Madness ecstasy

This way, the other person can hear you through bone conduction, even with a ruptured eardrum—a little trick Doudou learned from a magazine. The article says this can prevent eavesdropping to a certain extent:

"The other day I encountered one, two, and three, three really powerful monsters! They even had a real fight with me. The visuals were really interesting to see up close, even more impactful than Jurassic Park."

Ai Xi didn't look back, and used a pen knife to trim the sprue so that he could polish it later.

"Speak slowly; if you speak too quickly I'm afraid you'll be distracted and spoil it."

But Doudou continued to speak rapidly, his mouth like a Chicago typewriter; he mumbled a lot, and in a blink of an eye he recounted the adventures and battles in [Shouzhu 151]:

".Then I ran into their underground base. Oh! What a pity, I didn't have a camera at the time - that skeleton can move? Then it turned into an invincible person and could regenerate at super high speed; everyone around it had wires in their stomachs. Her mother..."

As she listened, Ai Xi's brows knitted together. She tilted her head slightly, but her hand continued to sand the board. After Dou Dou finished speaking, she began to reply:

"--So there are many people with super powers besides you?"

Doudou was startled by this unexpected answer and didn't care about secret conversation techniques like bone conduction anymore:

"Huh? Didn't you always think I was just an ordinary person with a little more strength?"

Ai Xi blew away the dust that had fallen from the sanding process and swept it aside with a ruler. She narrowed her eyes, as if this was indeed a question worth pondering:

"Those big, strong-armed uncles in 'Hercules' and the Guinness World Record holders are just ordinary people with great strength."

CCTV-5 often broadcasts this program, and Jiaozhi local TV stations also often broadcast recorded programs; in addition to basketball, the only program on the TV in the school cafeteria is this, and it is said to increase students' appetite.

"Last time, you were trying to lift someone's dump truck, and ended up collapsing the road with your foot. An average person wouldn't be that strong."

Doudou grinned, recalling the memory with a smell, and felt a sense of sympathy:

"I almost stepped into the septic tank that time! Luckily you were the only one who saw it."

Ai Xi raised his arm and nudged Doudou gently with his elbow in a soothing tone:

"It's okay. Even if someone saw it, no one would believe it if they told others about it. Most people don't believe in supernatural powers. They would just think they were mistaken or that the road quality was too poor."

"But those big mouths in 'Parapsychological Exploration' have been publishing your story for years. So why was I the only one who discovered you before? I used to think Doudou was the only one in the world with real superpowers."

"But if there are still a large number of people with superpowers, there should be corresponding intelligence gathering agencies. They will sift through media reports or conduct their own investigations to find a way to identify the real ones, right?"

"This is someone with super powers! Even actors and singers have lots of scouts scouting the streets for them. That Bangkok kid from Class 2 was signed back to Thailand to film a movie last semester."

"Could it be that your superpowers actually include something else—something like memory erasure or disguise? It would make others think you're just an ordinary person."

Doudou began to pace back and forth behind the chair, but his feet made no sound:

"Now that you mention it, it's definitely possible! I didn't even try to hide it. I even lost my shot put at last year's sports meet, and the teacher didn't say anything. Remember?"

Ai Xi put the polished parts aside and put them together later:

"I remember you told me that. But I was running the 100 meters at the time and didn't see you compete. I think it started raining heavily right after you threw the shot put. We didn't even compete in the shot put afterwards. My 100-meter final was actually held in the mezzanine of the old teaching building."

"Perhaps there are some special conditions required to activate it? Or perhaps this special ability depends on the person. Or maybe you've been discovered a long time ago, but for some reason no one has come to find you; just like in Men in Black, where some secret agent is following you and erasing other people's memories?"

"Anyway, now that it's exposed, it's better to keep a low profile."

"If super powers are real, then it seems like a lot of these rumors are true; I used to think they were just conspiracy theories."

"For example, there actually is a secret base underneath the Shouzhu 151 Building. Who built this building?"

Chapter 91 Exploitation

Doudou opened his arms and made a big shape in his arms:

"It's a big company, the Asia-Europe Post! I even saw their ad at the entrance to the Children's Palace. Those people I told you about earlier should all work for the Asia-Europe Post."

Ai Xi shifted in her armchair, her entire upper body turning. Her brow furrowed, her fingertips nervously grasping the tip of her penknife, even drawing a drop of blood.

"A multinational corporation like Asia-Europe Post has a psychic department? Do they want to capture you for research? What's the approximate level of your psychic abilities? Will there be psychic police officers who come to arrest you?"

Ai Xi's question made Doudou ponder it seriously:

"You won't mess with me lately, right? I seem to be the most powerful one among them - maybe I am the most powerful one?"

"It's hard to say. The last person I met was a bald guy with no clothes on. He folded the aunt I mentioned into cloth and took her away. I think he can fold space or jump through wormholes. Damn, I forgot what it said in Doraemon."

"It looks a bit like Alien, with that bald head coming out of someone's throat. No, it should be said that it came out from the breaststroke!"

"Scary, right? Anyway, it's outrageous and quite entertaining—though I slapped him in the face before he ran away."

