For Sha Chong, these days truly couldn’t get any worse.
Things had started about a month ago.
After refusing more than a dozen support missions, someone from the Administration Bureau was sent to inform her, hoping she could “leave with dignity.”
Of course, Sha Chong agreed—she didn’t have much of a choice. The fact that this so-called representative from the Bureau had come to notify her in person was already an act of giving both sides some dignity.
If she didn’t agree…
At that time, Sha Chong didn’t even have the courage to imagine what might happen if she refused.
In the end, she, who was no longer able to fight, received a dignified conclusion as well—retirement.
As for what “retirement” meant in practice, or how long it would last…
It was all meaningless, because she was completely retired.
After returning to her hometown, she could finally consider herself to be living a somewhat peaceful life, barely managing to escape the nightmares of the past.
When she wasn’t working at her uncle’s shop, she would sit by the beach and watch the sea.
No matter how much time passed, no matter what she went through,
the sea never seemed to change. It remained quietly there, wordlessly doing its own thing, coolly observing everything in the world.
Vast, boundless, and silent.
—It was exactly the same feeling Sha Chong had the first time she saw the sea as a child.
Maybe it was because she was born a bit larger than other babies, and, on top of that, her mother had fallen gravely ill and become weak, struggling through a difficult labor only to pass away a few days later in intensive care.
Her father poured all the love he had for her mother into little Sha Chong, taking care of her in every possible way.
But that simple, honest, and good-hearted father, the one who doted on her so much, one day, suddenly met with an accident.
He died in a car crash on his way to buy her some baked flatbread.
Later, she was taken in by her uncle in Canghai City. Sha Chong grew up in this coastal city.
Her uncle’s family treated her just as kindly. Her cousin treated her like his own little sister, but Sha Chong didn’t dare respond to their affection; it was as if she had shut herself off from the world, unwilling to accept any warmth.
By then, she understood so much already.
She already blamed herself—thinking that if she hadn’t asked for that flatbread, her father wouldn’t have died. And when she was sorting through his belongings, she discovered a truth her father had kept from her: the real cause of her mother’s death.
These two blows were simply too cruel for a little girl to bear. They crushed her completely.
Even when her uncle hurried over and carried her away from the box containing her mother’s belongings, it was too late.
Sha Chong had already seen everything she should and shouldn’t have seen.
In these circumstances, even the warmth of her uncle’s family only made Sha Chong more afraid.
A little girl’s mind held a simple equation.
If her mother loved her very much = her mother died. If her father loved her very much, then he too = died.
She worried she would pass on her bad luck to this kind and loving family, so she refused to respond to their kindness.
But she also couldn’t bring herself to do anything that might hurt her uncle’s family or make them truly hate her. So, again and again, she tried to run away, only to get caught soon after because she didn’t know the city.
Sometimes it was her cousin who found her. Worried she’d get lost, he showed her photo to his friends and everyone he knew, asking them to keep an eye out for this little girl who might be wandering around alone.
Canghai City was much smaller then than it is now, so Sha Jing could never get very far, and she never succeeded in running away.
At times, especially when she read storybooks with evil stepmothers, Sha Chong would find herself wishing her uncle’s family would treat her a bit more harshly—even if it meant making her scrub toilets every day, it’d be better than being loved so much.
The kinder they were to her, the more afraid she became.
Her uncle tried all sorts of ways to help this poor child open up—like something most children loved: games.
Yes, that was how Sha Chong’s fate was changed.
She discovered a game called Red Dead Redemption on her uncle’s computer.
The cover featured a red-tinted man holding a gun.
It looked a bit strange, but the red caught her eye.
For once, Sha Chong actually took the initiative to ask her uncle what it was.
Her uncle grinned and snuffed out his half-smoked cigarette, as if her question made him really happy.
His answer was: “An old friend of mine. But I think you need to try it for yourself.”
After that, a young girl carrying a toy gun could often be found at the Canghai beach.
In her eyes, the beach became a wild western desert, and the old ship anchor buried in the sand was a giant cactus.
As for herself? She was a sharpshooter in the desert! A confident champion, the King of the West, Arthur Morgan’s best bro—uh, best sister, anyway, one day she’d take down that rat Micah again and again.
That’s where the childhood memories ended. Back then, Sha Chong had truly come out of her shell. She even became a magical girl not long after the Great Darkness Disaster.
But then, something happened that sent her back into hiding.
Those events aren’t important for now; at the time, it wasn’t a big problem anyway.
Sha Chong never understood what procedures the Administration Bureau was supposed to have, nor did she mind their sudden “dismissal.”
She wasn’t capable enough; retiring honestly was for the best.
From then on, all her pain was buried inside her. The world of magic no longer had anything to do with her.
However, maybe the retirement of a magical girl is never smooth. That day, as she was watching the sea as usual, a shark-headed monster suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Sha Chong was done for.
As far as she knew, she was the only magical girl in all of Canghai City; if she didn’t step up, who would?
What else could she do? If she didn’t step in, who would stop that shark-head from destroying everything on the shore, maybe even killing her uncle’s family before they could escape?
She’d been a magical girl. She knew exactly how those things went.
