A man in his late thirties sat in his lab that was barely lit. He tampered with something small with peculiar looking instruments and weird technology. In front of him was a glass screen and behind it, in a room, was a glowing holographic DNA double helix that was zoomed in on a specific gene and its base pairs. It was some sort of simulation-like model that could be manoeuvred through a tablet that sat on the table beside him. He studied the base pairings and proteins that the gene produced, switching around the base pairs or deleting certain bases.

He turned around to stare at the form of Jiang Yu Yan who was currently unconscious and attached to numerous different wires in some sort of cylindrical glass chamber. His eyes studied her in deep thought, thinking back to the symptoms of the illness she had described to him. He knew exactly what sickness she had and he had to do something about it before it ruined his plans. He had to keep his daughter neutral with nothing to cloud her judgement and that meant tampering with her DNA to make a specific and precise alteration. He had done it before: to make Jiang Yu Yan the person she was and to make sure she was the strongest and fittest, he had genetically engineered some of her chromosomes so that she had no physical weaknesses. But her emotional weaknesses had slipped out of his mind and to control them he had to dig deeper into the very fibres of her being and decrease the amount of specific hormones her body released.

"Dopamine... Norepinephrine... Serotonin... Oxytocin..." [A/N: these are hormones] he muttered to himself, scribbling away furiously in his notebook, "I should have mapped these out long ago." He let out a stressed and tired sigh before there was a soft knock on the door. "Come in," he replied, taking off his goggles as his eldest daughter walked in. "Yu Ru, do you need anything?"
Yu Ru looked over at her younger sister before her gaze shifted to her father, "Sorry to bother you Father, but I don't understand why you spend so much time on Yu Yan." she said, "Why focus on trying to improve only one of us when you could alter all our genes to fix our faults? Please excuse my rudeness."

He looked at her, feeling too exhausted to yell at her. Instead he put down his goggles and slipped off his gloves before facing her properly. "Because Yu Yan is the closest to Yu Er," he answered.
"Our mother?" Yu Ru asked before receiving a slow nod. "But won't altering her DNA change that? Won't it affect the success of our plan?"
"It does but that's why I will return Yu Yan's original genes before the final phase of our plan is carried out." he responded as he stood up, "Now go back to your room. I don't need to explain any further to you. Make sure you carry out today's task well."

A lack of satisfaction was present on her face but she decided not to push any further. She just nodded and left quietly.

"Ding Xiao Yu... you're a bigger problem than I expected..." he muttered quietly.
 

~*~*~

"DONG GE! DONG GE! DONG-"
A fist landed smack on Jin Bao San's face before Wang Da Dong's angry voice boomed, "What is it Jin Bao San?!"
Jin Bao San crawled to a desk that was in front of the leader's hammock and nervously placed a laptop before him.

"Dong Ge, this website has suddenly popped up on the web!" he began, as Da Dong looked at this webpage that was titled with 'KO ONE WORLD'. He brushed his eyes over it before leaning back in his hammock.
"So?"
"It has lots of gossip and news articles from the high school world and Zhong Ji Yi Ban is the centre of it all," Jin Bao San explained, navigating through the site.
"Isn't that good then? We're famous." Da Dong replied as Ya Se and Xiao Yu walked over to see.

Ya Se studied the recent headlines from the latest gossip articles and he began to read them out, "'Zhong Ji Thief'? 'Wang Da Dong Steals Battle Points'? 'Zhong Ji Yi Ban Is Corrupt'? 'Take Down Zhong Ji Yi Ban'? 'Save The High School Realm From Wang Da Dong'?" Ya Se furrowed his brows in confusion as he scrolled through the page, "What is this? It's all hate and rumours about Zhong Ji Yi Ban."
Da Dong immediately sprang up to have a look, "What?"
"It seems that rumours about us stealing battle points have spread across the major high schools already." Ya Se concluded with his gaze still on the laptop, "But who'd spread such nonsense?"
"Does it say who is writing the articles?" Xiao Yu asked.
"I would say lots of people from different schools write their own articles," Ya Se guessed, as he opened another article. His eyes skimmed over statistics and values which shocked him. "Egomaniac, look at this." he instructed, passing him the laptop.

