Chapter 134 A Gentleman's Character is Like a Steadfast Jade (9)

Eric hesitated: "He's a teacher."

No matter what, teachers have the right to discipline them, and if they are caught doing so, they will inevitably be punished.

His red hair fell to his sides, his thin eyelids drooped, and he stubbornly straightened his back: "Hmph... I only stepped on a stray cat on the roadside today. Who knows what he'll do to me next?"

“If you’re worried about that,” You An tilted his head, “just don’t let him find out who did it.”

The dormitory door creaked twice.

They both turned to look, and Shu Ningmiao had already pushed open the door and walked outside.

Erice lowered her head, unfazed, and patted the serval's paw. She knew that Shu Ningmiao would never get involved in such a matter.

You An wasn't worried that Shu Ningmiao would reveal what he had said. He turned around, said goodbye to her in a light tone, and continued while holding the big cat in his arms: "Don't go too far, just make him lose face."

The serval in his arms howled and scratched at him.

He winked slyly, patted Mimi's head, and his bright eyes naturally revealed a sense of pride, yet it did not arouse any ill will.

Shu Ningmiao went straight downstairs, her mind still replaying what had just happened. Could it be Lin Shengyi's superpower that suppressed Mimi's movements? —If so, what is his superpower?

……wrong.

Lin Shengyi's superpower doesn't seem to be the type with strong aggression. Even if his outward personality can't be the deciding factor in judging his superpower, she still firmly believes in this intuitive deduction.

To put it bluntly, if his superpowers were truly powerful enough, he would probably be a completely different person.

As she pondered, she unconsciously walked back to the place where she had just met Lin Shengyi.

Now that it's dark, all the students have left, and the area around the Zhunti Pagoda is deserted.

Shu Ningmiao squatted down in front of the patch of grass, repeatedly examining the marks on the ground, trying to find something unusual.

On a small patch of soil, there was a faint splatter of dark red, like a blurry shadow formed by congealed blood. This was probably where Mimi was injured.

She stared for a long time, unable to deduce what had happened from these minor details, but she was also full of doubts about Lin Shengyi's supernatural abilities. To protect the privacy of these young masters and ladies, the academy only had a few scattered surveillance cameras, and they would never film such a blind spot.

If we could replay the scene, we could see exactly what this superpower was...

The thought popped into her head, and she paused for a moment—it didn't seem impossible after all.

Playback is the process of rewinding a video to a specific point in time, which is similar to the principle of time rewind.

She can do it, and even more.

Since the "string" exists in all things, if she controls the string here to reverse the flow and deduce, can she rewind a local time? This small-scale rewind will only last for a short while, will not get out of control, and will not affect anyone.

Of course, this is just her conjecture, and whether it can actually be done is still unknown.

After the consciousness attached to the game chip dissipated, she could only rely on herself to figure out how to use the string, an ability that was close to the origin of the world.

She hesitated for a moment, then circled the open space to determine the approximate area where she needed to trace back. Since a normal person couldn't see the traces of the string, she didn't need to worry too much; giving it a try wouldn't hurt.

Standing still in the center again, she took a deep breath, slightly opened her fingers, closed her eyes, and recalled the feeling of holding the string in her dream.

The grass beneath her feet swayed gently, and the air began to flow abnormally. Her thoughts raced, and it was as if her fingertips were pulling a thin thread, while time seemed like a slowly flowing river, pulled and drifting by her will.

She opened her eyes, and the scene before her was already blurry. She staggered forward a few steps, staring at the blurry bloodstain she had found in the soil, until the bloodstain completely disappeared, before gradually closing her fingers.

The scene seemed to be pulled back in an instant, then became clear again, and the dust in the air fell back to the ground.

Shu Ningmiao suddenly turned around, and a low gurgling sound came from the grass behind her.

The reddish-brown serval nimbly flew away from her, as if suppressed by something in mid-air. It suddenly stiffened, crashed heavily to the ground, and lay there unable to move, its short fur bristling with agitation.

She followed and got closer to observe it carefully. She discovered that there was a faint black ring around its abdomen. This small, barely visible black ring weighed down on it like a huge boulder, and it must be related to supernatural abilities.

Just then, a familiar, flippant voice rang out from behind: "Strange, where did this thing come from in the school?"

She shifted her gaze from Mimi to the direction of the voice, only to find a figure she had never imagined before: a blond young man wearing an exquisitely tailored suit, all buttons undone to reveal an extravagant purple lining, and gold cuff buttons engraved with a roaring lion, symbolizing the Belial family.

She recognized the person out of the corner of her eye just by looking at their attire.

