Chapter 2
New Beginnings
Ye Wenxuan was unconcerned, he shook off the towel and walked naked into his bedroom, taking out a dark blue casual suit from his wardrobe and unhurriedly starting to put it on.
Ever since he mastered this mysterious power of manipulating electricity, until now he had still not been able to control them well enough. He could only keep them from attacking others, but had no time to attend to the occasional small arc of lightning.
In particular, previously at the power plant he had consumed an immense amount of power at once, making him unable to adapt for a period of time.
The phone on the table rang twice, someone had sent over some information. Ye Wenxuan walked over to take a look, and recognized the number as the person who had contacted him to let him go to the power plant the day before yesterday.
[Mr. Ye, your ability a.s.sessment report and safety test were all approved, we welcome you to the national Ministry of Special Affairs"s counter-terrorism action team. I am a civilian personnel in the action team, Li Shaoyuan, in the future we will be colleagues.]
Li Shaoyuan. Ye Wenxuan thought for half a day, but still couldn"t think of what this person looked like. He politely responded: [Thank you very much. I would like to ask, after joining the counterterrorism action team, can I still retain my current design work, or do I need to go to B city to work?]
After a while, the other side responded: [Deputy Captain said that you will need to learn some relevant knowledge at headquarters, you will probably need to stay a few months of time in B city. I personally advise you to resign from your current job, we offer a very high salary here, including all sorts of insurances and welfare. Plus after missions you can act according to personal circ.u.mstances, and we also have paid vacations. The staff dormitory is basically four people in a room, but since your situation is special, we have arranged for you a private room. The staff dormitory has a complete set of facilities, just bringing a bag to live here is no problem. ^_^]
[But if you insist on working at your original company, we will also not force you, but you will need to sign some confidentiality contracts, you should be clear about the rules. However, when you are learning during those few months at the headquarters, you won"t be able to leave voluntarily, if your company is more stringent, I would still recommend resigning.]
Ye Wenxuan: [How long would I have to train, can you give me a rough estimate?]
Li Shaoyuan replied: [Deputy Captain said, if it"s you, at least three months.]
Well, the work here will definitely be lost.
Ye Wenxuan let out a sigh: [Good, I know, can I ask when it would be best for me to come report?]
[Come before October 1st, when you decide the time directly use this number to call me. Our side will book a ticket for you and provide you reimburs.e.m.e.nt.]
They reimburse the plane tickets, and also arranged a personal room, plus the workplace welfare seems pretty good. It"s also an important national department, if agreed, it would definitely be a gilded iron rice bowl.
Ye Wenxuan looked up and around his rented single apartment, and then flipped through that string of missed calls from his boss. There were also chats with the group designers late at night rushing to complete drawings and ma.n.u.scripts, gathering together to discuss their sufferings and wailings.
He had missed 68 calls from the design director, that old woman really held grudges, don"t need to mention a scolding tomorrow, she might even deduct wages, lower his performance ratings, and finally criticize him in front of the whole group.
He only weighed it for 5 seconds, and immediately replied: [Good, I will take care of the matters on this side. Resigning might need to take some time, if you don"t mind, I will go report at the end of this month.]
[OK.]
Thanking Li Shaoyuan again, he put down the phone. Ye Wenxuan"s mood suddenly improved.
"Ha." He leaned back against the sofa, looking at the ceiling and talking to himself: "Being hired successfully by SFLS took me more than two months of effort." And then when resigning he only hesitated less than two minutes, this was really G.o.d"s plans superseding our own.
Or you could say, ever since two months earlier, after he had been struck by that terrible lightning bolt, the changes that had happened to him seemed like a runaway mustang, no matter how he pulled at it he couldn"t stop it.
Ye Wenxuan, on a certain night in July, suffered an unprecedented thunderstorm on his way back home from work.
At that time, a huge roar burst in his ears, that scene was really just like facing a Xuan Lei, his umbrella was instantly blown away by the storm winds towards the skysc.r.a.per beside him. In the instant when Ye Wenxuan raised his head, that lightning seemed to have found a target, and split down right towards his head.
