Chapter 5

Thank you, Prince Dan, for your generous donation. You are the only patron of my old book, Prince Dan.

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"Classmates, this is a new transfer student named Peng Wang. He will be joining our class from now on. Please find a seat and get ready for class to start." In a classroom at Wells United High School, the teacher introduced the new transfer student to the entire class. The first part of the introduction was directed at the whole class, while the latter part was directed at Wang Peng.

Wang Peng nodded and walked down the aisle to the back row, drawing the attention of the entire class. After all, this was a small town school where students all knew each other, some from childhood. The sudden appearance of an unfamiliar new student was quite intriguing.

Especially this new student, who was quite handsome, with a rare Asian face that appealed to both Eastern and Western aesthetics. He could be considered a handsome man in both the East and the West, and he seemed to have a good physique as well.

Immediately, many female students in the class cast appreciative glances at Wang Peng's chest and buttocks. The West is quite open, especially during high school. A strong chest and a sexy, firm butt, combined with a not unattractive face, could almost charm all the girls in the school.

Faced with such gazes, Wang Peng remained very calm. He had previously given lectures on his papers and ideas in front of many scholars, and had become accustomed to the thousands of scholars' gazes and the serious atmosphere. He wasn't afraid of the gazes of these young girls; it was all just a light drizzle.

Wang Peng walked down the aisle and sat at a desk by the window in the back row. He hung his backpack on the hook on the desk, then took out the textbook for the subject and played with a pencil in his hand.

It's worth noting that the desks in the classroom were different from those in China. In China, desks are usually paired and arranged in rows, while in the West, each student has their own desk, with an aisle in the middle. There are no so-called "deskmates," only front and back rows.

"Hi, I'm Claire. Where did you transfer from?" Not long after Wang Peng sat down, a girl with blonde hair sitting in front of him turned around and greeted him.

"Hi, I transferred from... New York." Wang Peng was a bit taken aback but nodded and replied. When asked where he transferred from, he hesitated. He couldn't say that he had actually graduated from school years ago and was a doctoral professor, nor could he say that he had previously attended Harvard. He could only give a vague and evasive answer.

Then, Wang Peng took a look at the girl named Claire. She was quite cute, and her age seemed to be about the same as his. She had long blonde hair tied up and a pair of beautiful blue eyes. By Western standards, she would be considered a beauty, but in Wang Peng's eyes, with his typical Eastern aesthetic, Claire was just cute.

However, what made Wang Peng feel strange was that this girl named Claire seemed familiar to him, as if he had seen her somewhere before. But Wang Peng was very sure he had never met Claire. If he had, he would definitely remember. Moreover, there was something about Claire that caught Wang Peng's attention.

"Alright, let's start the class. Everyone, turn to page thirty-four." Just as Wang Peng and Claire were getting to know each other, the teacher on the podium loudly announced the start of the class.

Seeing that the class had started, Claire turned back to her desk, and Wang Peng opened his textbook, feeling a sense of novelty and nostalgia. It had been seventeen years since he had been transported to this world, and he hadn't really spent much time in school. Suddenly sitting in a classroom, looking at the textbook, and listening to the teacher's lecture, it felt like he was back in his previous life's classroom.

However, Wang Peng didn't dwell too much on this nostalgic feeling. In his previous life, he was just an ordinary person, someone who would blend into a crowd and be unrecognizable. He had often skipped classes, hiding from teachers to read novels or browse the internet, so there wasn't much to reminisce about.

Moreover, Wang Peng's attention wasn't on the class or the textbook. His eyes were fixed on the girl named Claire sitting in front of him, and his focus was entirely on her.

The reason Wang Peng was paying attention to Claire wasn't because of any instant attraction or infatuation, but for other reasons.

In fact, as soon as Wang Peng entered the classroom, he had a strange feeling.

This strange feeling was the cause of his multiple sudden fainting spells, but now Wang Peng no longer fainted, and he had figured out what this strange feeling was.

