"Because Lin Xiaoyu, she is my friend!"
Luo Qingxue’s voice resonated powerfully in the dilapidated alley. She immediately pulled out her communicator and pressed hard on the family’s emergency contact button.
"Young Miss?" The butler's holographic image instantly popped up, his silver-gray uniform immaculate. "Your location shows Sector D7. Do you require assistance?"
"Send a car to pick us up immediately." Luo Qingxue's gaze swept over the thugs frozen in place. "Also, prepare two clerical job contracts, for the Luo Corporation Headquarters building."
The moment the communication was cut, the alley was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The yellow-haired girl’s melon seeds spilled from between her fingers. "You... what are you going to do..."
"Nothing." Luo Qingxue shielded Lin Xiaoyu behind her, a cold smile playing on her lips. "It just suddenly occurred to me that my surname is Luo."
Five minutes later, three black hovercars bearing the Luo family crest silently descended at the alley entrance. When the leading butler stepped out of the car, the pressure from his A-rank ability user aura caused the temperature of the entire alley to drop by five degrees.
"Miss." The butler bowed to Luo Qingxue, his sharp gaze sweeping over the pale-faced youngsters. "Do they need to be dealt with?"
"No need." Luo Qingxue waved her hand dismissively. "Just pack up Xiaoyu's things."
Lin Xiaoyu watched, dumbfounded, as the Luo family servants filed into her less-than-twenty-square-meter shack. In less than ten minutes, they had packed all the necessities — which were really just a few old clothes and family photos.
"Wait... Qingxue... I can't..."
"You can." Luo Qingxue directly pushed her into the car. "From today on, you'll live at my house."
The sound of the hovercar door closing startled the stunned onlookers. A wrinkled old woman suddenly rushed out. "If this girl leaves, who will wash our family's clothes?"
The butler was about to step forward, but Luo Qingxue raised her hand to stop him. She lowered the car window, revealing a standard high-society smile. "You must be joking. Sector D7 has twelve new fully automatic laundromats this year, invested in by the Luo Corporation." She paused intentionally. "They're free."
The old woman's mouth was wide enough to fit an egg.
When the hovercar ascended, Lin Xiaoyu was still in a daze. She pressed against the car window, watching the slum where she had lived for eighteen years grow smaller and smaller, finally disappearing from view.
"My parents..."
"I've already sent people to pick them up." Luo Qingxue put a warm milk tea into her hand. "Don't worry, the work contract is for nine-to-five, weekends off, and an annual salary of 500,000."
"Five... five hundred thousand?!" Lin Xiaoyu almost spilled the milk tea. "My parents only earn sixty thousand a year now!"
Luo Qingxue tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Then should I have the butler add more?"
"No!" Lin Xiaoyu waved her hands frantically. "That's too much! How can we ever pay it back..."
"Who asked you to pay it back?" Luo Qingxue squeezed her thin shoulder. "The Luo Corporation was hiring anyway. Who cares who they hire?"
I silently observed Lin Xiaoyu's changing expressions — from shock to apprehension, and then to some ineffable emotion. When the hovercar passed through the clouds and sunlight suddenly filled the cabin, her tears finally fell.
"Thank you..." These two words were as light as a sigh, yet heavy enough to make Luo Qingxue's ears flush.
"Stop... stop being so mushy!" She turned her face away. "Oh, right, your room is next to mine. It's already been redecorated..."
Lin Xiaoyu suddenly grabbed her hand. "Why are you so good to me?"
Luo Qingxue froze. Sunlight filtered through the car window, casting tiny golden shadows on her eyelashes. I felt the heart in her chest beating erratically.
"Because..." She looked down, fiddling with the cheap brooch on her chest. "You're the only one... who approached me not because I'm the 'Luo family's Young Miss' or a 'Useless'."
"Bang!"
An energy bullet accurately hit the bullseye a hundred meters away, shattering the fifth target plate. Lin Xiaoyu blew on the nonexistent smoke from the gun barrel and proudly raised an eyebrow at Luo Qingxue. "How was that?"
