Banner felt that Betty had changed these past few days.
First, during her break, she started fixing her hair while looking at her phone screen, twirling a strand of hair with her fingers, then letting it fall naturally. Betty never used to do this; she used to just tie her hair up in a ponytail or leave it untied. Now she pays more attention to her hair. Last time, he even overheard Betty asking a few girls where they got their hair done.
Next was the lipstick color. Banner didn't know much about these things, but he could tell that Betty's color was a shade brighter than usual. Once, when he looked up from his lab data, he saw Betty take a small round mirror out of her pocket, purse her lips in the mirror, and smooth the edges of her lipstick. When she noticed him watching, she shoved the mirror back into the drawer and continued preparing reagents as if nothing had happened. Banner didn't say anything, just pushed his glasses up a bit.
And then there's the scent of perfume. Betty never used to wear perfume, but now you can smell a light, sweet fragrance from a meter away. Banner thinks it smells nice, but he doesn't know if he's entitled to think it smells nice.
He didn't say anything. He was never the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve. Only occasionally, when Betty was adjusting the equipment, would he glance at her. That glance was very brief, so brief that by the time Betty looked up, he had already shifted his gaze back to the data.
Today was like any other day. The gamma ray debugging had entered the routine testing phase. Banner stood in front of the control panel, his fingers flying across the keyboard, his eyes fixed on the rows of numbers flashing on the screen. Betty was beside him recording the data from the culture dishes. The two worked together like gears meshing, one calling out numbers, the other recording them, without needing any extra communication.
"Output power is 87 percent, fluctuation is within the allowable range." Banner pushed up his glasses, his tone flat.
"The petri dish indicators are normal." Betty made a mark in her notebook, closed it, and stretched.
Just then, a low, muffled laugh came from outside the door.
Banner frowned and glanced in that direction subconsciously. The lab door was semi-transparent, allowing those inside to see out, but those outside couldn't see in. He saw a group of people gathered in the corridor outside, with a figure standing in the middle, much taller than everyone else. That figure was wearing a very flashy pink T-shirt and was demonstrating his newly learned moonwalk to a group of girls.
Banner looked away and tapped a few more times on the keyboard.
Betty heard it too. She glanced at the commotion outside the door, a barely suppressed smile playing on her lips. She lowered her head, pretending to organize her notebook, but Banner noticed that her fingers weren't actually turning the pages, and her eyes kept glancing outside every now and then.
"Is it your bodyguard again?" Banner asked.
"Hmm." Betty didn't even look up, but her voice carried an undisguised amusement. "Yes, that big idiot, that show-off jerk."
Banner smiled too, but the smile vanished in less than half a second.
Betty placed the notebook next to the control panel and gave Banner an apologetic smile, " Banner, could you finish up the rest of the shutdown process? I'm going out for a bit."
Banner's fingers paused on the keyboard for a moment. He looked at the data on the screen and gave a soft "hmm".
"The data is stable; I can shut it down myself."
Thanks, Banner.
Betty's figure quickly disappeared through the door of the isolation room.
Banner stood there, stunned. He heard the airtight door of the isolation ward open and close, heard Betty's footsteps fading into the distance, and heard a light, cheerful voice outside the door. " Lin Xiao, what brings you here again?" Then came the burly man's voice, deep and tinged with a lazy laugh, "Why can't I come? I'm your bodyguard. What if you get attacked by the experimental data and I can't save you in time?"
Banner lowered his head, sighed softly, suppressed the complex emotions in his heart, and began to shut down the instruments one by one.
"Gamma ray output power reduced to thirty percent. Returns to zero in ten minutes." Banner began to mutter to himself, his fingers swiping across the touchpad. He knew the process so well he could do it with his eyes closed.
He reached for the notebook, but his arm accidentally bumped into the corner of the table. The notebook fell to the floor with a soft thud. Banner bent down to pick it up, but his elbow bumped into a petri dish on the shelf next to him. The glass dish fell to the floor and shattered, shards of glass scattering everywhere.
