The thugs shouted in unison and surrounded Ling Yun, kicking him harder. At first, Ling Yun rolled on the ground to dodge, but gradually his movements slowed down, and then he stopped moving. However, from beginning to end, no one could hear Ling Yun begging for mercy or even groaning; he was as still as a piece of wood.
At this moment, even the middle-aged thugs felt a chill. As idle members of society, they were exceptionally experienced in fighting, often eliciting either begging for mercy or screams of agony from their opponents, giving the attackers a strange sense of satisfaction. However, they had never seen a silent victim like Ling Yun in their years of fighting. This indicated that the opponent possessed either a strong will or an extremely firm resolve, and that he would definitely do what he said.
After kicking and punching for a while, Ling Yun had already passed out, lying motionless on the ground, his clothes tattered. The attackers were also exhausted, and they stopped kicking, bending over and panting heavily.
One of the thugs, panting heavily, said, "Boss, what do we do now? If we keep fighting, someone will die. I think we should stop here."
Another thug said, "Yeah, this kid's tough. He didn't say a word even after we beat him like that, and we've all been exhausted."
The middle-aged thug pondered for a moment, then asked Zhang Yunfeng, "Little Zhang, you were the one who organized this, so what do you suggest we do?"
Zhang Yunfeng had actually wanted to stop a long time ago. He hadn't expected to beat Ling Yun unconscious. His original intention was just to teach Ling Yun a lesson, but Ling Yun's unyielding attitude angered everyone, and things almost got out of control. If he had accidentally killed Ling Yun, it would have been a matter of life and death.
He glanced at Ling Yun, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Brother, I originally wanted to beat him up to vent my anger, and now that I've achieved my goal, and it's about to rain, let's leave here quickly."
"Okay." The middle-aged thug agreed immediately, and the group of thugs swaggered away.
Only Ling Yun, covered in wounds, lay dead in the deserted alleyway.
A moment later, with a deafening roar, a massive golden bolt of lightning rose in the shape of a tree from the black sea of clouds, instantly illuminating the gloomy sky and earth. With a whoosh, a torrential downpour descended from the sky.
No one noticed that deep within the inky black clouds, a strange, seven-colored cloud was emitting endless colorful radiance. This radiance instantly condensed into an extremely thin and tiny beam of light, which, along with raindrops, shot straight down from the clouds, striking Ling Yun's body directly before disappearing in an instant.
Meanwhile, local news channels on television stations in Tongjiang City broadcast an inconspicuous news item: According to experts from the meteorological observatory, the city has recently experienced frequent thunderstorms, possibly indicating the presence of radiation clouds. Radiation clouds are cloud layers carrying radiation and possess strong radioactivity… While radiation can cause genetic mutations in organisms, radiation clouds pose no harm and are an uncommon natural phenomenon; residents are advised not to worry…
Ling Yun's finger suddenly twitched.
Chapter Two: Obtaining Superpowers
Ling Yun had a dream. He dreamt that he was thrown into an ice cave by a tremendous force. Everywhere was filled with biting cold, freezing every inch of his skin, so cold that he could hardly breathe. Countless streams of cold air entered his internal organs through his pores, ravaging every cell in his body, as if thousands of ferocious insects were desperately tearing at his body.
Just as Ling Yun was in the most agony, that immense force suddenly hurled him high into the air and plunging him into a pool of scorching lava. The instantaneous extreme cold and heat caused Ling Yun's body to explode, disintegrating into countless tiny particles. Ling Yun's vision went black; he thought he was dead, but strangely, his senses remained. This sensation was incredibly peculiar; he couldn't see or feel himself, yet he could perceive everything around him with crystal clarity.
This was a world entirely different from his own, a truly wondrous world. A colossal rainbow stretched across the sky from one side to the other, like an enormous, seven-colored archway. Countless dazzling stars were hurtling toward him. As if pebbles had disappeared into water, those stars vanished into his consciousness, then burst forth with an intensely brilliant light. When the light faded, Ling Yun's body had been reformed.
The dream is over. The rain has stopped.
Ling Yun, who was lying on the ground, twitched his body and slowly opened his eyes. He touched his head with one hand, groaned, and sat up groggily. He stared blankly at the sky, which was still covered with gray clouds. It took more than ten seconds for his consciousness to return.
Finding himself still sitting in the puddles of dirty mud, Ling Yun quickly scrambled to his feet, but he was covered in mud and dirty water from head to toe, even his hair was speckled with mud. His clothes were tattered and torn in many places. Fortunately, the alleyway was very secluded, and no one usually passed by, especially during the downpour, so no one saw Ling Yun's disheveled state.
This was all the work of Zhang Yunfeng and his gang of thugs! Ling Yun recalled the scene of being ganged up on earlier, and the flames of anger in his heart burned fiercely. He only hated that he was too weak and powerless to fight back against those social scum.
"One day, I will make you repay me a hundredfold for the humiliation I suffered today!" he thought through gritted teeth, then suddenly roared to the sky, his clenched fist slamming heavily against the brick wall on the side of the alley. The pent-up frustration in his heart could no longer be suppressed; Ling Yun had to vent it all, even if it meant self-harm!
With a loud bang, a hole the size of a bowl appeared in the hard brick wall. Ling Yun's fist plunged into the hole, and the cement dust smeared on the brick wall was shaken off and fell onto his arm. It immediately turned into green smoke and slid off to both sides like flowing water, without a single speck of dust sticking to his body.
Ling Yun's face froze instantly.