Da Dong scrutinised the numbers, "Number of Reported Yi Neng Mugging in the Last 4 Weeks," he read aloud, before skipping straight to the total figure, "375 and counting?!" he exclaimed, "What the hell? And people think it’s us?"
"Dong Ge~!" Jin Bao San wailed, "I keep getting death threats!"

"We need to find the true culprit," Xiao Yu spoke, "After all, our class are victims too."
"But how? How are we supposed to know who's stealing battle points and interfering with the KO Rank?" Da Dong asked.
"We should start by interviewing the victims and see what clues they can give us." Ya Se suggested, "We should start by asking Classmates Xia Ba and Liang Zhi about what they know."

Da Dong's mind immediately went back to the conversation he had had with them in the hospital. They suspected Jiang Yu Yan but Yun Han's truth telling whip had confirmed that she wasn't the culprit. And if Yu Yan had been with them all weekend, how could she have stolen yi neng from someone living on the other side of Taipei? Nothing made sense to him. And then there was that strange person who was watching them up on the mountains, could that have been the culprit? He didn't know. He racked his brain for a solution or a course of action but nothing came to mind.

"Leave them, we'll start with someone else." he said quickly.
"Who?" Xiao Yu asked.
"Students from other schools," he said.
"Egomaniac, this is going to be dangerous. Lots of schools now want to fight us so we can't go around casually to other schools for interviews. They might find out that we have no yi neng." Ya Se pointed out, "I'll get my men to gather some accounts of the yi neng muggings and from them we'll decide who to ask."

~*~*~
 

The sun had set and Yu Yan stretched her legs as she jogged through the streets, feeling very refreshed after her father had given her medicine to take. She had taken a sick leave from school that day so hadn't exercised her body much. She was jogging through the streets of Taipei, training as usual. She liked jogging on the streets rather than in parks because ordinary pedestrians were obstacles that she could use to improve her echolocation and therefore her agility. She slowed down as she neared a supermarket to drink some water when she heard a woman yell.

"Thief! He's got my bag!" A lady rushed out of the supermarket, following the thief that was clad in black. He brushed past Yu Yan as he tried to escape. She quickly assessed the situation before dashing after the thief using her super speed without a second thought. She didn't know why she felt like helping this woman but it was too late to go back now because at that moment she tackled the thief to the ground, before standing up with one foot on his face.

"Do scum like you have nothing better to do?" she hissed, digging the heel of her shoe into his face.
The woman caught up to them, panting breathlessly, "Oh my, thank you so much Classmate." she said, taking her bag back from the man.
Yu Yan snorted before kicking the guy in the face.
"How can I thank you? Classmate, what's your name?" the woman asked.
"There's no need to thank me," Yu Yan replied when a familiar voice stopped her from leaving.

"Mum!" Wang Da Dong jogged to his mother, carrying several bags of groceries, "Why did you run off so suddenly?" he asked, breathing heavily, exhausted. He then looked up to Jiang Yu Yan standing next to his mother, "Eh? Yu Yan? What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Da Dong, you two know each other?" his mother gasped.
"Yeah, we're... ... friends???" he said slowly even though it came out like a question.
"Friends my ," Yu Yan snapped quickly, "I'm leaving." As she turned to leave, Wang Mama grabbed her arm.
"Classmate Yu Yan, you must have dinner with us! Let me treat you as a sign of my gratitude!" she beamed, "And Da Dong never has any friends over so it'll be fun!"
"I don't want to." Yu Yan shook her arm away.
"Yeah, mum I don't think-" Da Dong was cut off.
"Da Dong, don't be so rude. Classmate Yu Yan has just helped me, how can I not thank her?" She replied, before pulling Yu Yan over to her who grumbled quietly, "Just have dinner with us, I've just bought fresh ingredients, how's that?"