Banner hurriedly squatted down to collect the broken glass, picking up the shards one by one and putting them into the trash can. He didn't know how many shards he was picking up when he cut his finger on the glass, and a bead of bright red blood oozed from his fingertip. He put his finger in his mouth, and the taste of blood melted on his tongue.
Damn it.
What he didn't notice was that as he squatted down to pick up the broken glass, the huge gamma-ray emitter above his head was shifting extremely slowly. He had just calibrated the machine half an hour earlier, so it shouldn't have shifted. But the problem was that he forgot to tighten the calibration knob, and when he picked up the glass, the knob's angle was off by a fraction of a degree.
A fraction of a degree, is that enough?
That's enough.
Banner stood up, dusted off his hands, walked to the control panel, and prepared to press the final confirmation button to shut down the computer. Everything seemed perfectly normal as his fingers hovered above the keyboard, but then he pressed the power button.
A red warning box popped up on the screen. "Calibration deviation, please check the calibration knob."
Banner paused, taken aback. Calibration deviation? He frowned and turned to look at the massive gamma-ray emitter. The locking latch on the knob was now tilted at an extremely strange angle. He strode over and reached out to twist it back in place.
Then he heard a deep hum.
The sound came from the transmitter on the ceiling, deep and steady, like the breath of a giant beast awakening. Banner looked up and saw the transmitter's glowing circle brightening at a visible rate. On the screen, the output power jumped from 32% to 41%, 57%, 73%, and the screen was filled with a row of frantically jumping red alarm boxes.
Banner's hand froze in mid-air. His eyes reflected the red light on the screen, flashing on and off. He realized he had made a terribly stupid mistake—he hadn't turned off the power before adjusting the calibration knob. It was the very first rule in every lab safety manual, something every freshman had to memorize, and he had taught countless students to memorize it. He had forgotten it himself.
Gamma rays were emitted.
The beam of light, that exaggerated green light, poured down from the transmitter on the ceiling, striking Banner and engulfing his entire silhouette in that green glow. He could feel his blood boiling in his veins, his bones creaking deep within his muscles, every cell screaming, tearing, and reforming.
He opened his mouth as if to shout something, but what rose in his throat was not a sound, but a series of painful roars.
On the grass outside the laboratory building, Betty was leaning against Lin Xiao, and she could hear his steady heartbeat. Lin Xiao's chin was resting on the top of her head, one hand was on her waist, and the other hand was restlessly caressing her.
Betty frowned and gently pinched Lin Xiao's waist. Lin Xiao grinned in response, making Betty chuckle.
What if someone sees us?
"It's alright, I'm not charging them. Aren't they happy to watch teen idol dramas for free?"
What kind of absurd logic is that...? What about the two people watching you?
"Hehe, I gave them some extra-delivery donuts earlier, they're probably puffing away now."
"You're so awful!"
Just then, the ground shook.
Immediately afterwards, the entire laboratory building began to shake violently. A deep, inhuman roar emanated from the depths of the building, making the air tremble.
Then came the second sound. Louder and deeper, as if some ancient behemoth had broken its seal and was proclaiming its power.
Betty froze. She looked up, a flicker of confusion in her eyes. The voice sounded like it was coming from a laboratory, where...
Banner--
Lin Xiao's expression turned extremely serious in that instant. Without even hesitation, he grabbed Betty's arm and pulled her behind him.
"Get behind me."
Before the words were even finished, the exterior wall of the third floor of the laboratory building exploded.
Bricks and concrete fragments rained down on the ground, and steel bars jutted out of the broken walls, twisted into pretzel shapes. Before the dust had settled, a huge, green fist blasted through another wall, sending it flying by its roots.
A huge green figure appeared behind the blasted hole in the wall.
He was about three meters tall, his entire body covered in bulging muscles. His trousers were still hanging with a few tattered pieces of fabric, stretched so taut they were almost unrecognizable. His eyes were green, and there was no rational light in his pupils, only pure, undisguised rage.
