White Jack is already home. Now I just have to wait for Mom to meet me on the roof, Ke Mingqing thought. Logically speaking... she's a Question Mark Rank. She couldn't possibly be so oblivious that she hasn't noticed someone sitting up here, right?
It was ten in the morning on August 3. White Jack sat rigidly on the rooftop railing, waiting for Xia Wenna.
Meanwhile, Ke Mingqing, Xia Zili, and Xia Ningzhi were strolling down the Wanxiang commercial street. A breeze heavy with the summer heat tousled their hair.
The marble pavement of the long avenue baked under the sun as taxis drove past with blaring horns.
Pedestrians bustled back and forth. Overhead, illuminated billboards played fashion commercials endorsed by the superhero Iron Striker.
Ke Mingqing was playing Minesweeper on his phone, while Xia Zili had her Apple earphones in, listening to music on an MP3 player.
Xia Ningzhi walked behind them, her hands restless. She amused herself by teasing them—tousling Ke Mingqing's hair one moment and massaging Xia Zili's shoulders the next.
Compared to when they were younger, she was actually holding back. In the past, Xia Ningzhi had genuinely treated her younger siblings like toys.
Suddenly, a fierce gust of wind swept overhead, whipping up their hair. The world seemed to dim a fraction as hoarse cawing echoed all around.
He saw a pitch-black figure sweeping between the skyscrapers, shrouded by a massive flock of crows. They drifted past like a dark, oppressive storm cloud, bringing a sudden chill to the air.
"Whoa," Xia Ningzhi breathed. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she watched curiously as Rain Crow flew overhead. After a moment, his silhouette faded into a distant black dot.
"He sure is busy," she noted. "Didn't he just get back from overseas?"
Ke Mingqing quickly looked away and went back to his phone.
"That's because Rain Crow doesn't trust the rookies trained by the Leijing Hero Company. He handles everything personally. At this rate, he'll drop dead from overwork before he hits fifty."
Xia Zili stayed quiet, simply looking down and taking a sip of the lemonade she had just bought.
She already harbored no fondness for Rain Crow, and recent events had only added fuel to the fire: if not for him, Ke Mingqing would never have become a superhero, nor would he have been dragged into the conflict with Clock Maker.
If she hadn't arrived in time back then, her brother might have been dismembered by a Clock Maker copycat. So, she held her tongue and stayed out of the conversation.
Frankly, it was a miracle she wasn't cursing out the Crow Man right now.
Down on the street, citizens were either shrieking in surprise or scrambling for their phones, trying to capture the tail end of the crow flock on camera.
But right at that moment, Rain Crow seemed to notice the three of them. He paused slightly in midair, glancing down at the street corner, and locked gazes with Ke Mingqing.
"Young man... keep your back straight when you walk." Rain Crow narrowed his eyes, his voice low and raspy through his helmet.
Ke Mingqing froze, glancing up from his phone to meet Rain Crow's gaze. Instantly, whispers erupted all around them.
"Isn't that the high school kid from the school bus?"
"The one who lectured Rain Crow?"
"What are the odds?"
"That's hilarious. Why is Rain Crow paying him so much attention?"
Amid the chatter, the surrounding crowd began to turn their cameras toward him.
Thankfully, Xia Zili quickly popped open a parasol, angling it to hide both herself and Ke Mingqing.
The next second, with a deafening boom, Rain Crow surged back toward the clouds along with his tide of birds, drawing everyone's attention away.
"Idiot... what are you just standing there for? Do you like getting your picture taken that much?"
Xia Zili's face darkened slightly. She grabbed Ke Mingqing's hand and hurried him toward the street corner, using the parasol to block the crowd's line of sight and their lenses.
Xia Ningzhi was left standing off to the side, which conveniently kept her out of the cameras' focus. She blinked in surprise, then smiled and wove through the crowd to follow them.
Once they reached a secluded spot, Xia Zili slowly closed the parasol, exposing the boy and girl to the sunlight once more.
Only then did Ke Mingqing snap out of his daze. "I don't believe this," he muttered in belated realization. "What is that Crow Man's problem? Did he actually hold a grudge because I mouthed off to him on the school bus?"
