My Superpower Is Kind of Cute

Chapter 29: Reading Is Good; Read Good Books

Everyone froze, looking at each other in confusion. “What the heck is the *Three-Character Classic*?” “Bro, I know,” a younger guy behind Blondie volunteered, stepping forward to whisper in his ear, “It’s that book with all the rare and exotic creatures—like a Pokémon Pokédex.” “Smack!” Yellow Hair raised his hand and slapped the kid hard across the face, cursing furiously, “Do you really think I never went to school? That book is clearly called the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*.” The henchman was so startled by the Blond-Haired Guy that he stood there dumbfounded for several seconds before sheepishly backing away. Seeing this, another guy shot the first one a slightly contemptuous glance, then quickly stepped forward to correct him, “He’s wrong. That’s a martial arts manual—the kind where you grow long nails to scratch people.” “Smack!” The guy with the yellow hair slapped him again with the back of his hand. “Get lost. That one’s called the *Nine Yin Manual*. If you don’t know, don’t come out here and make a fool of yourself.” Xia Chun tugged at my sleeve and whispered, “Chen Meng, what are you up to? Why are you making them memorize this?” I replied with an air of gravity, “Of course I’m teaching them a lesson—and giving them a good scolding while I’m at it.” Truth be told, I just wanted to mess with them. “Isn’t that a bit too easy?” Zhao Leichuan piped up in dissatisfaction. “If they recite it, are we really just going to let them walk away?” I glanced at him and asked, “Can you recite it?” Zhao Leichuan shook his head frankly. “I can’t.” “Then how could they possibly do it?” I said dismissively, turning to the Blond-Haired Kid. “Hurry up—time’s running out.” “Can we switch to a different question?” Yellow Hair glanced behind him—the room was silent—and timidly turned to me for advice. I shook my head decisively. “No way. This is basic stuff every elementary school student is required to memorize—we can’t make any more concessions.” Yellow Hair immediately got so flustered he was on the verge of tears. “But bro, we really don’t know it.” I immediately ran with his line, “You don’t know it? Well, then I’ll have to punish you.” Yellow Hair shuddered and asked cautiously, “What kind of punishment?” I thought for a moment—those two slaps Yellow Hair had just given me had given me quite a bit of inspiration—“How about you slap each other? One slap per character.” “Well…” Huangmao hesitated. One of the other guys chimed in with a suggestion, “I think that’s fine. Judging by the number of characters in that sutra, it’s probably about the length of an ancient poem. We can just slap each other a few times to get by.” Hearing this, the Blond-Haired Guy finally agreed with a smile, “Then let’s start slapping each other.” “Alright then.” The group heard this, lined up facing each other, and reached out to stroke each other’s cheeks—one stroke counted as one slap. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’d at least made some noise—what the hell was this scene overflowing with gay chemistry? I instantly reached out to stop them. “Hold on. Let me make one thing clear: if you don’t hit hard enough, I’ll have to take care of you myself. Oh, and I’ll be using this uninjured hand of mine.” With that, I waved my left hand dramatically in the air a few times, looking quite smug. The Blond Guy turned pale with shock upon hearing my words. He nodded like a chick pecking at grain, glanced at the wall I’d just smashed to pieces, turned to glare at his underling, and shouted, “Haven’t you eaten today? Hit him hard! Don’t go sparing me just because I’m a delicate flower.” “I… is this… okay?” The henchman clearly couldn’t get past the class barrier; he stood there flustered, not knowing what to do. Blondie glanced at me. Seeing me raise my hand to intervene, he gritted his teeth and delivered a crisp slap to the henchman’s face. The man’s face immediately turned as red as a monkey’s butt, and he roared, “Remember that feeling—that’s the right amount of force. Hit me! Hit me now! I’ll give you pocket money—four figures.” It’s absolutely true that money can corrupt the human heart. As soon as Blondie said that, the young guy’s eyes lit up. Combined with the slap he’d just taken, he