Chapter 18: Xia Zili's Question, the Witch's Shadow

Leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window of his bedroom, Ke Mingqing sat down.

Outside, streetlamps flickered in the night, and a brightly lit high-speed train sped across a distant overpass.

The young man hung his head. Holding a sketchbook with his left hand, he used a ballpoint pen in his right to doodle a set of Heroic Battle Armor.

First, paying solemn tribute to Horror Crowman, he designed a bird-shaped helmet with a matching beak mask. He thought, "A family should match, after all."

Next, he set the main color of the armor to blue, his favorite color. And the final, most crucial step:

He opened his chat list, tapped on Heimu Tong's name, and sent a message.

[Ke Mingqing: By the way, since your family is so powerful and influential, can you get someone to help me make a Superhero Heroic Battle Suit? With so many Superheroes in this world, there should be plenty of private artisans who specialize in forging Heroic Battle Suits, right?]

He added in his mind, "It doesn't matter if it's a bit crude, as long as it has a basic humanoid shape. Once I join Hero Company, someone will help me upgrade my battle suit anyway."

[Heimu Tong: I can, but what do you need this for?]

[Ke Mingqing: Don't ask for now. I'll tell you later.]

[Heimu Tong: Then how about you come to my house tomorrow and give me the design blueprints for the suit?]

[Ke Mingqing: Deal.]

[Heimu Tong: By the way, Little Red Riding Hood just told me that one of her classmates is also coming to our house tomorrow to hang out.]

[Ke Mingqing: Not a big problem. We can just avoid them when we talk.]

A few minutes earlier, in another corner of the Old Jingmai District.

Magical Girl Embers closed her umbrella. Her body descended slowly, her feet touching down lightly on the railing of an abandoned school building.

She leaped down from the railing, landing in the empty corridor. Moonlight spilled through the windows onto the young girl's pale face as she walked forward step by step.

By the time she entered the classroom from earlier, the candles were still glowing, but Xizi Yue had already left. In her place, another figure leaned against the wall, waiting.

Embers looked up. A blonde, blue-eyed girl caught her eye. She wore a Christmas dress, and a red hairpiece shaped like a Christmas present was tied atop her head.

Magical Girl Little Red Riding Hood. She was Xia Zili's teammate, but they hadn't carried out a mission together in quite some time, and their relationship had grown distant lately.

Little Red Riding Hood turned her head, quietly watching her, and spoke in a low voice.

"Senior, Miss Xizi Yue has already left. She said you should get some good rest and that she won't assign you any missions for the next few days. She also warned you to behave and stop causing trouble." She paused. "What happened with you at Li Jing Square earlier has already spread all over the internet."

"I know," the Gothic Dress Girl replied carelessly. Suddenly, a hazy cocoon of light enveloped her body. When the light shattered, she had transformed into an ordinary girl with only slightly above-average looks, and the umbrella in her hand had vanished.

Xia Zili hesitated for a moment before looking up at Little Red Riding Hood. "By the way... how about I drop by your house in a couple of days?"

Little Red Riding Hood thought for a moment. "It's best if you don't come to my house, Senior."

"Why not?"

"People are divided into the high and the low. A girl like you, Senior, who grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth, has a very different background from a girl like me who grew up eating garbage," Little Red Riding Hood said rapidly, lowering her head. "I'll feel inferior."

She wore no expression on her face as she spoke, and her tone didn't fluctuate in the slightest.

"Didn't you say before that you were working as a maid for a wealthy family?" Xia Zili gazed out at the night through the window. "I just wanted to see if they were treating you well."

"Thank you for your concern, Senior." Little Red Riding Hood raised her head. "But for a country girl like me who grew up eating garbage, just having a bite to eat is enough to leave me fully satisfied."

She quickly returned to her emotionless state, the gloom fading from her face. "Besides, I haven't been mistreated. Miss Heimu treats me very well."

Xia Zili crossed her arms over her chest and pondered for a moment before speaking. "Then can't I just visit as a friend to hang out for a bit? Don't see me as a Magical Girl, and don't see me as your senior—just as an ordinary friend."

Little Red Riding Hood fell silent for a long moment before nodding.

"Alright then... but I was just chatting with Miss Heimu on my phone. The eldest miss told me that a guest might be coming over tomorrow and that I need to prepare properly after school."

"Who?"

"She's a classmate of Miss Heimu. He's the same age as us and goes to the same school," Little Red Riding Hood said, her tone suddenly turning cold. "I heard a rumor around school that he might be Miss Heimu's boyfriend. For the sake of Miss Heimu's safety, I must observe him closely," she added, lowering her voice.

Xia Zili blanked for a moment. "What a mess. I really don't understand you Sakura girls... Anyway, I'm just going to visit your house. The rest has nothing to do with me."

"True." Little Red Riding Hood nodded.

At that moment, a light snow suddenly began to fall from the sky behind her. Then, the crisp chiming of bells echoed as two reindeer, adorned with bells, galloped through the wind and snow, pulling a blood-red sled from the night sky.

"Christmas Sled." That was the name of Little Red Riding Hood's Magical Weapon.

