“Come on, next round.”
Wenyaquan started stewing the meat in the pot, then pulled out a set of Xiangqi from the cabinet.
Probably influenced by the director from her childhood, she really liked playing Xiangqi. Among the Magical Girls, besides herself, the only other one interested in it was Jiang Lingwei, who was actually a boy.
The two of them used to enjoy playing chess and chatting together.
Of course, regarding the fact that Jiang Lingwei’s true identity was a boy, only the Old Man, Captain Beifeng, and a couple of others knew—Wenyaquan was not among them.
She just had the feeling that Jiang Lingwei surprisingly understood a lot of boyish things.
—Even though normally quite soft and gentle.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take Yunxia’s Magical Equipment with you?”
Sitting across from Jiang Lingwei, Wenyaquan leaned forward and asked again.
“I’m not taking it. The incantations are all imprinted; just keep it here for safekeeping.”
Jiang Lingwei shook her head:
“I’m much more at ease now. At least Yunxia is still alive. I guess she left with Ming. With the Extinction Existence, she’ll be able to find Ming.”
“Ah?!”
“Clatter.”
Wenyaquan was so shocked she lost her grip, scattering the chess pieces all over the floor.
“Ah, what?”
Helping her pick up and arrange the pieces, Jiang Lingwei shrugged: “Did you think she was dead?”
“Isn’t she?!”
“Use your brain, use your brain.”
Pointing both fingers at her own head, Jiang Lingwei struck the classic ‘all-knowing’ pose: “Think about it. If a Magical Girl dies, can her Magical Equipment still exist?”
“No, it can’t, right?”
“Of course not. The Magical Equipment still existing means she’s at least alive.”
“Poof.”
Wenyaquan immediately stood up and started reaching for her bag: “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go find her!”
“Sit down—”
Grabbing her shoulder, Jiang Lingwei forced her back into the chair and quickly said, “Can you not act impulsively? Weren’t you supposed to be the calm researcher?”
“I can’t stay calm. I truly thought she was dead! And now you tell me she’s alive?! Where is she?”
“Don’t rush. You didn’t find her back then, and it’s the same now.”
Perhaps because she had experienced too many memory-erasing spells and possessed some aptitude herself, Wenyaquan’s personality was also affected by magic.
Simply put, she had no Magical Girl powers, but had caught Magical Girl’s mental illness.
Otherwise, Jiang Lingwei wouldn’t have been unphased upon learning that Wenyaquan had buried explosives all over the street.
At this moment, though Jiang Lingwei was also excited, she felt even calmer inside.
From Wenyaquan’s third-person perspective, she now had a clearer recognition of the existence of her comrades and herself.
Fully confirming that this world was truly her own, and she was just unconscious—not someone who had traveled to another world—was undoubtedly good news.
—If only one could overlook the whole ‘having kids’ part.
“We were completely mistaken back then.”
Jiang Lingwei moved a chess piece:
“From the looks of it, that’s a Magical Domain.”
Many magical beasts and demons would unfold such domains, devouring life within and suppressing the powers of any Magical Girl who entered.
Moreover, due to their special nature and concealment, ordinary people often had no time to react. They only realized something was wrong after they had entered and been harmed.
Even the Fairies’ perception of dark magic was often unable to detect these hidden nuisances in time.
At the same time, these domains could create battlefields advantageous to themselves, causing Jiang Lingwei and the others much trouble.
“A Magical Domain? I thought so too, but that time the coverage area was too large, making it hard to believe.”
“What if the space-time rift that brought the Old Man over itself created the Magical Domain?”
“Eh?”
Wenyaquan stared at Jiang Lingwei: “What are you saying? That can’t be. That was just a point in our dimension.”
“No, it’s not like that. What we saw was a Dark Gate, not the rift to an unknown space as we originally thought.”
Jiang Lingwei captured one of Wenyaquan’s pieces: “That existence is more than just a ‘gate.’ We were all wrong.”
“What happened after that?”
Wenyaquan pushed a pawn forward, her thoughts drifting back to that helpless day staring at the snowy screen: “Your signal disappeared quickly. I kept trying to reconnect, but to no avail.”
“…..”
“We managed to break into the core.”
Jiang Lingwei thought for a long while before answering: “I overexerted my magic and passed out. I don’t know what happened afterward.”
For her, this had all happened just a few days ago.
Closing her eyes, she could immediately see the scenes—watching her comrades advance, hearing their shouts, dodging enemy attacks, healing partners, guiding power, amplifying attacks…
“Sigh.”
Wenyaquan sighed as well: “It’s not your fault; this was part of our plan.”
