Chapter 275: The Past, A Rank Equipment Box, and the Prison Break Date

Ke Mingqing and Xi Ziyue walked along an elevated corridor enclosed by a glass curtain wall. Through the panes, they had an unobstructed bird's-eye view of the Leijing City Center.

A bird flew over their heads, its falling white feathers vanishing into the sunlight.

"How were the test results?" Ke Mingqing asked.

"Based on our observations, what Xiao Li just displayed was the power of a witch. There is no mistaking that," Xi Ziyue said calmly, gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Ke Mingqing fell silent. He recalled the display Xia Zili had just put on in the training room; seeing her new Superhuman Panel had given him quite a shock as well.

"So it seems a half-witch has two forms, corresponding to the crown names 'Ember' and 'End.' One is the Ember form, which wields an Umbrella Sword just like a fully transformed witch. The End form uses a sniper rifle—or, wait, should I say a miniature cannon? We'll only know once she tests it in actual combat."

With that thought, Ke Mingqing retracted his gaze from the window.

"And then?" he asked.

"Xiao Li is able to freely control and withdraw the witch's power. She stayed completely calm throughout. There were no signs of her being influenced by the witch's persona, and her communication with us was perfectly normal."

Xi Ziyue fell silent for a moment.

"In my view, if someone can rationally wield a witch's power without being hijacked by the witch's persona and descending into madness, it will be a groundbreaking and historic step for us magical girls—"

Ke Mingqing thought for a moment.

"Then do you think that when the Tiamat Comet arrives in three months, it will take away her power?" he asked casually.

Xi Ziyue shook her head. "I don't think it will."

Ke Mingqing froze for a second. He lowered his eyes, then raised them again, suddenly realizing that it actually didn't matter anymore.

Because the system had shortened the time limit to Exterminate Superhumans, the players could no longer wait for the Tiamat Comet to arrive. Thus, whether they were magical girls or witches, it was all the same; the players had to step over their corpses to seize a chance at survival.

"I think this is the crucial point," Xi Ziyue continued. "With every visit of the comet every ten years, magical girls undergo a generational shift, but a witch won't have the fragments in her body taken away by the comet. This means that if we have a witch who doesn't lose her sanity and stands on the side of the magical girls, she can guide several generations of magical girls forward."

She let out a soft breath. "And when that time comes, I'll have my powers taken away and become an ordinary person, and I can finally retire in peace."

"You really must be going crazy wanting to retire." Ke Mingqing laughed. "With my sister's personality, acting as a leader? Besides, a half-witch serving as the boss of the magical girls—don't you think that sounds a bit bizarre?"

"If there is no precedent, we set the precedent." Xi Ziyue shook her head. "Every ten years, magical girls undergo a complete reshuffle, and the past magical girls lose their powers. This flaw is simply too massive for magical girls."

"For example?"

"Although every era will have new, exceptionally talented magical girls stepping up to take responsibility, the transition process simply takes too long," Xi Ziyue said calmly. "This is why the status of a magical girl will never compare to that of a superhero."

Ke Mingqing shrugged. "After all, no matter how strong a magical girl is, she only gets a ten-year prime. After that, she's reduced to a mortal. That's also why magical girls are so underappreciated."

"Exactly. Furthermore, when the comet arrives and the old gives way to the new, it's inevitable that some malicious villains will take advantage of our vulnerability. Witches usually come out to cause chaos during this period too, because they know the new magical girls haven't appeared yet, or haven't fully mastered their magic, posing no threat to them."

At this point, Xi Ziyue took a celadon teacup from her sleeve, opened the lid, and took a sip.

"But as long as we have someone like Xiao Li, who can exist for half a century, or even a full century as a... half-witch—yes, that's a good name you came up with—then she can still serve as the main force during the time the comet arrives and magical girls reshuffle," she said. "She could even guide the new generation forward. That way, the problems I just mentioned would no longer exist. Don't you think so?"

Ke Mingqing shrugged. "It's a good idea, but the problem is how to get people to accept it. What magical girl would want to take orders from a witch—oh, I mean, a half-witch?"

"It doesn't matter. There was a time when no one believed the Earth revolved around the Sun. I firmly believe this is the right path."

"You're practically the Giordano Bruno of the magical girl world."

"I think the key is still figuring out how to create more cases like Xiao Li and finding the pattern behind it," Xi Ziyue said evenly. "That way, whenever a magical girl ends up Becoming a Witch in the future, we won't need to slaughter each other anymore. Instead, we can use a systematic method to revert witches back into rational half-witches."

She paused. "We still haven't publicly disclosed the existence of witches, so the public doesn't care about half-witches versus witches. They are kept in the dark, so we only need to deal with the Magical Girl Company. As long as there are more and more examples of half-witches, we can convince the higher-ups of the Magical Girl Company. Xiao Li is the first example, but I believe she won't be the last."

