My name is Lu Mingxue, I’m sixteen this year, and my ability is Mind Reading.
Level 3 Esper, Danger Level E.
This is not some enviable ability.
First, most Mind Reading espers can’t filter for the one thing they want to hear, because people often, while thinking about one thing, subconsciously think about another—whether they’re aware of it or not.
That’s what’s called a lack of focus.
Take doing homework while listening to music: while working through a problem, you unconsciously start singing along—and that “unconscious” part counts as a thought too.
Second, there’s the matter of the Mind Reading’s target.
Standing in a crowd, for instance, the voices you pick up are so noisy you can’t read the thing you actually want to know.
Even for my type, whose Mind Reading only triggers when I can see the other person’s eyes, my peripheral vision still sweeps in everyone else’s eyes around them.
And when I first awakened my ability, I could already trace out the very information I wanted from all that noise and all those thoughts—in other words, a natural Level 3.
Even if a person tries to deceive me with a surface thought—say, they had sweet tofu pudding this morning but deliberately think “I had salty tofu pudding this morning”—the very act of thinking it makes their subconscious tell them they actually had the sweet kind.
This ability, rated LV3, can automatically filter a person’s true thoughts out from their surface thoughts and their subconscious.
Perhaps only the hypnotized, or psychic-type espers, can hide their true thoughts from me.
These are all things other Mind Reading espers can only envy.
They say a Level 3 Mind Reading esper like me is practically an endangered species, so the police station often quietly asks me for help interrogating suspects—behind one-way glass, those criminals don’t even know they’re being read.
After enough times, I even gradually became an officially certified vigilante, the kind who could be formally instated once I came of age.
Though my grades are average, this ability I’ve had since childhood alone has paved the way for a future as an interrogator.
But it would be a huge mistake to think my life has been all smooth sailing because of it.
If I got another chance, I’d rather take this ability to my grave and never breathe a word of it.
As a child, I discovered I could hear other people’s inner voices, and I couldn’t wait to share it with everyone—and then…
and then people dodged me like I was a plague god.
Parents, relatives, friends, teachers…
I’m only Danger Level E, yet everyone faced me like I was a Level A, that exaggerated.
Heh.
Yes—inner thoughts are the greatest privacy.
No one wants anyone stepping into that most authentic sanctuary, not even me.
In this era, this kind of thing isn’t something a school transfer can solve.
Within three days of my ability being exposed, the authorities required me to transfer to an Esper Elementary School and gave me a specially made pair of sunglasses that block my Mind Reading when worn.
Don’t ask whether I can just not wear them—in a public place, a Mind Reading esper who doesn’t wear these sunglasses counts as violating others’ right to privacy.
Now, no matter which esper school I transfer to, they’ll all know I can read minds.
So cool—the treatment of an important character in an anime.
Just end it all.
Heh.
No one wants anything to do with a Mind Reading esper, even if she can usually keep her ability in check.
When someone knows there’s a Mind Reading esper in front of them, what’s their first thought?
All kinds of things.
But their second thought is absolutely, reflexively, to recall their biggest secret—and their third thought is the terror of that biggest secret being read, sometimes even the impulse to wonder whether to silence me for good.
This has been an unchanging law for years now.
But it’s not without exceptions.
Two days ago, an arm of my special sunglasses got snapped when I rolled over in my sleep and crushed it.
I could’ve taken the arm off a regular pair of glasses and fitted it on, but I didn’t have the tools at home at the time…
and that day happened to be the application for the outstanding-student scholarship, so I hurriedly put on an identical pair of ordinary sunglasses and went to school—a stopgap bluff.
Don’t ask why I don’t just do this normally.
By my count, a person says bad things about others in their heart at least three times a day, possibly including bad things about me—do you think I want to hear that content?
And if I’m caught and reported, I have to pay compensation equal to three to seven months of my vigilante wages.
Playing that little trick for just one day, I found the exception.
He occasionally asks something in his heart, muttering to himself—probably a so-called imaginary friend.
I went through a phase like that in middle school too, because I never talked to anyone.
Most of the time his mind is a total blank—no thoughts at all, and what thoughts there are are so simple there’s no need to filter.
Even after learning about my ability, he didn’t have any particularly big reaction.
Is this guy a monk meditating in the mountains?
How does he keep his mind that empty so often?
No good—I can’t look too long…
look at him too long and my own mind starts going blank too, as if we’re sharing one brain.
So the legendary Malphite Network actually exists!
Of course I didn’t, like in a normal story, assume I’d found a kindred spirit I could get close to.
