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Next milestone 1200PS. Too much?
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Image of Jian Li(Comments)
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Image of the boy was burned into Jian's mind. The boy looked so peaceful down there, with the cat on his lap, leaning against his mother. He looked like a normal teenager, exhausted after a day of sightseeing.
But the wheel... the wheel didn't lie.
He repeated the use of his quirk again and again, but the results were the same every single time.
Pink. (Love). Orange. (Care). Blue. (Heroism). Black. (Malice).
"It doesn't make sense," Jian said. He sat down, leaning on a metal ventilation crate, burying his face in his hands. "It contradicts everything."
Mei stood beside him. She looked at her husband, who was crumbling under the weight of the absurd information he just received.
"But that does not make any sense," she said, frowning. "How can someone be a Paladin and a Demon at the same time? How can he have 'Heroism' and 'Malice' as core traits? They cancel each other out."
"Exactly!" Jian yelled, throwing his hands up in frustration. "It's a paradox! How can you be loving, caring, and heroic on one side — willing to die for your family — and be a sociopath on the other? How can you have the soul of a healer and the soul of a torturer? This doesn't add up! It has to be an error!"
He stood up and started pacing around.
"But my quirk doesn't make errors, Mei. You know that. It read the twins perfectly. It read you perfectly. It read the Prime Minister perfectly. It saw the greed in the Minister of Defense before he even took the bribe."
He stopped pacing and looked at her, his eyes haunted.
"The Black... it wasn't just anger, Mei. Red is anger. This was... cold. It was the desire to inflict pain, not out of loss of control, but out of a sense of justice. It was a judge sentencing someone to hell."
He sat down again, defeated.
"He's broken," Jian murmured. "That boy is fundamentally broken in a way that I have never seen before. And he is dangerous. If that 'Black' ever overpowers the 'Pink'... God help us all."
Mei just sat by his side. She took his trembling hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. Her skin was rough, scarred from years of fighting in underground rings, but her touch was gentle, grounding him.
"What do we do? Do we cancel the Summit? Do we ban them from the tower? Do we call the police and say, 'Hey, this kid has a scary aura'?"
Jian was silent for a long time. He watched the sun dip lower, casting long shadows over Shanghai.
"I have to tell her," he said.
Mei froze. She looked at him, not sure if she heard that right.
"What?"
"I have to tell Honoka," Jian said, his voice firming up. "She has to know what her son is. She has to know what she is living with. If she doesn't know, she can't help him. Or protect herself."
"WHAT?!" Mei yelled, standing up. "Are you insane?!"
She grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him.
"For what? You know the rules, Jian! If you decide to do that, you can't keep your mask! You have to reveal your quirk to her! The entire world thinks Jian Li is a quirkless genius who built an empire on intellect alone! That is your shield! Only my sisters and I know about your quirk! It is your ultimate trump card! It is the reason nobody can lie to you! It is the reason we survived the takeover attempt 5 years ago!"
"I know!" Jian shouted back, standing up to meet her gaze. "I know the risks! I know I'm exposing my throat!"
"Then WHY?!" Mei yelled back, her voice echoing off the glass walls of the skyscraper. "Why throw away your biggest advantage for a rival?! For a woman you have spent the last two years tormenting with glitter bombs and lawsuits?! Why risk everything for her?"
"BECAUSE I HAVE TO!"
"ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION, JIAN! WHY?!"
"BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT HER!" he finally yelled, his voice cracking with emotion.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Mei's hands dropped from his shoulders. Her eyes went wide. The anger drained out of her face, replaced by a sudden, crushing heartbreak. She took a step back, looking at him as if he were a stranger.
"What?" she whispered, her voice weak.
She took another step back.
"You... you care about her? Like... that?"
Jian looked at her. He saw the hurt in her eyes. He saw the fear that he was replacing them, that they weren't enough. He realized what he had said and how it sounded.
His eyes widened in panic. He rushed to her, grabbing her hands before she could pull away completely.
"No! No, no, no! Not like that, honey! Relax! I am not in love with her! I have five wives! I am at capacity! My heart is full! My schedule is full! I barely have time to sleep as it is!"
Mei looked into his eyes. She saw the panic, and sincerity. She saw the idiot she married, the boy who had pulled her out of a ditch.
She sighed, her shoulders slumping.
"Okay," she grumbled, pulling her hands away but staying close. "You scared me. Just... explain me what the fuck this is all about. You used to hate her, and looked at her as your nemesis. Heck, you even have a dartboard with her face on it in your office! When did this all happen? When did 'Nemesis' become 'Someone I risk my empire for'?"
Jian sighed. He leaned back against the railing, looking out at the city lights beginning to flicker on.
"It happened last year," he began. "During the negotiation for the Tokyo Metro contract. The meeting where she fully kicked our company out of Japan. It was a bloodbath. She destroyed my projection models in five minutes."
Mei nodded. "I remember. You sulked for a week. You ate three tubs of ice cream and watched sad movies."
"After that meeting," Jian continued, ignoring the ice cream comment, "we were at it again. The normal banter. Me threatening to buy her supplier, and to glitter bomb her house for a month, her threatening to break my legs and heal them only to break them again."
Mei sighed and whispered, "This man-child."
"You said something?"
"Nope. Please continue."
"Yeah," Jian smiled faintly. "As we were going at it... she got a call. Her phone rang. It was a stupid ringtone. Some 8-bit video game theme that sounded ridiculous coming from a CEO's pocket."
He looked up at the sky.
"And the moment she looked at the screen... that scary face she always made around me? The CEO mask? The 'Emberheart' glare? It vanished."
