Seeing Skye speak nonsense with such a serious expression, Lu Yi felt utterly exhausted. He had no desire to argue over her ridiculous claims full of loopholes.
He had no idea where she got the courage to pretend to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
But then again—how could an ordinary person even know S.H.I.E.L.D. existed? That was what made Lu Yi a little curious about her.
"I haven't asked your name yet," Lu Yi said as he looked at her.
"Skye," she replied after a brief hesitation.
After all, she wasn't truly a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Her confidence was lacking, and she was nervous about Lu Yi's questioning.
In her mind, if Lu Yi knew about S.H.I.E.L.D., he must also know some details about it. The specific titles weren't the issue—but if he pressed for details, the little she knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. certainly wasn't enough to fool him.
It worried her deeply.
Lu Yi didn't care about her worries. As soon as she said her name, he immediately realized who she was—and was momentarily speechless.
In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she had once impersonated a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to save Coulson. She never imagined she'd be pretending to be one again, this time to save herself.
Pretending to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was indeed a clever idea. With this, she could reuse the identity whenever she wanted. That thought made Lu Yi suddenly look thoughtful.
So… you've tricked me?
Fine then—let me tease you back.
"Skye? I think I've heard that name somewhere before. Sounds like something from a classified S.H.I.E.L.D. file," Lu Yi said with feigned nonchalance.
Skye shuddered involuntarily, her mind blank except for the last sentence he spoke.
Although she didn't know the details of her own past, she did know that S.H.I.E.L.D. had information about her. When she was a child, S.H.I.E.L.D. had paid a heavy price to protect her.
Forcing herself to calm down, she looked at Lu Yi and hesitantly asked, "Are you… with S.H.I.E.L.D. too?"
"Me? No. I just read some of their files before. If you're really the Skye described in those files… then you're in them."
"Tell me what they say. I want to confirm it," Skye said, struggling to suppress her excitement.
The wish she had carried for so many years might finally come true today. She couldn't hide it at all—even as she tried, her trembling shoulders betrayed her excitement.
Lu Yi looked at her trembling shoulders, her tear-filled eyes, and couldn't help feeling sympathy. She was just a pitiful girl, separated from her parents since childhood, clinging to a desperate hope that they still existed. That pain wasn't something outsiders could understand.
Lu Yi's heart was soft toward women.
Seeing her pretend to be strong while desperately longing for answers, he no longer wanted to tease her.
"There isn't much written," Lu Yi said gently. "Just some things about your childhood. How S.H.I.E.L.D. rescued you. And that many people died doing so. Other than that—nothing. Everything else is blacked out."
"What?"
He wasn't lying—the paper files contained only that. Everything else was either in Nick Fury's head or locked inside a nearly unbreakable computer protected like a fortress.
"Is that really it…?" Skye murmured.
Disappointment washed over her. Her expression darkened, and the sorrow on her face was plain to see.
"You don't have to be that disappointed. I don't know why S.H.I.E.L.D. redacted your information, but I do know other things about you," Lu Yi comforted her.
"You… know more?" Skye lifted her head, her eyes wide.
Her emotions rose and fell like a roller coaster. She had just been disappointed—and now hope suddenly returned.
Unable to hold herself back, Skye grabbed Lu Yi's arm and asked urgently, "Are you sure? Do you really know?"
At that moment, she no longer cared about whether she was being presumptuous. Instinctively, she clung to Lu Yi with all her strength.
"I'm sure," Lu Yi said.
Her strength wasn't even enough to tickle him; he ignored it, gently holding her hand instead.
"Then… what do you know?"
"A lot of things—your life story, your parents' identities, and more."
Why do you know so much?
Skye wanted to ask—but she held back. Everyone had secrets. She did too. She had no right to pry.
All she wanted… was to know her past and who her parents were.
"Please tell me."
"Since I've said I know, of course I'll tell you. But before that, I want to test your emotional strength."
"Emotional strength? Did my parents… die?"
"Who said that? Your parents are alive and healthy. But your life story is a little… unusual."
As he spoke, Lu Yi looked at her with strange eyes.
She looked human. But inside… she was only half human. Realizing this made her world shatter. The person she thought she was—the identity she believed in—wasn't the whole truth.
Mutants and Inhumans grew stronger than humans.
But not everyone wanted such power. After all, why did so many people seek the "cure" in X-Men 3? They desperately wished to become ordinary again.
Now Lu Yi wondered—how would Skye react upon learning she wasn't fully human?
When she awakened her powers in the original story, she had panicked, terrified of what she had become.
Right now, she was even more fragile.
"I don't think anything could be worse than what I'm feeling now," Skye said. "Just tell me. I think I can handle it."
To Skye, her life story might just be dramatic. She could not imagine, not even in her wildest dreams, that she was half alien.