Chapter 212: The Meeting, the Mystery of the Witch, and Lan Feng's Rendezvous

September 9th, at dusk. The tenth floor of the Magical Girl Company.

The massive conference room was completely empty save for the figures of two girls. One wore a red-and-white miko outfit; the other wore a cyan qipao with a bamboo hair accessory, her beautiful black hair falling to her shoulders.

They sat on opposite sides of the conference table. The fading red light of the setting sun spilled through the windows, faintly illuminating the cold white table and chairs.

Xi Ziyue lowered her eyes, glancing at Little Red Riding Hood's report on the aquarium incident, then looked up at Magical Girl Sakurahime.

"Ms. Kiyono Sakura, I believe this is our first time meeting. For various reasons, I was unable to meet with you sooner. That is a massive oversight on my part."

"I've wanted to meet you for a long time," Sakurahime said, her lips curving into a slight smile.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Xi Ziyue, the representative for the Chinese magical girls. Personnel from the Japanese Magical Girl Company will be here to pick you up soon, but I have a few questions for you first."

Sakurahime paused, a faint smile touching her lips. It took her a moment to speak.

"Aren't you being a bit too modest, Teacher Xi Ziyue? There's no need to be so polite with me." Unlike her usual poised and unhurried demeanor, her smile right now looked a little forced.

"No, my negligence and dereliction of duty came first; this is the proper attitude to take," Xi Ziyue said, shaking her head. "To think a witch entered this city and attacked you while my guard was down... I owe you an apology."

Magical Girl Sakurahime fell silent for a long moment before speaking at a leisurely pace.

"Teacher Xi Ziyue, I know you've been busy hunting down witches overseas. You hardly have time to manage things here in Leijing."

She paused. "The public uproar is quite intense right now, but as long as I step forward to explain things, it will die down quickly. You don't need to worry about that; I'll handle it."

Xi Ziyue looked at her quietly. Magical Girl Sakurahime raised her eyes from the table to meet her gaze.

"Thank you for your understanding," Xi Ziyue said softly. "It seems the reports were right; your speech and cognitive abilities are perfectly normal. I thought anyone would fall into a brief state of confusion upon waking up and learning they had been asleep for a week."

Sakurahime shook her head. "To be honest, it felt like the blink of an eye to me. It hasn't quite sunk in yet; I just find it incredible."

"In that case," Xi Ziyue said, pausing briefly, "shall we go over what happened?"

"Of course."

"The location, the people you met, and what you were doing." Xi Ziyue set down her teacup and produced an ink brush from the sleeve of her qipao. A scroll slowly unfurled in the air before her.

"My last memory is of my walk home from school. I turned into a deserted street, and that's where I ran into six people," Magical Girl Sakurahime said after a brief hesitation.

"Six people?" Xi Ziyue frowned in confusion.

At that very moment, White Jack—who was hanging upside down outside the window, eavesdropping—suddenly froze. He raised his nonexistent eyebrows and pondered, Six people? Could it be...

The moment his thoughts reached this point, a player ID flashed through his mind: "Lan Feng"—the person who had been looking for clues about Bai Ziling on the player forum that day.

White Jack remembered Kuroki Hitomi mentioning that the group of players who had come to Leijing under "Lan Feng" totaled exactly six people.

Now that's strange. I thought Kiyono Sakura ran into Little Grey back then... Is she lying?

With that thought, he slowly lifted his hollow eyes, staring intently at Kiyono Sakura's profile.

Inside the conference room, Sakurahime nodded. "Correct."

"Are you sure you weren't mistaken?" Xi Ziyue pondered for a moment. "Ms. Kiyono Sakura, were there really six people standing in front of you?"

"Absolutely. I wouldn't make a mistake about that..." Sakurahime reached out and gently brushed her fingers over her cherry-colored longsword. "I asked them what they were trying to do, but they didn't say a word. They drew their weapons on me right from the start."

"And their features?" Xi Ziyue pressed, her ink brush already sketching six blurry figures and an alleyway bathed in the red light of the setting sun on the scroll.

"I can't remember their clothes or appearances anymore. I only recall that there were both men and women—four men and two women, I believe. My memory of that battle is very fuzzy. I just remember transforming and facing off against them for a while."

"What kind of abilities did they display?"