didn’t hesitate—he decisively slapped Blondie back. Both the sound and the force were top-notch. Blondie’s body tilted slightly; once he steadied himself, a red handprint appeared on his cheek. I turned to the others and said, “Those two are your examples. You need to follow their lead. Remember: one slap per character.” “Excuse me, how many characters are there in the *Three-Character Classic* in total?” one of them asked timidly. I was momentarily stumped—after all, I’d just been acting on a whim and had mostly forgotten the text myself. Scratching my head, I said, “Let’s just go with a seven-character quatrain—four sevens make twenty-eight?” “Wrong,” Xia Chun shook his head and said to me, “There are over a thousand characters.” “Over a thousand characters?” Zhao Leichuan immediately burst out laughing, grinning like a two-hundred-jin kid. “Haha, you’re screwed. I’ll beat the crap out of you stinking idiots.” In fact, just as Zhao Leichuan had said, the group was instantly dumbfounded. They all looked at me pitifully in unison, shaking their heads incessantly. The implication was crystal clear—we just can’t do it. “Hmm…” I rubbed my nose. At that rate, after a thousand slaps, you’d end up in the hospital with at least a Grade 4 disability. I didn’t have the heart to do that, so I changed my mind and said, “How about this: one to ten. I’ll round off the remainder for you—let’s just count it as a thousand characters, okay?” “Sure, sure.” The group instantly let out a sigh of relief, nodding repeatedly as if afraid I’d change my mind. They immediately began slapping each other face-to-face, muttering the count under their breath. “There’s one missing.” Zhao Leichuan spotted the person in the far corner. I glanced around—there were seven people present, and I could still tell the difference between odd and even numbers. I walked over to that person, who turned out to be the hot-tempered henchman who’d just threatened to beat me up. “What are you going to do?” I asked very politely. The henchman was startled; he shook his head in confusion and said, “I don’t know.” I held out my open palm with a friendly smile and said, “Then shall I help you?” The henchman nearly dropped to his knees, shaking his head like a rattle. “No, no, please don’t. I’ll do it myself.” No sooner had he finished speaking than he slapped himself across the face—with a force far greater than any of the mutual slaps I’d seen. “If only you’d done that sooner,” I muttered softly as I returned to my spot. Xia Chun had long been stunned by the scene before her, while Zhao Leichuan was now snapping photos with his phone to commemorate the moment. “Smack, smack, smack”—the crisp sound of slaps, mixed with the occasional masculine groans from the group. It was a good thing I was standing right there with my eyes wide open, watching their performance. If I’d closed my eyes and just listened to those sounds, my mind would’ve drifted straight to those… certain aspects of male-male intimacy. After about ten minutes, the slapping finally stopped completely. The seven of them were half-kneeling on the ground, utterly exhausted, as if they’d just survived a trial by fire. Without exception, each of their cheeks had swollen outwards by more than two centimeters—bright red and streaked with blood—making them look even more like pig heads than Zhao Leichuan himself. “Can you let us go now?” the guy with the yellow hair looked up at me and asked, his speech slurred. “Of course.” I nodded, snatched Zhao Leichuan’s phone, and deleted all the photos he’d just taken. “You can go now.” “Why’d you delete them?” Zhao Leichuan snatched his phone back, looking a bit put out, but when he saw the expressions on Yellow Hair and his crew’s faces, he couldn’t help but laugh. The Blond-Haired Guy, of course, knew exactly what I’d deleted. He shot me a grateful glance, and the group got to their feet, supporting one another as they filed out of the alley in two lines. Their backs looked somewhat weathered, and the scene was particularly desolate. “Wait a minute,” I called out, standing behind them. The Blond-Haired Guy stopped in his tracks, and the whole group turned to look at me in unison. “Ahem,” I cleared my throat. “All right—read more books, and read good ones.” Blondie’s eyes welled up as he said, “I’ve learned a lot. Goodbye.”