"Probably. Such a petty superhero. I can't believe you admire him so much," Xia Zili mocked.
"Ohoho, young man, remember to keep your back straight when you walk," Xia Ningzhi mimicked, pressing a fist to her lips and putting on a bizarre, raspy voice.
Ke Mingqing and Xia Zili both turned their heads, shooting Xia Ningzhi a look of pure disdain.
"Alright, let's go, let's go. Look how obsessed you are with this Crow Man..." Xia Ningzhi smirked. Grabbing Ke Mingqing's shoulders from behind, she shoved him forward toward the Wanxiang City mall.
Xia Zili shrugged slightly and followed behind them. The sunlight warmed her pretty face as the wind gently swayed the loose strands of hair at her temples.
"By the way, sis, what do you think of Blue Pigeon?" Xia Zili suddenly asked after a moment.
Xia Ningzhi paused and looked back at her. "Why do you ask?"
"Doesn't seeing Rain Crow remind you of his little sidekick?"
"Yeah, I guess so..." Xia Ningzhi mused. "I think Blue Pigeon is pretty great. He's very energetic, and he's fun to talk to. But based on my years of gossiping experience, I bet the guy under the mask is secretly super repressed. A lot of superheroes have huge contrast between their public and private personas."
Ke Mingqing rolled his eyes. He could perfectly imagine the look on Xia Zili's face right now.
Walking in the back, his younger sister was stifling a laugh. Her shoulders shook slightly as she kept her head down so Xia Ningzhi wouldn't see her expression.
A moment later, she pulled out her phone and sent Ke Mingqing a text.
[Chali Jiushi: Hear that? You repressed weirdo who uses his sister as a body pillow.]
[Ke Mingqing: That is a false accusation and you know it. I should petition to install cameras in the hallway so you can finally see how bad your sleepwalking actually is.]
Xia Zili's fingers paused over the screen. After a long moment, she replied.
[Chali Jiushi: Was I actually sleepwalking?]
[Ke Mingqing: Forget it. Just pretend I kidnapped you to use as a body pillow.]
The automatic doors of the mall slid open, and a blast of air conditioning washed over them. Xia Ningzhi stretched, letting out a satisfied groan, and stepped inside first.
With her hands clasped behind her back and a slight smile on her lips, she wandered aimlessly through the mall, her gaze sweeping over the display cases of various gift shops.
Xia Zili's birthday was two months away, and Xia Ningzhi was still trying to figure out what to get her. Coming to the mall was just a way to look for inspiration.
Ke Mingqing kept his head down, trailing behind her alongside Xia Zili.
Both of them were homebodies who had zero interest in shopping. They were only here to keep Xia Ningzhi company.
At the moment, Ke Mingqing was focusing entirely on White Jack's perspective. But not wanting to act like a mindless NPC, he pulled a random topic out of the air and asked Xia Zili, "Hey, sis... let me ask you a question. Do you think Mom is actually an airhead?"
Xia Zili was quiet for a second before turning to look at him. "What else would she be?" she answered casually. "Is there anyone denser than her in this world? Because I've never met them."
"Oh. Well, do you think she might be the secretly ruthless type behind the innocent facade?" Ke Mingqing pressed. Honestly, he was in full panic mode right now, just grabbing at conversation threads to ease his nerves.
Xia Zili thought about it. "Don't they say all airheads are actually masterminds underneath? Mom's definitely thrown us under the bus plenty of times."
"For instance?"
"Like when she told our second sister to marry you... So weird. That scared the hell out of me at the time."
"Isn't someone else to blame for that? I wonder who that could be... so hard to guess."
They both directed their disdainful glares squarely at Xia Ningzhi's back.
Overhearing their exchange, Xia Ningzhi sighed, shaking her head as she looked back at them.
"Man, I should have recorded that. I'd put it on loop for Mom later and see how she deals with you two brats talking trash behind her back."
"Don't change the subject." "We still haven't settled the score with you for that."
