The matter of the transfer student Huang Quan kept Tang Xiaolu distracted for the entire morning.
Seeing her looking worried whether in class or during breaks, I didn’t tell her about Class Monitor Luo Zhiyin and Mu Linxi being magical girls, or about the organization “Shadow Eclipse.”
“During the military training, we already noticed that Tang Xiaolu was a magical girl, and we guessed she must have gone through something, so we temporarily didn’t tell her the truth about being a magical girl. We planned to talk to her once she was emotionally stable, but who knew…”
Luo Zhiyin said this to me during morning exercises.
“Intuition tells me Huang Quan is very dangerous, just like the magical girls from Shadow Eclipse. The way she looks at Tang Xiaolu is like a hunter spotting prey.”
“I’ve fought magical girls from Shadow Eclipse before. I’m very familiar with that kind of look.”
“So… for the next few days, Xiao Yao, please take good care of this classmate. We’ll investigate Huang Quan’s identity as soon as possible.”
According to Luo Zhiyin, Tang Xiaolu was already very close to the “breaking point” at this stage.
But because Luo Zhiyin and the others didn’t know about Tang Xiaolu’s past—they were all new classmates who had just met and didn’t know each other well—they didn’t know how to help her.
Now that they saw my relationship with Tang Xiaolu was decent, and the transfer student Huang Quan suddenly set her sights on Tang Xiaolu, they hoped I could give Tang Xiaolu a hand.
“To be honest, we don’t have evidence that Huang Quan is from Shadow Eclipse, but Tang Xiaolu’s mental state is indeed very worrying.”
On the way back from morning exercises, Luo Zhiyin and Mu Linxi secretly exchanged contact information with me.
“Suddenly a transfer student pops up claiming to know Tang Xiaolu—no matter how you look at it, it’s suspicious.”
“Especially… she publicly revealed Tang Xiaolu’s identity as a magical girl in front of the whole class. That move is undoubtedly putting pressure on Tang Xiaolu. If handled poorly, it could easily accelerate her inner collapse. Once Tang Xiaolu collapses and becomes a witch in school, it will definitely affect the students here—very much in line with Shadow Eclipse’s logic.”
“Be careful yourself, Huang Yao. Ever since Heijiang No. 3 Middle School became the ‘Colorful Bird Experimental School,’ it has unknowingly attracted a lot of filthy attention…”
Class Monitor Luo Zhiyin and Mu Linxi’s words gradually made me realize what the “Colorful Bird Experimental School” at Heijiang No. 3 Middle School meant for magical girls and witches.
They said that currently, the magical girls in Heijiang could be roughly divided into two types.
The first type was the more “good” magical girls—like me, Tang Xiaolu, Luo Zhiyin, and Mu Linxi.
We would lend a hand to any violence we saw, help passersby in danger, rescue people if we noticed a familiar eating someone, and enter barriers to fight witches if we detected one.
The other type was the “chaos” magical girls represented by Shadow Eclipse.
This type of magical girl was extremely selfish—absolute egoists.
Not only would they not help passersby in trouble, but they would even watch them get eaten by familiars just to get a Grief Seed, or actively lead them to the familiars.
Only those with fragile hearts, dark and repressed minds, were attracted to witches or familiars.
As the “Colorful Bird Experimental High School,” Heijiang No. 3 Middle School’s recent measures were precisely aimed at improving the situation of students’ “inner repression.”
So naturally, our school stood in opposition to Shadow Eclipse and the witches.
“In short… if conditions allow, Huang Yao, you can try to give Tang Xiaolu some emotional care while protecting yourself. If you need help with anything, especially regarding money, feel free to contact me anytime.”
And so, I received the task from the class monitor: “Give Tang Xiaolu emotional care and prevent her from becoming a witch.”
As for what “emotional care” meant, I was very familiar with it.
It meant providing emotional value.
Yes, I was quite adept at “providing emotional value to others.”
Because that’s how I’ve been all my life.
At home, knowing my father only valued my grades, I always did my best to get full marks on every exam.
Even if I occasionally failed, I would take the initiative to apologize to my parents, put on a good child act to “confess and accept punishment,” and punish myself by doing housework for a few days or writing a few more diary entries.
In the hospital, whenever my mother, suffering from illness, would despairingly say things like “I want to die” or “I probably won’t live much longer,” I would patiently comfort her, take out a storybook, tell her happy stories, and encourage her that medicine was always advancing, and maybe tomorrow the disease would be conquered.
When it came to taking care of people, I thought I was quite good at it.
“Xiao Yao…”
Finally, when the bell for the last class in the morning rang and the teacher left the classroom, Tang Xiaolu came up to me and lowered her voice.
“That… Huang Quan said she knows me because of her magical girl ability, but she doesn’t seem willing to say what that ability is.”
In the melodious bell, Tang Xiaolu glanced at the transfer student Huang Quan at the back of the classroom and said to me in a tone that was both worried and curious.
“Can you guess what ability it is, Xiao Yao? I feel like it might be a time-based one. For example, Huang Quan and I were really good friends in some timeline, but for some reason, she twisted time and came back to a point where we don’t know her yet. And if she says it out loud, the ability might fail…”
“I can’t guess.”
As usual, I put my textbooks and pencil case into my backpack.
“Hey, Lulu, there’s something I want to tell you.”
“Oh.”
Tang Xiaolu was still looking at Huang Quan in the back.
“What is it?”
“Can you be my girlfriend?”
“Oh, uh… okay.”
Tang Xiaolu seemed not to understand the meaning of my words at all and agreed casually.
“Wait?”
After a few seconds, she turned around in disbelief.
“What did you just say?”
“I said…”
I took the initiative to hold Tang Xiaolu’s hand.
“Be my girlfriend, Lulu.”
“Whoa!”
“Damn, what did I just hear!”
Maybe because I hadn’t been discreet when I spoke, two girls sitting behind us suddenly bounced up like they discovered a new continent.
“A confession, a confession!”
“Come quick! Huang Yao confessed to Tang Xiaolu!”
“Huh?”
The sudden commotion stunned Tang Xiaolu.
She looked at my face and, after a while, asked in disbelief.
“You… are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
I nodded.
“Or I could be your girlfriend instead. Pick one.”