Boom!
Under the quiet night sky, a fully loaded oil tanker crashed into the residential wall across the road, causing a severe rollover.
Glass shards and metal fragments scattered everywhere.
Sparks from the collision ignited the fuel leaking from the tanker, sending thick black smoke billowing into the air.
“Xiao Yao, there’s a surveillance camera near here pointing at the residential entrance. I’ll go take care of it.”
Tang Xiaolu leaped from the top of the wall onto the road and immediately summoned her magic staff.
“Leave the rescue to you.”
With that, without waiting for my answer, she summoned black chess pieces one after another in the air in front of her.
Her small figure stepped onto them, and like a martial arts master “riding a sword” from a wuxia novel, she flew straight toward the distant surveillance camera.
“Okay.”
Even though I didn’t know exactly what to do, I relied on my agile Magical Girl body and used an Explosive Step to run toward the direction of the overturned oil tanker.
“Clack clack clack…”
On the wide road, the round-toe boots under my feet struck the hard pavement like galloping hooves, moving so fast that afterimages appeared.
Soon, I arrived near the front of the oil tanker.
“What happened? Something exploded?”
“That was a loud noise. Did you hear it too?”
Maybe the sound of the tanker hitting the wall woke them up.
Suddenly, from both the residential area ahead and the youth apartment behind, the sounds of fluorescent lights clicking on and the complaints of residents began to spread one after another.
I didn’t have time to check the fire; I circled around to the front of the vehicle.
“Do you need help?”
Since the tanker had rolled over on its left side, I could only first reach the cab and call out through the broken windshield.
“Hello?”
No response.
Through the windshield, I could see a middle-aged woman lying in the driver’s seat, her face covered in blood.
Her eyes were tightly shut, sitting motionless in her seat.
‘Is she unconscious?’
I hesitated for a moment, then summoned my Magical Girl exclusive weapon—the crossbow gun—and aimed at the few intact pieces of glass in front of the cab, pulling the trigger.
Clang!
The magic crossbow bolt easily shattered the glass, clearing a space small enough for a child to squeeze through.
Putting away my weapon, I reached through the window toward the middle-aged woman, grabbing her clothes and trying to pull her out.
She didn’t budge.
“What’s the situation?”
At that moment, Tang Xiaolu, who had finished dealing with the camera, rushed back.
“She seems to be stuck.”
I said anxiously, “I can’t pull her out.”
At the same time, as the flames at the bottom of the tanker grew fiercer, more and more thick smoke spread, making it hard for me to keep my eyes open.
“No! At this rate, it’s going to explode!”
Tang Xiaolu quickly assessed the situation with the middle-aged woman in the cab and pointed toward the residential area across the street.
“Leave this to me. Xiao Yao, go find a fire extinguisher. I remember there are some on the second and third floors of that building. We need at least two. Hurry!”
“Okay!”
Without any hesitation, I turned and ran toward the residential area across the street.
Maybe as Tang Xiaolu said, I’m the “Assassin” type of Magical Girl, extremely agile.
Almost the moment the thought ‘I need to find a fire extinguisher quickly’ crossed my mind, my speeding body had already reached the entrance of the first floor of the building.
Seeing the locked entrance on the first floor, my eyes fell on a nearby drainage pipe.
With a jump, I easily landed on the small protruding edge of the pipe, then leaped again to the second floor of the building.
“What’s burning? There’s so much smoke…”
“Oh my god, is there a fire somewhere?”
Apparently the thick smoke from the tanker had drifted over and irritated them.
Amid the sounds of locks clicking open, lights in rooms along the hallway kept turning on.
I ran quickly along the edge of the second-floor corridor.
My skirt kept fluttering up and down in the night breeze, sending a cool sensation against my inner thighs.
Soon, I found the fire extinguisher box there and pulled out a dry powder extinguisher.
Using the same method, I jumped to the third floor and found another extinguisher, then landed back on the ground.
Avoiding the residents who were emerging from their rooms due to the smoke, I carried the extinguishers back to the front of the oil tanker.
“Hurry! Put out the fire; it’s going to explode!”
By then, Tang Xiaolu had somehow managed to tear open the cab and was pulling the middle-aged woman out.
She gestured with her eyes toward the thick smoke at the center of the tanker.
“Aim at the source of the fire and spray! This tanker rolled over way too close to the residential area. If it explodes, the consequences will be unthinkable!”
I fumbled to pull the safety pin off the extinguisher, ran to the fire source Tang Xiaolu had indicated, and sprayed.
Pssssss—
After dragging the woman out of the cab, Tang Xiaolu came over too and grabbed the other extinguisher—
Pssssss—
The two dry powder extinguishers spewed a large amount of white dust.
It took a while, but they managed to suppress the flames.
“That should be enough. I can sense quite a few people running this way. They’ll probably call 119 soon.”
Tang Xiaolu tossed the extinguisher aside, went back to the middle-aged woman, and dragged her to a visible spot near the green belt.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
As I walked past the front of the tanker with Tang Xiaolu, I couldn’t help but glance into the cab that had been violently torn open.
I saw a bloodstained toy bear and two delicate urns lying inside.
The reason I knew they were urns was because… after Mama passed away, Baba and I had gone to choose an urn together.
I had seen the same style in the store.
And that toy bear—I recognized it too.
It had once been the most beloved toy of a 12-year-old girl.
Back then, at the Affiliated Hospital of Heijiang Medical University, that little girl’s hospital bed was right next to Mama’s.
As the family member staying overnight, I occasionally chatted with the little girl.
She had severe thalassemia.
For modern medicine, severe thalassemia is still an incurable disease.
Most children don’t live to adulthood.
I remembered that the little girl’s accompanying family member was a haggard-looking middle-aged man.
He must have been her father.
He once said he wasn’t in great health either.
Thalassemia is a hereditary disease.
Considering that the little girl’s mother rarely appeared in the hospital and was probably busy with work, and now this wrecked oil tanker contained two urns and a toy bear…
“Xiao Yao?”
Maybe noticing that I had stopped in front of the tanker for a long time and kept staring into the cab, Tang Xiaolu asked, puzzled, “Do you know this driver?”
“I…”
I hesitated, then shook my head.
“Let’s go to the secret base first.”
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