Lux stood not far away, a slightly amused smile playing on his lips. He tapped his index finger in the air, making the blackness on Mimi's body even darker.

"Quiet down," Lux whistled. "This isn't a place for you."

He walked over, the phantom formed by the strings piercing straight through Shu Ningmiao's arm. Lux half-squatted down in front of her, his hands on his knees, teasing the bound beast from a distance, his eyes filled with intense interest: "You're really beautiful. You wouldn't live long anywhere else. Why don't you come home with me?"

The serval bared its teeth fiercely, growling as it tried to bite his hand, but he dodged it.

"Fine, if you don't want to, then forget it." He raised his hand, stood up, and took out his terminal. "Don't be fierce. I'll have the guards take you out. Be more careful in the future and don't wander off."

On a whim, Lux, seeing its strong aggressiveness, didn't insist and moved a little further away to send a message to the school guards.

So that's how it is. She guessed wrong. The person who started it wasn't Lin Shengyi at all. This superpower that made people unable to move actually came from Lux.

Shu Ningmiao turned her gaze to the boundary of the retrospective range, where the light screen was blurry and flickered for a moment, and a thin figure appeared out of thin air. Lin Shengyi raised his face, looking tired, as if he had just rushed back from outside and happened to bump into Lux, who was idly playing with the cat.

The blond youth casually glanced up at his colleague without saying a word, but Shu Ningmiao sensed a subtle displeasure emanating from him.

The relationship between the two was worse than she had imagined.

Lin Shengyi glanced at the serval at his feet, but didn't pay it much attention. He focused his attention back on Lux in front of him, and pushed up his glasses with his index finger: "Good day, Prince Belial."

Lux chuckled, his expression mocking his form of address.

“What a coincidence. Let’s chat. The principal complained to me that you were throwing a tantrum at him and wanted me to talk to you.” The man had seen all kinds of attitudes and didn’t care about this sarcasm at all. He took out a portable jammer from his pocket, turned it on, and said with a calm expression, “Lucico has been elected, and the Cherubim Project will continue to move forward. Why do you have to act like a child and insist on being an executor?”

Even though there are no surveillance cameras here, he still turns on the jamming device when he speaks, which shows how cautious he is.

It's likely that being recorded by Gawande during his phone call was the biggest mishap of his life, and he never dared to be careless again after that.

What is the Cherubim Project?

Shu Ningmiao leaned back and took out a pen to scribble down the keywords she heard on a piece of paper.

A few minutes of silence followed. Lux looked over, a hint of ferocity in his eyes: "I will definitely join the Actors."

"No wonder the principal is having a headache over this. You're still not mature enough." Lin Shengyi curled his lips into a forced smile. "In the upcoming Intori War, all the agents will be sent to the front lines, and there will inevitably be sacrifices. Do you want your father to outlive his son?"

“Only now do I realize that you and my father are birds of a feather. You are all cowards who love to sell war, a bunch of slick, opportunistic businessmen.” Lux’s fingers suddenly clenched as he walked towards him step by step, his tall and imposing figure casting a shadow as he stood there proudly: “I am a child born in the age of heroes, a naive idealist. I have longed to become a hero for twenty years, and I have been preparing to join the Envoys until now. I will go to Torri, even if I die on the battlefield the next day.”

"If it weren't for becoming an enforcer, why would I be stuck in this school, living with someone like you?"

He lowered his body, looked directly into Lin Shengyi's eyes, and muttered a curse under his breath.

Unexpectedly, Lin Shengyi laughed instead of getting angry: "No, your father may be a successful businessman, but I am not."

He took two steps back, straightened his tie, and said with a stern face, "Young Master Belial, please watch your words and actions. Don't forget that I am still your elder. Principal Belial would not want to see you in such a disheveled state."

"Is this your ability? 'Vector Shackles', it is indeed a very powerful ability. Your family has finally produced another ability user who can inherit the glory of your ancestor Edwina. You must be very proud of this, right?" Lin Shengyi smiled, his wandering gaze settling on the stiff serval next to him.

Lux simply frowned: "How did you know about my abilities?"

"The application materials for becoming an executor must of course go through layers of review and approval by the council. I saw your materials years ago—it's all done through proper channels." He folded his hands: "Give up your naive dream. Having powerful superpowers is a mistake. It will give people unnecessary confidence. In fact, superpowered individuals must never be superior to humans, otherwise the tragedy of three hundred years ago will definitely be repeated."

"Times are changing, and people need to change too," Lin Shengyi said. "The individualistic heroism of those who carry out these actions should have been eliminated long ago."

“But you’re still worried that what happened three hundred years ago will repeat itself,” Lux said sarcastically, arms crossed.