He raised his head and let out a deafening roar towards the sky. The sound waves of the roar impacted the air, and all the car alarms within fifty meters of the laboratory building went off simultaneously.
Hulk!
Betty covered her ears, shrinking behind Lin Xiao, trembling all over. Her lips quivered several times before she managed to squeeze out a few words: "He is... Banner?"
"It's him." Lin Xiao squinted, staring intently at Banner.
"Ding ding ding ding-- Ding ding ding--"
"Ding--High-risk target detected! Target codename: Hulk. Combat strength rating: A+ (Data is extremely unstable, hostility towards host 100%). Danger level: Catastrophe."
"Ding--Warning: Host's current combat strength rating: B. Win rate calculation result: Absolutely no chance of winning! Absolutely no chance of winning! Host is advised to evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!"
Lin Xiao shook his head. His hand had already reached into the System Space. He touched the needle, his fingertips brushing against the silver syringe. The needle tip felt cool to the touch. He just needed to pull it out and find an opportunity to stab Hulk in the neck—he knew this stuff all too well. The active cellular phagocytic factors inside could easily penetrate any physical defense, causing the target's cells to engulf and transform themselves, losing their activity.
According to the original timeline, Banner was supposed to become the Hulk several dozen days later, but why did he transform into the Hulk so much earlier? 100% hostility towards me? I know, the reason he transformed early was because of me. It was because of my appearance that Betty left in a hurry before the experiment was over, which distracted Banner and caused the Hulk to be born early. Lin Xiao took a deep breath. Everything makes sense now. It was all because of me.
If he were to stick the needle into Hulk's neck at that moment, it wouldn't be solving the problem; it would be covering up an irreparable mistake with another. What difference would that make from him using a needle to "silence" Hulk?
Lin Xiao clicked his tongue softly, loosened his grip, and pushed the needle back into his system backpack. As he took a deep breath and a smile returned to his lips, a huge chunk of concrete shard came hurtling towards him.
Lin Xiao suddenly turned around, grabbed Betty with both hands, and pushed her several meters away. The rubble hit his back with a very low thud. The impact sent him flying, rolling twice on the ground before crashing into a nearby bench before coming to a stop.
" Lin Xiao--!" Betty's voice came from afar.
Lin Xiao got up from the ground. His shirt was torn open on the back, revealing a bloody mess. The Lizard Serum was rapidly healing him, but the pain was still there. This was the first time Lin Xiao Lin Xiao ever been in such a sorry state. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stood up unsteadily, his muscles still recovering from the blow.
"Damn," he muttered, shaking his numb wrist, then looked up and grinned at Hulk. "It doesn't hurt."
The ground beneath his feet trembled once more. A green figure, over three meters tall, crashed through the ground, dragging itself covered in rubble and dust, charging straight toward him. Each step left a meter-diameter crater in the asphalt, sending rubble flying like shrapnel. The roadside lampposts were shaken askew, their lampshades falling to the ground and shattering into pieces.
Hulk was much faster than he expected.
Just as Lin Xiao's smile began to spread across his face, the green giant had already charged in front of him. Hulk lowered his head, his fists clenched, the muscles in his arms twisting and coiling like pythons. His shadow completely enveloped Lin Xiao, blocking out the sunlight.
Betty's voice came from behind, Doupao's voice echoed in his mind, frantically repeating the word "run." Lin Xiao turned off the system notification, like turning off a too-noisy alarm clock.
"It's so noisy."
Lin Xiao's hands hung naturally at his sides, his fingers slightly spread, and a tiny arc of purple electricity flicked from his fingertips.
He turned his head, his gaze passing over Hulk's wall-like shoulders and landing on the white figure in the distance. She was trembling all over, her lips were deathly pale, and her eyes were fixed on his direction. She wanted to rush over but was held down by two students beside her.
"Baby, stay away."
He turned his head back, the corners of his mouth curving upwards, his eyes narrowing into two dangerous crescent moons.
"I'll test my strength against this big guy."