The Chatty Overbearing Heroine

Noon in New York:

Weidi Moer, carrying a backpack and wearing canvas shoes, dashed out of the Pentagon like a college student.

She then raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead.

Being a journalist is really about eating humble pie. Weidi, having been rebuffed, thought helplessly. She had only gone in to ask the person in charge some pointed questions about mutants—though sharp, they never crossed the line, much less justified the humiliation she received from that official.

Weidi considered it but ultimately gave up on filing a complaint for 'racial discrimination' against the official. After all, everyone's just trying to make a living; a little flaw like racial discrimination is somewhat understandable.

—After all, discrimination is as common as daily bread for humans, and exclusion is no different.

The official had to endure being challenged by journalists like Weidi, while Weidi had to suffer such intense humiliation from officials like him. Everyone's struggling; no one should point fingers. Weidi managed to get the information she wanted and pulled out her phone.

The phone chimed, pushing a news notification: Shocking! Stark Tower holds the 2017 Energy Summit at the Plaza Hotel, with Iron Man making a dazzling entrance surrounded by a bevy of beauties!

Weidi：“……”

Weidi thought the person who wrote this article should be fired. Thirty-seven words and not one captures the key point or the hook—what's left of the professional flair expected from a news practitioner？

It should be written like this: Iron Man and over a dozen beauties actually did this at the Plaza Hotel!

Weidi immediately considered herself brilliantly talented, practically a remarkable media professional—a way of finding joy in hardship, so to speak.

-

Surprise Newspaper, 3 p.m.:

Editor White: "Do you really think this kind of draft is usable？"

Weidi defended softly: "But isn't it still quite good？ Where else could our newspaper usually find this kind of topic… Mutants and their ability registrations, I had a really hard time digging this up…"

The editor was utterly frustrated: "Reporter, I'd rather you took the afternoon off to eat free chicken strips at KFC than bring me this kind of—troublesome topic, especially since it's meaningless. Making money is important, sure, but life is more valuable—"

Weidi picked up the draft and explained quietly to the editor: "I actually think these angles are quite novel. The public's perception of mutants mostly stays at powerful, murderous, able to crush people to death with a flick of a finger. But looking at this, most mutants are actually very ordinary, they don't have terrifying, godlike abilities like Magneto or Professor X…"

Editor White: "…"

Editor White said with a heavy heart: "But Weidi, you need to understand: we can't use this kind of material. Besides, these are real people. And what are you trying to express with this novel angle？ That mutants aren't dangerous, so please accept them？ Protest letters would flood our newspaper then."

Weidi suddenly looked up: "Oh, right."

White Editor-in-Chief: "…"

White Editor-in-Chief painfully rubbed his temples and advised: "Weidi, you need to put your heart into your work."

Weidi：“……”

Weidi said somewhat sadly: "…I'm sorry, I've disappointed you."

White Editor-in-Chief, rubbing his temples in pain, said: "It's fine—we'll figure something out for the layout tomorrow."

Weidi tucked in his tail and nodded, then went back carrying his notebook.

Weidi hadn't walked far when he suddenly turned back as if remembering something, quietly asking White Editor-in-Chief: "…White Editor-in-Chief, am I really useless？ Did you… take a lot of flak from the higher-ups for hiring someone like me？ I'm really sorry…"

White Editor-in-Chief said calmly: "No. Don't worry. In any profession, there's always a hurdle to overcome, and people grow by facing it. Reporter Moer, I hired you not just because I sympathize with you being British, but because I believe you can produce the work I want. It's not charity."

He didn't say anything more, just silently looked at Weidi's discarded draft.

Then White Editor-in-Chief suddenly realized a problem: "…By the way, this kind of personal information should be highly confidential, right？ How did you get it？"

Weidi thought for a moment, looking utterly confused: "…Ah, is it highly confidential？ I saw it on a CIA mid-level manager's desk, and he didn't stop me from looking… no, he didn't even realize I was looking."

White editor rubbed his chin and said, "That's really strange, is the CIA so lax now？ Even a mid-level manager acts like this？"

Weidi always felt something wasn't quite right, and the problem most likely lay with herself, but that feeling was so faint that she immediately forgot about it.

White editor asked kindly, "What are your plans for tomorrow？"

Weidi thought for a moment and whispered, "…Find, find something else to write about."

-

Weidi, twenty-two years old, had been out of school for over a year. A bit better than being unemployed, she earned a monthly salary of five thousand dollars.

This is what life is really like, Weidi thought. Wanting to pursue more is unrealistic. There is a gap between ideals and reality. Ideals are poetry and distant horizons, the weeping drunks clinking glasses in the dead of night, but reality is tangible and filled with real things: like work, like a salary that allows you to afford takeout.

Life is truly harsh. Twenty-two-year-old Weidi sprawled like a pancake on the sofa. The night wind of New York whooshed in, stars dotted the night sky, a tacky soap opera played on TV, and Sheldon chattered on about condensed matter physics.

Listening to the incomprehensible babble, Weidi suddenly lamented, "—I feel like my life is just a stagnant pond."