"Gomenasai." Xia Ningzhi stuck out her tongue, pressing her palms together as she apologized in terrible Japanese. "Your big sis just had a brain cramp back then. Okay, okay, can you forgive me now?"
Without waiting for an answer, she laughed, threw her arms around their shoulders, and dragged them into an escape room storefront.
Xia Ningzhi paid the admission fee and grouped up with some other young adults. They entered a room themed "The Seven School Mysteries."
Xia Ningzhi took the lead by herself, while Xia Zili and Ke Mingqing walked shoulder-to-shoulder in the back. After traversing a dark corridor, they entered a creepy, dimly lit bathroom.
Faint spectral lights flickered in the gloom. The wooden stall doors creaked loudly as they swung open and shut, but how could something like this scare Xia Zili?
As a magical girl, she had seen far more terrifying things.
But a second later, she suddenly noticed a stick-figure girl grinning from within the shadows at her feet. The stick figure's bloody mouth stretched wide in the dimness, and a low, echoing giggle drifted up from the floor.
Xia Zili stiffened.
The other customers assumed it was just a special effect for the escape room. Startled, they scattered away from her as if fleeing for their lives.
"What was that?"
"I saw a ghost laughing in that girl's shadow!"
"Are escape rooms always this realistic now?"
"That's a bit too freaky. Let's keep our distance from her."
Amid the frightened murmurs, Xia Zili slowly lowered her head. Just then, Ke Mingqing suddenly grasped her hand in the dark. The cool, comforting touch of his fingers pressed into her palm.
She blanked for a moment, looking up at Ke Mingqing. He led her forward as if nothing had happened. His hand was warm, and she found herself unconsciously gripping his fingers tighter.
The boy and girl walked silently through the darkness.
........
........
At the same time, in the Old Jingmai District, at the Xia-Ke family residential building.
Since Ke Mingqing and Xia Zili had been dragged to the mall by their third sister, the eldest brother and second sister had gone to Zorro's café, and their old man was MIA as usual.
As a result, Xia Wenna was home alone.
White Jack knew perfectly well that this was a golden opportunity. If he missed today, he might never get a chance like this again.
Right now, White Jack sat perched on the rooftop railing, humming a tune while tapping the ground with his cane. His gaze was fixed on the nearby iron door.
His head was entirely bare, as he had left his top hat inside the neighboring residential building—a precaution, just in case. If necessary, he could use the hat's ability to teleport himself to the adjacent building.
Honestly, Ke Mingqing didn't even know why he was panicking. He knew this was just an expendable doll; if it died, it wouldn't matter. But the other party was an unpredictable alien, so it was wiser to leave himself an out.
Before long, with a harsh creak, the rusty iron door was pushed open.
"Oh, Miss Alien, let's skip the hide-and-seek. I know you're shy, but do come out and see me."
White Jack whistled a jaunty tune, trying to bolster his own courage.
The door swung wide open. Yet, he saw no human outline. Complete darkness swallowed the corridor behind the frame, impenetrable and absolute. A second later, a mechanical tentacle snaked out from the pitch black.
Then, all the lights in the house abruptly went out.
No, it wasn't just the lights, and it wasn't just the house.
More accurately, it felt as though that silver-gray mechanical tentacle had switched off the light of the entire human world. The sunlight instantly leached away, as if infinite thunderclouds had blanketed the sky, plunging the world into twilight.
He couldn't see his own fingers in front of his face. A deep, gentle darkness flooded in from all directions.
White Jack was momentarily stunned.
Then, he saw moonlight. Tracing the glow, he looked up and found a full moon hanging solitary directly overhead.
Ke Mingqing was dumbfounded.
Wait... is that The Moon? he thought.
Snapping out of his daze, he realized he seemed to be floating in the desolate expanse of the universe. Meteors streaked across the sky, among which he could make out the silhouettes of highly advanced spacecraft.
A hoarse, murmuring whisper continued to shroud this lonely world.
After a long moment, White Jack tore his gaze away from the vast starry void above and looked around. Not a single building remained in sight.
It was as if the residential building beneath his seat had been ripped up by the roots and hurled into the endless cosmos.