The Magical Girl Aurora’s magic was the purest form of light. She could assist any partner, amplifying their power.
At the same time, her offensive capabilities were hardly inferior to others.
But that time, they had a battle plan.
Jiang Lingwei was to fully hold up a barrier of light magic, delivering the others as intact as possible to the front of the Great Rift.
Only Aurora could do this. Jiang Lingwei herself and everyone else had prepared to protect her, the core.
Something must have happened afterward, something the unconscious Jiang Lingwei was completely unaware of.
What a pity—the brilliant Aurora was still too brief. If only it had lasted longer, maybe they could have truly ended this eternal night.
The two fell silent for a moment; the only sounds inside were the moving chess pieces and the gas stove’s flame.
“Haha, that was such a long time ago.”
Wenyaquan suddenly laughed.
She sighed, then said: “Seeing you, I realize I’m already old.”
“Magical Girls… are really something. You still look like you’re in your twenties, and here I am, a forty-year-old auntie. Where have you been all these years? How have you been?”
“Don’t talk about me first.”
Jiang Lingwei had no such ‘all these years’ to speak of.
Ignoring the small pawn beside her, she moved her chariot forward and launched an attack, then said:
“How about you? I heard you even have kids now?”
Speaking of which, the gloom in Jiang Lingwei’s heart lifted considerably. She smiled: “Honestly, I never thought you’d find a husband and settle down. Your husband must be amazing to have tamed someone like you.”
“What are you saying!”
Wenyaquan glared and pouted: “He’s very refined, thank you very much~”
“So how is he? How did he let you out to open a shop?”
“Hehe.”
Mentioning her husband, Wenyaquan actually revealed a bit of girlish shyness:
“He’s someone I met after a year of depression when I was about to continue my research. Now he works at a research institute and is way busier than me.”
“Before I gave up completely, I tried every method. When I was sure the Magical Domain in the city center was beyond my ability to resolve, I left Songji City.”
“I wanted to escape, to leave. But I knew I couldn’t run away. I had a responsibility to bring you all back—whether as comrades, grateful survivors saved many times, or the last person in the world who understood what Magical Girls were.”
“But what good was staying? I had no magic in my body, couldn’t draw incantations, couldn’t cast spells—completely useless.”
“So I left. At that time, I wanted to keep studying, to see how far human technology had come and whether it could break through magic. I was prepared to be alone for life to find you.”
“Then I met him, and somehow, he confessed. I agreed, we married, had a daughter… After that, the place became a forbidden zone, and I couldn’t go back.”
Shyly glossing over her love story, Wenyaquan proudly said of her daughter: “My daughter is truly the brainchild of me and Old Lin. She always scores second in her class, or sometimes tied for first. Pretty impressive, right? You once said your grades were good but only second or third.”
“The kid’s good.”
Jiang Lingwei nodded approvingly: “But inheriting your intelligence—is that really alright? I think the father’s genes might have helped more.”
“What are you saying!” Wenyaquan pouted, banging a chess piece: “Checkmate!”
“Eh?”
Jiang Lingwei looked down and realized she had just been checkmated, thanks to the small pawn she hadn’t taken seriously.
“Hmph, you haven’t improved much over the years… Too weak, too weak. The power of my Dark Flame Dragon is the strongest~”
“Didn’t expect to be crushed by a mere pawn.”
Jiang Lingwei shook her head. She used to be better at chess than Wenyaquan, but that ‘used to be’ clearly wasn’t on the same level for both of them now.
Leaning forward, Wenyaquan stuck a note on Jiang Lingwei’s face:
“This is called, a pawn crossing the river can equal half a chariot. You were too careless… No, you almost let me slip past. Spill it—where have you been all these years?”
“To be honest, I wish I knew.”
Jiang Lingwei tidied the board and helplessly told Wenyaquan everything that had happened recently, including waking up to find she had a daughter.
“…Ah…”
Wenyaquan was stunned for a full ten seconds after hearing the story. The situation was far beyond anything she had imagined.
After a long pause, she furrowed her brows and asked:
“So… did you find that man?”
“No idea… Probably abandoned the two of us.”
“Poof!”
“What are you doing? Hey! Where are you going?”
“Damn it! Let go of me! Let go! I’m going to buy explosives! I’m going to blow that bastard up! How dare he do this to our little Aurora?! Does his entire clan sell wholesale?! I—”
“Don’t be impulsive! I’ll handle it myself! Besides, we haven’t even found him! Who are you going to blow up?!”
“You’re too soft-hearted! Let me blow up this city first! If not this city, then the next!”
“You’re too extreme!”