana Fish. It's pretty good. Want to watch it?"

"I'll give it a try," Xiao He said, pretending not to care. Then, once he returned to his room, he immediately searched for the anime online and started watching. But as he watched, he slowly began to feel that something was off...

"Why doesn't this anime have a female lead?" Xiao He muttered suspiciously.

Not only was there no female lead, but every man in the show seemed uninterested in the women passing by them. Instead, they all appeared to have improper thoughts about the male protagonist...

Worst of all, the male protagonist seemed to have a bit of ambiguous chemistry with the second male lead... Until finally, Xiao He confirmed that this was a boys' love work aimed at women! It just wasn't overly explicit, more of a mild boys' love story.

"With a serious name like Banana Fish, who the hell would've guessed it was a boys' love story?!" Xiao He muttered in disbelief. An indescribably awkward feeling hit him, leaving him stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If he kept watching, then as a normal man, watching a boys' love story was really uncomfortable. But if he stopped, not seeing the ending after already watching the beginning would be even more uncomfortable... In the end, from the moment he started this show, he had already doomed himself to suffer.

"That brat actually recommended a boys' love anime to me, a guy!" Xiao He got annoyed and could only continue watching while sulking. Fortunately, the boys' love elements were fairly subtle, so he endured it and finished the show by skipping through parts of it.

Setting the content aside, the music in the show was very much to his taste.

By the time he finished the show, it was almost dinner. Xiao He was considering ordering takeout when Ye Wanqing suddenly appeared at his door and said casually, "There's some fried sauce left from yesterday. Want some?"

Xiao He turned and gave her a suspicious look. She isn't trying to poison me, is she? Probably not. If I died, what use would that garbage ability of hers be? At most, she could rename witnesses in the Witness Protection Program.

"Don't overthink it. I just made a little too much fried sauce last time. If we don't eat it soon, it won't be fresh anymore. I don't like wasting food." Ye Wanqing folded her arms. "You're useful for this much, aren't you? You're a guy, after all."

Thus, Xiao He and Ye Wanqing sat at the table and ate noodles with fried sauce together.

Although his portion was a little large, he was confident he could finish it.

"Well? Is it good?" Ye Wanqing asked with an expectant smile, her eyes sparkling. As the saying went, you couldn't badmouth someone after eating their food. He had only just started eating, yet she had already asked him that. Xiao He couldn't bring himself to voice a single complaint.

"The music's pretty good. I liked both the opening and ending songs..." Xiao He muttered around a mouthful of noodles, then asked tentatively, "Do you... like watching this kind of boys' love film and television?"

"I'm fine with anything," Ye Wanqing said after thinking for a moment. "It's just that the male leads in those kinds of works are usually handsome. For example, the male lead in this one is really handsome. He's strong and talented too..."

Hah, women... Xiao He shook his head and sighed inwardly in helplessness. Those domineering CEOs who are handsome, athletic, good at making money, gentle, considerate, and utterly devoted don't exist. They're just characters created for TV dramas.

In reality, a man would already be impressive if he had three of those traits. "Utterly devoted" was the most ridiculous one. If a man were that outstanding, there was no way he would revolve around one woman. A whole crowd of women would be revolving around him.

But that was practically the trademark of modern romance dramas. Open any romance drama, and the male lead would definitely be a perfect domineering CEO, while the female lead would be an innocent airhead. The character setups were always the same; only the setting changed. Honestly, Xiao He looked down on romance dramas a little.

Of course, he didn't say any of that aloud. He simply lowered his head and ate. Ye Wanqing's fried sauce was wonderfully authentic, with a faint sweetness and a rich garlic flavor. It was no worse than the noodles with fried sauce sold at old established restaurants outside.

However, he had overestimated his appetite. In the end, he still couldn't finish the huge bowl of noodles and left behind one chopstickful.

Ye Wanqing was very dissatisfied with this. As she cleared away the dishes, she glared fiercely at him. "You call yourself a guy? You're even a mutant, yet you can't finish this little bit... I only asked you to help eat it because I didn't want to waste food, okay? And now it still got wasted!"

"I already tried my best... After drinking water, the noodles expanded in my stomach. I'm stuffed," Xiao He replied irritably. "My ability doesn't increase my appetite."

Actually, he found it strange too. He clearly burned a huge amount of calories, yet consumed very little. What exactly was providing him with all that extra energy?

Xiao He felt that it had to be related to that White Light. Every country should be trying to study it now, after all. Mutants had appeared because they were affected by the White Light.

Yet the appearance of the White Light remained a mystery. One day, a ring of white light had suddenly spread out and covered the entire world. After that, "mutants" capable of using unknown powers began appearing. No one knew how much the military actually understood about the White Light.

On the way to the military base for training the next day, Xiao He asked Cui Man about it in the car.

"The reason behind the White Light's appearance is still a mystery. We don't know whether it was man-made, a natural phenomenon, or extraterrestrial intelligence," Cui Man explained. "Although every country sent scientific expeditions to the Arctic, but..." At this point, Cui Man shook her head. "With humanity's current scientific capabilities, we can't reach that place. You've probably heard a little about the Arctic, right?"

"Mm." Ye Wanqing, sitting beside Xiao He, nodded. "The Arctic is theoretically just a huge block of ice floating on water. There's no land, and its position isn't fixed. Also, the Arctic's magnetic field is unusual, so it's impossible to determine direction there."

Cui Man nodded. "That's basically right. Simply put, the environment there is far too harsh, and humanity currently has no way to overcome it. The polar regions have six months of daylight followed by six months of night. Combined with the factors Wanqing mentioned, it's difficult for scientific expeditions to survive in that environment for long periods. Usually, there are only Antarctic expeditions. Arctic expeditions are extremely rare."

"Maybe..." Xiao He fell into thought. If I changed the Arctic's name to "Lin Tiannan," maybe I could conquer that place, but...

Xiao He only thought about it briefly. He wasn't some ambitious young man driven to strive. His greatest dream was to lie down comfortably and make money. Why bother worrying about that kind of thing...

But then Cui Man added, "At present, rather than tracing the origin of the 'White Light,' it would be better to study mutants. We have a few theories now. We're only waiting to verify them."

"Such as?" Xiao He asked tentatively.

Cui Man poked his arm. "For example, did the White Light change your bodies, or were you already different from everyone else?"

"If the White Light changed your bodies, then it's highly possible that what you use is a type of energy that already exists in this world. Like dark matter, this energy can't be seen, but mutants can make use of it."

"The other possibility is that your bodies haven't changed, and the White Light itself is a form of 'energy.' You simply belong to a relatively rare type among humans. It could be a genetic mutation or some special hereditary factor that allows you to use the White Light's power."

"Hmm..." Xiao He immediately fell into thought. He understood what Cui Man meant. The daily actions of "mutants" did not follow the law of conservation of energy. He expended a huge amount of energy but did not replenish enough energy, which meant that some kind of "unknown energy" made up the difference. Whether one could use that "unknown energy" was the difference between ordinary people and mutants.

What Cui Man meant was that they now needed to determine whether that "unknown energy" was the White Light or some other kind of energy, and whether ordinary humans had a way to make use of it.

Cui Man folded her arms and explained, "No matter which possibility is correct, as long as we can study it thoroughly and learn to use this energy, human civilization will make an enormous leap forward. It could completely change this world and reduce the destruction of nature."