Airis stepped out of the wood-paneled study, her face still slightly flushed, but her composure rapidly returning.
Standing exactly where she had left him, gripping his wooden baseball bat with white-knuckled determination, was nine-year-old Leo.
He looked up as the door clicked shut, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at the polished mahogany.
"Did Aunt Eleanor do mind-control on you?" Leo whispered loudly.
"My mom says she does weird yoga that makes people do what she wants."
Airis let out a genuine laugh, the tension of the cultivator's interrogation completely washing away.
"No, Leo. No mind-control. Just boring adult talk about my future."
"Gross,"
Leo declared, lowering the bat.
For the next hour, Airis found herself fully occupied with her energetic little cousin.
To the outside observer—namely, a very confused Aunt Sylvia—it looked as though the refined, untouchable Dover heiress possessed a miraculous, maternal patience for children.
The truth was entirely different. Airis didn't have maternal instincts; she had the twenty-seven years of male experience of Lin Ye.
She knew exactly how a nine-year-old boy's brain operated.
When Leo started aggressively swinging his bat at imaginary bad guys, Airis didn't scold him to be careful of the Ming vases like Victoria did.
Instead, she knelt down and adjusted his stance.
"You're dropping your elbow," Airis instructed calmly, tapping his trailing arm.
"Keep your weight centered. If you swing wild, the bad guy just steps inside your guard. Short, controlled arcs. Like this."
She demonstrated a flawless, compact swing using an invisible bat, drawing on Lin Ye's memories of high school batting cages. Leo stared at her in absolute awe.
When they moved to the plush carpet to play a racing video game on a portable console, Airis didn't just let him win; she ruthlessly executed a perfect drift around a corner, explaining the mechanics of braking and acceleration to him like a seasoned mechanic.
"You're the coolest person ever," Leo declared, completely abandoning his mother to sit practically glued to Airis's side.
Sylvia watched from across the room, aggressively sipping her mimosa, looking deeply conflicted.
She wanted to insult Airis, but her son was currently treating the girl like a superhero.
As the afternoon shifted toward evening, the chaotic family dynamic began to wind down. But Airis had one final hurdle to clear.
"Airis, come sit for a moment,"
Uncle Robert called gently from the loveseat, unzipping his worn leather medical bag.
Junior Uncle Robert looked exactly like what he was: a tired, overworked, middle-aged surgeon.
He had dark circles under his kind eyes, his hair was thinning slightly, and he lacked the terrifying, commanding presence of his older brother, Nathaniel.
"Just a standard check-up,"
Robert smiled warmly as Airis sat beside him.
"Your father told me the paramedics cleared you at the scene, but I want to make sure your heart rate and blood pressure have stabilized. Shock can linger."
"Of course, Uncle Robert," Airis said, extending her delicate wrist.
She wasn't worried. The Aegis Bioskin had flawlessly fooled Eleanor's ancient cultivation probing; a standard pulse check from a mundane doctor was nothing.
Robert placed his warm, calloused fingers against the inside of her wrist. He closed his eyes, tilting his head slightly as if listening to a distant sound.
Suddenly, the world around Airis seemed to completely stop.
[Ding!]
[CRITICAL WARNING: MASSIVE EXTERNAL ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED.]
[Classification: Transcendent Biological/Alchemical Output. (Estimated Tier: Medicine Immortal / Grandmaster of the Crucible).]
[Threat Assessment: Immeasurable. The entity 'Robert Dover' possesses enough latent vital energy to resurrect the dead or synthesize lethal, untraceable pathogens with a single breath. He is currently utilizing a microscopic fraction of his power to scan the Host's cellular structure.]
[Aegis Bioskin Stealth Protocol operating at 100% capacity to maintain mundane illusion.]
Airis sat absolutely frozen, staring at the balding, tired-looking man holding her wrist.
Are you kidding me? Lin Ye's soul screamed in utter disbelief.
