"I had no father or mother from the moment I was born."
You read that right. Literally.
The hospital nurses swore that, aside from the newborn me, there had not been a single living soul in the delivery room.
The incident made the local headlines for three days. The title slid all the way from “Hospital Discovers Baby with No Known Origin” to “An Alien Orphan? Experts Say the Possibility Cannot Be Ruled Out.”
I named myself, too. When I was five, I stared at the perpetually damp blue rag of the hospital’s cleaning lady and was suddenly inspired.
"What’s your name?"
After thinking about it, I answered:
"Lance Blue."
...
Food was the first necessity of the people. Lance Blue was a person, so he had to eat too.
His daily meals, however, depended on handouts from others.
Don’t get the wrong idea. It was not the sort of bleak, miserable story you are imagining.
"Born miraculously."
Whenever Lance Blue squatted beneath a streetlamp, munching on a pancake, he would think, “That probably means being miraculously good at surviving.”
He had no father or mother, yet he had a lovely face. His unruly hair, like blue roses, paired beautifully with his lake-blue eyes. Perhaps because he was still too young and had not grown into his features, people often assumed he was a little girl lost on the street and wanted to take him to the police station to turn himself in.
...
On his tenth birthday, Lance Blue decided to upgrade his survival strategy.
Simply squatting around and waiting to be fed was too passive. He needed to establish a sustainable ecosystem of mutual aid.
First stop: Mrs. Carter’s pancake stall.
"What’s the occasion? Why is little Lance up so early today?" Mrs. Carter deftly ladled out the batter. With a flick of her wrist, it formed a circle as perfect as if it had been drawn with a compass.
Lance Blue held up a handmade cardboard sign. A warped but recognizable pancake had been drawn on it in crayon, with a line written beneath it:
"It’s the birthday boy’s day today. Pancakes with an extra egg are not discounted, but conversation services are available."
Mrs. Carter froze for two seconds.
Then she laughed so hard she nearly spilled the batter. "Sure! An extra egg, and a leaf of lettuce too. It’s on me."
"Deal." Lance Blue propped the sign against the wall and hopped onto the little stool beside the stall.
"You look wonderful today. Did you beat Mrs. Wang at the square dance again last night?"
"Hey, how did you know?"
"A guess."
Lance Blue would never admit that while counting stars on a park bench last night, he had happened to witness their battle for control of the whole dance floor.
He had not mentioned conversation services for nothing.
Half an hour later, Lance Blue had not only eaten a pancake with egg and vegetables, sprinkled with extra sesame seeds, but had also received an old coat that Mrs. Carter’s daughter no longer wore. The sleeves were a little long, but he was set for the winter.
Second stop: the twenty-four-hour convenience store.
Jake, the night-shift clerk, was staring blankly at the empty shelves. When Lance Blue pushed open the door and the wind chime rang out, Jake’s eyes lit up.
"My savior’s here!"
"Where’s the expired bread?"
Lance Blue absolutely loved bread that expired after sitting overnight.
"Bottom shelf of the left aisle. The rice balls that were pulled today are being cleared out too."
Jake leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Do me a favor. Can you break down and flatten those cardboard boxes by the entrance? The manager’s inspecting tomorrow."
Lance Blue glanced at the fortress of cardboard boxes as tall as a person and nodded. "Add a bottle of yogurt."
"Deal!"
...
That was Lance Blue’s business model: trading labor and “companionship value” for survival supplies.
His ten-year-old body could not handle heavy work, but he was nimble and sweet-talking. By selling his looks a little too, he could easily claim that he would not starve to death.
Besides, Lance Blue seemed to possess some kind of innate talent. His powers of observation were exceptionally sharp, and every time, he appeared precisely when people needed just a little help.
Lance Blue did not know why, but he vaguely understood that he could sense other people’s emotions.
He pulled back the long sleeve of his old clothes, and a string of blue numbers immediately appeared on his wrist.
[108]
A three-digit Trust Value.
That was right. The world Lance Blue had been born into was an age of heroes.
Every hero was granted superpowers through Trust Value, with which they saved the world.
It could be said that Trust Value was this world’s version of superpowers.
In this age, where Trust Value created heroes, everyone could create heroes, and everyone could be called a hero.
