As an outsider, Mo Su was thoroughly enjoying the show, quietly watching the scumbag Ye Qingyi get torn to pieces by everyone’s verbal attacks.
Suddenly, Zhuge Zhi slammed his hand on the pool table, righteous indignation in his voice. “Mo Ge, don’t blame me—”
His words were cut short as the table beneath his hand suddenly split cleanly in two under the force of his slap.
In the large pool hall, almost everyone’s attention instantly focused on him. Even Xia Qingqing and the others stopped their ‘lecture,’ all turning to look at him with utterly bemused expressions.
“Oh no, I’m done for!” Zhuge Zhi wailed, knowing he was about to get financially fleeced again.
Sure enough, when the owner saw the scene, his face cycled through a spectacular range of expressions.
“Ten thousand dollars. You owe me,” the owner said. Though only an F-rank, he remained firm and confident. “Otherwise, I can report you to the ISO.”
This was a rule established by the ISO specifically to regulate the behavior of superhumans.
Zhuge Zhi’s face fell into a picture of misery. He looked pleadingly at Wu Heng. “Heng~”
Wu Heng took a step back. “I never lose at pool, why would I bring money?”
He then turned to Ye Qingyi. “Mo~”
Ye Qingyi said with a perfectly straight face, “Weren’t you just about to join their side against me?”
“Dear sisters,” Zhuge Zhi pleaded, turning to the girls, “Lend me the money, I’ll pay you back as soon as we return.”
Xia Qingqing said angrily, “You still owe me thirty-five bucks! Don’t even think about borrowing another cent from me.”
Huo Jingshuo simply ignored his plea entirely.
Backed into a corner, the chubby guy finally set his sights on Su Mo. “You’re practically like half a sister-in-law to us, right? How about it, sis, lend me the money?”
That term “sister-in-law” made Su Mo extremely uncomfortable. He frowned but agreed to the request. “Fine. But I have a condition.”
Zhuge Zhi’s eyes lit up. “What condition?”
Su Mo thought for a moment. “My money isn’t free. There’s interest. I think one percent should do.”
“Huh?” Zhuge Zhi cried out in despair. “That means I’d owe you an extra hundred a year!”
“You think you’re getting a year?” Su Mo raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself that there was a reason nobody wanted to lend this guy money. “The one percent I’m talking about isn’t the annual rate. It’s a daily rate. Compounded daily.”
Zhuge Zhi felt his whole world crumbling upon hearing this. “A daily rate? You might as well just rob me!”
Su Mo pursed his lips. “I’m a law-abiding good youth of the 21st century. I would never do something illegal like that.”
Ye Qingyi couldn’t help but mock him silently: You’re the living King of Hell himself! The words ‘good youth’ have absolutely nothing to do with you.
The others, however, sided with Su Mo. After all, Zhuge Zhi’s habit of not repaying debts was genuinely annoying.
The owner seized the moment to press him. “Well? Are you paying or not? If not, I’m filing a report.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll pay!” Zhuge Zhi said impatiently. Gritting his teeth, he accepted Su Mo’s terms. “A one percent daily rate, fine! I’ll pay you back tonight.”
Su Mo glanced at the others. “You all are my witnesses. If he dares not repay me, don’t help him when I beat him up later.”
Wu Heng was the first to chime in. “I’ll help you hold him down when the time comes.”
After the debt was settled, the group forgot about the earlier scumbag interrogation. They booked three tables and set a rule: pairs would compete, and the ultimate loser pays the bill.
Seemingly wanting to vent his frustration, Zhuge Zhi immediately challenged Su Mo to a game, thinking a girl who looked as well-behaved as Su Mo would probably be terrible at pool.
To his utter astonishment, this girl was incredibly fierce at the table, not giving him a moment to catch his breath. She cleanly swept three games in a row against him.
Feeling utterly defeated, Zhuge Zhi said dejectedly to Huo Jingshuo and Ye Qingyi, who had also lost their early matches, “Well, looks like it’s the three of us fighting for last place again.”
Ye Qingyi retorted irritably, “Please remove the ‘us’ from that sentence. Jingshuo and I are far better than you.”
While this trio of underperformers was pecking at each other, Xia Qingqing soon lost her match on another table and came over to watch Su Mo compete against Wu Heng. Their match was intense and closely fought, but Su Mo was clearly superior, ultimately claiming victory.
As the winner, everyone started calling him ‘Big Sis’…
Sigh… Weren’t they all twenty years old? Why were they acting more childish than little kids?
They should be calling him ‘Daddy.’
Just as Su Mo was basking in the group’s… ‘adoration,’ the voice of Shivad sounded. “Qianye, so you like playing pool? I quite enjoy it too.”
The moment Shivad appeared, his eyes met Ye Qingyi’s, and he quickly averted his gaze.
A brawny white man accompanying him, however, glowered with anger and shouted, “You! How dare you glare at my brother!”
Shivad was horrified and hurriedly held him back. “Don’t be rash! He wasn’t glaring at me! You must be seeing things!”
This is a joke, he thought. There are six of them on the other side. Apart from Lin Qianye, who’s a newcomer, the other five are no pushovers.
Huo Jingshuo and Xia Qingqing were both in the top fifty of the Prodigy Ranking. Ye Qingyi and Wu Heng were top ten powerhouses. Even Zhuge Zhi, who seemed the weakest, consistently hovered around the fiftieth rank.
Shivad wasn’t stupid; he knew better than to pick a fight.
But his companion seemed intent on being chivalrous and insisted on confronting them. If Shivad hadn’t held him back desperately, the man would probably be lying on the floor by now.
The commotion attracted a group of middle-aged men bragging nearby. They all looked over to see what was happening.
Su Mo’s eyes met one of the men’s, and he felt a sudden, inexplicable stir in his heart.
This person was very strong, especially his mental power, which was on par with an average B-rank.
The moment Su Mo noticed him, the man also noticed Su Mo. The man’s pupils abruptly shifted into strange, vertical slits. Before Su Mo could even confirm if it was an illusion, the man’s eyes returned to normal.
Su Mo pretended he hadn’t seen anything, merely looking at the three men with a curious, innocent expression, like a well-behaved girl.
The group of men didn’t come over to join the fuss. They just glanced a few times and went back to their game, acting as if it was none of their business.
Su Mo was puzzled. He was certain he had seen that man’s pupils change. It was incredibly subtle, but he was sure he couldn’t have been mistaken.
Wanting to test his theory, Su Mo suddenly walked over to the men and invited them to play a game.
Most men wouldn’t refuse an invitation from a young girl, and they agreed readily.
However, during their close interaction, Su Mo didn’t detect any other abnormalities and had to let it go.
But as they were preparing to leave, Su Mo felt a chill run down his spine, as if eyes were watching him from behind.
It was just a feeling, but he didn’t dare let his guard down, his expression turning extremely serious.
What worried him wasn’t just the possibility of someone targeting him, but the possibility that those targeting him might not even be human.
With the frog-men as a precedent, it seemed possible for creatures from other worlds to cross over to Earth.
In this trend, the threat posed by foreign species to the native population was terrifying. If a bloodthirsty, warlike race ever arrived one day, humanity could face extinction.
The best way to counter this trend was for everyone to become superhuman. And it seemed the USA had already made achievements in this field.
The superhumans encountered back in Star City were products of technology. While their strength couldn’t match natural superhumans, they made up for it in numbers and shorter training time. If deployed in war, their potential was unimaginable.
But other countries were also researching this. Why was the USA the only one to succeed?