Beginner Quest: Please recover your own identity.

At this moment, the night-shift officer who had not yet left brought over a barcode scanner and scanned the QR code Xing Ye had drawn. It displayed: “This link has expired.”
The two officers exchanged glances. The day-shift officer, Xiao Liu, tentatively said to Xing Ye,
“Sir, how did you find that booklet? Did it help you recall anything?”

Xing Ye understood their suspicion. He returned the booklet to Xiao Liu and shook his head regretfully. “I didn’t recall anything,” he said, “but I memorized everything in it.”

“What?” Xiao Liu exclaimed, dumbfounded.

That booklet was this month’s required political study material at the station. Xiao Liu took it out whenever he had time, painstakingly taking notes so that he wouldn’t be caught unable to say a word if inspected by higher-ups. Hearing that Xing Ye had memorized the entire booklet—this… even the person who wrote it might not be able to recite it all.

“It’s just short-term memory,” Xing Ye said with a smile. “If I don’t reinforce it, I’ll forget it quickly. But I suspect I must have been a smart person before. I woke up by the river, soaking wet—could it be that someone pushed me in, and my brain triggered a self-protection mechanism that caused my memory loss? If so, does that count as someone harming me?”

Xiao Liu swallowed and said,
“To verify whether what you’re saying is true, I’ve decided to test you—consider it evidence. People with photographic memory are rare. Page 13, second paragraph!”

Xing Ye thought for a moment, then recited it fluently. Xiao Liu tested him on several more pages—Xing Ye didn’t miss a single word. Both Xiao Liu and the night-shift officer were stunned and hurriedly brought over a notebook to record everything Xing Ye said.

At first, they had assumed Xing Ye was drunk or under the influence of drugs and had come to the station to cause trouble. They had even planned to detain him for a while if blood tests showed drug residue. Who would have thought that Xing Ye’s mind was exceptionally clear, his logic precise, his memory astonishing—and that he had come to the police station calmly at the first sign of trouble? Someone like this clearly wasn’t an ordinary person drifting through society without a name.

After finishing the record, Xiao Liu looked at the several QR codes Xing Ye had drawn and said, “But you remember these QR codes, yet all the links are invalid. Could you… have remembered them incorrectly?”

“That’s impossible,” Xing Ye replied.

Indeed, QR codes memorized through short-term memory alone could never be retained long-term. Xing Ye remembered so many QR codes that confusion would be easy; even a small omission could affect an entire battle. To preserve them, whether in the real world or the game world, Xing Ye spent about an hour every day recalling and redrawing QR codes by hand to ensure he wouldn’t forget them.

Thanks to this long-term training, his ability to memorize QR codes had only grown stronger.

Xing Ye said to Xiao Liu, “Show me your WeChat QR code. I’ll draw it, and you can scan it.”

Half-believing, half-doubting, Xiao Liu handed over his phone. Xing Ye studied it for about a minute, then picked up the pen and began drawing. Because drawing the grid took time, the WeChat QR code was finished five minutes later.

Xiao Liu compared them and felt dizzy—he couldn’t tell whether they matched. At this moment, the night-shift officer Xiao Zhang said, “I have an old phone. I just cleared the memory and reset it to factory settings. I was going to give it to my dad. Want to try? It’s not linked to any bank cards or personal info.”

“Try it,” Xiao Liu said.

Xiao Zhang took the phone from the cabinet, opened WeChat, scanned the code—and exclaimed in shock, “It really is your WeChat QR code! He memorized it after one glance!”

The two officers whispered to each other,
“Do ordinary people really have memory like this?”
“Could he be someone important? From the Academy of Sciences or something?”

“We should report this to the bureau,” Xiao Zhang suggested. “At least we can check fingerprints. What if his fingerprints are already on record?”

Although they spoke quietly, Xing Ye heard everything. Hearing that they planned to take him to the bureau for fingerprint verification, Xing Ye smiled faintly—exactly what he wanted.

After an entire night and his time observing the police station, Xing Ye had already tentatively confirmed that this world shared many similarities with his real world.

A city map hung on the station wall. Xing Ye clearly recognized it as the city he lived in—only this was the West District, while he lived in the East District.

Based on the information he had gathered, Xing Ye deduced that this world’s obstacles might fall into several possibilities:

First possibility: This was a world completely identical to reality, except that his parents and younger brother were still alive. Perhaps after causing a stir at the municipal police bureau, long-lost family members would come to take him home. After eight worlds of observation, the system understood Xing Ye’s personality well—outwardly cold, but deeply valuing family, especially his deceased parents and brother. If they appeared now, and he lived with them for months or even years, his will could be eroded. He might lose the ability to distinguish reality from the game and willingly stay here.

He might even meet Lu Mingze again. In this world, Lu Mingze could already be his lover, behaving as if the game had long ended, as if he had returned to his body and been in love with Xing Ye for years.

“Lu Mingze” would tell Xing Ye that he had already cleared the Final Stage, that his final wish was to revive Lu Mingze and his family, at the cost of his own memories, and that his family had been searching for him for a long time.

