After returning home, while Yu Heng was busy cooking, Amelia asked Yu Zhi about the issue of money.
“Money?” Yu Zhi no longer wanted to be surprised by his complete ignorance, and simply patted his arm like a little adult, “If I hadn’t picked you up myself, I would definitely suspect that you ran over from another world.”
Amelia blinked. “If I ran over from another world, would you hate me?”
She thought about it. “Probably… not?”
“Why is that said with a questioning tone?” He felt somewhat aggrieved.
“Because you aren’t from another world, and I can’t imagine what on earth would happen.” Yu Zhi spoke with righteous confidence.
Amelia stared at her for a moment, making her feel a bit puzzled, before he smiled and nodded. “You’re right.”
Yu Zhi felt like she was being fooled, but she couldn’t find any evidence, so she puffed up her cheeks and told him about the things related to money that she knew.
“Gold, silver, and gemstones are considered valuable, right? You should know about gold, silver, and gemstones?”
Seeing Amelia nod, she continued, “But the most valuable and common thing, of course, is energy stones. Energy stones can be exchanged for energy points, which are used to buy things. The redder the energy stone, the more valuable it is. Or, instead of exchanging them for points, they can also directly provide energy.”
Amelia didn’t say anything. The moment Yu Zhi saw his expression, she instantly understood, “You don’t know about energy stones?”
“No, I just don’t understand where the points you mentioned are stored.” Amelia grasped the concept she described.
In a sense, energy stones were very similar to magic crystals that provided magic power. As special stones capable of restoring magic power, magic crystals sold for much more than gemstones and the like.
Despite this, the common currency used for trade back in his hometown was still various paper banknotes, and he truly had never seen these points before.
“It’s right here.”
She exposed the inner side of her left wrist.
At her wrist, where the skin was whiter than the outer side, a black bracelet was revealed.
The bracelet was opaque black, resembling some kind of mineral or perhaps a kind of wooden carving. After Yu Zhi gently touched it with her right hand, many irregular small white blocks floated up, finally settling on the number 126.
Looking at the number, she felt a bit annoyed. “It seems I’ve bought a little too many things recently…”
Amelia’s attention, however, was elsewhere. “It seems not everyone has this?”
At least those wanderers rarely had such things in their hands and could only barter.
“Of course.” She withdrew her hand. “The Black Stone Card has to be bound to one’s identity. Many people here either lost their original identities or don’t want to be tied to them, so they won’t hold a Black Stone Card. The White Stone Card doesn’t require identity registration, but it’s very easy for others to snatch away and it’s also quite expensive, so ordinary people won’t buy it.”
That’s why the people here liked physical bartering… Amelia nodded. “Then can I get a Black Stone Card?”
Compared to the method of bartering, this way of using points was indeed much more convenient.
Yu Zhi thought for a moment and said, “As long as you aren’t a wanted criminal and have a clear household registration place, you can go to the registration office to claim one. However, the first time you claim it, you need to pay 10 points.”
10 points… The penniless little succubus looked at the girl. “What can 10 points buy?”
“Let me think,” Yu Zhi counted on her fingers, “it can probably be exchanged for two loaves of bread, or three bottles of water, or two plates…”
Amelia interrupted her. “Then, can I buy a smile?”
A smile?
This wasn’t worth anything.
Yu Zhi hesitated. “Probably… enough.”
The white-haired succubus immediately stood up, took two steps back, and performed a knight’s greeting before a princess: one hand pressed against his left chest, the other hanging toward the ground, as he knelt on one knee.
He raised a face that could be described as handsome, his gaze clear and fixed straight upon the girl in front of him, and spoke softly, “Then, would you like to buy a smile from me, lovely miss?”
The young man’s movements were proper and standard. Even if Yu Zhi did not understand the meaning behind this action, she could still feel the respect and adoration contained within it.
This was perhaps a posture used in some place to express a request.
Yet, spending 10 points to buy a smile… That was simply not something people living in the abandoned district would do. It was completely meaningless, and no one would ever do such a thing.
Yu Zhi thought it through, and the words of refusal lingered at the edge of her lips. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally squeezed out a sound, “I…”
“Eat.”