This boy called Mi Xiaoliu doesn’t even have a firm grasp of common sense in most of his thoughts.
People like this only stir up pity in me.
Without a doubt, he’s a Defective—the kind for whom, along with gaining an ability, the side effects outweigh the benefits.
Though it might smack of butting in, when the others in class got the wrong idea about him, I couldn’t help clearing it up a little.
Now that I think about it, maybe he’ll blame me later for meddling—who’s willing to admit they’re defective?
Just like I’m not too keen on letting others know my ability is Mind Reading.
Meaning well and making a mess—I really want to punch myself.
I thought that would be the extent of my dealings with him, even if he and I share one thing in common: a solitary personality.
But last night, on the way home after buying groceries…
the girl who fell from the sky…
I only found out this morning: last night that girl jumped from the ninth floor, and before she jumped she broke someone’s legs—and that person didn’t even know the girl who broke both his legs.
Cute as she was, she really was a dangerous girl.
At the time I didn’t think much of it, but when I saw this “boy” at school today, I finally recalled a detail I hadn’t paid attention to…
last night, in that hurried, direct look I exchanged with that girl, I saw her thoughts—almost nothing there, and nothing that needed filtering.
Exactly the same as this boy’s, isn’t it?
Now I’m freaking out, because she’s turned to look at me again.
I don’t know whether she wants to break my legs too.
I helped you, you know!
Even if you might not need it.
At this moment Lu Mingxue’s heart was in utter shock; no matter how she tried, she couldn’t connect this gloomy, shut-in-looking boy with the pretty girl from last night.
She’s looking over again—what on earth is she thinking?
Even knowing it wasn’t appropriate, Lu Mingxue couldn’t help nudging her already-repaired sunglasses out a little and, with her peripheral vision, took a glance at this girl’s thoughts.
A girl dressed as a boy—and such a cute girl at that.
Isn’t this the kind of plot that only happens in novels?
To think one classroom could turn up a matched pair of oddballs at once…
“Sasha, she’s the person from yesterday.
Should we silence her?” Mi Xiaoliu, who’d kept a decent memory of these past two days, asked Sasha inwardly.
The purple-haired sister had once said if someone sees you, just silence them—though she had no clue what “silence” even meant.
“Calm down, Master.
Even though she can read minds, at most she just thinks Master is a delinquent girl who beats people up.
As long as Master doesn’t reveal that you’ve assassinated anyone, it won’t be a big deal,” Sasha boldly comforted her master.
She was, after all, an auxiliary item provided by the System; even if this mind-reading girl had an LV5 ability, she couldn’t read Sasha.
“Oh.” Mi Xiaoliu’s brow eased a little.
So as long as I didn’t reveal that I’d assassinated anyone, it was fine.
Lu Mingxue: “…”
Holy crap, she’s killed people?!
And she wants to silence me?!
Lu Mingxue’s hand trembled; she nearly took the glasses all the way off.
She hated this Mind Reading ability so much—right now this ability was about to cost her her life!
Lu Mingxue was freaking out.
Defective, my foot—this was clearly a trained killer!
The reason her mind was so simple had to be that she’d trained her inner thoughts, or had some related psychic ability; she was thinking that way for me to see on purpose!
No wonder her thoughts were so blank and simple—caught out last night, she’d just dropped the act, was that it?
That physical fitness test on her first day of transfer had to be an act too!
Does someone who could jump from the ninth floor and still run that fast really look like she can’t finish half a lap of the track?
Her black-stockinged legs rubbed together uneasily.
Calm down—I’m a vigilante, after all!
Sure, only in the interrogation division; sure, without any systematic training; sure, admitted as a special exception…
anyway, don’t tip her off.
They say these assassins often kill every witness to accomplish their kill; judging by the way she jumped straight off a building yesterday, probably only Yiwen in class could take her—but Yiwen’s slumped over the desk asleep, no guarantee she’d react in time.
She’s looking over again!
I swear I didn’t hear or pry into anything I shouldn’t have!
Please, spare me, QAQ.
Feigning composure, Lu Mingxue opened her phone, pretending to play with it while secretly trying to text a cop she knew.
Given her importance and the superpower she couldn’t hide because of the sunglasses, there were always a few Esper Police quietly rotating shifts to protect her—one message and…
The second she unlocked the screen, the phone was taken away.
“Come get it from my office after school,” the heavyset new teacher said, expressionless.
He’d finally caught his chance to establish some authority; Mi Xiaoliu had left him completely unable to assert himself these past two days.
“…” Lu Mingxue.
Eat shit, fatso!
Thank you all so much!