Am I a Kamen Rider or the real young master who was switched at birth?

After the forest returned to silence, Ye Yang took the Decade Driver off his waist, and the magenta light particles faded away layer by layer from the edges of the armor.

He flexed his wrists, walked over to the skinny boy who was still squatting by the tree roots, bent down, and extended a hand.

The boy looked up at him, the redness in his eyes had completely faded, replaced by a bewildered look of someone who had survived a disaster.

He hesitated for a moment, then gently grasped Ye Yang's hand and was pulled up from the ground.

"If they bully you again, shout loudly. Shout until someone hears you. There are more than just those three in this school."

Ye Yang patted the dirt and fallen leaves off the boy's school uniform, then straightened his crooked school badge.

The boy bit his lower lip and nodded. Before he could say thank you, a series of hurried footsteps came from the entrance of the woods.

Lin Ying was the first to rush over. She ran very fast, the hem of her light blue shirt fluttering in the wind, her long silver-white hair forming a straight line behind her.

She walked around the camphor trees that had been knocked askew, and then suddenly stopped in her tracks when she saw Ye Yang.

Her eyes quickly scanned his body, and only after confirming that he was not missing any limbs did her shoulders relax slightly.

But she still walked up to him instinctively, looked up at him, and her light gray eyes reflected the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves.

She asked in a soft voice, "W-what happened? I—I just heard a lot of noise over here—it sounded like a fight. Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Looking at her nervous expression, Ye Yang felt a warm feeling in his heart. He put the driver back into his four-dimensional pocket and then said casually:

"It's nothing. I just came out of the bathroom and saw those three bullying that guy, so I taught them a lesson. You didn't see my Titan form's head flick just now—it made that stone golem cover his head and take several steps back."

Lin Yumin and Lin Xingran also walked quickly from the entrance of the woods.

Lin Yumin glanced around the scene before putting her phone back in her pocket.

She glanced first at the three boys struggling to get up from the ground, then at the thin boy standing by the tree roots with his head down, too afraid to speak, before turning to Ye Yang and asking in a calm tone, "Why did you get into a fight with them?"

Ye Yang pointed to the skinny boy still standing by the tree roots and said indignantly, "They were bullying that boy here. They pushed him to the ground and kicked him. I just came out of the bathroom and saw it, so I stepped in to teach them a lesson."

Upon hearing these words, Lin Xingran's anger flared up instantly.

She put her hands on her hips, glared at the three boys still whining on the ground, and raised her voice several octaves:

"What? School bullying? Just the three of you? Bullying a classmate who's so much thinner than you? And you even hit my brother? Let me tell you, last time Wang Yu was so badly bullied by my brother at the banquet that he could barely stand. The three of you combined wouldn't be enough to beat him! Want me to add fuel to the fire and warm you up a bit more?"

Lin Yumin reached out to stop Lin Xingran, who was about to rush forward, and said in a slightly tense voice:

"Wait a minute. Ye Yang, although you mean well, and I understand why you had to intervene, this is a school, not outside."

"Abusing superpowers at school—no matter the reason—is punishable according to school rules. Xingran accidentally burned down the fire protection system in the training hall and was punished with several weeks of extra training. Let's not make a scene yet, let's send that boy back first, and then—"

Before she could finish speaking, an extremely authoritative male voice came from the entrance of the woods.

The voice was deep and resonant, so loud that just hearing it made one involuntarily straighten up: "What's going on here? What are you all doing?"

The moment Lin Xingran heard that voice, she froze on the spot as if she had been frozen in place.

The anger on her face froze instantly, then slowly transformed into an expression Ye Yang had never seen on her face before.

She lowered her voice and said in a desperate tone, "It's over, it's over, it's Elbow Bro."

A tall man strode in from the entrance of the woods.

He was probably in his early forties, wearing a dark gray Zhongshan-style school uniform, with his shoulders and back ramrod straight.

His face was a classic square face, with small but extremely bright eyes. His chin was cleanly shaved, and his whole face looked like a piece of precisely cut granite.

