Chapter 17: Tyrannosaurus Rex Among the Sheep

"Today was very lucky; I met Young Lady Yang Yi! After seeing her in person, I have decided: she will be my idol from now on!" Chris posted.

"Is this true? Not a photoshopped picture?" This was the most-liked comment.

"I saw the gossip news from a few days ago saying the phone wallpaper of the Young Lady God of Humanity was Chris; I thought it was a boring joke! This is actually true!"

"For a moment, I don't know who to envy!"

"This is simply too strange! Two people completely unrelated are actually posing together for a photo, and they look inexplicably harmonious—what's going on?"

"Why can he pose with this Young Lady Superman who saved Jin Shan? How did they end up together? Where is that?"

"Oh my god, don't you read the news? It was the banquet held yesterday at the Super Five-Star Liston Hotel in Jin Shan! As for why Chris was there, of course, it's because he donated 5 million Card Yuan to the Jin Shan Post-Disaster Relief Foundation! He was invited by the organizers!"

"Wow, this Young Lady Superman looks no worse than a star when dressed up; why were the photos from the UN meeting so haggard and dirty?"

"Of course, it's thanks to the ancestral filters of your Ark and Britannia; you can't stand seeing our Xia Nation's super hero ranked first in the world, so you deliberately smear her image!"

A message obviously sent by someone from Xia Nation; Yang Yi smiled with understanding.

"Her blue dress is so beautiful! It looks very appropriate and elegant, and suits various formal occasions; what brand is it?"

"Is that a problem with the dress? It's clearly the Young Lady Superman's temperament that carries it!"

"Don't bother thinking about it; I checked, it's LILAN's new haute couture this year!"

"Mutants, get out of our society!"

A discordant comment appeared before Yang Yi's eyes; she raised her eyebrows slightly, then continued reading.

"Is the person above crazy? Everyone has mutant genes; even you yourself might become the mutant you speak of in the future!"

"Yes, my brother was just a keyboard warrior picking his feet at home a few days ago, usually arguing against everything online, saying awakened ones are outliers, equivalent to carrying weapons around and showing off, which would surely become a major threat to social stability; these past few days he awakened superpowers himself and is hopping around with joy... To be honest, I am very jealous."

Yang Yi was happily reading the comment section when she suddenly received a private blog message from Chris.

"My system is notifying you that you are online on the personal blog! 【Smile】"

Yang Yi smiled with her lips pressed together; the personal blog has a function where, if you mark someone as 'Special Follow', the blog will automatically remind the other party when the followed person comes online.

Yang Yi typed: "Why did you say that after seeing me in person, I became your idol?"

"Because, for those you do not know, voluntarily facing things you are also afraid of is truly brave!"

For the first time, Yang Yi felt that being flattered and praised was so wonderful.

"You're not asleep yet so late? It's past three in the morning over there, right?"

"I had a nightmare and can't sleep." Yang Yi replied casually.

"When I had nightmares as a child, Mom would specially allow me to eat an ice cream, and the following dreams would be sweet! 【Smile】 You can try it."

What a great cutie?! Yang Yi licked her lips and prepared to go downstairs to the supermarket to buy ice cream.

She casually grabbed a pair of athletic shorts and a T-shirt, holding her phone and slippers as she went downstairs.

"I am about to go downstairs to buy ice cream right now; hope it works 【Dog Head】"

"What nightmare did you have? Sometimes if you speak out a nightmare, it loses its power; I can help share the burden 【Muscle】"

It was only the third floor; Yang Yi was too lazy to wait for the elevator and went down directly via the stairs; the sensor lights turned on one by one with the sound of footsteps, making the hallway brilliantly bright.

"I dreamed of many monsters." Yang Yi thought for a moment and replied.

"Those are all cabbages, cabbages with green leaves one by one! Tonight I must eat a lot of cabbage to avenge you! 【Mouth】【Vegetable】"

Laughing, Yang Yi recalled yesterday's topic about cabbages and monsters; she walked into the 24-hour supermarket where a young man was on duty; although wearing casual clothes, he clearly bore traces of military training and stood like a pike even when alone.

Seeing Yang Yi arrive at this time, the young man was very surprised; he had been quietly arranging the shelves, but now he stood behind the counter, standing even straighter.

All the goods were arranged neatly as if by someone with OCD, and even the various ice creams in the freezer were lined up as if waiting for someone to inspect them. She casually picked up a strawberry chocolate ice cream, bought some daily necessities, and walked to the counter to pay.

The young man carefully memorized the brand of ice cream she took, processed her payment, and when Yang Yi turned to leave, he suddenly shouted with full strength: "Take care!" This startled Yang Yi; she turned back to look and saw the young man with his head held high and chest out, as if welcoming an inspection from a superior.

Sigh, Yang Yi silently nodded and left this pressure-filled supermarket.

————

Xincheng, Ark Nation.

Chris was sitting in the private rest room waiting to film the next scene; because the next scene was one where Chris's character saves the crisis after a fierce fight, the makeup artist had created a battle-damaged look for him.

Chris looked down at his phone, smiling at times and frowning at others; the life assistant Kitty beside him was greatly surprised.

Suddenly he turned his head to Kitty and said: "For dinner, I want cabbage." He thought for a moment, a hint of amusement appearing on his face: "A large amount of cabbage."

"You never eat this; why the sudden change in taste?" Kitty asked; she had been with Chris for two years, and besides the employer-employee relationship, they usually exchanged small jokes.

