The other two are uncertain, but Xia Yuanhua is a retired hero.
She hasn’t transformed in the past three years.
The blue-themed magical girl I ran into before might have looked completely unhinged, but she was still fighting magical beasts.
So how come when it comes to Qi Qiancao, she’s using magic on ordinary people?
Are you magical girls some kind of naturally evil Uchiha clan or something?
Although Fang Wei has also heard that in other cities there are official organizations like the Magic Control Bureau, and under them they have civil-servant magical girls who specialize in mental abilities.
And when ordinary people discover the existence of magical girls and magical beasts, there are specially designated magical weapons used to erase their memories.
But those kinds of mental or memory-type magical weapons are, under normal circumstances, strictly controlled and can only be used under official authorization.
Even though Nantong City doesn’t have an official organization, that doesn’t mean Qi Qiancao can just do whatever she wants.
While Fang Wei was still in shock, the culprit herself had already come running back.
Qi Qiancao grabbed Fang Wei as usual, wrapped her arms proudly around his neck, and demanded praise for a good while.
Fang Wei could only respond mechanically with a couple of compliments, then was dragged out of the crowd under a bunch of unfriendly stares.
The two of them sat on the bleachers of the sports field.
Qi Qiancao’s cheeks were flushed red, sweat stuck to the tips of her hair.
She took small sips of salted soda, unzipped her tracksuit jacket a little, and the heat from her intense exercise immediately wafted out from the full curve of her chest.
The unique fragrance of a youthful girl mixed with the scent of sweat wasn’t unpleasant at all—in fact, it made Fang Wei feel a little intoxicated.
With that scent hooking his nose, his gaze unconsciously drifted to the white fabric bulging prominently inside the unzipped tracksuit.
Fang Wei silently recited “see no evil” and forced his eyes away.
Qi Qiancao held the salted soda bottle in both hands, curled up her body, and said in a soft, coquettish voice:
“Do I smell bad right now?”
“No, actually… it smells pretty nice,” Fang Wei answered honestly.
But that sentence seemed to act like permission.
Qi Qiancao’s eyebrows curved downward, and with a weird grin she leaned straight into his arms.
Her finger poked his chest while the other hand offered him the soda bottle.
“Then does boyfriend want a sip too?”
“No thanks, I’m not thirsty.”
It wasn’t that he wasn’t thirsty—being around this girl who constantly made his hormones surge, it would be a lie to say his mouth didn’t feel dry.
But Fang Wei still felt he wasn’t at the level of indirectly kissing Qi Qiancao yet.
He glanced at the faint lip mark on the bottle rim and quickly twisted the cap back on.
Then he changed the subject.
Some things had to be clarified—this wasn’t just about the bottom line of magical girls; it also concerned his own safety.
“By the way, Xiao Cao, didn’t you message me earlier saying someone confessed to you?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t accept him, and I didn’t even reply.”
Qi Qiancao lifted her little nose like she was showing off, blinking her eyes.
Fang Wei chose his words carefully.
“Then… when you said ‘he’ll never bother us again,’ what exactly did you mean?”
“What do you mean ‘what did I mean’? It means exactly what it sounds like.”
She looked completely innocent.
“I just made him stay away from us, that’s all.”
“So you used magic on him?”
“Could it be… boyfriend doesn’t like it?”
She immediately denied it herself, but she didn’t sound very confident.
The eyes that always sparkled when looking at Fang Wei were now covered with a layer of panic.
Before Fang Wei could speak, Qi Qiancao suddenly grabbed his hand.
“Or is it that boyfriend hates that I came into contact with another guy? Do you think I cheated? I didn’t cheat—I didn’t even glance at him extra—I didn’t…”
Her eyes quickly filled with tears, brimming with extreme grievance.
Who knows what kind of chaotic things she was imagining; her whole body radiated fear and insecurity.
Fang Wei hadn’t expected a casual question to trigger such a huge reaction.
He hurriedly explained:
“Boyfriend isn’t doubting Xiao Cao. Boyfriend just wants to know what Xiao Cao did for me, that’s all.”
He had never used such a gentle tone in his life—he even changed how he referred to himself, coaxing her like he was comforting a kindergarten kid.
But this time, Qi Qiancao didn’t lean in.
Instead, she suddenly slapped her own face—loud and crisp—turning her fair cheek bright red.
“I’m sorry, boyfriend… I shouldn’t have come into contact with other men… I must be disgusting… so disgusting… no wonder no one likes me… are you going to stop liking me too… are you going to abandon me…”
After several heavy, resounding slaps, her small face was already flushed with blood-red marks, and then—like a stress response—she began to tremble.
The scene terrified Fang Wei so much he barely dared breathe.
