Chapter One: The Fast Food Restaurant and the Clumsy Superpowered Fool

“Whew…” Gongsun Ce slipped his hand into his pocket; his glasses case was exactly where he’d left it before dozing off. He put on his glasses.

His vision became sharp again, no longer the haze it had been moments before. The young man steadied his breath and took in his surroundings.

He was in a noisy fast-food restaurant. Although the lunchtime rush had already passed, there was little sign that the crowd had dissipated.

“That was terrifying, let me tell you—three years ago, my uncle happened to be on a business trip in the Kingdom of Morton…”

“You didn’t watch Xingli’s concert yesterday? The new song is really good. I recommend you check it out if you have time…”

Most of the customers were students from nearby schools, boisterous youths crowding around the counter and self-service kiosks, talking and laughing loudly, utterly oblivious to the people around them. Their voices drowned out the news report playing on the wall-mounted screen.

“…the true culprit of last month’s Zero Island East bloodshed remains at large. Today, the Zero Island police raised the reward to two million for information leading to the suspect’s capture…”

On the television, the female anchor was reading the news with measured seriousness, but her voice was lost in the din.

Gongsun Ce wasn’t an Enhancer; he couldn’t rely solely on his hearing to pick out interesting information in this racket. He shook his head, clearing away the last wisps of confusion, and glanced again at the TV. The news had moved on to a story about a bioengineered carriage.

He sighed, setting aside these matters that had nothing to do with him, and turned his attention inward.

He was seated at a table for four by the window, his small bag obediently tucked beneath his seat, his phone and house keys resting in his pocket.

Everything was as it had been before he’d fallen asleep—except for the reactions of his three friends at the table.

“Ce, you look terrible.”

The girl across from him gazed at him with a blank expression, idly eating fries with a fork and gesturing at him with a small knife.

“That face could be called a tragedy.”

The girl sitting diagonally from him wore a wildly exaggerated expression, as if she’d just witnessed a family-sized chicken bucket spilled across her doorstep.

“Gongsun, right now your face reminds me of the protagonist in a horror film, possessed by a vengeful spirit.”

The youth to his left handed him a mirror, suggesting he take a look at himself.

They were too much.

Even after a nightmare, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as they claimed.

…Could it?

Gongsun Ce took the mirror. The reflection showed a grey-haired, black-eyed youth in square glasses, with faint red imprints on his face from having slept on his arm—he looked like a student spacing out in class.

There was nothing else unusual.

He furrowed his brow, staring at his reflection for three seconds, and only realized he’d been had when the three started laughing louder and louder.

Gongsun Ce decided at once to retaliate. Handing back the mirror, he pressed his forehead with both hands and, in a voice trembling with three parts shock, three parts confusion, and one part sorrow, intoned, “…Who are you?”

Their laughter cut off abruptly. He didn’t bother to savor their reactions—it would give him away—but continued, perfectly composed, “Where… where am I…”

The girl diagonally across from him drew a sharp breath and slammed the table, springing to her feet: “Hey, is it that serious this time? Did you actually lose your memory?!”

She had striking features, wore a black hat, a white shirt under a black jacket, and brown wide-legged pants. Her glittering short blond hair marked her clearly as a foreign student from the Empire.

Her name was Cardesia, a half-Kingdom, half-Northern Union national, like a heroine straight out of a shoujo manga. As a foreigner, her Imperial was as fluent as a native’s—a talent Gongsun Ce admired.

He fought down a laugh.

“What are you talking about, where is this…?”

The black-haired youth to his left patted his shoulder.

“This is the Sky City, floating above the border of the Empire and the Union, built from the corpse of the Celestial Dragon.”

He was a refined, slender young man with an elegant mane of mid-length hair, white gloves, and a perfectly tailored black suit—the picture of propriety, though in a fast-food joint on the second floor of a mall, he looked more like a lunatic.

He was Shiyu Lianyi, a dashing youth from Zero Island.

“Do you remember your name and ability? Do you recall superpowers and the Dragon Catastrophe? If we have to explain everything from scratch, we’ll need to start with the outbreak of powers and the Celestial Calamity ten years ago…”

Shiyu was trying to lay out the state of the world in the simplest terms, his tone gentle, his words as careful as a preschool teacher coaxing a toddler. His concerned eyes betrayed no hint of mockery, but Gongsun Ce was fairly certain he’d already seen through his act.