So-called “shelters” weren’t actually safe at all.
They were just a way to make yourself disappear from the monster’s line of sight.
It only lowered your “priority.” If a monster beat the magical girl in front of it—who smelled more delicious, and thus had a higher priority—the next step would be to massacre one shelter after another.
Relying on human defenses alone was hopeless.
So, magical girl [Sha Chong] had no choice but to transform.
She really had no choice.
In her heart, Sha Chong prayed over and over: “Please let it be a small fry, please let it be a small fry…”
But things never go as hoped. In reality, she was the small fry.
She wasn’t even as good as those minor monsters—at least those could still charge at main characters way above their level.
She couldn’t. Just standing in front of that shark-head took all her courage.
She didn’t even dare to draw her gun.
All she could do was stand there, waiting to get beaten up.
In that utter, bone-deep terror, Sha Chong even forgot her own life. Compared to the pain in her body, the fear in her heart left her completely lost.
Only when the noon bell rang did she seem to hear a drifting western tune, and draw her gun at the enemy.
After that, things got fuzzy.
When her mind finally cleared again, she was already standing upright, her magical attire gone.
Then, she saw those two magical girls.
One was a pink-haired girl who radiated warmth; the other, a knightly girl who looked so reliable.
Sha Chong, not yet realizing what she’d just done, wanted to make a run for it, but found herself drawn—especially to that pink-haired girl, whose bright and warm aura kept her glued to the spot.
She stayed, and ended up being asked a ton of questions.
So embarrassing.
Like, “Why didn’t you shoot earlier?”
How was Sha Chong supposed to answer that?
Tell them she’d been so scared she almost peed herself on the spot?
Even if she was ready to give up, Sha Chong still had some basic sense of shame.
Cornered by their questions, all she could do was panic and run away.
After breaking her transformation and returning home, she locked herself in her room and hugged her knees, crying for a long time.
She just cried and cried, who knows how long, until she was so exhausted that she finally fell asleep in her misery.
Sha Chong thought she could forget everything, but she ended up sulking in her room for an entire day.
Even though she’d promised her uncle she’d help at the shop, she broke her word.
She turned on her computer and stared at the familiar red icon.
She hovered her mouse over it, then moved it away, not daring to click.
Her family left meals at her door at the usual times, sometimes knocking to make sure she was still there.
Her uncle’s family didn’t know she was a magical girl. They just thought she’d come home because she’d been bullied out in the world.
Her uncle had watched her crawl out of grief before, and now he watched her fall back in.
At nearly fifty, her uncle was not good at, nor did he know how to, directly express his feelings. He and his wife dared not ask what had happened, afraid of making Sha Chong even sadder.
All they could do was give this disaster-stricken, pitiful niece of theirs a little more warmth and patience.
The next day, another day when she woke up late, Sha Chong came out to find that her uncle and aunt were already gone, leaving her a bit of cash pressed under some cold fried rice.
[We believe you’ll get better. Also, Qingwan, no matter how sad you are, don’t forget to eat.]
It was her uncle’s handwriting.
The fried rice had been cold for a long time. Sha Chong just silently shoveled it all into her mouth.
She went out and, for once, really looked at the city she’d grown up in.
Along the way, she saw many things.
The city had changed a lot from what she remembered: the streets were neater, and there were more people.
It was as if the shadow of the Great Darkness Disaster had never weighed on these people—they were bursting with energy and drive.
Sha Chong thought her heart would finally settle down and she’d get on with her life—until, after a stroll through the Cat Guild Bun Shop that had been a tiny store in her childhood, she ran into that fairy.
It wasn’t the same as the fairy she’d made her contract with. This one was round and pudgy, with two little whiskers.
But still, it broke her composure in an instant. She’d never wished so much that she hadn’t agreed to become a magical girl back then.
It was as if, seeing that round fairy, she mistook it for her own. Sha Chong blurted out a ton of things that even she couldn’t make sense of now.
More and more people gathered. The fairy didn’t know what to do, and in the chaos, she once again chose to flee.
(No, this time it’s my fault.)
After returning home, Sha Chong told herself it wasn’t so hard not to be a magical girl. Now the city had new magical girls—two, in fact—and both of them were stronger than her.
Even if a crisis came again, she wouldn’t have to drag others down anymore.
She would never harm anyone again.
Her uncle took good care of her, only assigning her to wash dishes in the kitchen.
No need to talk to anyone, no need to interact, not even to look at others.
Take the plates, put them in the sink, squeeze the detergent, then—scrub!
Simple, clear—something even she could handle.
Everything was fine. Things would get better…
Back at work, Sha Chong focused on her task.
Maybe because there were more customers today, a new server—who didn’t know who she was or what arrangements the boss had made for her, and with no one else around—asked her, “Qingwan! Can you take that seafood pot to table 13 for me? Thanks!”
After that, she carried a big flat pot out herself.
Sha Chong—Wang Qingwan—stood in a daze for a good ten seconds before figuring out what she was supposed to do.
(Alright, fine.)
Now, back in the present, facing several pairs of eyes fixed on her in silence,
Wang Qingwan was wailing in her heart.
(I shouldn’t have agreed to help her at all.)