Family, lover—everything Xing Ye ever dreamed of would exist in this world. Why return to reality? Truth and memory would intertwine, grinding down his will. The moment he truly believed and chose to live here, the game would be completely lost.

Second possibility: The opposite of the first. Xing Ye did not exist in this world at all, but countless people from his memories did—Lu Mingze, Cao Qian, Yan Hebi, and others—but none of them recognized him. No matter how hard Xing Ye tried, they would never remember him. Penniless and without identity, Xing Ye would eventually doubt his own existence, doubt everything. The moment that doubt took hold, the Final Stage would already be lost.

Third possibility: He had lost the system and everything else, and would need to gradually reclaim them by completing certain tasks or operations.

Fourth possibility…

Xing Ye thought silently, System, how do you plan to play this round?

A sudden “ding” sounded in his mind, like a system narration, followed by a crackling “zzzz” of poor signal. Xing Ye ignored it—just smoke and mirrors (NT: meaning deceptive distractions).

After discussion, Xiao Zhang and Xiao Liu decided that once official work hours began at 8:30, they would first report to their superiors, then escalate to the municipal bureau and take Xing Ye there for examination and fingerprint verification.

After explaining the plan to Xing Ye, the two officers began scanning the QR codes he had drawn out of curiosity, but all of them showed “link expired.”

“Sir,” Xiao Zhang asked, “do you remember any other QR codes? These don’t work—but maybe some of the QR codes in your memory belong to your family’s WeChat accounts?”

Xing Ye couldn’t draw any QR codes with offensive power. After thinking for a moment, he recalled two QR codes.

One was “I have every form you desire”. The other was a QR code that had appeared on Lu Mingze’s control panel.

After Lu Mingze’s affection level with Xing Ye reached 80, he gained a virtual control panel. When it reached 100, Lu Mingze told Xing Ye that a QR code had suddenly appeared on it—an invitation QR code.

After entering an advanced world, every Fate-following player received a QR code that allowed them to invite another player into the game—and they can only invite one person. Lu Mingze also has an invitation QR code, but he has never used it, so this invitation slot is still vacant.

When this QR code first appeared, Xing Ye paid close attention. He had Lu Mingze show it to him using the “Eye of Truth”, and Xing Ye memorized the QR code.

Xing Shuo’s invitation QR code was currently invalid—perhaps because Xing Ye had already used it. But Lu Mingze’s was different; no one had used it yet.

If some force truly existed that had stripped Xing Ye of everything he possessed, then to seize it all back, he would need an even greater force.

Xing Ye said, “I still remember another QR code. Please give me paper and a pen.”

“Alright,” Xiao Zhang said politely as he prepared paper and pen for him.

After Xing Ye slowly finished drawing Lu Mingze’s invitation QR code, he borrowed Xiao Zhang’s old phone and gently scanned it. A dialog box popped up on the screen:

“Player s6666 invites you to participate in the game ‘Challenging Fate.’ Do you accept? Yes / No.”

The familiar dialog box made Xing Ye pause slightly.

Lu Mingze had once said that his player number was especially auspicious —s6666. (NT: 6 “六 (liù)” sounds similar to “溜 (liū)”, meaning going well)

“Oh my god, it really scanned successfully—it’s a game QR code!” Xiao Zhang called Xiao Liu over to take a look.

Xiao Liu said, “Sir, the QR code you remembered is a game link. You wouldn’t happen to be a game programmer, would you? Like, a really top-tier one—working for a big company with a million-yuan annual salary?”

“Maybe,” Xing Ye said, shaking the phone slightly at Xiao Zhang. “Do you mind if I download the game using your phone?”

“Not at all. Go ahead,” Xiao Zhang said generously. “It’s an old phone anyway. I can just restore it to factory settings later.”

The moment Xing Ye tapped “Yes”, the phone turned black and white—and a black-and-white wristband appeared on his wrist as well.

This scene, however, seemed invisible to Officers Xiao Zhang and Xiao Liu.

Previously, when Xing Ye scanned Xing Shuo’s invitation QR code, he had been directly transported into the game world. This time, however, he was not. After clicking “Yes,” a game app called “Challenging Fate” was installed on the phone. Unlike ordinary games, it did not prompt Xing Ye to enter a player name. Instead, a dialog box appeared:

Player Faction: Fate-defying Player
Luck Value: 1%
Player Number: x8205 (Mirror)
Initial Player Skills:
– Repainting Brush (locked)
– Mirror reflection (locked)
Beginner Quest: Please retrieve your identity

After this text lingered briefly, a small map appeared on the interface, showing Xing Ye’s current location as the Street Police Station.

Xiao Zhang and Xiao Liu stared at it in foolish amazement and said, “Is this a life-simulation game? The map is even our city’s map! And it has location tracking—it’s pinpointed our police station exactly!”

Xing Ye: “……”

Player x8205 (Mirror)—what kind of number was this? Initial skills were related to the method of entering the game. Redrawing Pen didn’t seem problematic, but Mirror Reflection—what kind of skill was that?

He had drawn the QR code that had been recreated inside the “Eye of Truth”. Could this be related?

Was this an initial skill bestowed upon him by the Little Mirror?

 

Translator : DarNan