Edith snapped angrily, "What more do you want？! You've already gone to the Pentagon and rummaged through the underwear their leaders left drying on the rooftop! How much more 'thrilling' can you get, Weidi？ You're seriously a pervert—"

Weidi said with a heavy heart, "The underwear is a different matter. I didn't want to do it either. When I was little, my dream was to join S.H.I.E.L.D."

Edith：“……”

Edith remarked, "Not a bad dream. You should meet my brother; he's five this year. You two would probably become soulmates."

"My dream is to chat and laugh with Walla—I mean, Captain America every day, and by the way, ask him when he's running for U.S. president," Weidi mumbled, hugging her legs and slumping on the sofa, her voice tinged with a hint of depression. "Not having every single draft sent back by the editor, feeling like there's no end in sight, day after day. And not even having dinner at night, just ordering KFC…"

"You should be grateful," Edith said indifferently. "What more do you want？ What's wrong with KFC？ If you don't want KFC, you could try cooking."

Weidi wrapped the blanket tighter around herself and said gloomily, "Edith, what was the result the last time we tried that？ Nearly having to pay the landlord for a new kitchen？ Besides, a life without dreams is neither thrilling nor exciting. You're someone without ideals; you won't strike it rich overnight like this."

Edith·Le Pen: "…"

She said with genuine emotion, "Why don't you show me what it's like to strike it rich overnight？"

-

The next morning, Weidi found it extremely difficult to get out of bed.

After finally rising, she went to the fridge, poured herself a glass of cold milk for breakfast, and passed by Edith's bed. There, she saw Edith lying face down, scrolling through Twitter with a dreamy, flushed glow on her face.

Edith, still in bed, didn't notice Weidi's movements. Weidi, glass in hand, headed to the living room, used her foot to nudge the TV on, and the set blared to life with a sudden burst of noise, startling Edith who jerked her head up in alarm.

Edith was nearly frightened to death: "How did you get up without making a sound! Weidi, are you trying to spook me first thing in the morning？"

Weidi scratched her head in confusion: "No way, I made quite a bit of noise. Were you just too absorbed in Twitter？ I even opened the fridge and poured milk."

Edith patted her chest, still rattled: "O-okay—just don't scare me like that next time."

Weidi nodded, poured a heaping bowl of cereal, doused it with cold milk, and settled in front of the TV to watch the morning news.

It's perfectly normal for someone in the news industry to watch the news first thing in the morning, Weidi thought. Then, her train of thought derailed as she suddenly realized that a lot of strange things had been happening lately.

—First, during interviews, others couldn't notice me; then, I smoothly read the CIA supervisor's mutant ability and identity registration list right in front of them; and now, this morning, no matter what I did, Edith couldn't detect me.

The TV was playing an advertisement, where a blond man smiled and advocated:

“Mutation often occurs during adolescence, triggered by intense emotional fluctuations and external stimuli… We hereby call upon everyone, for the sake of the nation! Please collect the mutant registration forms from your community doctors and fill them out as required…”

Weidi snapped off the TV with a click.

Weidi thought indifferently: Can such forms even be filled out？ These completed forms are directly submitted to the Pentagon's Homeland Security Bureau. Anyone who fills them out is truly foolish. Society imposes strict restrictions on mutants everywhere, and even after the Paris Peace Conference in the early 1970s, when Mystique saved the U.S. President, there was essentially no improvement.

In such a society, after filling out the mutant registration forms, these people would have to live under endless surveillance and within a chain of discrimination. No matter how harmless their abilities are, they would be branded as freaks for life, pointed at and feared by others.

Thinking this, Weidi finished the cereal in her bowl with two scoops, threw on her pilot jacket, slung her bag over her shoulder, and said goodbye to Edith.

Edith, holding a toilet plunger, yelled: "Weidi, if you clog the toilet again after taking a sh*t, I'll kill you!"

Weidi grabbed her backpack and fled: "Goodbye, Edith, I'm going to work—!!"

Weidi took the elevator downstairs. The spring breeze in New York was as soft as silk, and the flowers and plants by the roadside were gentle and vibrant.

……

Then a man covered her mouth and dragged her, struggling, into a parked SUV on the roadside.

D*mn it. Weidi bit down hard on the man's hand, struggling incessantly. Then she smelled a pungent odor, and her last thought before losing consciousness was:

—Before I could even turn my life around, I'm getting kidnapped. What a trashy world.

Weidi woke up in a classically decorated office with woolen carpets on the floor. A middle-aged man with an indifferent expression sat by the large floor-to-ceiling window.

Weidi, still under the influence of the drug, spoke honestly: "Pervert."

The middle-aged man: "…"

Weidi, still groggy from the ether, didn't even think before her mouth ran off: "You can't imprison me either! I won't give in!"

The middle-aged man waved a hand: "I didn't intend for you to give in."

The middle-aged man, dressed in a well-fitted suit, walked over steadily and bent down in front of Weidi.

This middle-aged man was definitely someone in a position of power. The pressure he exuded instantly made Weidi shrink back in fear, her back turning cold.

"Let me ask you, mutant." The middle-aged man narrowed his eyes dangerously. "What secrets have you discovered by coming to our Pentagon？"

Weidi was dumbfounded and instantly became much more alert. "—You must have