Half a minute later, staring at the cake box she had torn open herself, Xiaoxi froze on the spot, as if struck by a bolt from the blue.
The cake, half crushed and bearing only the two remaining characters “祝” and “乐” (meaning “Wish” and “Joy”), was undoubtedly the same one the D-rank Magical Girl had bought earlier!
No wonder Xiaokeke had come to Xianghai City half a month early, using the excuse of “school starting early.” So that stubborn girl had secretly become a Magical Girl behind her and their mother’s backs!
No wonder she remembered every single thing she bought so clearly… it turned out she had seen it in person!
Xiaoxi stood there quietly for a whole minute, gazing at the cake tossed in the trash can.
She had originally wanted to send a message to her mother but gave up in the end.
Passersby curiously glanced at the girl who was inexplicably staring at a trash can.
Xiaokeke had always been stingy and greedy since childhood.
When their mother used pocket money as a reward to get them to do chores, Xiaokeke would bargain for a long time.
Seeing that the cake had only been thrown into the trash bin downstairs near their home, Xiaoxi could already guess what had happened.
Xiaokeke must have been standing downstairs, clutching the crushed cake, hesitating for quite some time before finally biting the bullet and throwing it away.
Then she went and spent money to order a new one for herself.
That stubborn girl…
With her mind in a whirl of chaotic thoughts, Xiaoxi walked into the house in a daze, just as a message from Xiaokeke arrived.
Xiaokeke: “Big sis, happy birthday【cake.jpg】”
“[Transfer] You have received a transfer.”
“When you were cooking, I rummaged through your wardrobe. Those few clothes of yours are almost faded from washing, and you’re still wearing them. Now that you’ve become a girl, why don’t you buy some nice clothes for yourself?”
“Big sis, you’ve been pretty broke lately, huh? You bought so many things today, so just treat this 500 yuan as your birthday gift.
If you need money, just tell me.
I’ve saved up quite a bit in my little stash over the years… Of course, if you come asking me again, I’ll just treat it as a loan!”
Looking at the transfer from her little sister and then at the unfinished birthday cake on the table, Xiaoxi felt a complex mix of emotions.
If she hadn’t happened to be there at the time, Xiaokeke might really have ended up dying under that monster’s claws.
She knew someone had to step up to become a Magical Girl to protect the people, but she didn’t want that person to be her own sister.
Xiaoxi gritted her teeth.
Although she didn’t want to act under the name Eternal Star anymore, and had sworn in her heart never to return to that damn Magical Girl Association…
For the sake of her sister, it seemed she had no choice but to pay a visit to an old friend.
“Miss Ye Xinglan, I’ll be going out for a while and might be back late. You might have to handle dinner yourself. Sorry about that.”
After a long pause, a muffled “Oh, it’s fine” came from the room. Ye Xinglan’s voice sounded subdued.
Ye Xinglan had finished eating and gone into her room, doing who knows what.
Xiaoxi didn’t feel like bothering her now.
She planned to head to the Magical Girl Association right away.
What Xiaoxi didn’t know was that Ye Xinglan was currently leaning over the table, searching through all the news about Eternal Star’s appearance today on her phone, scribbling notes, with a pudding Xiaoxi had given her sitting nearby.
Though she couldn’t contact A Lan, she didn’t want to miss this great opportunity.
She wanted to try to track down any trace of Eternal Star.
But…
Looking at the information she’d recorded while eating the pudding, Ye Xinglan frowned suddenly as a realization dawned on her.
If it were anyone else, they probably wouldn’t notice this detail.
But she was currently living with Xiaoxi and knew her well—like how poor she was. So after buying groceries, Xiaoxi definitely didn’t have money for a taxi; she had to walk home.
Combine that with the time Xiaoxi got home… no matter how Ye Xinglan calculated, Xiaoxi should have been at the scene of the monster attack, right there on South Main Street on her way home at that exact time!
Moreover, the monster attack covered an entire street!
That gave her calculations a wide margin of error, meaning Xiaoxi definitely saw [Eternal Star] today and encountered the monster attack.
So why lie about not seeing it?
Was it simply because she didn’t want to tell Ye Xinglan, who was basically Eternal Star’s biggest critic? Or… was there some other hidden reason?
…
Later that evening, inside the Magical Girl Association building in Xianghai City.
A woman with a delicate face, dressed sharply in professional office attire, clearly an elite white-collar worker, walked briskly down the corridor.
Wearing black-rimmed glasses and holding a stack of documents, it looked like she had just come out of a meeting room.
“Don’t make it too public, just investigate privately. If you can’t find any trace of [Eternal Star], let it go, okay.”
“Seal off the external information for now. She probably doesn’t want this made public either. Let’s keep it that way for now.”
After hanging up, the woman stopped in front of a door labeled “Director’s Office.” Opening the door, she paused slightly.
“Long time no see, Miss A Xing.”
Miss L closed the door expressionlessly, sent a message to her secretary to cancel all appointments for the next hour, then looked up at the uninvited Magical Girl sitting in her office chair.
“It’s been three years since we last met, right? A Xing,” Miss L said as she locked the door behind her, “long time no see.”
Miss L was a sharp-eyed, highly driven woman.
She had seen the huge market potential in the Magical Girl field early on, which was why she had sought out Xiaoxi and the others to act as their manager, handling media interviews and event arrangements.
Her insight had proven correct, or she wouldn’t have risen to her current position.
Xiaoxi raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d be more surprised.”
“You already showed up on South Main Street at noon, didn’t you? I guessed you might come, so I was mentally prepared. So you’re ready to make a comeback? On behalf of the Association, you’re always welcome to join.”
“That noon appearance was just an act of duty; I had no choice but to step in,” Xiaoxi said flatly. “What was with the monster at noon? Didn’t the Association detect the monster’s cocoon in advance?”
“It’s not that the Association failed to detect the monster cocoon in advance. This is a reconstruction by the monitoring department, a report on the magic power fluctuations at the attack site. Take a look yourself.”
Miss L slid a graph of magic power monitoring across the desk toward Xiaoxi, showing no hesitation in revealing the Association’s intelligence to an outsider.
Xiaoxi frowned as she studied it.
The magic power fluctuations remained steady until a certain moment, then suddenly spiked to a peak—that had to be the exact time the monster appeared.
But this was strange.
Monsters are born from the accumulation of magic power, which takes time.
That means the magic power on the graph should have been a steadily rising line, reaching a peak when the monster hatched, existing as a cocoon beforehand.
Yet on this graph from Miss L, the magic power suddenly peaked at one moment, and the monster appeared as if it had spawned instantly.
“At noon, monsters appeared simultaneously at eight widely separated locations, identical to the one on South Main Street.”
“All the Magical Girls in Xianghai City were dispatched and barely managed to control the situation. Only some public property was damaged and a few bystanders were injured.”
The more Xiaoxi listened, the deeper her frown grew.
This was clearly no coincidence, but a deliberate incident.
She hadn’t expected such things to happen even after the odd organizations were mostly eradicated.
But more than that, Xiaoxi’s concern was something else.
“Even so, the Association shouldn’t have let a newly awakened D-rank Magical Girl face a C-rank monster alone, right?”
Her tone carried a note of accusation.
“That kid insisted on staying and fighting. I already scolded her at the meeting just now,” Miss L said helplessly.
“But we do owe you thanks, A Xing. If you hadn’t stepped in, that girl would have been in danger.”
Xiaoxi said nothing, cursing Xiaokeke stubbornly in her heart.
“Can I see that girl’s personal file?”
“Sure, one moment.”