She looked across the room at Senior Uncle Nathaniel, the terrifying secret agent, and Aunt Eleanor, the formidable cultivator.
The System hadn't sounded a critical warning for them. It had simply noted their probing.
But for Uncle Robert?
The System was practically flashing red lights.
Robert wasn't an ordinary surgeon. He was a monster. He was the kind of legendary, peerless medical immortal that protagonist webnovels spent hundreds of chapters trying to defeat or recruit.
And he was hiding it flawlessly beneath the guise of an overworked, henpecked husband from the suburbs.
After a few excruciating seconds, Robert opened his eyes and smiled, removing his fingers from her wrist.
"Perfect," Robert said gently, patting her hand.
"Your pulse is steady, your circulation is excellent. Whatever fear you felt yesterday, you've processed it beautifully. You're perfectly healthy, Airis."
"Thank... thank you, Uncle Robert,"
Airis managed to say, forcing a polite smile while her brain frantically recalibrated her entire understanding of the Dover family.
As Robert packed up his stethoscope, completely unaware that his niece had just seen through his ultimate disguise, Airis leaned back against the cushions.
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
Alexander Dover, the middle brother, had built a multi-billion-dollar global empire.
In a world secretly crawling with lightning-wielding Espers, ancient cultivators, and supernatural Wardens, a mundane businessman should have been assassinated, extorted, or crushed within his first five years of success.
Unless, of course, his family was a literal fortress of hidden dragons and crouching tigers.
No rival corporate entity or rogue supernatural faction dared touch Alexander because the moment they did, they would have to face Nathaniel's secret government agency, Eleanor's hidden capital clan, and Robert, a transcendent medical immortal capable of wiping out entire bloodlines with a sneeze.
They were his invisible, invincible shield.
The "ordinary" members of the Dover family were a shockingly small minority.
There was Alexander (the mundane money-maker), Victoria (the brilliant artist), Aunt Sylvia (the oblivious, jealous suburbanite), and little Leo.
And until a week ago, Airis had been on that list.
Not anymore, Airis thought, the faint, luminescent emerald aura briefly flickering deep within her sapphire eyes.
She looked at her delicate hands. Her family was terrifying, yes.
But she possessed the 'Absolute Psychokinesis'.
If she wanted to, she could level multiple cities in half an hour. She could summon a meteorite and flatten the entire state.
If Robert was a Medicine Immortal and Eleanor was a Cultivator, Airis was a walking, talking extinction-level event disguised as a seventeen-year-old high school girl.
Alexander mentioned that her grandparents were still alive, residing quietly in the capital.
Airis didn't even want to think about what kind of world-ending entities they probably were.
Let sleeping gods lie.
The realization brought a strange, comforting sense of full-circle logic.
It explained why Lin Ye, in his previous life, had never encountered the supernatural world.
After his parents died in that "factory accident," he was just a scrawny, impoverished orphan struggling to pay for electricity.
He possessed no wealth, no power, and no influence.
To the secret factions of the city, he was entirely invisible.
They didn't care about a boy eating dry crackers in the slums.
His original parents had likely been supernatural beings themselves—perhaps rogue agents or unaffiliated Espers—which was why they were targeted and erased.
But they had hidden their world from him, and once they were gone, the mundane world simply swallowed him whole.
But now, as Airis Dover, she was sitting squarely at the intersection of extreme wealth and extreme power.
"Airis, darling, it's time for lunch!" Victoria called from the dining room, completely oblivious to the fact that she was currently hosting a summit of supernatural heavyweights.
"Coming, Mom!" Airis called back.
She stood up, letting the [Aura of Serenity] wash over the room one last time.
She wasn't going to fight crime.
She wasn't going to tell Uncle Robert she knew he was a medical god, nor was she going to tell Aunt Eleanor about her psychokinesis.
They were all playing the same game—hiding their terrifying power behind the mask of a mundane, loving family.
And Airis Dover fully intended to win that game, one slow-paced, perfectly ordinary day at a time.