A genuine smile formed on Jian's face as he recounted the memory.
"It was replaced by the kindest smile I ever saw. It wasn't polite. It wasn't professional. It was pure love."
"She picked up the phone and said, 'Hey, honey.' And her voice... it was so soft. She turned away from me, the rival who was trying to destroy her company, and she listened to her son complain about something. She laughed. She wasn't Emberheart. She wasn't CEO Shuzenji. She was just... a mother."
Jian looked at his hands. He flexed his fingers, remembering the dirt and grime of his childhood.
"I wished I had a mother like that," he whispered. "Growing up in the slums... my mother was never there for me. She was tired. She was angry. She worked herself to death just to feed me, and she resented me for it. Then she left. I never saw that smile directed at me. I never saw anyone look at me like I was the most important thing in the world."
He looked at Mei.
"Watching Honoka... I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be a sword for my enemies and a shield for my family. I wanted to be a loving husband to you guys. And if possible... in the future... a great dad. She showed what true wealth looked like."
Mei just kept staring at him. Her expression softened, the hardness melting away like ice in the sun.
"Since then," Jian admitted, "I did everything to meet her. I provoked her. I fought with her. I sent her glitter bombs just to get a reaction. Because every time she yelled at me, she treated me like a person. Not a CEO. But an annoyance. A little brother she wanted to strangle."
He laughed dryly.
"She was like the elder sister I never had. Without even telling me, she taught me so much about how to love your family while being cold and brutal towards your opponents. She showed me it was possible to be both."
He stood up straight, fixing his tie.
"That's why I care, Mei. She is family. In a weird, twisted, corporate way. And I can't let her walk into a trap with her son without knowing what he is. If that boy is a monster... if that 'Black' soul consumes him... she needs to know. She needs to be prepared."
Mei walked up to him. She didn't say anything for a long moment. She looked at his face.
Then hugged him.
"You did amazing, honey," she whispered into his chest. "You really did. Not only as a businessman but also as a friend. A lover. And a husband. You are a good man, Jian Li. You're an idiot, a narcissist, and a drama queen, but you are a good man."
Jian hugged her back, burying his face in her hair. "All thanks to you five. You kept me human. Without you, I would have just been the Black color on the wheel."
He pulled back, a new energy in his eyes. The decision was made. But first, he needed reinforcements.
"So," he said, clapping his hands. "How about a family date today? I need to decompress before I make any life-altering decisions about revealing my secrets. I need dumplings and validation."
Mei laughed. "That sounds perfect. I will call Yu Yan and Xiaoqing. You call the twins. They're probably in the lab blowing something up."
"Got it, my lady."
Jian whipped out his phone and dialed Nerd number 1.
She picked up on the second ring.
"What?" Li Na yelled, impatiently accompanied by the sound of typing and soldering. "Say what you want fast. We are busy with testing the new propulsion gauntlets. Something is overheating, and it smells like burning hair."
"Jian here," he chirped. "Perfect. Is Wei with you? Put it on speaker."
"But we -- "
"Honey, just do it. Executive order."
"Fineeeee," Na sighed loudly. "Wei! Get over here! Jian is on the phone, and stop touching the capacitor!"
A shuffling sound, then a soft, timid voice. "He-hello, Jian?"
"Hi, baby," Jian cooed. "Okay, hear up. Throw everything you are doing right now into the storage locker. Save your code. Wash the dirt off your faces. And get ready!"
Na asked, "What? Why? We are in the middle of a breakthrough! We almost stabilized the plasma output!"
"Don't care. Change. Put on something nice. We have a group date night."
"D-date night?!" Wei squeaked, sounding terrified and delighted. "But... but my hair is frizzy! And I have grease on my nose!"
"Why are you shy about a date, idiot?" Na sighed in the background. "We are married to him. He knows what we look like."
"B-but..."
Jian laughed. "Stop messing with her, Na. Both of you get ready. I will be home in half an hour. We're going to the Bund. I'm craving hot pot. And bring the prototype gauntlets, I want to see them."
"Got... got it!" Wei stammered.
"We'll be ready," Na grumbled, though there was a smile in her voice. "Don't be late. Or I'm charging you overtime."
Wei cut the call.
Jian turned back to Mei. She was putting her phone away.
"Yu Yan and Xiaoqing are already getting dressed," Mei told him. "Xiaoqing is trying to convince Yu Yan to wear something other than a pencil skirt. It's a losing battle."
"Excellent," Jian beamed.
He extended his hand toward his wife.
"Shall we?"
Mei smiled. She took his hand, interlacing her fingers with his.
"Yup. Let's go."
She released his hand and stepped back. She raised her right arm, her palm open.
Appear.
A shimmer of metallic silver energy coalesced in the air.
In a second, a massive, six-foot-long claymore sword hovered in the air before them. It wasn't just metal; it was her quirk, Warblade.
"Your chariot awaits, my liege," Mei smirked, jumping lightly onto the flat of the blade. It dipped slightly under her weight but held firm.
Jian laughed, stepping onto the sword behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist for balance.
"To the future," he said.
"To hot pot," Mei corrected.
With a thought, the claymore launched forward. They shot off the rooftop, soaring over the Shanghai skyline.
--<<>>--
What do you think? Not the typical villain, but a guy with a sad past wearing a mask to hide his pain.
Plus what do you think of Mei's quirk. I won't spoil it but she is SUPER STRONG, like top 5 China strong.
Let me know your thoughts!
Plus if you want, you can read up to +10 chapters(It's +8 right now, the 10th will be up soon) and support me you can alway join my P@treaon. (Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.)