After hearing her story, Chen Xiao hurriedly soothed her in a gentle voice, pushing down the faint suspicion that had just surfaced in his mind.
It seemed he had been overthinking things. Trying to act as a mole right under Professor X's nose was pure fantasy.
Great care had gone into the landscaping at Xavier's School. The entire campus resembled a peaceful park embraced by woods and meadows: lush lawns, rows of trees, and even a touch of tranquility in the breeze.
The next day was Sunday, their usual day off.
Beside the lawn outside the dormitory, Chen Xiao reclined on a bench, one leg casually crossed over the other and both hands behind his head, comfortably basking in the sun.
Warm sunlight bathed his whole body as notifications of "Constitution +3" and "Strength +5" rang out in his ears one after another.
Only a day had passed, yet his strength had soared again: his constitution had surpassed three hundred points, and his strength was approaching the five-ton mark.
This rate of growth was a little frightening.
It seemed that the stronger he became, the faster he progressed.
More noticeable still were the cascading changes in his body. His eyesight had improved dramatically. Right now, he could clearly see a mosquito flying among blades of grass beside a tree root more than ten meters away, its beating wings leaving distinct afterimages.
This was clearly a sign that his dynamic vision was beginning to emerge.
His mental attribute had surged alongside it, sharpening his thoughts and quickening his reactions.
Strangely, however, he had yet to awaken any psychic abilities.
By all rights, his mental power was already more than ten times that of an ordinary person. Even if it did not trigger telepathy, it should at least have produced a basic superpower like telekinesis.
But the reality was that, aside from thinking a little faster and vaguely sensing the circulation of blood and vital energy within him, he showed no other unusual signs.
Just as Chen Xiao was absorbed in his physical transformation, quietly getting used to his newfound strength, Clarice's figure appeared silently around a bend in the path.
Today, she wore a plain white T-shirt and fitted jeans. Her slender, one-and-a-half-meter frame looked particularly thin, yet carried a clean-cut, boyish air.
Paired with her finely sculpted face, bewitching purple eyes, and the faint purple markings on her cheeks, she looked like an unusually colored flower with a slight edge as she walked through the light.
Stopping before Chen Xiao, the black-haired girl lowered her head slightly and spoke softly. "Vitas."
Chen Xiao drew his gaze back, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "Good morning, Clarice."
The instant he looked up, he had yet to rein in his vision. His gaze instinctively swept upward, taking in white flats, straight calves, and...
Looked like white...
Ahem!
He immediately reined in his gaze and raised his head naturally, his expression unchanged, as though nothing had happened.
The girl noticed nothing. She merely pointed to the empty space beside him and asked quietly, "Vitas, can I sit here?"
"Of course. Go ahead."
"Thank you."
After sitting down, she saw that Chen Xiao had closed his eyes to rest, so she did not disturb him. She gently put on her headphones, picked up a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales, and quietly leafed through it. Clearly, fairy tales were a favorite of hers.
At one end of the bench sat a girl with her knees bent, listening to music as her fingertips brushed over the pages; at the other reclined a boy, relaxed and languid, letting sunlight wash over him.
From a distance, the scene was just the right kind of gentle.
But the peace did not last long.
Clarice had barely settled down when four boys nearby began walking toward them.
The one in front had close-cropped brown hair and an unruly hostility about his brow. One look was enough to tell he was trouble.
The four had a clear target, heading straight for the bench.
The moment she saw them, Clarice's face went pale, and disgust, fear, and wariness quickly rose in her eyes.
The boy in front called out from afar, "Hey! Clarice, we just went to your dorm to ask you to play ball with us, but you weren't there."
"So here you are," Bernard said, his gaze already fixed on Chen Xiao.
"Bernard, did you need something?" The girl's voice tightened, and she unconsciously shifted half an inch toward Chen Xiao.
All four wore smiles, but Chen Xiao's mental power far exceeded that of ordinary people, and he immediately sensed the hostility behind them. He slowly opened his eyes as several pieces of information surfaced automatically in his mind:
Bernard, fifteen, a middle school student. His ability was short-range teleportation. Domineering by nature, he had formed his own clique in class;
Johnny, fourteen, also a middle school student. His ability was bear transformation. When it erupted, his muscles bulged and twisted, hair grew wildly, and his strength rivaled that of a rampaging brown bear;
Claude...
Bernard ignored Clarice's question and stared at Chen Xiao instead. Seeing him leaning against the bench with an indifferent expression, a flicker of provocation immediately lit his eyes.
"Vitas, I've heard of you."
"Oh? And?" Chen Xiao merely gave a slight nod, his tone flat.
As an adult, he had no desire to bother with these middle schoolers.
But they clearly had bad intentions, so there was no reason for him to fawn over them.
His lukewarm attitude visibly displeased Bernard and the others. Behind him, Johnny, who was built like a bear, spoke in a rumbling voice. "Vitas, you don't know, do you? Clarice is Bernard's girlfriend."
"I'm not!" the girl blurted out. "I never agreed that day!"
Seeing her strong reaction, Bernard immediately put on a sincere expression. "Clarice, I really like you. Go out with me."