He slowly withdrew his fist from the hole, then held it up to his eyes and stared at it intently, as if it were not his own fist, but a powerful and destructive weapon.
The fist was still a fist, and it was completely unharmed, not even a scratch. It was as if the punch had hit nothing but air.
Ling Yun raised both fists to his eyes, then slowly opened them. His palms were fair, rosy, and glossy, completely unharmed. However, Ling Yun clearly remembered that when he was being beaten by that group of thugs, one of them had kicked his left middle finger, which was protecting his ribs. The pain had brought tears to his eyes, and he knew without looking that even if the finger bone wasn't broken, it must have been severely bruised and swollen.
But now, the left middle finger can bend freely and is completely intact, showing no signs of injury whatsoever.
Ling Yun looked at his palms in confusion, then suddenly seemed to remember something. He quickly unbuttoned his disheveled clothes, lifted his underwear, and as expected, there wasn't a single scratch or bruise on his body. It was as if the thugs' kicking had never happened. Now, apart from being covered in mud and filth, he had no bruises or injuries whatsoever.
What's going on? Ling Yun was completely dumbfounded, muttering to himself involuntarily. Could it be that after he fainted and woke up, he inexplicably gained immense power, and even the injuries he sustained from being beaten had automatically healed?
He lowered his head and thought for a moment, then walked a few more meters along the brick wall, stopped again, and faced the brick wall. After taking a deep breath, he shouted and punched the wall heavily with all his might.
No pain was felt in his fist, but another hole the size of a bowl appeared in the brick wall. Immediately afterwards, dozens of thick cracks spread rapidly from the edge of the hole to several meters around the wall. With a muffled sound, the five-meter-wide wall collapsed with a tremor in the ground, instantly shattering into countless pieces of broken bricks.
A dozen meters behind the wall was an ordinary seven-story residential building. The young woman on the sixth floor was lazily holding her Pekingese dog on the balcony after the rain stopped, looking out the window. When she saw this scene, she was so surprised that she loosened her grip. The Pekingese dog, feeling its owner let go, playfully struggled and its small body jumped out of the window, falling to the ground more than ten meters high.
The young woman never expected her beloved dog to suddenly break free from her embrace, and only had time to cry out in surprise, "My dog!"
Ling Yun stared at his fist with a mixture of surprise and delight, his mind in utter chaos, unsure of what to feel. Suddenly, he heard the young woman's urgent cry, and his heart skipped a beat. Looking up, he saw the Pekingese dog's body less than five meters from the ground.
In his haste, Ling Yun didn't think twice and naturally pointed at the Pekingese in the air, shouting, "Stop!"
A strange thing happened. The rapidly falling Pekingese dog's body seemed to be lifted up by an unknown force, slowing down until it landed gently on the ground like a floating feather. Without making a sound, the dog glanced at Ling Yun, who was still pointing at it, and barked a few times before turning and running away.
The young woman covered her mouth with both hands, staring in shock at this unbelievable scene.
Ling Yun looked up at her, a fleeting glint of silver light flashing in his clear eyes, before silently turning and walking away.
Many years later, the image of that strange boy and his obsidian-like eyes remained deeply etched in the young woman's mind.
Ling Yun hurried home. Luckily, his parents weren't home yet, and no one was there. He quickly took a shower, changed out of his torn clothes, wrapped them in a bundle, and threw them into the trash can downstairs. No matter what, he didn't want his parents to worry about him. Of course, if the strange change hadn't happened, Ling Yun might still be lying unconscious in the mud, until some kind passerby woke him up. He couldn't hide it from his parents, but since the change had occurred—not only had he gained astonishing power, but his injuries had also healed automatically—Ling Yun didn't want to mention it to them anymore.
In the evening, Lingyun's parents returned home from get off work. The family chatted briefly as usual, then Lingyun's mother started cooking. After dinner, they watched TV for a while. Lingyun's parents went to bed early. Lingyun then went to the computer in the living room and started surfing the internet.
He needed to figure out what was going on with the strange changes in his body. Since he couldn't tell anyone, he had no choice but to search online. Fortunately, the internet is now full of information, and search engines are very advanced. He could ask any questions he didn't understand online without worrying about his secret being discovered.
Two hours passed, and Ling Yun, through online searches, actually discovered a lot of useful information. He had indeed undergone a transformation, possessing an unnamed power, especially the final ability to move objects remotely—what the internet called "telekinesis" or "psychic force field." The power to transfer objects through thought was truly astonishing.
Ling Yun was unable to find the cause of his mutation. There was a lot of similar information online, but it was very fragmented. Most of it was just descriptions from fantasy stories or science fiction movies, and there were no real-world examples to refer to.
The only useful information is that the mutation might be caused by a gene mutation. But that's only a possibility. And Lingyun can't understand why he would have a gene mutation.
Does getting beaten up cause genetic mutations? Ling Yun smiled wryly, shut down his computer, and returned to his room. If gaining superpowers were that easy, everyone would probably want to be kicked hard.
Ling Yun spent the entire night practicing telekinesis. He took a few chopsticks and spoons from the kitchen, then lay on the bed and used his telekinesis to command the chopsticks and spoons to form various shapes and patterns less than ten centimeters from the ceiling.
The lights were off, and the room was pitch black, but Ling Yun discovered that his eyes had changed. Whether the light was sufficient or not no longer posed any obstacle to his vision. Even in complete darkness, Ling Yun could clearly see the fine patterns on the handle of a spoon three meters away. This wasn't just night vision; even in bright daylight, the best eyesight couldn't discern the patterns on small objects more than a meter away.