"It's hard to describe. Their moves were strange; they didn't fight like Espers or any other type of super-human species. But I can say for sure that they weren't strong. Their techniques were just bizarre, and they had the numbers advantage, so I temporarily found myself on the back foot."

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, White Jack scratched his chin. He figured that pretty much confirmed it... it was "Lan Feng" and his gang.

They sure are arrogant, attacking such a famous magical girl right out of the gate. They aren't afraid of stirring up trouble, especially since the magical girls in Leijing are under Xi Ziyue's protection.

He shook his head, then reconsidered. But six players against a B++ Rank super-human species... True, in their eyes, she was prey they could take down. Might as well kill her while they're at it.

Silence lingered in the conference room for a few seconds.

"And then?" Xi Ziyue's ink brush suddenly paused.

"Then, I decided not to get entangled with them. I just wanted to get out of that neighborhood..." Magical Girl Sakurahime shook her head and lowered her voice.

"As for what happened at the very end, unfortunately, I've completely forgotten."

Xi Ziyue pondered this. "Are you sure you didn't encounter a witch? There was no aura of magic on them? Is it possible that those six figures you saw were actually puppets created by a witch's magic?"

"I'm absolutely sure."

"But we found your corpse the next day. To be precise, a fake corpse," Xi Ziyue said.

"My corpse?"

Magical Girl Sakurahime was slightly taken aback. Clearly, she hadn't heard about the corpse before; she had only heard rumors of her disappearance from others.

"That's right, and we can now confirm that it was a product of a witch's magic," Xi Ziyue said softly. "The corpse was found at Apartment 1301 on Jilin Street, the place you rented by yourself. When it was discovered, the body had been torn apart, and even the head was missing."

For a moment, Sakurahime was at a loss for words.

"Then let me ask you one more time, Ms. Kiyono Sakura," Xi Ziyue said, pausing and lowering her voice to enunciate each word carefully. "When you were fighting those six people in the alleyway, did you truly not feel a single trace of magical fluctuation?"

Magical Girl Sakurahime hesitated for a moment. Finally, gripping the hilt of her longsword tightly, she shook her head.

"No, absolutely not."

Xi Ziyue fell silent for a while. "Is that so... Then, aside from those six people, can you remember anything else?"

Sakurahime looked at her reflection in the clear blade of her sword. Suddenly, she arched an eyebrow. "In my memory... when I looked up while trying to fall back, I think I saw a very strange figure on the roof of a residential building."

"A strange figure?"

"Mhm," Sakurahime said softly. "I can't recall her build or her clothes, but her face was incredibly strange..." At that moment, a thin sheen of cold sweat broke out on the back of her pale hand.

"Strange in what way?"

"She didn't look like a normal human at all. She was a girl, but she looked as if she had been drawn. If I had to describe it, it was like a child's crude doodle on a piece of paper—like a 2D drawing had suddenly stepped out into reality."

After Magical Girl Sakurahime finished speaking, absolute silence once again enveloped the conference room, leaving only the rustling of Xi Ziyue's ink brush against the scroll.

After a moment, Xi Ziyue gently set the ink brush down on the table.

She remained silent for a moment, then lifted the lid of her teacup. Averting her gaze from the eerie face she had just drawn on the scroll, she stared at the pale green surface of the tea and said softly, "Then it's basically confirmed. That figure you saw at the very end was the witch who captured you and sealed you away for days."

"Teacher Xi Ziyue, is she someone from the Terminus Tower?" Sakurahime asked, a shiver running down her spine.

"Actually, half a month ago, I set up a barrier at the borders of Leijing capable of detecting abnormal magic. If any witch crosses that barrier, they will be discovered immediately."

"So..."

"Just as you suspect, she didn't come from the Terminus Tower. This is a new witch, one we've never seen before." Xi Ziyue exhaled. "I am already investigating all the magical girls currently active in Leijing. Once someone turns into a witch, they can never revert to their original form. If any magical girl goes missing, we should find out very quickly."

Magical Girl Sakurahime thought for a moment before saying, "However, given the situation back then and the fact that I returned completely unscathed... why do I feel like that witch was helping me out of a tight spot?"

"Never try to understand a witch. That is the most profound lesson we've learned from our operations over the past few years." Xi Ziyue shook her head.