Cabbage is rarely eaten in Ark Nation; generally, it is only sold in Asian communities. Westerners mostly dislike its thick stems; they prefer cabbage heads.

"Nothing, just wanted to try it." Chris shrugged.

"Alright then." Kitty was still a bit strange, but her employer occasionally had sudden whims; as an assistant, her job was to try her best to satisfy any request from her employer, "The next scene starts immediately, in five minutes."

Suddenly, Chris's text message sound rang; he was already holding the phone and immediately swiped the screen open.

"Already eating, the effect is good." It also included a photo of a strawberry ice cream.

Chris couldn't help but smile; he carefully examined every detail in the photo; in the photo, her fingers were slender, her fingernails rounded, trimmed very neatly along the nail bed, with no traces of nail art.

In her hand she held a pink torch ice cream that had been eaten a few bites, with red strawberry pulp dotted like stars on top, and also the indentations of teeth bites.

A small patch of pale white legs was revealed in the blurred corner of the background; below was a gray sofa; it looked like she was comfortably half-lying on the sofa sending him a text message.

"Good child, wish you a good dream for the rest of the night. 【Smile】"

He had just sent this message when he suddenly paused, wanting to quickly recall it, but it was too late; the message was sent successfully.

He had known her for less than two days; would such an address seem frivolous and ambiguous? If he recalled it now and she had already seen it, would it seem like trying to cover up? Chris rubbed his brow.

"We should go over there." Kitty reminded.

Chris temporarily put aside his inner conflict, stood up, and went to the filming site. He was always very professional.

Suddenly, the phone text message rang again; the phone Chris was about to put down was immediately swiped open again.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Filming, about to go to the site." He stood up, replying to the text message while walking out.

This time, the other party replied quickly, "Is that so? The same play as last time? I want to see your current look! 【Double Eyes Red Heart】 【Little Cat Holding Face】"

Between the lines, the tone was urgent, and those two emojis were a bit humorous, also a bit lewd and ill-intentioned.

Chris stopped in his tracks, the corners of his mouth curling up, a muffled laugh escaping his chest; unconsciously, he licked his lower lip.

"Chris?" Kitty watched him freeze, then glanced at her watch, her tone slightly urging: "Time's up."

Chris made no sound, turned his head to find a relatively less cluttered background, took several selfies in a row, then selected the one that felt most pleasing to his eye and sent it over.

"I'm going to shoot the scene now. Sweet dreams. 【Smiling Face】"

Yang Yi, who was eating ice cream, heard the text message reply, immediately switched the novel interface to the messages, and saw the photo she had been expecting.

Before a backdrop of lush greenery, Chris wore a suit stained with dust and fresh blood; his dark brown hair had been combed extremely neatly, yet a few strands seemed unable to find their original positions after intense exercise, falling naturally near his temples, giving him an unconscious kind of nonchalance.

His face also bore dust and several scars, but this did not make him look wretched; instead, it lent a kind of battle-damaged beauty. His eyes smiled at the lens; beneath his high brow, his deep, azure eyes curved. Oh, those blue eyes were like two pools of cold blue springs; when he looked at you and smiled, you would feel yourself being watched with his full attention, your heartbeat involuntarily pounding violently.

Yang Yi began to swoon, "God, he's so TMD handsome! Don't you think?"

'Hmph, I cannot agree with your taste,' that voice, which had not sounded for so long, said, 'You humans always like things that are flashy but empty. He possesses neither infinite power nor an unbreakable physique, nor an indestructible spirit; he is merely an ordinary human. In my eyes, he is no different from an ant; even a foolish Fire Demon is a hundred times stronger than him.'

This was the reason she did not know whether to call it "she," or "he," or "it," or perhaps "It."

"You really are a killjoy." Yang Yi's previously buoyant mood was left hanging, neither up nor down, by this creature.

Immediately, she suddenly asked, "Was my nightmare just now your doing?"

'That was your fate,' that voice said.

"Go to hell with your damn fate!" Yang Yi suddenly flew into a rage, slammed the half-eaten ice cream onto the ground, then spun uselessly around the living room:

"I am Yang Yi, an ordinary person—for twenty years I have been an ordinary person! I grew up in a small town in Huabei Province, Xia Country; I have a birth certificate; I graduated from Yang Town Primary School, from Town No. 2 Middle School, took the college entrance exam at the City High School, and spent four years at Xicheng University; my entire life has a traceable path! My only exception was awakening powerful superpowers, and scientists said anyone could awaken! I am not the only one! So, what the hell is my damn fate?!"

'You already had a premonition in your heart; otherwise, why would you fly into such a rage? Escaping is meaningless.' Its calm voice carried sharpness and mockery, 'Humans are social animals, accustomed to hiding themselves within the group to gain a sense of psychological belonging and security.

'You instinctively fear breaking away from the group because in humanity's ancient past, once separated from the group, one had to face countless dangers of nature alone; for safety, the habit of hiding among one's own kind became encoded in the genes, hidden within human nature, so humans are accustomed to following the crowd.

'But a standout individual must inevitably break away from the mediocre crowd; striving to change oneself to cater to the behavior of the mediocre masses is so foolish.

'A Tyrannosaurus rex raised from childhood among a flock of sheep, though it strives to make itself appear no different from the other sheep, will sooner or later discover its true nature; no matter how docilely it disguises itself, as time passes, the flock will gradually fear its increasingly terrifying power...'