Chapter 261: Ke Mingqing's Second A-Rank Skill

"—Is it snowing?"

From the corner of his eye, Ke Mingqing caught a flash of white drifting down the long street. He paused, then turned his head from the sofa and glanced out the window.

Ke Mingwei turned to look as well, smoking a cigarette as he stared absently outside.

An old movie, The Last Emperor, was playing on the TV. Even through the falling snow, a ray of warm sunlight pierced the white and fell squarely across Ke Mingqing's cheek.

After a quiet moment, he pulled his phone from his pocket, opened WeChat, and glanced at his friend list.

He scrolled down until he found the name "The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood."

He opened the chat window and looked through it. No matter how far he scrolled, it was all nonsensical banter. What Little Red Riding Hood loved sending most were edited video clips of the magical girl Ember. Every time, Ke Mingqing would reply with a thumbs-up emoji to encourage her to keep digging up Xia Zili's embarrassing past.

Earlier, Little Red Riding Hood had even tried setting up a group chat and pulling both Xia Zili and Ke Mingqing into it. Then, acting as if no one else were there, she had started reposting embarrassing videos of the magical girl Ember right in front of the girl herself.

Xia Zili had promptly left the group chat and blacklisted the two of them on her way out.

Still, Little Red Riding Hood wasn't one to stick to a single routine.

Every now and then, amid her devoted reposting sprees, she would slip in her own stuff—sending one or two bizarre pieces of fan art, sharing a line or two about some awkward mishap she had run into while working as a magical girl that day, or complaining about how many of Blue Pigeon's enemies had come knocking at her school again—

Eyes lowered, Ke Mingqing quietly scrolled through the last few months of their chat history, his face expressionless.

Suddenly, his finger paused.

[The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood: This is fan art a fan drew for me.]

[Ke Mingqing: What's it of?]

[The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood: Me.]

[The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood: Am I cute?]

Ke Mingqing stared down at the messages on the screen in silence. Back then, he hadn't even bothered looking at the picture Little Red Riding Hood had sent, firing off a few casual replies before switching screens.

[Ke Mingqing: Not looking. Are all you trash-eating country kids this narcissistic?]

[The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood: It doesn't look good?]

[Ke Mingqing: Who sends other people fan art of themselves?]

[The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood: Actually, I drew it myself. I drew it while cleaning. It took a really long time.]

[Ke Mingqing: Oh, then I want to look at it even less. I'm very busy.]

He tapped the image open. It showed two figures, one red and one blue—the red was Little Red Riding Hood, and the blue was Blue Pigeon. High above a brightly lit city under the night sky, a girl in a Christmas dress and a huge, chubby blue bird sat together on the Christmas Sleigh while reindeer trotted through a howling blizzard, carrying the pair toward an iron tower in the distance.

Ke Mingqing fell silent. After a moment, he let out a hoarse laugh. "What is this? At least draw me in human form before sending it to me."

He scrolled down further, reading through the messages he had previously ignored.

At first, his finger moved lightly, but before long it grew heavier and heavier, as if weighted with lead, until he couldn't bring himself to scroll any further and quietly exited the screen.

So many times, he had thought those moments were nothing special—just inconspicuous fragments making up the trivial routine of everyday life.

Yet looking back now, he realized that fragment had already lodged deep in his heart, aching more and more as time went by.

Sometimes you have to pull that shard out of your heart with your own hands, bit by bit, because you know that if you don't, it will never stop hurting.

The world was full of fools who chose to drive the shard even deeper into their hearts, trying to use that tiny bit of pain to remind themselves not to forget something—usually something they had already lost.

But Ke Mingqing wasn't that kind of fool.

"Rest in peace already, trash-eater. Go reincarnate as some handsome guy in Tokyo in your next life and live the good life—"

He tossed the smart-mouth remark into the empty air, flicked his finger, and quickly cleared their chat history. Then he took a deep breath and turned to stare absently at the snowflakes drifting down outside. The snow was letting up.

"By the way, has Ah Xue replied to your messages yet?" Ke Mingwei asked suddenly after a while.

"Still nothing." Ke Mingqing was quiet for a moment before looking up from WeChat and shaking his head. "Second Sister hasn't replied to any of our messages since yesterday. I don't know if she's just too busy."

Ke Mingwei stubbed out his cigarette and frowned. "I've already sent local esper detectives and criminal police to look into Ah Xue's whereabouts for me. Don't worry, they'll report back once they find her."

"Ooh, esper detectives, ooh, esper criminal police. You might as well just find a superhero—at least that sounds more reliable," Ke Mingqing mocked.

"Superheroes stand out too much. That's the downside of our identity," Ke Mingwei sighed, shaking his head.

As father and son were talking, a quiet, eerie voice drifted out from the kitchen. "Darling, where did you run off to again?"