"Just luck." Luo Qingxue pouted, adjusting the output frequency of her wrist energy converter. "Watch me."
She raised her arm, and a slender line of fire shot out from her palm. The line of fire split into three in mid-air, simultaneously hitting the center of three moving targets — but two of them dissipated before impact.
"Still can't control it steadily?" Lin Xiaoyu leaned over to check her converter. "The output threshold is set too high."
Luo Qingxue slapped her hand away. "Less talk, more action. Again."
I silently recorded the training data. Ever since Lin Xiaoyu was brought to the Luo family last week, these two girls have spent almost every day after school at the private training ground. Although it was nominally "special training," most of the time was spent competing over who could achieve more flashy effects with technological weapons.
"Look at this!" Lin Xiaoyu suddenly pulled out a strangely shaped long gun from the weapon rack. "Your dad's new pulse shock cannon!"
"Hey! That requires A-rank clearance—"
It was too late. Lin Xiaoyu had already pulled the trigger. A blue light flashed, and the entire target area was leveled. The recoil knocked her directly to the ground, her backside hitting the padded mat with a thud.
"Pfft hahahaha!" Luo Qingxue laughed so hard she couldn't straighten up. "Serves you right! That's what you get for messing around—"
An alarm suddenly blared through the training ground, and the ceiling's protective shield rapidly closed. The butler's stern voice came over the broadcast. "Military-grade energy fluctuations detected. Please cease training immediately."
The two girls exchanged glances, then burst into an even louder fit of laughter.
"We're doomed, we're going to get scolded again." Luo Qingxue pulled Lin Xiaoyu up, casually brushing the dust off her backside. "Want to take a shower first?"
"Yeah! It's scorching hot." Lin Xiaoyu casually unzipped her training uniform. "By the way, is your family's constant temperature system—"
"Wait!" Luo Qingxue quickly pressed down on her jacket, which she was about to take off. "You... take it off inside?"
Lin Xiaoyu tilted her head. "Why? There's no one else here."
"Be-because..." Luo Qingxue's ears suddenly turned red. "You'll catch a cold! Yes, a sudden draft will make you catch a cold!"
"Where would a draft come from in a training ground?" Although confused, Lin Xiaoyu obediently hugged her clothes and went into the shower room. "You're so strange today..."
Once the sound of water started, Luo Qingxue immediately gnashed her teeth at the air. "Yun Feng!"
I controlled the electronic screen on the wall to display: 【I am just an energy body】
"That's still not allowed!" She lowered her voice. "Xiaoyu doesn't know about your existence. If she changed clothes in front of you..."
A long string of ellipses appeared on the screen.
"Pervert! Freak! Peeping Tom!" She kicked the control panel with every insult, though it didn't harm me in the slightest.
The shower room door suddenly opened a crack. "Qingxue? Who are you scolding?"
"No, nothing!" Luo Qingxue almost bit her tongue. "I'm reciting... reciting a text! Yes, Chapter Three of the 'Ability User Safety Protocol'!"
The sound of water stopped. Lin Xiaoyu, wrapped in a towel, poked her head out, her wet hair still dripping. "When did you become so diligent?"
"None of your business!" Luo Qingxue grabbed her change of clothes and rushed into the adjacent shower room, slamming the door shut with a thunderous bang.
I silently lowered her water temperature — a perfectly timed retaliation.
— — — — — — — — — —
The bell of Tianhui Academy rang promptly at 7 AM on Monday morning. Lin Xiaoyu, clutching her textbooks, followed closely behind Luo Qingxue, drawing countless curious glances — after all, the transformation from "Waste Duo" to "Luo family's Young Miss and her follower" was enough to keep campus gossip boiling for a month.
"What are you looking at?" Luo Qingxue glared at a few pointing students, shielding Lin Xiaoyu on her inner side. "You'll get used to it."