Lin Shengyi sneered, then, realizing he had lost his composure, looked away.

“Remember this, just like this cat. Humans cannot control animals, but if you restrain it, it can become a pawn controlled by humans.”

"They're just objects to be manipulated." Lin Shengyi raised his leather shoe and stepped on the stiff serval, making a crisp cracking sound: "This is what superhumans are like."

"You!" Lux was surprised that he would suddenly attack an animal, and immediately released his superpower.

Mimi let out a hoarse roar, and the beast, now free, instantly arched its back and sprang up. Its sharp claws ripped through the man's genitals with a soft thud. It landed back on the ground, staggered to its feet, and quickly darted away.

The guard's panicked voice came from afar. Lux glared at him coldly and chased after the serval in the direction it had fled.

Shu Ningmiao raised her hand to dispel the brief illusion created by the string flow, stepped out of the range of the retrospection, and glanced again at what she had written on the paper.

The Cherubim Project.

She had already guessed the general direction of the plan. Thinking about the sacrifice of all the previous agents in Intori, it might be the result of a long-planned scheme. Judging from Shu Changyan's nonchalant attitude, he was probably aware of it as well.

The destruction of Intoli signifies the annihilation of all nations with superpowers. After Intoli's disappearance, the number of awakened superpowered individuals in every country in the world will approach a balanced level, while Pine, with its large population and abundant Pandora resources, will have a relative advantage.

At this point, Pinhea no longer needed top-tier superhumans capable of threatening the nation; ordinary superhumans who were easier to control were clearly more cost-effective.

The "hero" was abandoned just like that.

The root cause of these people coming up with such extreme methods is probably the parliamentary purge that Lin Shengyi just mentioned three hundred years ago. The superhuman "executioners" with superpowers that were so strong they seemed inhuman had continuously massacred several parliamentary members, leaving no survivors.

—But how could such panic persist for hundreds of years, and still hang over these people like a shadow?

As a superhuman, why does Lin Shengyi hate his fellow superhumans so much and why does he so strongly support this plan? What obvious benefits do they have? Simple profit-seeking doesn't seem to explain his motives. The Lin family has been involved in politics for generations and has never been involved in industry in order to maintain their image, so it's difficult for them to make a fortune from war like the Belial family.

Perhaps the reason for this can be traced back to the "executioner".

She had suspected that the "executioner" was actually the mysterious person who controlled the string, but she was never sure that the power of the string could allow someone to live for hundreds of years; at least she couldn't do it now.

The fragments in her mind gradually came together. She lit the paper in her hand, and the flames swept across her fingertips, the heat quickly burning them. For a fleeting moment, she had the illusion that she had touched the truth within.

Two days later, in Class A's classroom.

Lin Shengyi announced the end of get out of class as the bell rang, and packed up his books as usual. The students in Class A were a bit more well-behaved than usual today, so his mood wasn't as bad as it usually was, and his tightly furrowed brows relaxed a bit.

After the announcement that class was over, the students behaved unusually; not one of them left their seats. Was there another class next period? The thought crossed Lin Shengyi's mind, but he couldn't recall any course schedule. He didn't care about these students, so he quickly dismissed his doubts.

As he pushed open the classroom door, he vaguely sensed that his body was losing control. Before he could even look down, his foot slipped as if he had glided on an icicle, and he fell straight down, landing on the threshold.

He hurriedly tried to get up, but tripped over an ice surface that had somehow appeared on the ground and fell to the ground again. Before he could even utter a word, he continued to crash into the corridor along the smooth ice surface. A red bucket placed directly in front of him was knocked down and rolled down, soaking him completely. The foul-smelling sewage was mixed with pieces of dried fish, and the smell was pungent.

At that moment, the glass partition in front of the corridor peeled off like paper, hitting him on the head with a loud thud and shattering into countless pieces.

Lin Shengyi struggled to his feet. By then, the thin layer of ice on the ground had melted into water and disappeared without a trace. He stood in the middle of the corridor in a disheveled state, his wet hair sticking to his flushed face, with strands of blood from cuts made by the glass edges flowing out from between his hair strands, like a dead snake with its skin peeled off.

The classroom corridor was circular, and students and teachers from other classes kept coming out, glancing at him strangely before quickly moving away. Lin Shengyi was breathing heavily, his face gradually turning from pale to ashen.

You An propped his head up and winked at the students around him in a very subtle way. Then he turned to look at Shu Ningmiao, who was leaning back in her chair with her eyes downcast, seemingly playing with a terminal.

Why does she love playing with terminals so much!

You An pouted.