Ai Xi's brows relaxed again. She put her broken index finger into her mouth and shook it.

"That's good. It's pretty much what I thought. I also think you should be the most powerful one - that bald guy just ran away quietly. If he could deal with you, he would have come out of your mouth."

She looked around and suddenly seemed to remember something:

"Speaking of which, Doudou, do you have X-ray vision, infrared vision, X-ray vision, or the ability to see very far away? Like Superman's? Or a weird sixth sense, like Spider-Man's premonitions, etc."

Doudou raised his hands and propped up his eyelids.

Buzz! The eyeballs spun like motors, turning into a gray, blurry mass at an alarming speed.

"I have night vision, so I can read or play games at night without turning on the lights. I don't have any other problems, otherwise I wouldn't have done so badly on my final exam last semester; I could have gotten a higher score on my math test just by glancing at it."

Ai Xi seemed accustomed to this horrific sight, and only squeezed out a "hmm" sound from her throat. She jumped off the stool and began to pick up the debris in Doudou's room and grope under the table.

After searching for a while, she picked up a screwdriver from the toolbox and began to dismantle the telephone in Doudou's house, which was no longer connected to the fixed line:

"Then maybe someone is monitoring you right now. Recording your daily relationships, purchases, interests, and so on, gathering intelligence to study you: that way, they can use your personality to find ways to deal with you."

She was picking through the disassembled telephone, examining the parts:

"Like, you've been saving up to buy a handheld game console? What if they use a Magic Swan II to try to entice you into child labor? Like joining the special forces, helping with secret experiments, or something like that?"

Doudou followed her to the phone and jumped onto the tower of videotapes. He squatted at the top, his eyes still darting like crazy:

"Oh—now that I think about it, it's quite possible. Big companies don't lack money, so they'll definitely try to bribe me."

After reinstalling the phone, Ai Xi started fiddling with the desk lamp again. The rumbling of cars outside the window made the room noisy.

"Yeah, it might not be that simple. If you don't agree, they might sell out all the MD cartridges at Mong Cai Electronics City, or send someone to intercept the cartridges you ordered by mail. In any case, they won't sell you the game, leaving you with nothing new to play."

"I'm sure you're scratching your head in frustration, but you don't have a good solution. School is about to start, and you can't go out of town to buy it. So you have to ask something of them, and you have to do what they say—"

"Then the initial demands are probably not excessive, and then they slowly boil you like a frog in warm water; they threaten you while giving you benefits, and before you know it, you'll become a hired thug."

"I don't need to fight you head-on, but I can still make you feel uncomfortable. There are already a lot of cunning people in school, and there are definitely even more cunning people in society."

"Anyway, if it were me, since I realized I couldn't beat you, I definitely wouldn't insist on continuing to fight you head-on; I'd attack from the side."

Doudou squatted at the top of the tower, his body motionless; but his head turned 180 degrees, his gaze circling back and continuing to follow Ai Xi, like an owl:

"Huh? They're so bad! Then I have to memorize the names of these institutions and organizations. When I have time, I'll go find them and destroy them directly. Otherwise, it will be very troublesome."

The lamp wasn't bugged either—Ai Xi paced around the room again, searching for other suspicious locations.

"You can't say it's bad, it's just that—people are definitely afraid of the unknown. They might still be trying to make friends with you or something like that. I can't really say friendship, there's a word for it: Ah, gentleness."

"There's no need to be too averse to interacting with strange organizations. After all, as long as you don't intend to destroy the Earth, you still have to interact with other humans."

"These aren't the little hooligans at the school gate. If you beat one away, the rest will be scared away."

"If you take down one Eurasian postal service, you'll probably have to take down all the other big companies too—because they'll definitely feel the same pain, get scared, and eventually unite to fight you. Before you know it, it'll be you versus six billion people."

"Six billion people can't all be bad. We can't just arrest and beat them all up. Oh, and the socket is suspicious, too."

Click! Doudou's head turned back. He scratched his nose, but his thoughts turned to another thing:

"Eh? I haven't thought about that. Tell me, can I defeat six billion people?"

Ai Xi half-knelt in the corner and began to dismantle the socket embedded in the wall - it was said that this was also a popular place to place monitoring devices:

"You can't win now, right? Well, definitely not? It's hard to say. Anyway, even if you win, who will make game consoles for you, develop games for you, and make movies for you? That would be boring, wouldn't it? You're not some villain who wants to conquer the world."

"Are you going to conquer the Earth and build a super entertainment empire? Probably not. You're too lazy to even be a team leader; hahahaha."

She laughed as she spoke, her eyes narrowed into two upward arcs:

"Oh, so I'm just saying there's a possibility. Don't be impulsive. It won't develop into a fight against the entire Earth. I think the Asia-Europe Post wouldn't dare to really cause you any trouble. If they make you angry... Didn't you say that several superpowered people couldn't beat you—"

"Besides, you're sitting here peacefully, you haven't disappeared or anything, and there aren't any troops surrounding you. So we can assume that we can't do anything to you for the time being."

"No one would do business at a loss, especially a large company or enterprise like this. Even the two of us know to wait for sales when we want to buy things!"