Lin Xiaoyu mumbled softly, "It was better when no one noticed us before..."
"Come on!" Luo Qingxue pulled Lin Xiaoyu. "We have training today!"
On the combat training ground, instructor Wang Meng patted the mannequin beside him. The silver-gray protective suit gleamed with a metallic luster in the sun, looking at first glance like a dried salted fish.
"Students, pay attention! This is the latest MK-7 combat protective suit." He tugged at the energy converter near the collar. "It has a built-in miniature energy block, enough to sustain three hours of high-intensity combat."
I carefully observed the structure of the protective suit through Luo Qingxue's vision — the energy nodes were evenly distributed, but the conversion efficiency was clearly low, apparently a Castrated version specifically designed for students.
"Each person take one, line up by student ID." Wang Meng pressed a control button, and two rows of metal boxes slid out from the warehouse. "Remember, protective suits are not omnipotent! When encountering special abilities like psychic or spatial abilities—"
"Teacher!" A male student raised his hand, interrupting. "Aren't those all S-rank abilities and above? How would we in the regular class ever encounter them?"
A burst of laughter erupted on the training ground. Wang Meng's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. "Shut up! Last year during the inter-school league, some elite class students deliberately came to the regular class grounds to 'practice'!"
The laughter abruptly stopped. Luo Qingxue quietly poked Lin Xiaoyu in the front row. "Wasn't someone sent to the ICU last year?"
"Mm..." Lin Xiaoyu shrank her neck. "I heard seven bones were broken..."
"Now you're scared?" Wang Meng snorted coldly. "Put them on!"
The protective suit was much heavier than expected. Luo Qingxue almost stumbled trying to pull on the pants, fortunately Lin Xiaoyu caught her. When the last neck guard was buckled, she felt like she was stuffed into a tin can.
"Sense the energy core in your chest!" Wang Meng's voice came through the helmet's built-in communicator. "Imagine it as a ball of water, flowing to the parts you need to protect!"
I quietly guided the energy flow. This basic operation was as natural as breathing to me — the energy in the energy core obediently flowed to Luo Qingxue's arms, forming a faint blue light film between her skin and the protective suit.
"Wow..." She whispered in surprise. "So warm..."
"Qingxue! Your hand!" Lin Xiaoyu suddenly exclaimed.
We looked down and saw that the glove part of Luo Qingxue's hand was emitting a soft blue light, while other students could at most only squeeze out a few spark-like glimmers from their fingertips.
"Luo Qingxue!" Wang Meng strode over, "Demonstrate for everyone!"
Thirty pairs of eyes stared over in unison. I quickly reduced the energy output, making the blue light appear faintly—enough to be stunning, but not too exaggerated.
"Not bad, an F-rank having this level of control..." Wang Meng rarely showed an approving expression, "Now, stand in the impact zone."
A circular platform rose in the center of the training ground. As soon as Luo Qingxue stood firm, eight mechanical arms popped out from around her, each with a different type of attack module at its tip.
"First round, low-speed physical attack."
The mechanical arms swung violently. Under my precise control, the protective suit's energy automatically gathered at the part about to be hit—left shoulder, right abdomen, back... Each impact felt like hitting cotton, and even the sound was absorbed by the energy layer.
"Beautiful!" Wang Meng applauded, "Next round, elemental attack!"
This time, fireballs, ice shards, and electric shocks came. I felt playful and deliberately made the protective suit glow red when blocking fireballs and turn ice-blue when blocking ice shards, like a giant neon sign.
"Flashy..." Someone muttered below the stage, "An F-rank waste, that's all the self-preservation ability it has."
It was Nangong Xiang. He had been looking for an opportunity to get revenge ever since he made a fool of himself in the alley last time. Luo Qingxue pretended not to hear, but I knew she was gritting her back teeth.
"Final round, simulated B-rank ability impact!"
The mechanical arms suddenly changed form, and dangerous light condensed at their tips. This already exceeded the course requirements—it seemed Wang Meng wanted to test our limits.