She still glanced at Lin Shengyi as he flew out of the classroom like a saucer.

Shu Ningmiao then lowered her head and glanced at the terminal interface.

A message from Rennagi popped up on the terminal: "I've already disconnected the system in Professor Lux's office for you... It seems he completely modified the electrical system. I spent ages looking for it, which took up a bit of my time."

She replied, "Did he break the combat simulation system in his office?"

"...It's not difficult to break it," Renna replied with a complicated expression. Even the smallest combat simulation system is not cheap. Destroying this thing's system is almost equivalent to casually demolishing a large villa in the center of Pinne. However, Shu Ningmiao has helped Prometheus a lot.

He couldn't refuse her excessive request, but he was still somewhat puzzled. Lux, a generous and handsome blond man, naturally evoked goodwill, but it seemed to have no effect on Shu Ningmiao: "What did Professor Lux do to offend you?"

Shu Ningmiao spoke frankly, stating clearly: "It wasn't him."

"No wonder they asked me to transfer my backend permissions to the Academic Affairs Office's 056 account. I was wondering why 056 had such extensive permissions; is 056 Lin Shengyi's employee ID?" Renna paused, then understood her meaning: "Do you need to connect my Professor Lux's communications to your terminal?"

"Need not"

Shu Ningmiao put down the terminal.

She didn't intend to leave any solid evidence on the terminal; that was enough to ignite the conflict.

Lin Shengyi waded through the water on the ground and rushed into the classroom. Covered in filth, he slammed his handrail, barely managing to maintain his sanctimonious expression.

He said, word by word, "Who did it?"

The classroom was completely silent, even quieter than during class. No one spoke; everyone just stared at him quietly.

Lin Shengyi smiled and took off his glasses: "I will give full marks to anyone who voluntarily identifies someone this semester."

No one in the classroom spoke; pairs of eyes were fixed on him, as if in silent mockery.

He had never imagined that such a class of students would be so united, and he was extremely embarrassed.

After a few heavy breaths, Lin Shengyi sneered, "Do you think I can't do anything to you just because no one talks?"

"Everyone in your class, this time..."

His face was filled with barely suppressed anger, but he stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence, as if a rooster had been choked.

A faint black shadow flew over and enveloped his head like a ring of stars.

In an instant, as if a thousand pounds of weight were applied, Lin Shengyi was uncontrollably pulled back by the black ring, his head was repeatedly slammed up, down, left, and right, and finally slammed down heavily, his head hitting the floor.

The shadow vanished in an instant, and a foot stepped on his head, kicking his face over. The blond youth bent down and saw that Lin Shengyi's refined and handsome face had a swollen forehead and a scratched face, his eyes filled with resentment and astonishment.

Lux brushed the hair from his forehead, gritted his teeth, and cursed, "I've been wanting to get back at you for a long time."

His arrogance and conceit far surpassed that of ordinary people. It was one thing that his scoundrel father couldn't reason with him, but this kind of person dared to point fingers at him.

Lin Shengyi looked at him with the eyes of someone looking at a madman, utterly incomprehensible. His head was pressed to the ground, yet he couldn't utter a single word.

After a brief silence, screams, laughter, and a cacophony of clattering noises filled the classroom, creating an atmosphere of jubilation.

Lux sighed, thinking, "So be it. At worst, I'll get a scolding and a beating."

He looked up at the students who were taking the opportunity to revel. Amidst the chaos, one person remained seated. Even with the light behind her, her face was clearly visible, especially her beautiful eyes that held a slightly condescending air.

Lux became curious and met her gaze without flinching, trying to see what she was looking at.

It wasn't a hallucination; she was indeed looking at him.

From the moment Lin Shengyi's voice abruptly stopped, Shu Ningmiao's gaze never left him.

To be precise, it has never been removed from his superpower.

Having witnessed various superpowers, she has developed her own set of experiences.

The black rings that wrap around the target should be the "shackles" in the "vector shackles".

After Lin Shengyi's head was covered with a black ring, it moved in multiple directions with different forces, which should be the form of the "vector" in the "vector shackles".

Since the target was not encountered during the process, it is a range-based problem with limited scope.

Luxbelia's ability, "Vector Shackles," is indeed inherited from his ancestor Edvina. Its function is to apply several times the gravity to the target area of ​​the shackles and change the direction of the gravity acting on the target.

Jealousy is a state change.

Stealing the superpower 'Vector Shackles'

She guessed correctly; she accepted his supernatural ability.

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Author's Note: The ice was made by Linlu, the water by You'an and Mimi, and the glass was pried open by Ai Ruiji; she's very skilled at housework.

They're fleecing Belial's family again.