Chapter 2

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Chapter 2: The Colorblind Eyes

“You don’t have an ID card?” The policeman looked at Mi Xiaoliu in surprise.

After school, Mi Xiaoliu immediately ran to the police station. The gazes her classmates directed at her retreating figure seemed to carry a newfound respect.

“I don’t know,” Mi Xiaoliu replied.

“Are you messing with me?” The policeman’s expression shifted to resemble the porcupine-cat emoji, second row, last one.

Mi Xiaoliu lowered her head and remained silent.

“Master, an ID card is something that proves your identity. You really don’t have one… Just tell him you’re from the City of Desolation,” suggested Sasha.

“I’m from the City of Desolation,” Mi Xiaoliu repeated her words.

The policeman: “???”

What kind of bizarre nonsense was that? But at least he caught the crucial term “City of Desolation.”

People from that place often didn’t have ID cards. Even though Mi Xiaoliu had a bank card, it was also from the City of Desolation. Compared to official Federal bank cards, its security was far inferior. Most likely, the money in it had already been transferred elsewhere.

“Do you have anything to prove your identity?”

“Master, just give him the health report,” Sasha advised.

Mi Xiaoliu followed the instruction again.

After verifying the information on the health report, the policeman glanced at the “C” letter on Mi Xiaoliu’s chest with an impassive expression.

“I suggest you apply for an ID card. It’s very inconvenient to live in a Federal city without one. It’ll cost about 40 Mira (Federal currency, equivalent to RMB in value).”

Mi Xiaoliu sat quietly across from him, staring without a word.

A problem child, indeed.

The policeman sighed, rubbing his temples. “Alright, just go back and wait for notification. Our system doesn’t show any transaction records for your bank card. Think carefully—could you have mistaken which card it was? If it’s really a City of Desolation card, there’s a high chance the money is unrecoverable…”

After all, transactions made through the system often ended up in unknown places. Even Sasha couldn’t determine where that money ultimately went. It wasn’t like the system could just hoard all the world’s money.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Mi Xiaoliu suddenly felt the call of nature.

“Turn left over there.”

Arriving at the bathroom, under Sasha’s strong insistence, Mi Xiaoliu entered a stall and locked the door—even though it was just for a quick pee.

After pulling down her pants and noticing the smooth area below, Mi Xiaoliu was suddenly struck by a realization based on common sense in her mind.

Ah, I’m a girl.

—

“Display panel.”

Current Name: Mi Xiaoliu

Gender: Female

Age: 13

Strength: Weak

Endurance: Weak

Stamina: Weak

“…”

Mental State: Amnesia, Mild Gender Identity Disorder (You often forget that you’re a girl.)

Equipment: Non-shape-altering 800-degree glasses, Demon Eye Killer (Modified), cheap shirt worth 10 Mira, cheap pants worth 10 Mira…

“…”

Other than constantly reminding her how weak she was, the system didn’t display any particularly useful information.

“Female?”

Her vision might be poor, but she wasn’t blind. Naturally, she could see this conspicuous detail.

Although she had already realized it in the bathroom, seeing it now still filled her with doubt.

“Yes. Even though you look like an otaku nerd, the Master is a girl. You just tend to forget that fact often—it’s a side effect of the system helping you recover your memories. Compared to the last time, this side effect is much more manageable,” Sasha explained.

“I’ll remember.” Mi Xiaoliu replied seriously.

“You’ll forget again soon… but it’s okay, I’ll remind you,” Sasha said reassuringly.

“What’s the system good for?”

“It helps you retrieve your memories!” Sasha answered proudly.

“And?”

“Prepare to be amazed—it even has an eight-slot storage space!”

Mi Xiaoliu didn’t say anything, staring silently at the system interface with its grayed-out functions.

Sasha clarified, “That’s the shop. It has items like Temporary Maze Seeds, Frostmourne, Goddess Tears, and Mir’s Alchemical Creations…”

They all sounded incredibly powerful.

“You can’t afford any of them.”

“…”

“This is the task board. Task rewards include a Classic of Mountains and Seas, random pet egg, random bloodline, Infinity Stones, or Mir’s paintings…”

Those sounded pretty appealing too.

“Sounds good.”

“You can’t get those either.”

“…”

Noticing her master’s displeasure, Sasha quickly explained, “Master, the system has actually been with you since you were very young. But back then, the penalty for failing the system’s beginner missions was annihilation. Furious, you uninstalled the main system…”

“…”

“Only a few functions were left: the system roulette, system sprite, and storage space.”

It was like a bundled rogue software package—she deleted the rogue software, but the bundled remnants hadn’t been entirely removed.

Mi Xiaoliu nodded. “What does roulette do?”

“It lets you draw memory fragments. Other than today’s discount, the normal cost is 100 Mira per spin. There’s no guarantee, no bonus for multiple draws, and only a 0.01% chance to draw other items, or a 0.0001% chance for rare items. But honestly, that probability is basically synonymous with a lifespan countdown,” Sasha paused, then continued, “Because personally, I don’t want you to recover your memories, Master. So, I won’t actively tell you about your past. However, I don’t have the right to make decisions for you, which is why I created the memory retrieval feature…”

The blank spaces in her memory were indeed painful.