"So I think the most they can do now is spy on you, track you, collect your information, etc. If I'm sure of doing this, I'll do it once I'm sure."

As he spoke, Ai Xi became lost in thought; even the screwdriver in his hand dropped down:

".Or maybe there's some other way they can use you to make money, like a cash cow—didn't the news last semester say a lot of cockfighting betting parlors were shut down? What if they send out superpowered people to fight you, and then get some wealthy people in suits to watch the broadcast and bet big on your win?"

"This kind of superpowered cockfighting seems pretty lucrative, and you don't have to be stronger than you to operate it. Even if they discover you and they definitely can't beat you, you can still bet on how long the superpowered person can last in your hands, how you'll kill them, and so on; everything is available for gambling."

"Maybe it already exists now, like a boxing match or the NBA; some kind of superpower fighting competition, it's quite interesting to think about it--"

Ai Xi picked up the screwdriver he had dropped and held it in front of his face, looking at it carefully.

"Since you're so strong, your very existence is valuable. I don't even need to defeat you, or even communicate with you. I can still find ways to make money from you."

"So it's too late for them to win you over. After all, you don't have any deep hatred with them. At most, they have offended you."

She tilted her head and gently pressed the scar on her face with the base of her palm:

"But since they've offended you, and you're so powerful, big companies will definitely be scared—they'll have to find ways to hurt you. At least they'll know there's a way to deal with you. That way, people like them will feel at ease. Otherwise, it's like having a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, making them all feel uneasy."

"Maybe we need to think of a way to prevent them from hurting you."

Doudou jumped down from the videotape tower and found a place to sit next to Ai Xi:

"We'll talk about that later! Studying and living are more important. Think you could try conquering the entire world? Just kidding. The fun in life should be sustained over time—otherwise, all that fighting and killing will take away a lot of the fun."

"Ah, why are we back to the same topic again? That superpower fighting competition sounds pretty cool. Can we apply for a patent?"

Ai Xi reinstalled the socket, raised his hand and patted Doudou's shoulder:

"What patent? Don't flatter me. Anyone can come up with something like that. You have a pretty good brain."

"It seems they haven't had time to install bugs in your house yet? There aren't any in several places—I was worried just now, but now I think about it. If you've been home these days, these people wouldn't dare sneak in."

She stood up and then pulled Doudou up with her:

"Doudou, you're more like one of those characters from literary works that are more detached from reality. At first, I thought you might be Force-sensitive after watching Star Wars."

Doudou was stunned when he heard this, and then he seemed to be thinking about it:

"Will it be similar? I don't feel like a Jedi or Sith type. Eh? It's hard to say. I might try something like that; a Force choke or something."

Chapter 92 The End of Summer

"I'm your father! I'm your dad!"

Doudou lowered his voice and recited classic lines from Star Wars. He also clenched his hands into eagle claws and turned around the room. But nothing floated up according to his will:

"Ah, no. I can't do telekinesis, teleportation, or anything like that. Is that really too surreal?"

Ai Xi didn't play around with Dou Dou, but returned to his desk and continued working on the model parts.

"Don't study the Force yet. The most important thing right now is to make sure you're safe. Even though you've returned safely this time, it's hard to say if they have any secret weapons."

"Doudou, you better be careful - we don't know the limits of your body."

"According to what you said, the kinetic energy of conventional weapons, such as piercing and laceration, doesn't seem to be able to cause much damage to you. High temperatures, flames, and explosions are also ineffective; but what about low temperatures? Everyone has weaknesses, such as-"

Doudou suddenly put his head next to the desk and stared at Ai Xi assembling the model:

"Like The Terminator!"

Ai Xi nodded and began to put the polished parts together:

"--Yeah, didn't the two robots T-∞ and T-9999 in the Terminator end up falling into a steel furnace and dying? They also seemed invulnerable at first, with some half-human, half-machine thing and some weird alloy."

"Using this example, talking about weaknesses doesn't seem quite right. Let me change it: Look at Achilles in Troy. He was shot in the ankle and died. And then there's Superman and Kryptonite. Although, Doudou, you're not an alien either."

"Well, your eyes can bounce bullets off, but what about your other internal organs? Generally speaking, isn't the stomach the most vulnerable? Oh, and you said earlier that you were fine eating rockets, so there's no problem in that regard."

Ai Xi pinched his fingers together and put one leg together with a click:

"But hunger and lack of water are also dangerous. You're constantly hungry, clamoring for egg burgers and fried chicken wings, but I wonder if starvation for too long could render you incapable? Unable to move, or perhaps reduced combat effectiveness? So, you could try clearing out a certain amount of food within your area."

"You don't farm, cook, or eat wild plants like flowers and plants, right?"

"Not to mention that given your athletic ability, the caloric intake you normally get isn't enough—it feels like there are a bunch of little people burning coals in your stomach."

Hearing this, Doudou patted his stomach in agreement, then clasped his hands tightly against his chest:

"It could also be nuclear-powered. Maybe I'm some kind of cyborg. With a reactor in my stomach, like Astro Boy or something? One hundred thousand horsepower!"