The abruptly appearing cold voice interrupted the wavering choice on the scale.
“Brother.” Startled, she looked toward the brother carrying the dinner plates, receiving a bland “Hmm” in response.
Yu Heng glanced over and said nothing, as if he had merely appeared at the right moment, unintentionally interrupting a transaction.
Yet Amelia clearly saw the warning in this man’s eyes, as well as the unfavorable gray emotions surrounding him.
Ever since their first meeting, he had never seen this brother give him a good look, and his emotions had always been in a relatively poor state.
Sure enough, this must be that thing, a siscon.
Amelia muttered inwardly for a moment, withdrew his hands, stood up, and walked to the dining table as if nothing had happened.
Yu Zhi let out a sigh of relief. For some reason, watching the slowly departing white-haired youth, an unnoticeable ripple flashed through her heart.
She failed to catch what kind of emotion that actually was.
Amelia had already given up on getting points from Yu Zhi. With Yu Heng around, his chances of success were slim, so there was no need to take the risk.
He sat upright on one side of the dining table, with Yu Heng and Yu Zhi sitting opposite him.
Out of curiosity, he glanced at the dinner plates of the two people across from him, then lowered his gaze to look at the crude relief rations in his own hands.
Clearly, they had all collected the dry, coarse bran bread, but after simple processing, the bread on their plates was obviously much softer than his. Accompanied by vegetable soup and smoked meat, it was already a decent lunch… which invisibly made his own bread even harder to swallow.
This place was truly unfriendly to succubi.
The little succubus slightly frowned his face, and with the water Yu Zhi had given him earlier, he tore off pieces of bread, biting down one mouthful at a time, honestly finishing his meal without speaking another word throughout the entire process.
This well-behaved performance instead made Yu Zhi feel suspicious inside, guessing whether he was worrying because he lacked money. Even Yu Heng took a few extra glances.
The person in question acted as if he were completely oblivious, remaining silent throughout.
After the meal, Yu Heng went into the second-floor room to study the parts Yu Zhi had found last time.
Amelia still leaned against the sofa, lowering his eyelashes slightly, playing with his fingers without speaking.
Yu Zhi had originally been tinkering with a box in the living room. Seeing him like this, after a good moment, she hesitantly spoke up, “Amelia, if… if you really have no money, I can lend it to you. But you must promise to pay me back.”
“What?” Amelia recovered from his thoughts. After understanding what Yu Zhi said, he instead didn’t understand why she had suddenly changed her attitude.
Yu Zhi did not ignore the confusion in his gaze; she bit her lower lip and turned her head slightly away, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her expression clearly. “In the past, there was… an acquaintance who borrowed points from me many times. She always said she would pay me back, but…”
She said no more, and the emotion of pale blue surfaced from her body perhaps sorrow, or perhaps regret.
The two were always similar and hard to distinguish.
From her unfinished words, Amelia understood what she wanted to express.
The abandoned district rarely saw situations where things borrowed were returned, and the kindness of the few would be worn down by countless betrayals. To Yu Zhi, what was lent out wasn’t points, but her trust. Having lent them out so many times, although she claimed it was just an acquaintance, they were most likely once friends.
The interesting part was that, despite having experienced such a thing, even when Amelia showed a hint of trouble, she still ended up softening her heart.
However, contrary to Yu Zhi’s thoughts, Amelia wasn’t actually worried about the matter of points.
He had just been checking the contract on his fingers and was pleasantly surprised to find that the magic power gained from the previously concluded contract was more than expected.
With magic power, he could easily use hypnotic magic to find random passersby willing to pay 10 points for him.
At the same time, because things hadn’t reached a desperate stage yet, his interest in ordinary food had dropped significantly, and besides, there was nothing particularly delicious here anyway.
Yet right now, the little succubus changed his mind.
“Yu Zhi.”
Amelia adjusted his sitting posture, raised his head slightly, and gazed at her.
The white-haired youth had a pair of beautiful eyes, deep black like the night, yet devoid of the dead silence commonly found in the abandoned district. Instead, they carried a bright quality full of vitality and hope, which in this place might be even more attractive than gemstones.