"Going out to buy cigarettes and disappearing for a whole day again? Is that Russian girl asking you to smoke with her again?"

"Are the two of you going to film an episode of Two People Smoking Behind the Supermarket together? I stopped watching Animal World recently and switched to cartoons, you know."

Perhaps because of the sudden snowfall, the living room temperature dropped several degrees. Ke Mingwei sucked in a sharp breath.

"Go on, go on. Helping with dinner beats kneeling on a washboard. Mom is already being plenty lenient with you." Playing on his phone, Ke Mingqing waved him off without even looking up.

"Alright."

Just as Ke Mingwei was about to get up from the sofa, something seemed to occur to Ke Mingqing. He quickly turned his head and lowered his voice. "Oh, right, Dad, when are you planning to come clean to Mom that you're Rain Crow? Look how pitiful she is, being kept in the dark by you for over half her life. Besides, once she finds out that the young Russian girl in the hospital room is actually Officer Girl, she'll definitely calm down. Aren't you two just regular colleagues? A straight body fears not a crooked shadow."

Ke Mingwei thought for a moment, then said softly, "Let's leave it for next time."

"Why?"

"I don't want her to worry." Ke Mingwei shook his head. "Wait until I officially retire."

"That's a pretty dangerous flag you're raising there, Dad. Are you really going to live until retirement?" Ke Mingqing eyed him suspiciously.

"Nothing good ever comes out of your mouth—" Ke Mingwei grumbled, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "It'll be up to you from now on. I'll handle prepping your mom mentally and see when she'll finally be happy watching you run around on TV."

Ke Mingqing shrugged. "Got it, got it, go on—I'll try my best to take out Zeus and jump straight to No. 1 among the Roundtable Heroes, alright?"

Ke Mingwei let out a raspy laugh, rolled up his sleeves, tied on an apron, and turned to walk into the kitchen.

Ke Mingqing watched his back for a moment, then glanced up at the top of the stairs and zoned out.

For some reason, he hadn't seen Ke Linye for a whole day. Whenever he sent a message, his eldest brother either didn't reply at all or answered in just a word or two, as if something had hit him hard.

And ever since Xia Ningzhi came home yesterday, her eyes had been darting around evasively, as though she had a guilty conscience. After checking on Xia Zili briefly, she had holed up in her room and hadn't come out except for meals.

"Not a single one of them, older or younger, is reliable. It really takes Second Sister to keep this house in order—Second Sister, when are you coming back?"

With that thought, Ke Mingqing sighed softly and opened the shop panel in the upper right corner of his vision.

[Player Level: Rank 26. Skill Shop refresh rates: E-Rank Skill 7% / D-Rank Skill 33% / C Rank 45% / B Rank 10% / A Rank 5% / S Rank 0% (PS: The refresh rate of higher-tier skills increases in sync with your level.)]

"The refresh rate for A-Rank Skills is getting higher and higher—logically speaking, if other players get lucky, they should be rolling A-Rank Skills by now too. Good thing I have just enough money to buy an A-Rank Skill right now. The reward for an S Rank first kill really is pretty generous."

Murmuring under his breath, Ke Mingqing pressed his palms together in a quick prayer, then walked into the bathroom and shut the door. Only after washing his hands as earnestly as a lead surgeon about to perform an operation did he raise his hand and press the refresh button.

Immediately, a series of skill descriptions popped up in his vision.

[Today's five refreshed skills are as follows.]

[Skill 1: UFO (B-Rank Skill) (10,000 superhuman coins): Creates a medium-sized UFO to fight for you. The UFO can hover in midair and fire multi-colored lasers.]

"This system skill really keeps up with current events." Ke Mingqing tilted his head. "Feels pretty useless to me, though. With so many players out there, I wonder if anyone's going down the 'summoner build' route—"

[Skill 2: Poop Superman (B-Rank Skill) (10,000 superhuman coins): Enter "Poop Superman" mode for a short period, allowing you to absorb feces within a one-thousand-meter radius (including sewers) and bend it to your will.]

Frowning, Ke Mingqing pinched his nose shut and silently moved on to the next skill.

[Skill 3: Dragon God! (B-Rank Skill) (10,000 superhuman coins): Summon the shadow of the Dragon God. For a short time, you can put your hands together and thrust your palms forward to unleash a "Dragon Might Light Wave".]

Ke Mingqing blinked. 'Huh, I really am fated with this skill. I wonder if it can synergize with my Dragon Tamer's Helmet.'

With that in mind, he opened his inventory and took a look.

["Dragon Tamer's Helmet" (C Rank Item) (While wearing this helmet, the Strength and Agility attributes of any of your dragon subordinates are increased.) (Cooldown: 48 hours)]

"Probably not. Better not fall for a rip-off," Ke Mingqing sighed, continuing down the list.