"You're really optimistic."

'More like delusional than optimistic,' Ke Mingqing thought.

Xi Ziyue was silent for a while before she suddenly said, "When I was little, someone taught me to be optimistic."

"Then that person was pretty awful. Teaching you all the wrong things instead of the right ones."

"It's rare in this world to find someone who speaks ill of themselves."

Hearing this, Ke Mingqing didn't react at first. A moment later, he suddenly froze and turned his head to look at the profile of the girl in the qipao. Her long bangs hung down, obscuring Xi Ziyue's cheek and making it impossible for him to see her expression.

"Are you saying—" he asked a moment later.

"We said last time that when we met again, I had some things to tell you—this is it." Xi Ziyue fell silent for a long time before she raised her eyes. "Do you... still remember me?"

"Holy shit, of course I remember you." Ke Mingqing looked at her suspiciously. "You make it sound like you're Yuki Nagato infected with some virus that makes the whole world forget you—"

Xi Ziyue was uncharacteristically stunned. A moment later, she gently shook her head and explained, "No, I mean... we should have known each other when we were in the orphanage. Please think back carefully."

"The orphanage?"

Ke Mingqing's eyes widened slightly, a wave of disorientation washing over him for a moment.

He seemed to be untangling the memories of the orphanage from this life and his previous one in his mind, taking quite a while before locking onto the memories of his current life.

Soon, he remembered. The Ke Mingqing of this life indeed had a decent relationship with a girl in the orphanage. She was a girl who always had her eyelids drooping, as if she couldn't keep her eyes open. She usually looked sleepy and had a dirty face, completely inconspicuous in the orphanage. But once mealtime arrived, her astonishing appetite would shock every child there.

Ke Mingqing remembered sitting in the cafeteria at the time, resting his chin on his hand and turning his head, completely dumbfounded as he watched this girl eating like a tornado.

The soup spoon clutched in his hand had dropped to the floor, earning him a scolding from the orphanage nurse.

So many years had passed, and he no longer remembered that girl's name. But contrasting her with Xi Ziyue's current appearance, he couldn't help but sigh in his mind:

'She's been such a huge eater since she was little—the rule that magical girls don't have to worry about their weight really saved her life.'

Xi Ziyue took a sip of her tea and said slowly, "I'm two years older than you. Back when we were still in the orphanage... do you remember a girl they called 'Little Panda'?"

"Oh, oh, I remember now. Are you that idiot who snuck into the cafeteria in the middle of the night and got caught?" Ke Mingqing asked dismissively.

Xi Ziyue fell silent, then nodded and said, "Although that sounds a bit impolite, I'm still glad you remember me. You helped me a lot back then, especially the time I slipped into the cafeteria."

"That happened way too many times. Which one are you talking about?" Ke Mingqing asked disdainfully.

Their conversation seemed to suddenly jam. Xi Ziyue was quiet for a moment, hesitating to speak, before she finally let out an awkward cough. "The time I snuck into the cafeteria to eat pork knuckles. Technically speaking, that should have been the fifth time," she said in a low voice.

"You really never learned your lesson. I remember I had just snuck into the computer room next to the cafeteria, and when I was about to be discovered by the orphanage's night-patrol nurse, I turned my head and thought the cafeteria was haunted. But it turned out to be that 'Little Panda' with a pork knuckle still stuffed in her mouth. She uncharacteristically opened her eyes for once, staring blankly at the nurse, and then at me."

"That's right. Because I was caught stealing food for the fifth time, according to the orphanage's rules, I was supposed to be kicked out. Fortunately, you grabbed me while you were running away. Your back as you ran left a deep impression on me."

"That was just because I didn't want to get caught by the nurse either, okay? Memories really do get romanticized—"

"Regardless," Xi Ziyue said lightly, "we promised that if we ever met again someday, I would treat you to a meal to express my gratitude."

Ke Mingqing had initially wanted to continue mocking this surreal experience, but at that moment, he suddenly thought of something and paused slightly.

He fell silent. 'My past-life experiences with Kuroki Hitomi might be fake, fabricated by the system; but my experiences with Xi Ziyue might be real—or rather, between the two of them, one has to be fake, right? Now even the "real and fake childhood friend" trope has been brought out. With the system being so talented, why doesn't it just mass-produce romance novels to indirectly destroy the will of the super-human species?'

A moment later, he shook his head, pushing those thoughts aside, and directly asked the question he cared about most: "So do you think I've changed?"

Xi Ziyue was silent for a moment before she chuckled softly. "No, you are still the same boy I knew back then. Of that, I can be certain."

It was clearly a very gentle remark, yet after it fell, a death-like absolute silence enveloped the entire elevated corridor.

Ke Mingqing didn't speak for a long time. The autumn sunlight quietly spilled across his cheeks, obscuring his expression.