"Yun Feng..." Luo Qingxue whispered to me in her helmet.
【Don't worry】I projected text into a corner of her vision, 【Watch me】
When the first shockwave hit, I deliberately made the shield "barely" block it, causing the light film to flicker violently. For the second, I controlled Luo Qingxue to "stumble" back two steps. By the third, the shield "just happened" to shatter, and she rolled off the platform with the momentum—it looked extremely dangerous, but in reality, not even a single hair was out of place.
"Pass." Wang Meng drew a checkmark in his scorebook, "But there was a problem with the energy distribution at the end, two hours of extra training after class."
Luo Qingxue returned to her seat dejectedly, but her heart was blooming with joy: 【Our acting was pretty good, wasn't it?】
I drew a smiley face on her palm.
"Qingxue, you're amazing!" Lin Xiaoyu's eyes sparkled, "I can't even sense the energy core..."
"Just practice more." Luo Qingxue helped her adjust her protective suit, "Look, you need to take a deep breath here..."
Suddenly, Nangong Xiang's group was called onto the stage. His protective suit was clearly modified, with a larger energy core on his chest. When the B-rank shockwave hit, his shield was as steady as a mountain, and he even had enough energy to pose.
"Hmph, an F-rank is an F-rank." As he came off the stage, he deliberately bumped Luo Qingxue's shoulder, "Even the best protective suit can't change its essence."
Lin Xiaoyu trembled with anger, but Luo Qingxue suddenly smiled: "You're right." She slowly took off her glove, "So—"
She punched Nangong Xiang squarely on the bridge of his nose.
"You deserved that!"
Amidst the screams, Wang Meng rushed over with a dark face: "Luo Qingxue! Twenty points deducted!"
"Worth it." She shook her slightly reddened knuckles and winked at the dumbfounded Lin Xiaoyu, "Come on, let's go change."
In the changing room, Lin Xiaoyu was stifling a laugh as she took off her protective suit: "You're too impulsive..."
"I've wanted to punch him for a long time." Luo Qingxue rubbed her wrist, "Too bad I didn't use full strength, or I could have broken his nose."
I couldn't help but write on her back: 【Reckless】
"None of your business!" She mumbled to the air, then realized her slip of the tongue and quickly peeked at Lin Xiaoyu—fortunately, the latter was struggling with the buckles of her protective suit and didn't notice.
— — — — — — — —
The energy liquid glowed with an ethereal blue in the test tube. This was the thirty-seventh vial this month—ever since I began systematically absorbing energy half a year ago, my analysis capabilities had recovered to a level sufficient to mimic C-rank abilities.
"Yun Feng, can the ability you mimic surpass the original owner?"
Luo Qingxue lay on the bed, swinging her feet, her fingertips lightly tapping our dedicated communication tablet. I controlled the cursor to swipe across the screen: 【I am an SSS-rank ability】
"Hehe, then there's a good show to watch!" She suddenly sat up, her eyes sparkling with cunning, "This time, I'll definitely make that ice-faced Baili Shuang regret it!"
Baili Shuang, the third young miss of the Baili Family, a B-rank Ice-type ability user, and also Luo Qingxue's number one sworn enemy. Ever since she mocked Luo Qingxue for "coasting on her family's name" at the academy tea party three months ago, that girl had held a grudge until now.
"Tomorrow, the advanced class has an ability combat lesson." She pulled up the course schedule, and Baili Shuang's name was prominently listed, "Let's go watch the fun~"
I helplessly drew a face-palming emoji on the tablet: 【Analysis requires close proximity】
"I know!" She waved her hand, "Just say we're going to observe and learn, it's not like being ridiculed a few times will make us lose a piece of flesh."
Early the next morning, Luo Qingxue deliberately changed into her academy uniform—although as a student from the regular class, her presence in the advanced class training ground still seemed out of place.
"Oh, isn't this the eldest young miss of the Luo Family?" A sharp female voice was heard as soon as she entered the field, "Did you walk into the wrong classroom? There's no 'How to Pretend to Have an Ability' course here."