Wang Peng called this strange feeling "perception," which was part of his "true ability." Perception, as the name suggests, was a power used to sense other things, and what Wang Peng perceived were people with abilities.

Wang Peng knew that perception sensed other people with abilities and not other things because his brain "told" him this.

This feeling was very difficult to describe. If he had to, it was like seeing a completely unfamiliar object for the first time, but your brain and intuition would "tell" you what it was for and how to use it. As Wang Peng's fainting spells increased, the things "told" to him also increased.

Perception didn't appear frequently. It only surfaced when someone with abilities was near Wang Peng, informing or reminding him that there was someone with abilities nearby.

Before entering this classroom, Wang Peng had perceived that there was someone with abilities in the room, but he didn't know who it was. However, when Claire greeted him, Wang Peng confirmed that the person with abilities in the classroom was Claire.

"Um?" Wang Peng stared at Claire's back, thinking about what kind of ability she might have. He must have been staring for too long, as Claire sensed it and turned her head to look back.

Wang Peng immediately snapped back to reality. Instead of panicking and looking down at the textbook, he shifted his gaze to the teacher on the podium, who was lecturing enthusiastically, and remained very calm.

"Strange, was it just my imagination?" Claire turned back, seeing Wang Peng resting his chin on his hand and playing with a pencil while looking at the teacher. She glanced past Wang Peng but didn't see anything unusual, so she muttered to herself and turned back.

"Phew~" Wang Peng let out a sigh of relief. If Claire had noticed, she might have misunderstood that he was interested in her, which would have been problematic.

Wang Peng had no interest in a girl like Claire. More importantly, if Claire were to think of him as frivolous and distance herself from him, it would be a loss. Wang Peng wanted to get closer to this girl with abilities.

Whenever Wang Peng had perceived other people with abilities in the past, it was in a crowd, and he didn't know who had abilities. Claire, this girl with abilities, was the first person with abilities that Wang Peng had come into contact with. Since Wang Peng also had abilities, he felt a sense of kinship.

"Ring! Ring!" The class ended quickly, and as soon as the bell rang, the teacher on the podium stopped lecturing and announced the end of the class without any overtime.

The classroom immediately became noisy, with everyone talking. Several girls from the class surrounded Wang Peng, and he could feel the enthusiasm of the female students.

"Do you know where Claire went?" Wang Peng smiled and responded to the enthusiastic and attractive female students while glancing at Claire, who had left her seat. He asked casually.

"Claire is the cheerleading captain. She must be busy with cheerleading. There's a competition coming up. Are you interested in Claire?" A girl beside Wang Peng replied, her tone filled with envy and jealousy.

School is a small society, especially in Western schools, where this is particularly evident. There are so-called "high-class" and "low-class" people in school.

The "high-class" people are members of the cheerleading squad, the football team, and so on. They are the few "high-class" people in the school. The "low-class" people are the so-called nerds, fat people, foodies, and so on. To avoid being looked down upon, many people try to get close to the "high-class" people and become their friends to improve their status in school. Of course, this is just on the surface. Behind the scenes, there might be all sorts of dirty dealings, especially among the cheerleaders, where the competition, intrigue, and betrayal are no less than a Chinese palace drama.

"Hehe, no, I was just asking." Wang Peng responded and then probed for information about the school and Claire.

The girls didn't hide anything, and soon Wang Peng learned about recent events at the school and information about Claire.

Claire was a native of the town. Some of the girls in the class had been in the same elementary school as Claire. From elementary school to high school, Claire had been an ordinary girl. It was only in the past two or three months that she joined the cheerleading squad and, through her own efforts, became the captain in a short time.

However, it's worth noting that Claire seemed to be adopted. Her adoptive parents were ordinary people; her mother was a housewife, and her father worked at a paper mill. Claire had a younger brother, who was her adoptive parents' biological child. They were a very ordinary family of four.