That blow was much too fast, Ye Wenxuan could not respond at all. He only blinked once, and it had already attacked.
Before his eyes flashed a blinding light, then suddenly everything turned black, and he fell onto the sidewalk and lost consciousness.
Ye Wenxuan almost thought he was dead.
But when he once again woke up, he was still lying on that sidewalk, and there was no one around. The sky was still pouring rain, but the lightning had already vanished.
He had touched his head, not a single hair had been lost, but he had added a b.u.mp——that had come from him hitting his head on the ground.
Then he lowered his head to look at his body, his hands and feet were still whole, only his clothes were totally wet——that was because he had fallen into a puddle.
Taking out his phone, he carelessly wiped away the water drops on top, Ye Wenxuan used his bag to block out the rain and turned on the screen with trembling fingers.
From the time he fainted to that moment, only a short three minutes had pa.s.sed.
This was truly too strange, if it wasn"t for his entire body being a mess, Ye Wenxuan would really have thought that that the previous lightning had only been his own illusion. He could not think of an answer, but the rain was only getting heavier, and his umbrella had been blown away. Ye Wenxuan had no way, he could only carry his backpack, and hobble madly home under the rain.
Ever since then, all sorts of strange little problems started happening around him.
Sometimes the electrical circuits in his home would inexplicably trip, the wall lamp in his living room would suddenly burst, or the electrical appliances around him would collectively go on strike, and when the repair team came, the staff would be surprised to find that the wires inside had all completely been burnt. Small troubles like these, happened many times. Later on, no matter where he went he would bring a "pi pa" strong static, causing the complaints of his colleagues and his friends.
Four days after being struck by that lightning, he finally confirmed, his body carried a large amount of electric current, tremendously powerful and unmanageable.
This ability that was just like a superpower made him terrified, but also made him incomparably excited: he would like to ask, who else would be able to survive the terrible lightning strike that he had suffered, and not only not die, but also obtain such a terrible natural force?
Afterward he went online to do some research, he found out that the average current of a lightning bolt could reach a maximum of around 300k amperes, and the instantaneous temperature of a lightning bolt could reach a maximum of 27k degrees Celsius. This definitely would turn a living person, even a group of living people, into slag.
At that time he had just begun to realize, what kind of terrible power this was.
Ye Wenxuan reached out a hand, the five fingers gathered over thin air. He looked intently, in a moment, a visible arc of blue and white lightning condensed on his palm.
At first it was just a 20 cm or so blue-white line of lightning, starting in the palm of Ye Wenxuan"s hand and stretching upright into the air.
But slowly, the shape of the lightning started to change, its color changed from white to blue, and then from blue to purple, and finally actually turned into a fog-like, opaque black sphere.
When this black ball of lightning appeared, it trembled, wanting to leave the palm of Ye Wenxuan"s hand and move toward the TV in the living room that was broadcasting the morning news. Seeing this, Ye Wenxuan quickly clasped his fingers, enclosing that black bolt of lightning firmly in his palm, and even threateningly pinched it twice.
If ordinary people did something like this, this black "dark thunder" would likely long have exploded, and burst that person into pieces, but Ye Wenxuan actually did this extremely naturally. That dark thunder rolled into his palm and stayed motionless. Ye Wenxuan"s mind moved, and with only one thought, that black ball of lightning drilled into his hand and disappeared.
The day before yesterday he had also shown this thing to the people at the national Ministry of Special Affairs, the other person had shown an expression of seeming to have seen G.o.d, and then after the end of the test secretly told him that this dark thunder was the most dangerous lightning in nature. Dark thunder usually carried a huge amount of extraordinary electromagnetic radiation, simply a killing device among killing devices. And he furthermore warned him not to use it in the future, otherwise it might lead to a terrible accident.
Ye Wenxuan pointed at the sky and swore that he would definitely not use it. Just two days after he had made this oath, he had already secretly taken out the dark thunder to look at it over 10 times.