Sitting close, Yu Zhi could even see her own tiny reflection within those deep black pupils that was her.
Before she even had time to feel nervous about it, she heard the opposite youth speak with the tone of a promise, or perhaps a vow: “If you are willing to believe me, I will respond to you, no matter, no matter how many times.”
Usually, Amelia’s voice had a lazy quality to it, the ends of his words drifting light and breezy like a feather, carrying the ease and nonchalance of someone untouched by life’s worries. Occasionally, Yu Zhi would suspect that perhaps Amelia had also lived a carefree life before entering the laboratory.
Yet when he intentionally lowered his vocal range and softened his tone, he could present an extremely rare solemnity and sincerity, as if every single word was filled with absolute truth, easily reaching the listener’s heart.
No matter how many times.
A girl in her mid-teens had not yet heard many solemn promises, nor experienced many unforgettable vows, but at this moment, the young man’s gaze, tone, actions, and even the subtle tremor of his eyelashes were silently and firmly branded into her memory.
This was truly a situation impossible to refuse.
“…Okay.”
After a long while, a smile slowly bloomed on Yu Zhi’s face. “I believe you, Amelia.”
I want to believe you, Amelia.
Thus, the white-haired youth likewise revealed a light, clean smile. “Mm.”
The two smiled at each other, and immediately after, they began discussing the matter of applying for a Black Stone Card right away, the atmosphere instantly turning extremely harmonious.
Yu Heng stood on one side of the second floor, taking in everything that happened below.
From the perspective of the living room, this was a blind spot, and almost no one could be seen there. Yu Zhi had no idea that her brother had been paying attention to them all along, especially to Amelia’s movements.
However, the same could not necessarily be said for the other person being watched.
Yu Heng still remembered that at a certain moment, the white-haired youth who claimed to only know a few minor parlor tricks had glanced up at the direction where he was, a direction that shouldn’t have been discovered.
It was like an extremely acute perception, or perhaps a discovery made through some other means.
He watched as his younger sister happily planned to leave, dropping a note of explanation for him in the living room, and saw that mysterious Amelia take a slow, unhurried glance toward his direction before leaving.
It wasn’t until the two of them had left that he walked downstairs, picked up the note, and slowly stepped outside.
On the other side, Amelia and Yu Zhi walked for half an hour and smoothly arrived at the registration office.
The area where the registration office was located was relatively remote with sparse human traffic, and there weren’t many buildings around. The relatively intact structure stood out conspicuously amidst the dilapidated buildings. As they drew closer, the details became clearer: this facility occupied an area of about ten square meters and stood roughly four meters high. Its interior walls were ash-iron colored, half of its glass door was propped open at an angle, and there were no reception staff inside. Apart from the lighting shining from above, the only active thing was a machine with a glowing screen.
“Stand over there, align your face with the screen, and press your hand onto the verification area,” Yu Zhi reminded him from the side. “Brother said this procedure is to check if there are any wanted warrants.”
It’s quite similar to the alchemical facilities back home… Amelia inspected the human technological product he had never seen before and followed instructions accordingly.
A few flashes of light swept across the screen, seemingly scanning Amelia’s entire body with rays invisible to the naked eye. Thirty seconds later, as if confirming there were no wanted warrants, it transitioned to the registration page.
On the way over, Yu Zhi had already roughly mentioned the contents.
The most important ones were only three: age, birthplace, and whether one was an ability user.
His age was derived from bone density testing and filled in automatically. Since Yu Zhi said the data could be updated later, he didn’t care that it currently read fifteen years old on the screen.
As for birthplace, Yu Zhi said other places required a birth certificate, and the only place that didn’t was the abandoned district. The choice was without question.
As for being an ability user… Amelia thought about it and chose “No.”
Once the information was filled out and submitted, the machine went quiet for a moment, and soon a slight sound came from the empty slot at the very bottom.
A black bracelet lay quietly inside.
Amelia lowered his head and reached out to pick up the black bracelet.
“It’s done.” Yu Zhi looked much happier than he did.
Amelia stroked the bracelet twice, saw the zero floating on it, and echoed, “Mm, time to work hard.”
He needed to find a way to meet the district chief.