She shook her head, her tone decisive. "But I don't like you."
The scene instantly made Chen Xiao understand why Clarice was always being isolated, as well as where Bernard and his friends' hostility came from.
But... a fifteen-year-old middle schooler pestering a thirteen-year-old girl, insisting on dating her?
Was Western education really this uninhibited?
Or was I really behind the times?
Was "start them young when it comes to puppy love" the trend now? Fail to compete in romance in middle school, and grow up with nothing but regrets?
Still, I have to admit, this kid had a sharp eye,
setting his sights at once on Clarice, a promising future prospect, and predicting early that she would grow into a stunning, mature beauty with a fiery presence.
Rejected in public once again, Bernard found it a little hard to save face.
But she had never agreed to be his girlfriend in the first place. He could hardly hit her, could he? So he cast a dark look at Chen Xiao beside her, who was "just a tiny bit" more handsome than he was.
In his mind, as a mutant shunned by society, the timid Clarice ought to be especially afraid of loneliness, so he had quietly put the word out among their classmates:
His meaning was clear: he had his sights set on Clarice and was seriously pursuing her.
Everyone should do him a favor and stay out of it.
The mutant students in their class were clearly wary of Bernard's four-person clique, and sure enough, no one had approached Clarice over the past few days.
After more than a week, Bernard had thought the time was nearly ripe and was planning to find a suitable opportunity to get Clarice to verbally agree to "be his girlfriend."
Who would have expected a transfer student to show up out of nowhere?
Yesterday, he had actually taken the initiative to talk to Clarice, and the two had immediately hit it off.
He had heard they had spent the entire afternoon sitting in the library;
This morning, someone had spotted them sitting side by side beside the lawn again, chatting and laughing.
How could Bernard swallow that? He had claimed this girl as part of his territory first.
At that thought, his gaze turned cold and bored straight into Chen Xiao's face. "Vitas, I like Clarice. You're going to give her up to me."
Chen Xiao froze on the spot.
What kind of confidence, what kind of delusion, made someone take words like that seriously?
Did he really think the whole world had to revolve around him?
"I like her"? "Give her up"?
If you liked someone, did everyone else have to hand her over? Was your face built out of fortress walls? Or had you just swallowed a "face-becoming-sentient fruit"?
Besides, when did I ever say I liked her? You're making things up out of thin air.
The one I have my eye on is that bold, gorgeous woman ten years from now, not this matchstick-thin little girl who hasn't grown up yet. I'm not some twisted freak.
And you're standing right in front of her, dividing up ownership of her like she's an object without even asking what she wants. You call that respecting someone?
A string of thoughts exploded in Chen Xiao's mind. For a moment, he did not know whether to call this middle schooler arrogant or absurdly childish.
Was this really how some people thought: if I think it's right, it must be the truth?
Though his thoughts churned, Chen Xiao's expression did not shift. Only his voice dropped a little. "Bernard, you seem to have gotten three things wrong."
"First, Clarice isn't an object. You don't get to dictate who she spends time with."
"Second, we're just classmates. What gives you the right to order me around? Who do you think you are?"
"Third, you should be grateful that Clarice and I are currently just ordinary classmates."
"If we really were dating, with that attitude you just showed, even the teachers might not stop me from beating you up."
Before he finished speaking, Chen Xiao had risen to his feet, straightening his back and blocking the girl from view. At one meter seventy-five, with broad shoulders and long legs, he shielded her completely behind him like a silent wall.
His words briefly stunned Clarice, and sudden warmth filled her heart. It was the long-missed reassurance of being treated like a person.
Having struggled to survive in the slums with her adoptive father since childhood, she had endured far too many disdainful looks, sneers, and averted gazes. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to be regarded as an equal.
Years of repression had also worn her into someone who shrank back whenever trouble arose, afraid of causing problems, cautious even in her breathing.
It was precisely because Bernard and his friends understood this that they dared to pressure her both openly and covertly, certain that she would not dare report their emotional bullying to a teacher.
Now, looking up at Chen Xiao, who stood half a head taller than him, Bernard inexplicably faltered, his feet unconsciously retreating half a step.
But the very next second, he grew ashamed and angry over that retreat,
Who was he, Bernard? The brightest star in the middle school division, someone who had awakened the dual abilities of short-range teleportation and bodily enhancement. Even Cyclops and Iceman had praised his "astonishing potential," and Professor X himself had said his "future was limitless."
Since when did a transfer student get to lecture him in front of his three followers?
If he did not regain the upper hand today, how would he command any respect in class afterward?
Bernard's mouth twisted, his gaze abruptly turning vicious. "Vitas, remember this. This isn't the outside world. This is a school for mutants."
"For us, whoever hits hardest gets the final say."
"I hear your ability is energy bursts, with some bodily enhancement on the side... Do you dare trade a few moves with me?"
Chen Xiao's brow lifted slightly, and a faint smile curved his lips. "Oh? Bernard, you want to fight?"
His tone was languid, yet carried an unmistakable edge. "Don't say I'm bullying you. Your choice: do the four of you take turns fighting me, or do I take care of all four of you at once?"