Of course, it was just for himself to see secretly in private, he would definitely not dare to run to somewhere with people to find death.
So, the oath or something, to Ye Wenxuan there was no kind of restraint at all, it couldn"t even be compared to signing some sort of mandatory agreement or something.
Taking a look at the time, it was already past 8 am, Ye Wenxuan pulled out from his own overactive imagination and threw his chopsticks and bowl into the kitchen sink. Then he stuffed his phone, wallet, and everything else into his backpack, and went out the door.
Here could be considered a high-end apartment building in the center of S city, basically everyone who lived here were office workers. Ye Wenxuan greeted some neighbors in the elevator and casually chatted a few sentences with them, and when they got to the first floor everyone went about their own business. Those who drove got on their cars, those who took the subway went to catch the subway.
Ye Wenxuan usually walked to work.
He had a mountain bike, but wearing a suit and riding a bicycle was too weird, so unless it was the holidays then he would bike around S city, but when he was going to work he would either walk or take a taxi. Thanks to living not far from the company, and walking also not having the problem of traffic jams, he would be able to get there in around 10 minutes.
SFLS was a foreign company headquartered in Paris, France, it was a company specialized in creating high-end luxury goods.
The company only accepted requests for private customization services from famous people all over the world, from clothing to perfume to cosmetics, of the customers there were many who wielded extreme authority and influence. The number of clients could not be compared with other major brands, but the majority of clients were very respectable. Even when an order had not yet been complete, the amount of income was already extremely significant.
This was also one of the reasons why SFLS was one of the leaders in the luxury goods manufacturing industry.
Ye Wenxuan worked in SFLS"s Chinese division in S city, it exclusively occupied an entire skysc.r.a.per in the downtown S area. Just looking at the facade, there would be a blatant capitalist atmosphere, countless designers dreamed of being able to work and study here, and hoped that one day they would be able to gain favor from the headquarters, and soar into the fashion capital of Paris.
A few months ago, Ye Wenxuan was one of them, immeasurably self-satisfied about being one of the SFLS designers.
But today a few months later, he pa.s.sed through the lobby to enter the elevator. He swiped his card and pressed the b.u.t.ton for the 18th floor while secretly calculating how he should face the design director in a while, and let her successfully sign off on his resignation application.
## Lightning G.o.d Reincarnation Ye Wenxuan ##
Ye Wenxuan: “I spent a night thinking yesterday.”
Yue Hao: “Thinking about what?”
Ye Wenxuan: “Thinking about human life, thinking about the universe, thinking about the past and future, thinking about the true meaning of life.”
Yue Hao: “…You cultivated immortality yourself silly ba, these few days when you were rushing to finish your designs you rushed out some mental disorder.”
Ye Wenxuan: “I"m telling you, I might be the reincarnation of Thor, that one who carries a hammer and can release lightning.”
Yue Hao took out his cell phone: “h.e.l.lo, is this 120, I have a sick person here. That"s right, his spirit is not normal, please send an ambulance and four strong men over a trip.”
Ye Wenxuan, faintly: “I"m telling you, if you"re like this you"ll be roasted into barbeque by me.”
Yue Hao: “Please come here a little faster, the patient is already trying to make a move on me!”
Translator Notes:
[1] iron rice bowl – 铁饭碗, means secure employment
[2] Xuan Lei – 九天玄雷, should be some sort of mythological thing, 九天玄女 is a kind of mythological fairy
[3] 120 – equivalent of 911
Random Notes:
Well, that took longer than antic.i.p.ated: a little over an hour from 4:15 pm – 5:22 pm, for 3.2k characters to 2.2k words. It"s all because of my OCD. I"ve still been basically reading from the Chinese, even though the MTL is basically right. I will need to hone my summary-translation skill. Notice that there"s only 3 T/Ns this time. I will likely have fewer T/Ns with these less formal translations, mostly bc those take more time and I think/I hope this story has fewer idioms or things like that. There"s still a lot of new terms and phrases that I haven"t seen before though.