A torrential downpour fell over North Blossom City.
Although it was still early and night had not yet fallen, the continuous threads of rain and thick clouds turned the streets gray.
Visibility was extremely low, as if a gloomy veil had been draped over the entire city.
The Silverflame Dragon Princess sprinted through the empty streets.
The rain struck her heavy sword, which was wreathed in flames, creating a hissing sound.
This atmosphere, combined with Silver Bell’s outfit, created an inexplicable sense of pressure.
She looked like a completely different person compared to the timid little girl who had eaten dinner at Xiaoxi’s house two days ago.
Silver Bell was on duty today. It just so happened that there was an abnormal Magic Power reaction in the nearby streets, suggesting that a monster had appeared.
She was currently rushing to provide support.
Back when Wange Yue was around, Discipline would suppress the Magic Power reactions of the entire city.
As a result, monsters formed from concentrated Magic Power were almost never born in North Blossom City. However, things were different now.
Perhaps because Wange Yue’s death had caused panic among the people and increased negative emotions, monster attacks in the city had become more frequent lately.
Fortunately, the Association had deployed many Magic Girls to North Blossom City as reinforcements in advance.
Just as she was about to reach the source of the abnormal Magic Power detected by the Monitoring Division, a sharp, panicked scream tore through the curtain of rain.
‘This is bad. Could someone have already been attacked by a monster?’
Silver Bell frowned slightly and subconsciously accelerated. Like a heavy truck, she struggled to brake and turned into a side alley, raising the heavy sword in her hand—
The expected monster did not appear. Before Silver Bell stood only a young woman, soaked to the bone and dressed in an OL uniform.
A broken umbrella lay to the side. The woman seemed terrified, slumped on the ground amidst the falling rain.
“Are you okay? Has the monster been dealt with?”
Silver Bell quickly helped her up. Wisps of black Magic Power were dissipating near the umbrella, leaving only a single Monster Seed lying in a puddle.
Even though the crisis seemed averted and the passerby was uninjured, Silver Bell remained vigilant, scanning the surroundings.
Even if someone had beaten her to the monster, they shouldn’t have disappeared so quickly that the Magic Power hadn’t fully dissipated yet.
Yet, there truly was no third person under the curtain of rain.
As her gaze swept toward the end of the alley, Silver Bell saw a flash of platinum light, like starlight, vanish in an instant.
Although visibility was low under the heavy rain, Silver Bell was certain she hadn’t been mistaken.
“A-A Xing?”
Silver Bell spoke hesitantly, but the only response was the patter of the rain.
The woman beside her seemed too shaken to say anything for the time being. It was better to wait until they returned to the Association.
After contacting the Association, Silver Bell looked at the trembling girl beside her.
After a moment of thought, she raised the heavy sword with one hand and held it over the woman’s head.
The thick blade acted as a shield against the torrential rain.
……
Outside the window, the heavy rain continued without pause.
Walking out of the bathroom, Xiaoxi rubbed her hair with a towel and let out a long sigh.
She then grabbed her soaked clothes and tossed them into the laundry basket.
“Xinglan, help me find some clean clothes, okay? Honestly, if I’d known, I would have taken an umbrella before heading out today.”
Ye Xinglan approached with the new undergarments they had bought last time. She leaned in toward Xiaoxi like a dormouse, sniffing her.
“Baby, you smell so good~”
“Go away, don’t bother me. I have to go wash the dishes and the laundry in a bit. If I don’t wash these soaked clothes today, they’ll start to smell tomorrow.”
“I’ll help you with the laundry. As for the dishes from dinner, I already washed them while you were heading out just now.”
Xiaoxi looked Ye Xinglan up and down with some surprise, as if she were seeing her for the first time.
“What! What’s with that look? Do you really think I’m that lazy? Besides, the dishwasher is doing the work anyway; it’s not like I’m putting in any effort.”
Although she had lectured the little rich girl when Ye Xinglan secretly bought the dishwasher, Xiaoxi had to admit it was indeed very convenient.
“Fine. Then I’m going to blow-dry my hair first.”
After finally drying and smoothing out her long hair, Xiaoxi sighed helplessly.
Her hair had grown quite a bit during this period. She really wanted to cut it into a more convenient short style, but the little rich girl refused every time.
Her reason was that Xiaoxi looked cuter with long hair, and she liked to wind Xiaoxi’s hair around her fingers every night before sleep.
However… Xiaoxi subconsciously studied the girl in the mirror. Her cute image was already worlds apart from her memory of being a boy. Sigh…
When she returned to the bedroom, Xiaoxi was surprised to find that the little rich girl, who had been in a good mood just moments ago, was now shouting at her phone in a fit of rage.
“Da! Tian! Xin! I’m going to kill you, you little brat!”
Xiaoxi curiously leaned in, only to find that Ye Xinglan was reading the webnovel that Silver Bell had recommended earlier.
An expression resembling the “old man on a subway looking at his phone” meme immediately twisted onto Xiaoxi’s face.
“How are you actually reading that thing?”
“It’s not like I wanted to read it. I was just curious about what that jerk Da Tianxin wrote… I shouldn’t have looked!”
Ye Xinglan angrily pulled up her chat log with Da Tianxin and handed it over. At a glance, Xiaoxi saw several messages from Da Tianxin.
“My bad, Sister. I was wrong, I was wrong. I really know I was wrong now.”
“I just wanted to try and produce some content for my ship. After all, there are very few fanfictions for Eternal Star and the Blood Moon Witch. I just wrote it for fun.”
“But you know I don’t have much literary talent, so I could only take inspiration from reality. I didn’t mean to plagiarize your and Xiaoxi’s experiences…”
“Don’t be mad, Sister. How about I carry you in a game to make it up to you?”
Xiaoxi: “…”
“Look, Xiaoxi! This girl is too much! It’s bad enough she’s spreading rumors by writing this kind of thing, but she’s even using our experiences as the plot!”
Xiaoxi couldn’t even manage to comfort her little girlfriend for a moment—she was struggling very hard to hold back her laughter.
‘You could say Sweet Xin’s ship is incredibly cursed, but how did she manage to get all the details wrong yet somehow arrive at the correct result?’
Just then, Sweet Xin sent another new message.
“Right, Xinglan, speaking of that time you called me, I’m actually going to North Blossom City to play for a couple of days~”
“I’ve arranged to meet a netizen. Plus, I might even run into Eternal Star in North Blossom City these next two days! You should know about this, right?”
“There’s been a lot of news on the internet lately about sightings of Eternal Star in North Blossom City! She appears every time there’s a monster or creature attack. She feels like some kind of superhero~”
“Why do you think she suddenly ran off to North Blossom City? Is it to be a vigilante?”
Watching Ye Xinglan curl her lip and reply with, “That girl just loves to show off,” Xiaoxi inconspicuously averted her gaze.