Chapter 47: The Toad's Dream

Who could blame him for wanting to live? Who could blame him, when in his past life he’d died young?

“Fine, you win!”

Lin Qiu rolled his body and came back to life once more, retracting the water elements from the air as well.

With two popping sounds, the faces of the two people pressed against the glass finally came away, making that peculiar noise.

“Ouch!”

Caught completely off guard, both of them tumbled to the floor. Their bodies, weighing over a hundred pounds each, hit the ground hard enough that they nearly lost their breath.

Xu Bing watched the red welts blooming on their cheeks, barely suppressing a laugh.

“No way! I want to evolve too! I want to be a superhuman as well!”

As soon as Liu Changfeng hit the ground, he started shouting like a madman and strode toward the machines.

He reached out and pressed a button on the laboratory console. With a flash of red light, the ceiling of the Wudu Research Institute opened, and a mechanical arm extended down.

At the end of the arm was a massive needle that plunged directly into the great white shark’s body.

“Suck it out for me!”

Liu Changfeng’s face contorted with excitement, his laughter maniacal. The tube attached to the needle lengthened, and inside, crimson blood began to flow.

After drawing about 400cc, the mechanical arm withdrew, moving to the research table.

Liu Changfeng, now a picture of mad scientific fervor, stared at the data Lin Qiu had provided on the computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

The blood was sent into the extraction chamber.

With ready-made data, it was a simple matter of entering it in.

As the chamber door closed, red lights flashed and alarms blared.

One minute later—

Ding!

A green light illuminated. The chamber door slid open.

“That fast?!”

Liu Changfeng was stunned, then pure joy swept across his face. In the open chamber sat a vial of serum, clear and flawless, without a trace of impurity or embellishment.

He rushed forward, snatching up the serum, and burst into wild laughter. “Now I’m a superhuman too!”

“You fool, are you sure about this?”

Xu Bancheng’s cold voice rang out, tinged with reproach. “You could find something better.”

“Since the ocean mutated, the great white shark is no longer unique.”

“What do you know, anyway!”

Liu Changfeng’s laughter halted abruptly. Xu Bancheng’s words hit him like swallowing a rat, his face turning ashen in an instant.

“I believe only that human will can conquer nature. Whether the great white shark is the strongest doesn’t matter; what matters is whether the one who uses the gene can make it the strongest.”

“In ancient times, our ancestors had a saying: ‘Are kings and generals born so different from us?’ If you work hard enough, if you’re good enough, even the emperor can be toppled, the rules rewritten.”

“Well said!”

In the fish tank, Lin Qiu’s eyes lit up instantly.

This Liu Changfeng might seem foolish, but in truth he was clear-headed! To say such things—he was obviously someone who understood the world.

Liu Changfeng was right. I will continue to ask: Are kings and generals born so different from us?

In this era when life everywhere is evolving, as long as you strive, even a toad can eat a swan—it’s no longer a distant dream.

If you keep devouring and evolving, maybe the toad can even swallow the sky.

Isn’t that what the world’s greatest warrior nation is like? Weren’t they just rats on Blue Star? Even the rats became enlightened and turned into the universe’s mightiest warriors—so why can’t the great white shark do the same?

“Idiot!”

But Xu Bancheng glared at him and scolded, “Even if your twisted logic is right, don’t forget—starting point matters. Birth matters.”

“Look at me, for example. I have the Xu family behind me. That spares me decades of struggle.”

“With the Xu family as my springboard, I became who I am today. Without that background, I’d be a nobody. Even with luck and opportunity, it would take me sixty years to achieve what I have now.”

“Heh!”

Liu Changfeng grinned. “That’s you. I am me.”

“You’re just too calculating. You seem wise, but really, you’re living a more exhausting life than anyone.”

“What’s the point? Sometimes it’s better to be a little confused.”

He shook his head with a smile, popped open the small vial, and drew the serum into a syringe.

“Pardon me, but I’ll take the lead!”

As Liu Changfeng spoke, he pressed the plunger, and with a small hiss, the gene serum was injected into his body.

“Oh!”

A long, ambiguous sound escaped Liu Changfeng as pain, anticipation, pleasure, and a hint of conflict flickered across his face, expressing the full spectrum of human emotion in an instant.

“This Liu Changfeng is a clever man—interesting. Worth getting to know better,” Lin Qiu thought to himself, nodding from inside the fish tank, admiring Changfeng’s transparent, carefree way of living.

What is a great white shark?

In the ocean, aside from the orca, it’s the mightiest of all aquatic creatures. Even with the ocean’s mutation, even if orcas and great whites are no longer unique, they’re still at the very top of the food chain.

Liu Changfeng wasn’t wrong: as long as you work hard, even with a different starting point, you can still achieve great things.

Archimedes once said: Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world. So, while the starting point matters, it isn’t everything.

“Dad, Mom, I’m going to be a superhuman!”

“Grandpa, Grandma, I’m off to bring peace to the world!”

“Teacher, Headmaster, do you still remember my essay?”

“I’m a superhuman—that was my childhood dream!”

“Old Wang, Xiao Li, even though you wronged Xiao Zhang, I still support you. After all, you’re the neighbor!”

“Villains, tremble and prepare to face the wrath of Superkid!”

“World peace starts with me!”

Liu Changfeng, hands pressed together like a devotee, bowed in every direction as if worshipping the four corners of the world, muttering words only he could hear.

Xu Bancheng watched, his dark face tinged with resignation.

That was just Liu Changfeng—stubborn as a mule. Once he made up his mind, not even eight oxen could drag him back.

Now that the gene serum was already injected, there was nothing more to say.

As the room fell into quiet anticipation, Liu Changfeng’s constant muttering filled the air. In the bathtub, the great white shark dissolved into countless points of starlight and vanished.

Outside the fish tank, a vast galaxy appeared, enveloping Liu Changfeng in its brilliance.

“Armor up!”

With a dramatic pose, Liu Changfeng placed his left hand on his hip and extended his right middle finger. As he struck his arrogant stance, the starlight swirled, forming rings that spun rapidly around him.

His clothes transformed in an instant.

When the starlight faded, Lin Qiu, watching from within the fish tank, nearly sank to the bottom in shock.