Complications of Being Invaded by an Alien Race You Never Knew Existed

Chapter 1.7

A/n: Basketball... How long has it been since I last watched basketball... I'm sorry if I get anything wrong.

It was a sunny Wednesday, and two classes were sitting together on the basketball court listening to instructions from their teacher.

Because the other class's chemistry teacher was out, she had requested that the PE teacher take over her class, and the PE teacher had agreed resulting in the situation today. Two classes were joined for PE. There were too many people for the gym, so the PE teacher decided to take the entire class outside to play basketball or soccer. The students got to choose which one to play, but the PE teacher decided what the teams were.

Ling Xia was currently face-to-face with the opponent team's captain, waiting for the referee to throw the ball into the air. He leaped into the air and snatched the ball once it left the referee's hand. He immediately looked to see who he could pass it to. As he scanned the court for his teammates, his eyes caught something peculiar. Mu Ninghua was leaning against the wall with horror-stricken eyes.

Ling Xia followed her gaze to a boy sitting on the bench from the opposing team waiting to be subbed in. In terms of capture targets, he was probably the fourth. He was the last one to fall for Mu Ninghua in the original world.

The fourth capture target's name was Ling Yu(1), and he was the most sensible of the four by far. Ling Xia liked him most.

The question was, why was Mu Ninghua staring at him like he was the most monstrous thing in the world?

Ling Xia moved his eyes back to Mu Ninghua and stared at her worriedly. This was most in line with Li Ming's character. Li Ming seemed stoic and boring on the outside, but he deeply cared about those that he held in his heart. Just like one of Ling Xia's own friends.

Sure enough, people noticed that Ling Xia didn't pass the ball to anybody and was just looking at Mu Ninghua. People looked to where he was looking and found a very pale and shaky Mu Ninghua. The girls that sat around Mu Ninghua concernedly asked her if she was okay.

Ling Xia jogged to Mu Ninghua and offered to take her to the clinic when Mu Ninghua didn't answer. He pulled Mu Ninghua up and slung her arm over his shoulder, hauling her to the clinic. On the way there, he overheard some mutterings that kept on falling out of Mu Ninghua's mouth. "The favorability... It's negative. Why?! What happened?! Now there's two... I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" Mu Ninghua's breathing continued to get heavier and heavier until she passed out, and Ling Xia had to drag her.

When they got to the clinic, Ling Xia briefly explained what happened to the nurse. "We were just playing basketball when I noticed her hyperventilating on the sidelines, so I started bringing her here, and she passed out before we reached."

"Do you know what could have caused her to pass out?" the nurse asked.

"No, I don't think there was anything there that could have scared her."

The nurse frowned. She had Ling Xia lay Mu Ninghua down on a bed to rest and told him he could go back to class.

When he arrived back at class, one of Mu Ninghua's close friends bombarded him with questions about her. "Li Ming, how is she? What happened to her? Why did she look so pale?"

"She fainted on the way there, so the nurse had her lie down. I think she'll be fine once she wakes up," Ling Xia dutifully reported.

Mu Ninghua's friend bit her lip in worry and resignedly said, "Okay."

'Hah.' Ling Xia let out a short laugh while shaking his head inside, wondering what the girl would think when she knew what Mu Ninghua was actually like. Ling Xia walked over to the bench and sat on it. Since the clinic was far away, by the time he got back, the game was almost over. As soon as he found a comfortable position to sit in, he felt a shiver run down his back. His neutral face turned stiff, and he realized somebody was staring at him. When he turned around to see, he found that that 'somebody' turned into 'some people'.

Ling Yu and the 'third capture target', Qi Bai, focused their intense gazes on Ling Xia. Ling Xia could understand Qi Bai, but Ling Yu? As far as he knew, Ling Yu hadn't fallen in love with Mu Ninghua yet, but Qi Bai had.

Actually, the two's gazes were completely different. Qi Bai's was filled with hostility while Ling Yu was looking at him with suspicion.

The staring contest between the three came to an abrupt end when a whistle was blown. That meant the girls would get to play basketball. Ling Xia moved to the wall and sat down. He wondered what Mu Ninghua was thinking when she said those things. "I don't want to die!" she had said. Did a negative favorability level mean that she would die? But by whose hand; the capture target's or somebody else's? Maybe the person that created the system would kill her, or have her killed.

And she said that there were two that dropped past zero. Who was the other? The fifth target?

Two of the targets' favorability values went to the negative range, so they were against Mu Ninghua, which meant they were possible allies. Ling Xia always abided by the rule, the enemy of an enemy was a friend.

The target Mu Ninghua was talking about a little while ago was probably Ling Yu, considering how she looked at him. Ling Xia could use his protection. There were still three other people that were still madly in love with Mu Ninghua after all. He needed all the help he could get.

Ling Xia looked at Ling Yu, assessing his ability to keep him safe when he noticed a certain somebody beside Ling Yu; Ji Shengge. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in his head, and a simpler plan to protect himself emerged.

Ji Shengge was a gang leader. The gang leader of the Crimson Moon, to be exact, who just so happened to be the archnemesis of the Azure Wolves, Chu Yan's gang. All Ling Xia had to do was make a trade-off. Information on the Azure Wolves that he got from Mu Ninghua and the world's memories for protection. And the easiest way to hook them would be the gang fight that killed Li Ming.

Did he really want to look to a gang for help, though? They were some of the least trustworthy people in the world. He could go to Ling Yu, but convincing him would take much longer. He already had all the materials required to make a negotiation with the Crimson Moon gang go in his favor.

Ling Xia sighed but didn't think on it any further. He formed a plan in his head and took the rest of the school day to relax.

Notes:

1: Ling Xia and Ling Yu do not, I repeat, do not have the same last names. There are things called tones in Chinese, which differentiate many similarly-sounding words.

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