“What are you useful for?”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Sasha let out a proud laugh. “My usefulness is unmatched! I can—keep you company by chatting with you whenever I’m awake.”

So even she needed rest.

“… Can you get a physical body?”

Hearing this question, Sasha was deeply touched but had to regretfully answer, “Unfortunately, Master, even when the system was fully functional, it couldn’t grant me a physical body.”

Mi Xiaoliu nodded again. “That’s great.”

Otherwise, it’d be terrifying.

Sasha: “???”

For some reason, Sasha stopped talking to her after that.

The 4,000 Mira in her account was unrecoverable. The bank and police couldn’t trace the transaction’s flow and could only give her an indefinite reply: “We’ll notify you if we find anything.”

Currently, she wasn’t at school but in a small rental unit designed specifically for students.

It was a one-bedroom apartment with a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. There weren’t many signs of decoration, and at first glance, it didn’t even look like anyone lived there—it was clean and simple.

Still, despite its size, it was fully equipped. Everything she needed was there, and the location was close enough to school to be convenient for her.

Standing in front of the mirror, she could see a boy with short black hair and thick round glasses. He was small and skinny, dressed in street market-quality clothes that were poor in both design and material. Forget about wearing them alone—even with careful coordination, they’d be impossible to make look good.

At just under 1.6 meters, her height was on the short side for a 13-year-old boy in this era. With such attire and demeanor, it was no surprise that someone like her would typically be a target for bullying at school.

The black-framed glasses weren’t as exaggerated as Jim had claimed. They reflected some light, but you could still see her dark eyes behind the lenses.

The black rectangular glasses weren’t as exaggerated as Jim had described. They reflected some light, but her pitch-black eyes were still visible behind them.

However, for some reason, her originally somewhat pretty eyes became less noticeable when she wore the glasses, perhaps due to their thickness.

When she removed the glasses, the world in Mi Xiaoliu’s vision became a blurry mess. She had to lean so close to the mirror—just a fist’s distance away—to barely make out her reflection.

“Am I good-looking?”

She couldn’t tell.

“No, not at all. Master isn’t good-looking in the slightest. So if any boy approaches you, they’re definitely after your money. You must stay far away from them,” Sasha said with absolute certainty.

“Mmm.”

That would indeed be dangerous. With less than 20 Mira left, she needed to protect it carefully.

Perhaps because of the exhausting 1,000-meter run earlier in the day, she felt a wave of drowsiness the moment she approached her bed, even before sitting down.

Gently rubbing her eyes, she noticed a foreign sensation inside them.

With her slender index finger, she directly touched the surface of her left eyeball, instinctively causing her to shut her eyes. She fiddled with her eyeball twice (Don’t try this at home, kids), and, accompanied by stinging tears, managed to manually remove a thin, translucent, brownish-black film.

A contact lens.

Her limited knowledge didn’t tell her what it was. She only felt that after taking it off, something subtle had changed in her vision.

She closed her right eye and observed the world using just her left, the one without the contact lens.

Even without her glasses, the world no longer looked like a mosaic. Her near and far vision were restored to normal. However, the world she saw through her left eye was now entirely in shades of black, white, and gray.

Opening her right eye again, she observed her left eye in the mirror.

The left eye, now free of the contact lens, had turned blue, with concentric rings encircling the pupil, giving it an indescribable quality.

She repeated the action with her right eye, fiddling twice until the second contact lens came off.

Her entire vision turned grayscale.

“My eyes?” Mi Xiaoliu asked her guide in confusion.

“Oh, that’s because Master wanted to learn how to cultivate fiery eyes like Sun Wukong when you were little. In the end, your efforts paid off—you successfully cultivated colorblind eyes.”

“…”

In other words, she was inherently colorblind. Wearing those lenses made her severely nearsighted, but they allowed her to distinguish colors in the world around her.

In other words, she couldn’t see colors to begin with. Wearing these lenses would make her severely nearsighted, but she could distinguish the colors in the world around her.

So, wearing the lenses along with her glasses would allow her to have both vision and a sense of color.

Understanding this, she wanted to put the lenses back in, but she found it incredibly difficult.

“Master, you need to use tools,” Sasha instructed, guiding Mi Xiaoliu in putting them back on.

“What is my ability?”

In this world, a small percentage of people had superpowers. As for why, she didn’t know—none of the common knowledge she had obtained mentioned it.

What she did know was that most people considered superpowers a type of illness because many so-called superpowered individuals couldn’t control their abilities.

For example, like Black Bolt from a certain comic, whose mere speech could unleash sonic waves with the destructive force of a nuclear bomb. His inability to control this ability meant he had to remain silent and rely on sign language to communicate.

The inconvenience to one’s own life was secondary—what was truly terrifying and dangerous was unintentionally harming others.

For this reason, most super powered individuals were feared and hated by the majority of ordinary people.

“Master, take a silver coin, toss it in the air, and when it lands, flick it forward with your finger,” Sasha replied.

Mi Xiaoliu took a coin from her meager wallet and followed the instructions.

The coin flew out as she flicked it, landing near the bathroom drain and disappearing down the pipe.

She glanced at the mirror with a questioning look, as if Sasha were standing there.

“Master, this proves your ability isn’t Railgun,” Sasha replied, seemingly out of spite.

“…”

Current total assets: 18.85 Mira.