A Magical Girl's Magical Weapon was typically a "Magic Wand"—monotonous and uniform, at most differing in color. But Little Red Riding Hood's "Christmas Sled" and Xia Zili's "Cinderella" were different. Both were categorized as "Mutant-Type Magical Weapons," which was one of the signs of extraordinary talent.

Hugging her knees, Little Red Riding Hood gave a light hop, passing through the broken window and landing inside the floating sled. She turned her head, glancing at Xia Zili's profile.

"I'm heading home first, Senior."

"Go ahead."

Xia Zili nodded gently, keeping her arms crossed. The air in the classroom felt a bit cold.

"Hyah!"

At Little Red Riding Hood's command, the two reindeer immediately pulled the crimson sled off into the distance. The out-of-place summer snowfall vanished along with the fading bells, and the surroundings noticeably warmed up.

Xia Zili didn't linger either. She slowly walked out of the school building alone, leaving the abandoned primary school behind.

The bus stop was completely empty. She got on the final bus of the night.

Inside the carriage, she turned her head and silently stared at her face reflected in the windowpane. Ever since she killed someone for the first time, she frequently saw a black shadow smiling at her in reflections.

The shadow had red eyes and a red mouth. It looked like a stick-figure drawing of a little girl.

Xia Zili hadn't told anyone about this, because she knew this could be a sign of Witchification. Becoming a Witch meant losing her fundamental nature and becoming a complete lunatic... Therefore, Witches were despised beings. Once someone became a Witch, everyone had the right to execute them. Any Magical Girl in the company—including Little Red Riding Hood and Xizi Yue—would come to hunt her down.

She didn't want to die. Even less did she want to die all alone.

The bus arrived at the station. Xia Zili was the only passenger on board, and the last one to leave. She stepped off the bus but didn't immediately go home. Instead, she wandered around the brightly lit night market for a while and bought a skewer of candied hawthorn.

After paying and putting the candied hawthorn into a paper bag, she finally walked home step by step. She wanted to get home quickly, yet she also wanted to walk a little slower.

But no matter how much she slowed her pace, she eventually arrived home. Xia Zili used her key to open the door, kicked off her sandals, and climbed barefoot up to the second floor, stopping in front of Ke Mingqing's bedroom door.

After a moment of silence, just as she raised her hand to knock gently, someone opened the door from the other side. Xia Zili froze for a second, then raised her head to look at Ke Mingqing's face.

"What's up?" he asked.

Under the moonlight, Xia Zili quietly stared at him. He looked perfectly fine, his expression calm. He didn't look anything like that crazy, bizarre puppet atop the Li Jing Iron Tower from earlier. "That makes sense," she thought. "How could it be him? Is my brain broken?"

"What are you doing just standing there like an idiot?" Ke Mingqing asked. "Did you take the wrong meds tonight?"

"This... is for you." With a punching motion, Xia Zili shoved the paper bag containing the candied hawthorn against Ke Mingqing's chest. "I bought it while I was out."

Ke Mingqing caught the bag. "Did you have to use so much force?"

"By the way, let me ask you something," Xia Zili said suddenly.

"What?"

"If I were to get a mental illness one day and become a completely different person—someone you didn't recognize at all..." Xia Zili trailed off, catching a glimpse of the mirror in the hallway out of the corner of her eye.

The black shadow in the mirror stretched its mouth wide, flashing her a mocking smile.

Staring at the black shadow, she remained silent for a long time before asking softly, "When that happens, will you still treat me as family?"

Ke Mingqing looked up, gazing into her eyes with a weirded-out expression, while she silently kept her eyes fixed on the distant mirror.

"For the sake of this skewer of candied hawthorn, I suppose I could reluctantly treat you as family," he said nonchalantly. "I won't send you to a mental asylum. I'll just keep you at home and feed you. When you finally recover one day, you'll find that you've turned into a giant fatty."

As he spoke, he reached out and patted the top of her head. Her soft hair flowed through his fingers like water.

"Why are you touching my head?" she asked in a low voice a moment later.

"There was sugar residue from the candied hawthorn stuck on my hand, and you haven't showered yet anyway," Ke Mingqing said plainly.

Xia Zili looked up and flipped him the middle finger. Ke Mingqing simply pushed her finger back down while chewing on a candied hawthorn, then closed his bedroom door.

Before shutting the door entirely, he deliberately slapped a sticker on the outside. The sticker read: "No pigs or Xia Zili allowed." However, judging from the pen marks, it was obvious he had originally wanted to write "dogs," but deciding that was too mean, he crossed it out and changed it to "pigs."

Xia Zili didn't even have the energy to frown. She just stared at the little pig drawn on the door, both annoyed and amused, deciding not to bicker with him over it.

The hallway was quiet. The young girl leaned against the wall, standing all alone, her solitary figure bathed in the moonlight. She raised her hand slightly, gently touching the strands of hair that Ke Mingqing had just stroked.

"There's no sugar residue here at all," she thought.

After washing up and changing into her nightgown, she lay in bed, quietly staring blankly at the ceiling.

Just then, with a DING, a WeChat message arrived on her phone. Xia Zili picked it up and took a look.

[Ke Mingqing: By the way, did you check Weibo tonight? Our idol's public image has turned around.]