He could only tightly grab her wrist and pull her into his arms.
He didn’t know exactly what was going through Qi Qiancao’s mind, but one thing was certain: this girl was showing serious self-destructive tendencies right now.
And under such extreme emotion, using mind-reading would be meaningless.
He could only hold her tightly, but that alone wasn’t enough to calm everything.
So Fang Wei whispered “it’s okay” into her ear while taking her hand and placing it against his own face.
“Boyfriend won’t blame Xiao Cao, because I know Xiao Cao did it all for me. So Xiao Cao shouldn’t blame herself either, okay? Otherwise boyfriend will feel heartbroken.”
“R-really?” Qi Qiancao gasped for air, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
Fang Wei steeled himself, wiped the tear-streaked face, and planted the lightest possible kiss on her forehead.
When her full face came back into view, her eyes were trembling, and the aggrieved corners of her mouth shook violently.
Qi Qiancao showed a strange smile.
She was still sobbing, but it seemed all the previous pain had been swept away.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I won’t do it again… our love doesn’t need anyone else, right… If boyfriend doesn’t like it, then I’ll make them all disappear…”
That last sentence made Fang Wei’s heart skip a beat.
From the very beginning, he shouldn’t have tried to deal with Qi Qiancao using normal-person logic.
He was thinking “how can a magical girl use magic on ordinary people,” while Qi Qiancao was terrified that her actions might taint the purity of their love.
By her standard of chastity, every female lead in every drama and novel would have to be drowned in a pig cage; even accepting takeout from a delivery guy would require immediate suicide to atone.
Why was she so hypersensitive?
“No need to apologize. Xiao Cao was just concerned about me. I only asked earlier because I was curious about what magic Xiao Cao used. Boyfriend knows Xiao Cao is a good girl.”
Fang Wei tried his best to shift the topic and pull Qi Qiancao out of her “self-blame” spiral.
He had already noticed from last time that Qi Qiancao had extremely intense tendencies and was a master at fabricating romance in her head.
What he hadn’t expected was that a single casual question would make her suddenly break down.
It was as if a tiny stain had appeared on the pure white paper of the “love” she fantasized about, and as someone with severe OCD, she immediately felt the whole world collapsing.
Qi Qiancao guarded her delusions with extreme, paranoid obsession.
Fortunately, under his comfort, her emotions gradually stabilized.
Perhaps due to avoidance coping, the self-blame in her eyes turned to confusion, then finally to vacant dissociation.
After a long while, she finally picked up where he left off.
“My magic…”
Qi Qiancao’s unfocused pupils slowly sharpened again.
She choked out:
“It’s [Dream]. I just used a dream to make that boy never come near us again… so I did it all for our love. Boyfriend, I’m not wrong, right?”
Like a drowning person clutching a lifeline, Qi Qiancao kept repeating “I’m not wrong.”
Clearly, her self-escape mechanism had worked perfectly.
“Yeah, yeah, how could Xiao Cao be wrong?”
Fang Wei echoed along, while inwardly wondering: what exactly is this [Dream] ability?
From the description it didn’t sound like mental interference.
Could it be something like Huozige’s “imagination becomes reality” kind of power?
If so, it would actually fit Qi Qiancao’s delusional tendencies perfectly.
But that would be way too broken.
If she had such an outrageous ability, there’s no way the [Kaxiu] organization wouldn’t have notified him.
He carefully observed her.
Just now, the corruption value above Qi Qiancao’s head had actually spiked to around 80%, but now it had dropped back to 65% and was still declining.
He had just breathed a sigh of relief when Qi Qiancao suddenly became excited again:
“If boyfriend doesn’t like it, then I won’t use magic anymore!”
“As long as you don’t use it on other people anymore.”
Fang Wei thought to himself: if you don’t use magic, how are you still a magical girl? After confirming she had temporarily calmed down, he probed:
“By the way, magical girls’ powers are usually tied to their wishes, right? What wish did Xiao Cao make?”
“My wish?”
Qi Qiancao cupped Fang Wei’s face, gently stroking it like she was touching the most precious treasure in the world.
“Because I wished for happiness… that’s why you came, boyfriend. I knew I would definitely meet you… my love…”
She smiled foolishly, lips parting as she unhesitatingly moved toward Fang Wei’s mouth.
But Fang Wei reacted faster—he wrapped his arms around her, burying her completely against his chest while hiding his own head beside her ear.
At the same time, his fingers brushed through her ponytail, slipping off the hair tie.
Her long hair immediately fell, blocking his line of sight.
It wasn’t that he was trying to be romantic.
It was because he had just spotted Xia Yuanhua in the distance… walking together with the other teachers.