[Skill 4: Earth Spike (D-Rank Skill) (3,000 superhuman coins): Summon a field of earthen thorns to attack enemies within an area. Damage is based on your "Strength" attribute.]

'Holy crap, isn't this the skill the Witch of Calamity used to take out our S Rank legendary Crow Man? Don't I have to buy this out in full right now?!'

Despite thinking that, Ke Mingqing silently tapped the option to "Automatically block this skill on future refreshes to prevent accidental purchases," then slid his finger down the screen to check the final skill.

At the sight of it, his pupils shrank slightly, and his finger froze in midair.

He sat up straight on the sofa, his pitch-black eyes fixed unblinkingly on the final skill's icon.

—Gold.

That meant the fifth skill in the shop was unmistakably an A-Rank Skill.

[Skill 5: Final Rock-Paper-Scissors Art (A-Rank Skill) (20,000 superhuman coins)]

[Skill Description: Sacrifice two skills in your Skill Bar that are not currently on cooldown, placing them into an hour-long "Seal" state. Then, based on the outcome of a single round of rock-paper-scissors, unleash one of the following skill effects:

Rock: Fist of the Titan (Instantly unleashes a medium-range explosive punch forward.)

(Note: The power of "Fist of the Titan" depends on your "Strength" attribute and the ranks of the two sacrificed skills.)

Scissors: Blade of the End (Instantly forms a sword blade from the tips of your index and middle fingers to attack distant enemies.)

(Note: The power of "Blade of the End" depends on your "Agility" attribute and the ranks of the two sacrificed skills.)

Paper: Cloth of the Torrent (Generates a massive, waterfall-like barrier in front of your palm to block enemy attacks.)

(Note: The power of "Cloth of the Torrent" depends on your "Spirit" attribute and the ranks of the two sacrificed skills.)]

"Rock-paper-scissors?"

Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow and muttered, "Rock-paper-scissors—is the system a grade-schooler? No wonder it chases after me to curse me out every day. Could it be any more childish?"

"And it requires sacrificing skills? Later on, when everyone is decked out in A-Rank Skills, the cost of using this is only going to get steeper. Still, I have extra skill slots, so I can just sacrifice low-rank skills. At this stage, it should be a pretty good deal—"

Having talked himself into it, he raised his finger and held it down on the skill icon.

A moment later, the icon lit up in a burst of dazzling light, and a string of notification boxes popped up in his eyes.

[Congratulations! You have spent "20,000" superhuman coins to successfully purchase the A-Rank Skill "Final Rock-Paper-Scissors Art"!]

[Current player superhuman coin balance: 1,000.]

[Warning: You have no empty slots in your Skill Bar. Would you like to replace an existing skill in your Skill Bar with "Final Rock-Paper-Scissors Art"?]

Ke Mingqing scrolled through his skill list and quickly selected his seventh slot.

[Prompt: You have replaced the D-Rank Skill "Drowsiness Cake" in Slot 7 with the A-Rank Skill "Final Rock-Paper-Scissors Art".]

["Drowsiness Cake" has been returned to the "Player Skill Shop" and may be purchased by other players who roll it.]

"Whatever—I'm tired. Let it all burn."

Ke Mingqing tilted his head back and stared absently at the yellowed ceiling as a white-haired woman's face flashed through his mind.

The Witch of Apocalypse, Samsara, and Tyranny—the future Ke Mingqing—had told him that his memories of his past life were all fake, nothing more than an illusion fabricated by the system to guide them into exterminating superhumans.

Of course, Ke Mingqing wasn't naive enough to swallow every word from someone of unknown origin.

Yet if it was just a lie spun by the future Ke Mingqing, what was the point of it?

To guide him into making a different choice?

Or had the whole thing simply been a hallucination brought on by being caught in the rampaging magical tide of the Witch of Finale and Ashes, meaning there had never been any time travel to begin with?

Ke Mingqing's thoughts were a tangled mess.

Suddenly, he remembered there was still an "A Rank Equipment Box" among his S Rank first-kill rewards.

He raised a finger, about to open his inventory, when the phone in his pocket suddenly chimed with a "Ding."

'Who is it? Don't tell me Trash-Eating Hood's ghost jumped out of the blacklist—'

Thinking that to himself, Ke Mingqing unlocked his phone with a touch of anticipation and looked at WeChat.

[Chali Jiushi: I'm awake.]

The glow of the screen lit up Ke Mingqing's eyes. He stared dazedly at his phone for a moment, then sprang off the sofa like a shot and bolted for the stairs.

In moments, he was up on the second floor, slowing his pace as he approached Xia Zili's bedroom.

Ke Mingqing took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Inside, the girl sat on the bed in her pajamas, her hair hanging loose over her shoulders. She kept her head lowered, her eyes shifting in quiet thought for a moment before she slowly looked up.

In the absolute silence, she spoke. "Back then, in that dream, you told me—you're a player. What does that mean?"