The Creatures that We Are

Five minutes later, X walked out of the basement to the small pier on the side of the villa, where a few jet skis were.

X jumped onto the first one. “Come on. Let’s go to the volleyball court.”

Of course, he didn’t forget to pat on the backseat and turned to Chen Ying, not hiding his ulterior motive at all. “We’re partners now, Miss Chen. Shall we take this chance to get to know each other?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Chen Ying didn’t even spare him a glance before getting onto another jet ski and turned to the others. “Who’s with me?”

White Rabbit jumped onto her jet ski and put an arm around her waist, raising her other hand to point forward. “Let’s go.”

X and Chen Ying set out.

Green Tea and Joker took one jet ski, while Ronnie and Scarlet Fox shared the ride. Then Vermilion Bird, Qing Ling, and Wu Dahai each took one.

That left Gao Yang and Can with the only jet ski.

Gao Yang got on and started it, turning around to look at Can.

Gao Yang had noticed some time ago that Can wasn’t as hyper as usual, and was holding herself quite timidly.

She was probably the classic slow-warmer. Although she was a shameless, mischievous gremlin when she was with friends, she was timid to the point of unsociable when facing people she didn’t know.

Now that she and Gao Yang were on their own, though, what was she acting coy for?

“You’ll only have yourself to blame if you get thrown into the water this way,” Gao Yang said.

Can nervously stuttered, “Then…I’ll hold onto you, Captain?”

“Put your hands on my shoulders and hold on tight.”

“Oh oh oh, right.” Can blushed and knocked on her head. “What, what was I thinking! Haha!”

Her hands fell on his shoulders and slowly tightened. Gao Yang started the jet ski, catching up to the others.

The wind was so strong that Can couldn’t keep her eyes open. She took cover behind Gao Yang’s wide back.

“You’ve been acting strange, Can.” Gao Yang’s voice was buried in the swoosh of the wind.

“Huh? Is, is that so?”

“Is there something bothering you?” As the captain, Gao Yang paid attention to every teammate’s mental state.

“Nothing! What could I be bothered about? Haha!”

Can lied.

She was bothered by something, but it wasn’t anything worth mentioning.

Although she had always known that she was far from a beautiful girl, it wasn’t usually plainly shown to her—until today, when she and the other girls changed into swimsuits, putting the gap between her and them in every aspect on display.

She would be lying if she said she wasn’t envious of them, even more so if she said she didn’t feel inferior, which led to her timidness before Captain Seven Shadow.

He was strong, good-looking, gentle, and quite fit. He looked like a shining star amid a crowd, and he made a good match with Elder Vermilion Bird, Qing Ling, White Rabbit, or Team Leader Chen Ying, but…not her.

Can regretted confessing to Captain Seven Shadow back then. If she hadn’t, things wouldn’t be this awkward now.

However, everyone knew she had a crush on Captain Seven Shadow.

When she was with the team, she could still humor everyone by playing dumb or acting shameless, but today, she was forced to reflect on herself, and a voice in her head kept reminding her, You’re not good enough for Captain.

Can couldn’t put her feelings into words. It was strange, stuffy, uncomfortable, and it was something she couldn’t talk to anyone about.

When the jet ski was just about to approach an uninhabited island, Gao Yang hesitated. He could more or less guess what Can was bothered about, and he decided to stop her spiraling.

“Be confident in yourself, Can.”

“Huh?” Can was caught off guard. She thought she had heard him wrong.

Gao Yang said seriously, “There isn't one standard for beauty. People are different, not better or worse.”

Can gaped, and her face was flushed for a good moment.

Shit, Captain sees right through me!

Ugh, I feel even more awkward now! I wanna jump into the sea and just drown!

Can’s brain short-circuited for a few seconds before she reverted back to her usual tactic, putting on a careless smile. “Oh boy! You’re awesome, Captain! You speak so profoundly even when you’re comforting people.”

“I’m not comforting you. I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart.” Gao Yang didn’t turn around, but his genuine, gentle voice made his point cross well enough. “You’re a good girl, Can. You’re no lesser than anyone.”

Can stared at him. She couldn’t hear anything but the wind whipping past her.

Although she had been praised for her moments of cleverness, she had never received such gentle recognition and encouragement her whole life.

She felt a prickle in her nose, and her eyes reddened. She had to open her mouth wide to take a deep breath so that she wouldn’t burst into tears.

Her grips on Gao Yang’s shoulders loosened a little unconsciously, but two seconds later, she held fast.

“Thank you, Captain! I understand!”

At that moment, Can quietly made an oath to herself.

Now, she must never, ever be thrown off the jet ski.

And from today on, she must never, ever drag Captain down.

Captain said so.

That I’m a good girl, no lesser than anyone.

…

The twelve of them made it to the uninhabited island on jet skis and reached a beach that was smaller than a football field, covered in soft, milky-white sand.

At the center of the beach was a volleyball court. On one side was a line of six parasols and a few beach loungers, as well as a box of bottled water and a few colorful beach volleyballs—effectively the audience seats.

X picked up a volleyball and entered the court, raising his voice as he said, “I’ll repeat the rules. First, no Talent allowed. Second, the volleyball must remain intact. Whoever has the volleyball when it breaks loses.”

X then thought of something. “Oh, and the ball can’t fly over the ocean, or it’ll count as a loss as well.”

Gao Yang made a rough calculation. The free zones around the volleyball court are about six meters in length. Another three meters, and it was the shoreline.

This was a rule to address an awakener’s power too.

At full strength, they could break the ball or hit it too far away from the court, both of which would disturb the match.

“Any question?” X turned to them.

“I do.”

White Rabbit raised her hand. “My Talent is Jump, which allows me to jump as high as I can. To what extent would I be considered having used my Talent? I can’t just not jump, can I?”

“You’re free to jump all you want, pretty girl. No foul will be called.” X gave her a confident smile.

“I’ll hold you to that, cute guy.” White Rabbit responded with a harmless smile, but there was a fierce look in her eyes.

Gao Yang started getting ideas too. It seemed that the actual rule wasn’t against them using any Talent, but Talents outside of those granting strength or explosive power.

A few examples being Element-type Talents, or Support or Time-Space Talents that would obviously break the rules and fun of a volleyball game.

It was something that could be exploited.

X lifted the ball with one hand and twisted his wrist, making the ball rotate on the tip of his middle finger. He got into the nitty-gritty of the match.

“This is a single-elimination tournament. When six groups are reduced to three, the two winning teams with lower scores will have another match. Then the winner will play the team with the highest score.”

“As long as my team doesn’t win top place, I’ll consider it your win.”

“Every match is decided by only three plays.”

When he finished, the ball on his finger had also stopped spinning. “Any other question?”

“Who’ll decide the order of the matches?” asked Vermilion Bird.

“I do,” X said. “Pairing up the high and the low, Team Ace against Team 9, King against 10, and Queen against Jack. Since our cards are selected by random, this should be fair.”

“I’m good with it.” Vermilion Bird shrugged.

No one said anything else.

X looked up at the sky with a half smile. “Then let us begin. It seems that it’ll rain soon. We’ll finish as quickly as possible.”

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