After he stood still in front of everyone, he put his hands behind his back and his feet slightly apart.

Ye Yang turned his head and asked Lin Xingran in a low voice, "Elbow Bro? What kind of nickname is that? Why are all the teachers' nicknames at your school so down-to-earth?"

Lin Xingran forced a breath through clenched teeth and explained at breakneck speed:

"He's our school's dean of students—his surname is Zhou, Director Zhou. Everyone used to call him Brother Zhou in private, but once during a school assembly, when he got excited, he said, 'I'm a very stubborn person; if anyone dares to violate school rules, I'll be the first to object.'"

"He probably meant to say, 'I'm a stubborn person.' But his Mandarin wasn't very standard, and everyone heard 'Zhou'. From then on, all the teachers and students in the school called him 'Brother Zhou' behind his back, and even the cafeteria ladies would say when serving food, 'When Director Zhou comes, give him an extra spoonful of meat.'"

When she said this, her voice lowered even further, with a slight, almost imperceptible tremor.

"Don't let his tall, tree-like appearance fool you; he's even scarier than Qin Buwen when he's scolding people. Last time, a guy secretly kept a Silent Beast cub in his dorm, and after being caught, he wrote a 10,000-word self-criticism, which he read aloud in front of the whole school."

Director Zhou walked up to the crowd. He first looked down at the three boys on the ground who were struggling to get up, then turned to look at the thin boy who was still somewhat bewildered after being pushed, and finally his gaze fell on the three Lin sisters standing next to Ye Yang.

His brows furrowed tightly, and the frown lines on his forehead deepened.

"You lot—how dare you fight in school? And what's with this tree? This camphor tree has been growing on campus for almost twenty years. Who did this dent on the trunk? Don't you know that abusing your superpowers and engaging in unauthorized fighting is a serious violation of school rules? No matter whose kids you are, you must abide by school discipline!"

Lin Xingran and Lin Yumin lowered their heads at the same time. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, clearly a conditioned reflex developed through repeated training.

At this moment, Ye Yang took a step forward, straightened his body, and said in an extremely sincere tone, "Hello—Brother Elbow."

The entire forest became so quiet for a moment that it was as if a vacuum had been drawn out.

Lin Ying covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders trembling very slightly.

Lin Yumin closed her eyes, her lips moved slightly, and she silently said, "It's over."

Director Zhou's eyes narrowed instantly, his already sharp slits shrinking into two extremely thin blades behind his glasses, his gaze fixed firmly on Ye Yang's face.

Under the gaze of those two eyes, Ye Yang swallowed hard, quickly shook his head and waved his hands, correcting them in a rapid-fire tone:

"No, no—Director Zhou! Hello, Director Zhou! Slip of the tongue! It really was a slip of the tongue! I called you the wrong name! I didn't mean to—I just heard my second sister say that you are very—no, very responsible—yes, very responsible—and I just misspoke! My name is Ye Yang, the one who just came back from the Lin family—I came to the school today because I was invited to the rehearsal—let me explain what just happened!"

Director Zhou raised a hand, directly interrupting Ye Yang's explanation.

"That's enough. I don't want to escalate this—regardless of who you are, Ye Yang or anyone else, fighting on campus is a violation of school rules. All of you, come to my office. Now. Immediately. Right now."

He waved his hand, and then an extremely cute-looking creature flew out from behind him.

The thing was about the size of a palm. Its round body was covered with a layer of light golden down, and two black eyes the size of beans occupied half of its face. It had several pairs of extremely thin, transparent wings on its back.

When it takes flight, its pairs of transparent wings emit a very faint buzzing sound, and it also has a fluffy little tail trailing behind it.

It circled around Li Pan, who was lying on the ground, then adorably shook its head, its ears twitching cutely in the air several times, scattering a layer of extremely fine and bright golden powder.

The powder landed on the cracks in Li Pan's chest, and the cracks in his rocky carapace began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Then it flew over to Zhao Kuan, who had crashed into a tree trunk, and shook its head. The shoe print on Zhao Kuan's back, which had been kicked by the Imperial Knight, slowly faded under the cover of gold dust.