If he could, Lance Blue wanted to become a hero too.
If he became a hero, he could enjoy being fed by others every day without having to waste effort or breath.
...
Three in the afternoon.
Lance Blue squatted beside the sandbox in the park, observing the route of ants moving house. It was his favorite leisure activity: it cost no money and taught him things.
"They’re carrying food scraps several times larger than their own bodies." An unfamiliar voice suddenly spoke beside him.
Lance Blue turned his head. It was a bespectacled man with a folder tucked beneath his arm, whose attempt to squat down looked slightly awkward.
"Six times larger," Lance Blue corrected him.
"The one on the left is dragging a cookie crumb. I estimated its volume by eye, and that ant can carry something even bigger."
The bespectacled man pushed up his glasses, puzzled. "How do you know?"
"I can feel it," Lance Blue said. He closed his eyes, and the image of the ant carrying its food scrap echoed in his mind.
He could feel that the ant was not tired. It still had strength to spare.
...
The bespectacled man gave Mulan a long, hard look.
"All right," he said.
"What are you doing here? You’re not from this street, are you?" Lance Blue stared at him with blue eyes.
"This is my office." Lance Blue pointed at the bench.
"The view is good, there are few mosquitoes and bugs, and at three in the afternoon, the angle of the sunlight is perfect."
The man smiled and pulled a sheet of paper from his folder. "Then you might be interested in this."
It was a flyer, titled “Union Year 23 Community Child Census and Welfare Program.”
Among the dense fine print beneath it, Lance Blue caught only the key information: free medical checkups, nutritional subsidies, and potential guardian matching.
"I’m not a child registered in this community."
Lance Blue handed the flyer back. "I have no household registration, no file, not even a birth certificate. Theoretically, I don’t exist."
Because he had appeared out of nowhere, with no guardian and no doctor able to verify his birth, the hospital had been unable even to issue him a birth certificate.
He was ten years old and had never even gone to school.
"Someone who theoretically doesn’t exist wouldn’t be discussing an ant’s load-bearing ratio with me."
The bespectacled man did not take the flyer. "Wednesday afternoon, at the community center. Even if you don’t come to register, they have free snacks there every Wednesday. The apple pie is pretty good."
He stood and left, leaving the flyer on the bench.
"Oh, and this is for you." The bespectacled man tossed a golden Union Coin from his pocket.
Lance Blue caught it in one hand and looked at the bespectacled man with some confusion.
"It’s your daily subsidy. The denomination isn’t much, but you won’t have to go hungry."
This time, the bespectacled man truly left.
Lance Blue stared at the paper for a long time, then felt the weight of the golden Union Coin, until the army of ants detoured around it and continued onward.
"Free snacks... apple pie!!!"
...
At dusk, Lance Blue returned to his “home”—an abandoned newsstand.
The old coat Mrs. Carter had given him was spread in one corner. Expired magazines from the convenience store had been stacked up to serve as a table, and tally marks recording the days had been drawn on the wall in chalk.
Today marked exactly seven full years since I came into this world.
Without a candle, Lance Blue took out half a piece of chocolate Jake had given him and carefully broke it in two.
Eat one half, save the other half for breakfast tomorrow.
"Born miraculously."
As Lance Blue nibbled on the chocolate, he thought, “That probably means being miraculously good at getting by.”
The sound of a distant television came from outside the window. The news anchor spoke in a clear, standard voice: "In Union Year 23, our city continues to advance its care program for special populations..."
Special populations? Me?
I suppose so.
Lance Blue lay down and looked at the starlight leaking through the cracks in the newsstand’s roof.
It was another new day.
First, he would go to the community center and see whether the apple pie really was as good as the bespectacled man had said. Then he would decide whether to add his name to some “theoretical” list.
After all, he was ten now. It was time to consider a long-term strategy for sustainable development.
The last thing that flashed through his mind before sleep was a line in small print at the bottom of the flyer: “Every life deserves to be recorded.”
Lance Blue turned over.
Maybe.
But first, he had to make sure that tomorrow morning, he could miraculously wake up again and continue this adventure that had no father or mother, but was still rather interesting.
Lance Blue looked at the blue numbers on his wrist.
[109]
If possible, I really want to become a hero.
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