“I… I remember now, I’m Gongsun Ce… and this is…”

The girl across the table stabbed five fries with her fork in one go.

“This is the City of the Skies. The city built on a dragon’s corpse, the sanctuary of superhumans, a den of vice that’s pushed the world’s moral boundaries since its founding, with a daily pile of human rights complaints as tall as a mountain… omph.”

As she spoke, she stuffed all the fries into her mouth.

She wore her long black hair down, dressed in a deep green checked shirt and a pale yellow skirt. Since Gongsun Ce had awakened, her expression hadn’t changed once: apart from her lips moving when she spoke and the occasional shift in her gaze, there was no sign of emotion, perfectly matching her uninflected, even tone.

To outsiders it might have seemed an elaborate prank, but Gongsun Ce knew better—since meeting Qin Qianbai, he’d never seen her wear any expression but “blank.”

Qin Qianbai poked her own face with two fingers. “Commonly known as the Sky Prison, Dragon Corpse City. Now look, this is the smug look of someone deliberately offering misleading information to lure you into mischief.”

“Sorry, I really can’t tell.”

“Your powers of observation are as poor as ever. Shouldn’t amnesia bring out some hidden talent?”

Unless one awakened a facial recognition superpower, reading her expressions was impossible, Gongsun Ce thought. Her description of misleading information as “luring to mischief” was actually pretty accurate.

Just as she said, this city of five-point-seven million residents defied common sense in every way—a thoroughly rotten place. Yet, it also gathered the world’s highest technological achievements and offered the best education and services, built exclusively for superhumans.

The only city in the world that belonged solely to superhumans.

“Oh… it’s all coming back to me now…”

He could feel their skeptical stares; any further and he’d break character. Seizing the moment, he pointed at the girl diagonally across from him before the others could speak: “You’re…!”

Cardesia brightened visibly. “You got your memory back?!”

Gongsun Ce pressed his temples, feigning a desperate effort to recall, “You all left a deep impression on me… it’s coming back now, you’re the sadistic queen with a flair for the dramatic!”

The smile froze on the golden-haired girl’s face.

Gongsun Ce quickly turned to the youth beside him. “Suit-wearing pervert!”

“My heart is deeply wounded. Really, that’s too much,” Shiyu clutched his chest.

The girl across the table raised both her plastic knife and fork. Where did she even get those? In a place that served only hamburgers, fried chicken, and fries—what people usually call junk food—this was ironic. In recent years, to promote environmentalism, most restaurants in the Sky City didn’t even provide plastic utensils or straws.

Those greasy, food-stained implements—did she bring them herself?

Holding these lethal weapons—a threat to all who value cleanliness—Miss Qin Qianbai delivered a flat warning: “Now look, this is the expression of someone who’ll stab out your eyes for talking nonsense.”

But unfortunately for her, Gongsun Ce lived by a code: never yield to violence.

He stood up resolutely, brandishing his arm like a defense attorney turning the tables, and declared, “Masked Iron Simpleton!”

He shouted without regard for the startled looks of bystanders, like a mariner, out of food and water, who’d just sighted a new continent. His voice even rose above the din; everyone in the restaurant turned to stare.

“Go on, Qian, get him!”

“Agreed. Good luck. I’ll buy you ice cream afterward,” Shiyu added.

The expressionless girl’s plastic utensils glowed with a dark radiance. She clashed the knife and fork together, producing a metallic ring.

Qin Qianbai nodded with satisfaction, aiming the points directly at the man opposite.

Gongsun Ce realized she was using her superpower.

Superpowers, as the world called them, were supernatural phenomena triggered by a small minority of adolescents, each manifesting differently—creating fire from nothing, enhancing physical prowess, telekinesis, telepathy… none of it made scientific sense, and every superhuman drove researchers in related fields to the brink of madness.

This young lady’s ability was to alter the “properties” of objects.

Hardness, elasticity, strength, rigidity—she could tweak any parameter that defined an object’s properties, though not its shape, size, or mass. She could make steel as soft as clay, or putty as hard as diamond. In this case, she was clearly performing multiple adjustments at once, turning harmless plastic cutlery into deadly weapons.

