Chapter 228: Identity Screening
“Light attribute?”
The female officer’s tone remained even, threaded with a faint note of questioning. It was clear she didn’t fully believe Xu Zhi’s claim.
It wasn’t that she was looking down on her. In places like the lower districts, due to uncontrollable factors such as the seasonal fog, once the upper districts had been established, the vast majority of supernaturals—and anyone with money or status—had moved upward.
There was also the matter of “bloodline inheritance” among supernaturals. Children born to supernaturals were far more likely to possess talent. Environment played a role as well: the lower districts were poor in supernatural energy, and even if a child had potential, they often couldn’t meet the conditions required to awaken. On top of that, there was the fog.
Research into the fog remained one of the major unresolved challenges across cities, but one thing was universally acknowledged—living long-term in areas affected by the fog made supernatural awakening far more difficult. The fog seemed to exert a kind of suppression on supernaturals.
All these factors combined made self-awakened supernaturals in the lower districts exceedingly rare. And even when they did appear, their talents were usually mediocre, or they suffered from various flaws.
What’s more, though no one said it outright, there was clearly a hierarchy among supernatural attributes. Some were inherently rarer and more valued than others—and among them, [Light] was one of the hardest to awaken and the rarest in number.
Even in the upper districts, Light-attribute supernaturals were uncommon.
Let alone here.
The officer’s gaze fell on Xu Zhi’s frail body. If this girl truly was a Light-attribute supernatural, then why was she so badly injured? Why had no one discovered her before, and why had no one reported her?
The officer knew her own Light-attribute supernaturals well. If Xu Zhi really belonged to that group, she should have had some understanding of her power. Yet there were no schools in places like this. So who had taught her?
In just a short moment, the officer had already listed several possibilities in her mind.
Soon after, the adjutant returned with the prepared attribute-testing reagent. Xu Zhi had assumed they would prick her finger again, but to her surprise, the military’s test was far simpler. They only needed to drip the reagent onto the back of her hand.
Sure enough, Doctor Zhuang’s tools and knowledge really were outdated.
Xu Zhi obediently extended her hand. A drop of colorless liquid fell from the test tube onto the back of her hand. She didn’t feel much—just a slight chill. But its reaction was far faster than Zhuang Xu’s blood-based reagent. Almost the instant it touched her skin, it reacted, gradually turning into a beautiful pale gold.
Seeing this, the officer set down her pen. Her eyes lingered on the golden droplet on Xu Zhi’s hand, as if deep in thought. Her index finger tapped lightly against the table with a soft tap, then she spoke:
“Have the others leave. I need to speak with these two alone.”
The two soldiers behind her moved at once, ushering the remaining scavengers out of the tent under their curious gazes. When the tent finally fell quiet, with only the officer and her adjutant remaining, she stepped out from behind the table and stopped in front of Xu Zhi.
“Little girl, when did you awaken as a supernatural?”
“And do you have an official household registration?”
Scavengers usually didn’t. Most were unregistered—black households. The lower districts tacitly allowed their existence; in fact, unregistered people were the norm. Those with official registration were the minority.
Black households were expendable “human resources.” Only those with registration were considered city residents, entitled to limited civic rights. Once someone became a supernatural, regardless of talent, they could immediately be registered. The officer was asking this to see whether Xu Zhi had already gone through that process.
If she had registration, many things would become much easier.
Unfortunately, Xu Zhi shook her head. “I don’t have one.”
A trace of regret crossed the officer’s face. Then she heard Xu Zhi add, in an utterly casual tone,
“I don’t remember when I awakened, either.”
“…You don’t remember?”
The adjutant couldn’t help blurting it out. When Xu Zhi nodded again, his disbelief only deepened.
How could someone forget something so important?
Supernatural awakening was never a silent affair. There were always signs beforehand—recurring dreams, sudden heightened sensitivity to certain things. And at the moment of awakening, one would enter the “Great Dream,” where the mind connected with the Woodland, formally stepping onto the supernatural path.
That was an experience no one could forget. And after waking from the Great Dream, every supernatural would clearly feel the difference between themselves and who they had been before.
Even the most careless person wouldn’t forget when they became a supernatural.
“How could you not remember?” the adjutant pressed.
The question seemed to stump the girl. A look of confusion surfaced on her face as she tried to recall, then her expression turned faintly pained.
“I really don’t remember. I only remember things after I woke up.”
Qi Yixin hurriedly added, “I found Xiao Zhi in a garbage dump while scavenging a few days ago.”
Found her?
The adjutant’s expression grew strange. He felt like he was starting to lose his grasp on the lower districts. Since when could you just pick up a Light-attribute supernatural from a garbage dump?
And such a young one, at that.
“Exactly when was this? Date, time, and which dump?” the female officer asked. Her face was still relatively calm, but her brows had already knit together. Clearly, she also found the idea of “finding an amnesiac Light-attribute supernatural in a garbage dump” far too absurd.
Qi Yixin remembered it vividly and answered without hesitation. The officer immediately ordered the adjutant to retrieve the surveillance footage from the dump that night.
At those words, Xu Zhi’s heart lifted slightly.
She truly had no idea how she’d ended up there.
“While we wait for the footage,” the officer said, sounding as though she were making a suggestion—though in truth, there was no room to refuse—“let’s talk about something else.”
“What would you like to talk about?” Xu Zhi asked.
She wasn’t deliberately acting calm. Aside from a bit of initial nervousness and that brief show of confusion earlier, her overall demeanor was composed and rational.
“Your injuries. That’s a lot of medicine—you must be badly hurt. Which clinic did you visit?”
So they intended to investigate the clinic as well.
Xu Zhi didn’t hide anything. In fact, even if she tried, they would find it easily. This wasn’t about whether she could conceal it, but whether she chose to answer honestly.
Doctor Zhuang had probably hidden all his questionable items properly, right?
After that, the officer asked Xu Zhi several more questions. Most of them were subtle probes, testing whether she truly had lost her memory. Many were traps that anyone with basic “common sense” might easily fall into.
Ironically, because Xu Zhi genuinely knew nothing about this world, the result of the probing was the opposite of suspicion:
The girl in front of them really didn’t remember anything at all.