"So, are you free to join me for a meal?"

"Let's talk about it next time. I'm a bit worried about my sister."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yeah, but I can't tell you how long it will be. I've been pretty busy lately."

"It doesn't matter, as long as the promise is still there. That's what I've been telling myself all these years."

After things wrapped up, Ke Mingqing went home, locked his bedroom door, sat leaning against the windowsill, and opened his Item Inventory.

At this moment, he suddenly spotted the gleaming golden equipment box resting in his inventory and paused slightly.

[Item Name: A Rank Equipment Box]

[Item Description: The global S-rank first-kill reward bestowed by the system upon the Red Name Player "Jin Chengwu". Opening the equipment box guarantees one random A-rank item.]

"Oh right—I still have this thing. It's been sitting here for so long, it's about time it gave me something big," Ke Mingqing muttered.

He raised a finger and tapped the icon for the A Rank Equipment Box, pressing the "Open" option that popped up. Then, a series of prompt boxes appeared before his eyes.

[The "A Rank Equipment Box" has been opened—the result of this opening is: Congratulations, you have acquired the A-rank equipment "Thunderburst Gloves" (Thunderburst Gloves can store a massive amount of any form of electricity and release it at any time).]

Ke Mingqing tilted his head, silent for a long moment before he realized something, his eyes suddenly lighting up. "Wait, storing electricity... 'Thunder God' can store a maximum of one hundred grid bars of power, and each bar can maintain the 'Blended Lightning' state for one second. Converted, that's a maximum of 100 seconds."

He paused. "But these gloves can serve as an additional power source, basically a power bank."

With that thought, Ke Mingqing decisively materialized the gloves from his Item Inventory. A pair of pitch-black gloves glowing with yellow lightning patterns instantly covered his hands.

He closed his eyes. The moment he opened them again, he activated the A-Rank Skill "Thunder God," pouring out the electricity stored in his battery all at once and dumping it entirely into the Thunderburst Gloves.

When the gloves were completely brimming with electric light and entered a state of saturation, Ke Mingqing looked up at the battery icon in the top right corner of his vision.

[The electricity currently stored by "Thunder God" is at: 50%.]

[Prompt: The electricity inside the A-rank equipment "Thunderburst Gloves" has reached maximum capacity.]

Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow, looking down at the gloves emitting a faint fluorescent glow. "So it seems the 'Thunderburst Gloves' can store up to half the power of the Thunder God battery at most, which is fifty bars. Once the 'Thunder God' battery is fully charged, that adds up to a hundred and fifty bars of power. This way, I can maintain the 'Blended Lightning' form for a total of 150 seconds in actual combat."

He let out a breath. "A massive upgrade... I could kick Magical Girl Red Moon to death with a single strike now."

A short while later, after putting the gloves away, a thought suddenly struck him. 'Oh right, Heimeng said she had news for me this afternoon.'

With that in mind, Ke Mingqing closed his eyes on the tatami mat, focusing his attention on Theater Puppet Number Two.

At that exact moment, in another corner of the world, a dim hotel room sat on the second floor of an abandoned building.

Controlling the second Theater Puppet, Giovanni, Ke Mingqing opened his eyes on the bed. He sat up against the headboard and glanced over at the small chair beside the bed.

Bai Ziling was currently curled up in the chair, hugging the little stuffed doll, Mio. She whispered to it, playing a game of house as mother and daughter.

They were whispering because Giovanni had warned her not to let Heimeng hear them.

Heimeng was currently monitoring Giovanni's mobile phone. If she discovered that White Jack's doll was playing with Bai Ziling, it would be a disaster.

Speak of the devil. A moment later, a message suddenly popped up on the phone.

Ke Mingqing looked down at the text.

[Heimeng: The plan for the prison break has been set. On December 1st, almost two months from now, we'll secretly infiltrate Azkaban Prison in Siberia and rescue Stroh.]

[Giovanni: What do you mean by 'secretly'?]

[Heimeng: Idiot, I mean pulling a bait-and-switch to avoid clashing with anyone. One of the Roundtable's tasks is to maintain order and lock the prisoners back up if Azkaban Prison ever loses control. Don't tell me you actually want a head-on collision with the Superhero Roundtable Council?]

[Giovanni: Fair point.]

After sending the message, Ke Mingqing tilted his head. 'Even if we don't want a conflict with the Roundtable, there will definitely be others who do on that day,' he thought.

'Like the players preparing to breach the prison, the anti-hero Zorro, and my big brother, Bird Judge.'

At this thought, the faces of Xia Lingxue and Xia Ningzhi flashed through his mind. His eyes suddenly dimmed.

"Of course, there's also Third Sister and Second Sister..." he murmured. "If my plan goes smoothly, I should be able to guide their targets toward the Roundtable's two mythic vessels."