After a hard day’s work, Feng Ling’s livestream followers had visibly increased quite a bit.
More importantly, today she had real livestream material, unlike yesterday when she just sat there awkwardly chatting with the comments.
Having run errands all day, Feng Ling bragged about how hard she’d been working to protect everyone, holding her phone’s photos up to the camera as evidence.
Comments immediately flooded in with a row of “Good work,” “Feng Ling baby so hardworking,” “Mom,” and the gifts gradually increased.
Watching the gift amount inch toward three digits, Feng Ling thought to herself that her streaming career was finally taking off.
In contrast, Chi Yun had been idle all day, her entire stream just padding time.
And since she’d been scolded by Lian Ge, she couldn’t even lean into the provocative content, so the comment enthusiasm was noticeably lower than usual.
One rises, the other falls—Feng Ling felt she had a real chance to replace her.
But Feng Ling didn’t intend to just sit back and wait for Chi Yun to wither away.
Even a dying camel is bigger than a horse—she was just a fledgling streamer herself, so she had to keep pressing the advantage to grow bigger and stronger.
She closed Chi Yun’s stream, sat back on the bed, pulled out her phone, and dialed the Magic Girl Association front desk.
“Hello, I’d like to book tomorrow’s tasks.”
The other end of the line was silent for a moment, then the familiar front desk girl’s voice came through.
She sounded a bit troubled.
“Is this Feng Ling? Sorry, but someone’s already booked for tomorrow.”
“Chi Yun booked it, right?”
Feng Ling had already guessed Chi Yun wouldn’t just lie down and take it.
She didn’t bother with a direct confrontation.
“Then I’ll book the day after tomorrow.”
“How did you know… Oh, okay, okay, I’ll register you. But most of the tasks for the day after next aren’t out yet. The specific schedule won’t be confirmed until tomorrow morning.”
Feng Ling crossed her legs and sat up straight on the bed, determined to out-grind Chi Yun to the very end.
“Then I’m not just booking the day after—any task currently in the system, one after another, I’ll book as many as there are.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
The front desk girl didn’t know what had gotten into the Magic Girls lately, suddenly so full of drive, but she agreed.
“Alright, alright, I’ll book them for you now.”
Feng Ling hung up.
The invisible war had officially begun.
At first, the two only called once after each night’s stream to politely split the next day’s tasks between them.
But soon that level of competition seemed childish.
Chi Yun must have realized that just splitting even with Feng Ling was too much of a loss, so she upgraded from one call a night to three calls a day—morning, noon, and evening.
Feng Ling naturally refused to back down.
She simply started booking every hour.
Since the other side would take an inch, she’d take a mile.
After several days of nonstop harassment calls from the two, the front desk girl finally snapped one afternoon.
She slammed her hand on the desk and yelled into the phone, “Both of you, that’s enough!”
Then, without further discussion, she split the daily tasks evenly between them.
That put a temporary halt to the malicious competition.
Though Feng Ling and Chi Yun hadn’t exchanged a single word so far, the atmosphere between them had grown razor-sharp.
This went on for nearly a week.
Feng Ling, with her natural 996 saint body, adapted pretty well.
Until the weekend, when Feng Ling was still out in the neighborhood doing Common Magic Propaganda, planning to gather more material for that night’s stream.
The summer heat blew into her face.
Feng Ling tugged at the collar of her dress to cool herself, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and was just about to pull out her phone to check the time when she saw a figure at the main entrance—one she knew all too well.
Lian Ge stood at the gate as usual, her white robe fluttering slightly in the wind.
She held a bottle of mineral water, fine beads of condensation clinging to its surface—clearly fresh from the fridge.
Seeing Feng Ling come out, Lian Ge’s face lit up with a gentle smile.
She handed over the water.
“Great work, Feng Ling.”
Feng Ling took it.
The cold water was too icy for her tongue; she took only a small sip before stopping, then waved her hand.
“It’s nothing.”
To her, busy meant more tasks, more tasks meant more exposure, and more exposure meant more tips on the stream.
How could earning money ever be tiring?
Lian Ge clearly didn’t see it that way.
Watching Feng Ling sip the water so carefully, she imagined even more—probably thinking Feng Ling was so exhausted she couldn’t even take a big gulp.
She frowned, like a worried parent watching their child study until midnight, torn between sympathy and helplessness.
“Sometimes you don’t have to push yourself so hard. Everyone already acknowledges you. You don’t need to work yourself to the bone to prove anything.”
No one knew better than Lian Ge how insane Feng Ling’s workload had been lately.
On days with fewer tasks, it was understandable for her to take them all.
But some days, the entire Magic Girl team—all seven members—would have their combined task load completely devoured by just Feng Ling and Chi Yun.
Lian Ge’s interpretation of this was… that after Feng Ling had strayed and come back to the right path, she probably felt she’d underperformed before, so now she was desperately trying to earn her teammates’ approval through action.
Lian Ge was deeply gratified—she felt her plan of using love to reform the little demon had reached a milestone victory.
But seeing Feng Ling work so hard also made her feel uneasy.
‘Maybe I should proactively book tasks at the Association tomorrow…’
Lian Ge thought, completely unaware that the front desk had already been shattered by the two.
After a few sips, Feng Ling screwed the cap back on.
Her mind was already elsewhere—she needed to rush back and start streaming while the iron was hot.
She waved a dismissive hand at Lian Ge.
“Captain, I’m off.”
But before the words could leave her mouth, a piercing alarm blared from all directions, drowning out Feng Ling’s voice.
She knew that sound all too well.
It was the monster attack alarm.
Whether it was unfortunate or fortunate, the monster had appeared right in the neighborhood where Feng Ling had been doing her propaganda.
A heavy crash sounded above Feng Ling’s head.
The wall of a residential building exploded into an irregular two-meter-wide hole, and a fat orange cat burst out of the building.
The orange cat shimmered with blinding silver light.
Like a headless fly, it arced through the air, staggering and crashing into the adjacent building.
The cat was clearly in extreme panic.
After breaking through one building’s wall, it showed no sign of stopping, immediately smashing through another, then a third.
Its escape route was completely erratic—like something was chasing it, or maybe it was just pure stress reaction.
But Feng Ling didn’t care about any of that.
If it was a demon beast, it had to be eliminated.
She rubbed her hands together, and a cyan glow began to rise in her palms.