“Most people know being stabbed in the eye with something as hard as steel lands you in the hospital. I assume you know that much.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t die—just stand still. Qin’s Secret Technique: Twin Lotus Flower!”

With a flick of her wrists, both black utensils shot toward Gongsun Ce’s eyes, slicing through the air with a chilling whistle.

“Since when is just throwing utensils a ‘Qin family secret technique’? Did you come up with that ridiculous move name yourself?!”

“My ultimate technique is, of course, a Qin family secret.”

He used the precious moment not to dodge, but to retort.

It wasn’t out of trust in his friends, nor did he underestimate the attack.

There was simply no need.

Just before they reached his eyes, the black knife and fork froze in midair. There was no support, no interference—nothing to explain why these simple projectiles had stopped in their tracks, as if invisible hands had plucked them from the air at the last second.

Like the expressionless girl, like the other two at the table, like nearly everyone in the restaurant, like most residents of this city, this bespectacled youth was also blessed with a superhuman gift.

A superhuman, as the world called it.

Gongsun Ce adjusted his glasses, making the utensils float up and down in midair like a tap dance, guiding them back onto Qin Qianbai’s plate. “As you wished, I didn’t move at all.”

The onlooking students began to chatter.

Cardesia slouched back in her chair with a grumble, hands behind her head, “What’s there to see? We all have superpowers, no need to make such a fuss.”

“True, but not many students use their abilities so flagrantly,” Shiyu said, lifting a chicken sandwich with his gloved hands, as if debating how to eat it. “Besides, whether it’s Gongsun Ce’s ‘Moment Spiral’ or Qin Qianbai’s ‘Property Shift,’ those are top-tier talents. It’s only natural people are curious… I bet someone will try to hit on Qian soon.”

“Can you stop giving such over-the-top names to perfectly ordinary powers?” protested Gongsun Ce, resuming his seat. “And why do they always hit on Miss Qin? I’m not bad-looking myself! Doesn’t anyone want to chat up Mr. Gongsun?”

“An idiot with superpowers is still an idiot.”

Miss Qin’s reply earned nods of agreement from the other two.

Gongsun Ce sighed. “All right, time to end this prank cycle. After yet another nightmare, I’m not a monster—don’t you think that’s worth celebrating?”

All three shook their heads in unison.

Suit-wearing pervert: “I don’t think so.”

Masked iron simpleton: “What a shame.”

Sadistic queen: “It’d be way more fun if you turned into a monster!”

Why did he have friends like these?

Was he unlucky? Truly unfortunate people had no friends at all, but for two girls and a boy to say things like that—wasn’t that going a bit far?

Jokes aside, he wasn’t angry.

Gongsun Ce was never a pessimist.

He always harbored a modest hope for the future, a middling confidence in life, and drifted through the days like a plank on a calm sea.

So he didn’t blame his friends for their lack of concern, or for joking when he woke up.

In fact, he was grateful.

This was the idle banter and teasing of daily life—the kind of atmosphere that made him feel at ease and able to enjoy living.

Nightmares were just nightmares; everything was over.

All that remained were a few scattered memories, left behind in the heart of the dreamer.

He narrowed his eyes and looked out the window.

It was afternoon, the sky was clear, and brilliant sunlight bathed the streets in golden radiance.

He stretched, shaking off the last traces of his nightmare, and began to ponder his plans for the rest of the day.

But first, there was one last unresolved issue…

“I remember, before I got sleepy, I took this seat and ordered a spicy chicken sandwich combo. Why is it that, after I woke up, not only is there no sandwich, there’s not even a plate?”

Cardesia flashed a peace sign. “You didn’t touch your food at all—you just put your head down and fell asleep, so we figured you weren’t hungry. We ate it for you. Heehee~”

One second later, chaos erupted in the fast-food restaurant.

The commotion lasted half an hour and ended with the four idiots jointly apologizing to the staff.

Gongsun Ce was compensated with an extra-large family bucket, courtesy of his three companions.

Fortunately, not a single innocent bystander—or fried chicken sandwich—was harmed in the event.