Finally, it flew to Qian Bo, whose hands were still bleeding, and shook its head. Qian Bo's swollen fingers subsided in a very short time, and the wounds on his palms began to scab over automatically.

After it finished doing all this, it let out an extremely soft and sweet cry, then flapped its transparent wings and flew back to Director Zhou's shoulder, finding the most comfortable spot to lie down.

It tucked its furry head into its wings, leaving only its two ears, which were still trembling slightly, showing.

Director Zhou gently stroked its little head, then flicked his robe behind him and strode towards the administration building without looking back.

The hem of his dark gray Zhongshan suit drew a crisp, clean arc as he turned around, casting a long, straight shadow in the afternoon sunlight.

Lin Xingran only let out a long breath after Director Zhou's figure had completely disappeared behind the bushes at the entrance of the woods.

She leaned against the trunk of a camphor tree, clutching her chest, and sighed in a tone of relief, as if she had just survived a catastrophe:

"Oh my god—he's finally gone! I was so scared. I told you, Elbow Bro is the most intimidating guy in the whole school. He's even harsher on people than my dad is on soldiers."

"Once, I accidentally burned the fire protection system in the training hall. He called me into his office and scolded me for a long time. When I came out, I felt like someone had peeled a layer of skin off my spirit."

She turned to Ye Yang and continued her accusations, "Ye Yang, you too—why did you have to provoke Elbow Bro! Are you crazy! Did you see his face?! The way his eyes narrowed when you called him 'Elbow Bro' just now sent chills down my spine. Do you know that the last person to call him by his nickname in public is still writing a self-criticism!"

Ye Yang scratched his head, making the few stray hairs stick up even more.

He glanced in the direction where Director Zhou had disappeared, a slightly embarrassed expression appearing on his face.

"Sorry for dragging you into this. I thought it was just about teaching a few thugs a lesson, but I didn't expect it would involve your school's principal. I'll go to the office alone later. Anyway, I was the one who did it, so I can explain things to him. You can just say you were just passing by and didn't see anything."

Lin Yumin gently shook her head. She looked down at her palm, then looked up at Ye Yang again, and said calmly:

"No. We're also responsible. If we had been with you when you went to the bathroom, this wouldn't have happened. Especially me, I clearly saw that you looked unwell, but I didn't ask if you needed help."

"We should have been as worried about you as Lin Ying was—maybe we should have followed you to the restroom, just like she did. That way you wouldn't have been alone against three school thugs."

Hearing her older sister's series of remarks, Lin Xingran's eyes widened instantly.

Lin Ying's face instantly changed from light pink to the color of a boiled shrimp.

She seemed to have been bounced by something, her hands waving frantically in front of her, her long, silvery-white hair flying wildly with the movements, and her voice stuttering several times more than usual due to her panic:

"Big sister! What are you saying?! I'm not a pervert! Why would I follow Ye Yang to the bathroom?! I didn't mean to follow him! I was just—I was worried he had a stomachache—no, no—I was just wondering if he didn't have any toilet paper—no, no! I just—"

Her explanations became increasingly chaotic and unclear, until finally she simply covered her face with her hands, hid behind her second sister, and only revealed a bright red little ear.

Lin Xingran stood in front of her, feeling the heat and slight trembling from behind. The expression on her face showed both sympathy for Lin Ying being suddenly "attacked" by her older sister and a bit of relief.

Ye Yang sighed as he looked at Lin Ying, who was so embarrassed she wanted to disappear into the ground, and at Lin Xingran's gloating expression.

He patted the bark scraps off his shirt cuffs and said with a hint of helplessness:

"Forget it. Let's go find Elbow Brother first—and explain the whole story from beginning to end. If we're lucky, he might just make me write a self-criticism. Don't go in and get scolded; just wait for me at the door."

After he finished speaking, he strode toward the administration building, with the three Lin sisters following behind him side by side. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the plane tree leaves, casting dappled patterns of light on the tree-lined path.