However, this likely wasn't the actual universe, White Jack guessed. To test his theory, he tried to speak:
"The Crow Man is gay."
Not only could he speak aloud, but his body still felt the pull of gravity, keeping him firmly seated on the railing. This defied the laws of physics, proving the surrounding environment wasn't a true vacuum.
Soon, the hoarse whispers echoed from the darkness again. White Jack couldn't make out the words, nor could he understand the language, but he vaguely felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
It felt like a baby lying in a cradle, listening to its mother hum a lullaby.
White Jack was startled, but he quickly re-centered himself and began formulating a plan.
Right, I still have the hat, he suddenly remembered. I can use it to figure out what exactly happened. Mom wouldn't actually be crazy enough to teleport our house into space, right?
His magic top hat came with a built-in observation perspective, and he had placed it on the roof of a nearby apartment building just a short while ago.
Tapping into the hat's vision, he looked down at the three-story building tucked in the corner of the Old Jingmai District—his home.
From the hat's perspective, the residential building hadn't changed in the slightest. The only difference was that the rooftop was completely empty, without a single soul in sight—even though White Jack was clearly sitting on its railing.
Ke Mingqing figured it out instantly. This must be some sort of cognitive shielding barrier. Most likely, no one but the people inside the building could see this "universe."
"Could you be a little more hospitable, Miss Alien? If you don't come out to see me, I'm going to start throwing a tantrum. That's right, I'll cause a scene until you're willing to pay attention to me."
Saying this, White Jack extended his right hand, drawing the Calamity Dice from his inventory and clutching it in his palm.
He stood up from the railing and casually tossed a die onto the rooftop floor.
The next instant, the die hit the ground with a soft thud. The top face landed on the number "5."
[Roll 5: Summon a barrage of machine guns to execute a wide-area sweep centered on the landing point of the Dice of Calamity.]
The die vanished.
In its place, a cluster of machine guns suddenly materialized in the sky overhead. The muzzles pivoted, aiming at the ground, and unleashed a roaring volley of gunfire. The muzzle flashes briefly tore through the dark, illuminating the pitch-black world.
However, the moment the storm of bullets rained down on the residential building, it was as if they plunged into the ocean. The bullets merely triggered ripples in the air before vanishing without a trace.
"Oh, Miss Alien, you really know how to make a guy feel unsafe," White Jack murmured as he closed the book Mom, Please Hit Me Again. "Is this how you treat your guests?"
As his voice faded, a figure covered entirely in black-and-white static slowly walked out of the corridor's shadows.
Judging by the silhouette, it was a woman. Her curves were graceful, enough to spark anyone's imagination. Yet, bizarrely, metallic-looking tentacles extended from her back, their mechanical tips hovering in midair.
Xia Wenna didn't speak. She merely stood behind the veil of static—the kind seen on broken television sets—and quietly watched White Jack.
White Jack wanted to get a good look at her expression, but the only thing he could clearly see were her eyes. They were deep and bottomless, and her pupils were filled with the same eerie, black-and-white static.
The static pulsed and shifted, making her gaze appear erratic and unfocused.
"Here's the thing. I have a question to ask you," White Jack said, holding up a finger. "You must already be aware of the existence of players. In that case, you should also know that the players' goal is the Extinction of the super-human species on Earth."
Xia Wenna nodded. Every movement she made was as cold and elegant as a machine's, and the mechanical tentacles rippled slightly in response.
She possessed the most elegant feminine figure Ke Mingqing had ever seen.
"Logically speaking, this should align perfectly with your invasion plans," White Jack said softly. "After all, without the super-human species, an alien army could waltz onto the Blue Planet like no one was home."
Xia Wenna didn't react. She remained rooted to the spot, completely motionless.
The universe twinkled with starlight, and the meteors streaking overhead were breathtakingly beautiful. However, the words spilling from White Jack's mouth were far less pretty. He said:
"So, speaking from the standpoint of a player, I formally ask you this: if I plan to fuck up your entire family, and wipe out every last super-human species on Earth while I'm at it, what will you do?"
He paused, tilting his face down slightly. "Will you cooperate with us, or... become our enemy?"