Baili Shuang leaned against a railing condensed from ice crystals, her silver-white long hair gently swaying in the wind. Her followers around her let out deliberately exaggerated laughter.
"Can't I come to learn?" Luo Qingxue replied with a forced smile, "After all, some people's Ice-type ability... tsk, can't even properly freeze a cup of milk tea."
Baili Shuang's face darkened, and the surrounding temperature plummeted. I took the opportunity to release my analysis field—invisible energy threads quietly wrapped around the ice crystals floating around her, beginning to decompose their energy structure.
"Silence!" The instructor's shout interrupted the escalating argument, "Today we will conduct an 'Ability Precise Control' assessment, each person has three minutes to demonstrate."
I meticulously recorded the energy fluctuations of every Ice-type ability user. When Baili Shuang appeared as the finale, the entire training ground instantly transformed into an ice and snow kingdom—the cold current she released from her fingertips precisely outlined the Baili Family crest on the ground, and she could even make six ice roses bloom in different forms simultaneously.
"Petty tricks." Luo Qingxue muttered, but I could feel her heart beating slightly faster—this level was indeed far beyond the regular class.
As Baili Shuang elegantly took her bow, she deliberately flicked an ice crystal towards Luo Qingxue. The object arced through the air, about to hit her forehead—
"Snap!"
Luo Qingxue "just happened" to raise her hand to adjust her bangs, and the ice crystal shattered against her wristband. This action seemed accidental, but it was the result of our half-year special training—with my brief premonition, she could instinctively evade danger.
"A slip of the hand." Baili Shuang fake-smiled.
"I understand." Luo Qingxue returned a faint smile, "People with poor control are all like that."
On the way back, Luo Qingxue eagerly asked: "How was it? Can you mimic it?"
I controlled the phone to type: 【B-rank Ice-type, complex structure but low energy utilization. Give me three days, and I can optimize it to B+ rank】
"Only B+?" She pouted, "What about the SSS-rank level you promised?"
The cursor flickered: 【My ability is SSS-rank, her inherent aptitude limit is B-rank. For me to break through to B+ is already a miracle】
"Alright..." Her eyes suddenly lit up, "Then what if... we add this?"
She pulled a small refrigerated box from her bag, inside which lay five vials of energy liquid, as deep blue as glaciers—the Baili Family's special "Polar" series, one of which was hard to find on the market.
"Borrowed' them from Dad's collection last night." She winked proudly, "Enough to make Baili Shuang's face swell?"
I silently calculated the energy ratio. This top-tier energy liquid combined with my analysis ability... 【A-rank, I'm confident】
"Deal!" She cheered, "Next week is the midterm practical exercise, and the regular class and advanced class will be mixed into groups..."
The plan was simple—"accidentally" be in the same group as Baili Shuang during the exercise, then overwhelm her with superior Ice-type control to make her doubt her life. But the prerequisite was that we needed to perfectly replicate the unique characteristics of the Baili Family's ability.
For the next five days, Luo Qingxue's bedroom became an ice and snow laboratory. Under my guidance, she learned how to convert energy into low-temperature particles, how to control the growth direction of ice crystals, and even how to mimic the Baili Family's unique "snowflake hexagonal pattern."
"So hard..." She collapsed to the ground after failing for the Nth time, ice shards still clinging to her hair, "Why do I have to learn such precise control?"
I drew Baili Shuang's family crest on the tablet: 【To make her believe that this precision can only be achieved by Baili Family bloodline】
"Got it, kill the heart, right?" She rubbed her frozen red fingers, "Continue!"
By dawn on the sixth day, Luo Qingxue could finally condense a perfect hexagonal ice flower in her palm. When the first ray of morning light refracted into a rainbow through the ice flower, she froze in place: "So beautiful..."
I quietly recorded this moment—her smiling face reflected in the ice crystals, more dazzling than any ability.