"My father will worry about me," Yu Yan answered, irritated.
"Oh, don't worry about that! I can just give him a call to let him know you're having dinner with a friend!" Wang Mama then smiled perpetually as she dragged Yu Yan to their house with Da Dong following after awkwardly. Yu Yan could feel how strong and powerful Wang Mama was so decided to give in to her. Maybe she could find out some useful information about Wang Da Dong's family.

Yu Yan sat awkwardly next to Da Dong as Wang Papa sat across from them. Wang Mama brought in dishes from the kitchen before she sat down next to her husband.

"Excuse me; I need to make a phone call," Yu Yan said, abruptly standing up.
"Sure, go ahead. We'll start when you come back." Wang Mama said.
As soon as Yu Yan was no longer in hearing range, Da Dong leaned over the table to whisper to his parents, "Mum, Dad, Yu Yan is blind so don't be insensitive," he said.
"Blind?" Wang Papa repeated, before slowly nodding, "Okay, I see."
"She must be very strong," Wang Mama added as she looked over at Yu Yan who returned to the table. When her eyes landed on Yu Yan fiddling with her chopsticks, she realised something, "Ah! Why don't I get you a spoon?" she asked.
"Uh... sure..." she muttered, quietly, feeling a bit awkward and out of place.

"So Classmate Yu Yan, how is school going?" Wang Mama asked, "Are you on the KO Rank too?"
Bored, Yu Yan stirred her spoon around in her bowl of rice, "It's okay...and I don't want to waste my time on some stupid ranking."
Da Dong could see the mix of boredom and awkwardness in her face and decided to liven up their conversation, "You know Mum, Dad, Yu Yan is super strong. She took down a whole gang of students who wanted to fight me, Narcissist and Xiao Yu."
"Ah, I knew she was very strong and skilful the moment I saw her." Wang Mama replied.
"You must have worked really hard to become so good at martial arts," Wang Papa said, "I must thank you for helping out our son."
Yu Yan cringed as the corners of her lips twitched awkwardly before she forced a smile on her face, "...er... it was no problem..."
"She's a real bro!" Da Dong grinned before Yu Yan stomped on his foot under the table really hard. He flinched in pain as he laughed nervously.
"Enough about me, let's talk about you Wang Da Dong," she smiled at him through gritted teeth, making him sink into his seat. So this is how Jin Bao San feels... he thought.

"Oh Da Dong, a letter from An Qi arrived today." Wang Papa announced.
"Really?!" Da Dong exclaimed, "Where is it?"
"I put it in your room," Wang Papa replied.
"Who's An Qi?" Yu Yan asked.
"Our Da Dong's first love!" Wang Mama gushed.
Yu Yan burst out laughing, "Seriously? I can't imagine the almighty Wang Da Dong in love."
"He was so cute! He used to go so red when he saw her and he would run away faster than the speed of light!" Wang Mama laughed as Da Dong blushed from embarrassment.
"Mum, stop! Leave me some face!" he exclaimed.
"I never knew you could be so helpless!" Yu Yan snickered.
"Hey, I wasn't the only helpless one! Xiao Yu liked her too!" Da Dong retorted in defence.
"Little Fish too?" Yu Yan repeated, "I never knew you two could be whipped over some girl."

"Why did you two even break up in the first place?" Wang Papa wondered, "I thought you two were doing so well."
Da Dong sighed, feeling heartbreak tug back on his heart, "She didn't want to be the reason why me and Xiao Yu fell out and she didn't want to choose between us. To be honest, Xiao Yu treated her better than I did and I feel really sorry to them both for causing them so much trouble." he admitted, with slight sadness in his voice.

Little Fish in love? Wouldn't that be a sight to see... more like sound to hear… Yu Yan thought to herself before she asked herself a question, what is love? What is it like to be in love? What does it feel like? Is it the same type of love I have for my father? As their dinner conversation continued, Yu Yan thought about the topic of love, something that was new and strange to her. It was something she didn't understand. It was something she didn't care about but wanted to understand.