The fading sunlight cast a glow on Sakurahime's pale cheeks. She lowered her eyes in deep thought for a long while before finally speaking softly.

"All right, is there anything else you need me to assist with?"

Xi Ziyue said quietly, "The Japanese representatives will be holding a press conference soon. You'll need to make a brief appearance there to reassure the public back in Japan."

"Those are just trivial matters; it's fine," Magical Girl Sakurahime said, nodding mildly. "You, on the other hand, look quite haggard. A girl your age should remember to get proper rest."

"Our national treasure is the panda." At this, Xi Ziyue reached up and rubbed the faint dark circles under her eyes. "Looking like a national treasure isn't a bad thing. Please, do not worry."

"I'll be taking my leave then."

Sakurahime let out a soft chuckle. A moment later, she slowly stood up and left with her longsword.

A brief silence descended upon the conference room.

White Jack, who was eavesdropping outside the window, still showed no intention of leaving.

Of course, he was self-aware. In front of the strongest modern magical girl, his little trick of concealing his presence was no better than trying to cover one's ears while stealing a bell. So, he simply stopped pretending and eavesdropped openly.

At the same time, he waited to see when Xi Ziyue would finally call him out.

A moment later, Xi Ziyue took a sip of clear tea, rolled up the scroll, and suddenly spoke softly.

"That gentleman surnamed White. You've been hiding out there for so long; don't you have anything to say?"

Hanging upside down, he reached out a hand and rapped on the window. Knock, knock.

"You need to open a window for me," he mouthed wordlessly.

The very next second, the floor-to-ceiling window in front of him vanished. Fierce winds from high above the city howled into the conference room, nearly blowing White Jack's top hat right off his head.

White Jack dropped into the conference room. Raising his hands like a child politely declining a red envelope and squinting one eye, he said, "Holy shit, 'gentleman surnamed White'? Don't be like that, miss, you're making me sound like some ancient pretty-boy scholar."

"May I ask for your thoughts on this incident?" Xi Ziyue didn't even look up as she asked in a measured tone.

"That witch is my friend."

Xi Ziyue suddenly took another sip of tea. Lowering her gaze, she slipped a mahjong tile out from the sleeve of her qipao.

Carved into the tile was a jade tiger. It was crouched by a mountainside, its cyan-glowing eyes staring into the distance.

In the next instant, White Jack's vision went pitch black. He heard a low growl in the darkness. By the time he came back to his senses, his head had been separated from his body. His body still stood rigidly in place, while his head was clamped in the maw of a giant jade tiger.

"I'm very sorry, but we do not entertain friends of a witch here," Xi Ziyue said lightly.

"No worries, you'll entertain me properly sooner or later." White Jack's severed head was still talking. "I'll have you know, every one of my friendships started like this. No fight no acquaintance, right?"

"Is that so? I hope that day will come."

The next instant, White Jack's consciousness was completely swallowed by darkness.

...

...

[Prompt: Your Theater Puppet No. 01 — "White Jack" has died. You may summon a Theater Puppet again in 12 hours.]

"What a temper. Sure enough, you shouldn't provoke someone who's been working overtime for a whole week. She's practically turning into a magical auntie." Ke Mingqing climbed up from the tatami mat and leaned against the windowsill, spacing out for a moment.

At this moment, a red panel still hovered before his eyes.

[Detected that the player has killed a C-Rank Superhuman — "Red Lizardman". You have been rewarded with 500 Experience Points.]

[Player "Ke Mingqing" Current Level Progress: Lv.23 (900/11500 Experience Points)]

Just as Ke Mingqing closed the settlement panel, a red notification bubble suddenly popped up on the Chat Panel icon in the top right corner of his vision.

He raised an eyebrow and popped the bubble, bringing up a Chat Panel.

[Kuroki Hitomi: Are you there?]

[Ke Mingqing: What's wrong?]

[Kuroki Hitomi: That group of players from out of town contacted me. They said they want to meet with me tomorrow at noon.]

Ke Mingqing raised his eyebrows, the text on the panel reflecting in his pitch-black eyes. A moment later, as the setting sun dipped below the horizon, his face was blanketed in darkness.

[Ke Mingqing: That's a good thing.]

After sending this line, Ke Mingqing tilted his head to look at the utility pole outside the window. The last streak of red in the sky had also disappeared.