“Shuijing, did you use some kind of magic or not?”
Looking at the metaphysical bra stuck to the wall without any friction, Lin Yu let out a small sigh in her heart.
There was really no need to ask—just from seeing such a thing, she already knew what the situation was.
“Spotless Clean…”
Jiang Yao replied awkwardly.
“I’ve watched Hello Potter! That thing doesn’t have this effect.”
She replied with annoyance and walked over to the two of them.
On her way there, she had already finished her transformation.
A luxurious dress draped over her, Lin Yu pointed back, releasing an invisible surge of magical energy that carried threads of magic, extending through the alley like a spider web, ready to detect any ordinary people approaching through its vibrations.
Fortunately, after enduring her mother Wen Yachuan’s abstract art-style “cleaning sessions,” Lin Yu could now keep a calm mind in most supernatural situations.
At most, she’d be shocked for a split second at first, but would quickly regain her composure and start analyzing a solution.
(Magical girls, huh.)
Looking at her friend’s embarrassed face and the still-crying Sha Chong, Lin Yu thought to herself:
(You never know what kind of mess they’ll create…)
With the threads set up, Lin Yu continued forward; she needed to check on Sha Chong’s condition.
However, just as she approached, Sha Chong, who had been propped up by Jiang Yao, her whole body limp and clutching her exposed chest while sobbing, suddenly shuddered all over.
Before Jiang Yao could react, Sha Chong began to struggle fiercely, jumping away to lean against the wall.
In a tone as if she’d seen a ghost, she shouted:
“Another one?!”
Heaven knows what kind of psychological trauma Jiang Yao’s actions had caused her.
Seeing Lin Yu approaching in a black gown, stepping on “Blaze,” Sha Chong immediately realized she was in cahoots with Jiang Yao, not even bothering to cry anymore.
Now she looked just like a girl in a horror movie chased into a corner by monsters, huddling against the wall and trying to retrieve her bra, covering her chest with one hand while looking back in terror, frantically stretching to reach it.
In the end, this was still Jiang Yao’s fault—she seemed to have set the location a bit too high.
Of course, Jiang Yao hadn’t done this to deliberately make things hard for Sha Chong; it was mainly a matter of vision. If it was set too low, it would be a pain to compare with Sha Chong’s position.
Placing it higher made everything much easier.
As for whether mud would get flung everywhere, Jiang Yao had thought it wouldn’t be an issue at the time.
Jiang Lingwei had once used it for a demonstration, and it just absorbed dust and garbage into a little sphere—it didn’t really matter where the sphere was.
Even if the sphere couldn’t hold and burst open later, that would be when Jiang Yao and the others had already left.
They could always trigger it to explode on purpose while leaving, so as not to risk hitting innocent passersby.
In the end, all those thoughts led to Sha Chong not being able to reach it and unable to run either.
It was as if, instead of two magical girls, there were two terrifying perverts in front of her. Sha Chong could only plead pitifully:
“Coincidence, it’s all a coincidence.”
“I didn’t mean to appear in front of you guys. It was purely by chance.”
“If you want to ask something, just ask already.”
Sha Chong sobbed:
“Please don’t torture me anymore, I’ll tell you everything.”
Lin Yu gave Jiang Yao a speechless look.
“Sorry…”
Seeing the harm she’d caused, Jiang Yao stepped forward to apologize sincerely.
“I just wanted to help you get the mud off, but the magic wasn’t very stable. I’m really sorry, I didn’t think it through.”
“Wuwuwu…!”
Sha Chong, who had just been begging for mercy, suddenly fell silent. She stared blankly at Jiang Yao, as if she hadn’t heard anything, just gazing at her fixedly. “This…”
The change was so abrupt it left them at a loss.
Caught off guard by the sudden turn, Jiang Yao looked at Lin Yu with a pleading gaze.
Lin Yu simply replied with a look that said, “You caused this mess, you deal with it yourself.”
Good friend, but this time she really couldn’t help.
All Jiang Yao could do now was try to gain Sha Chong’s forgiveness.
(Alright then.)
She didn’t blame Lin Yu for not helping; after all, it was her own fault. If only she hadn’t been so careless.
Now, Jiang Yao only worried that she hadn’t made an even bigger mistake. Everyone here was a girl; losing her bra wasn’t that serious.
But Sha Chong was already a little unhinged—what if this just made things worse for her?
That would be a real crime!
Even though Jiang Yao didn’t see herself as a proper magical girl and didn’t have that much empathy, she still felt guilty when facing her own mistakes.
She thought for a moment, and since she couldn’t come up with a good idea, she simply transformed into her crystal form.
With a flash of light, the silver-armored knight knelt on one knee, holding Sha Chong’s arm that wasn’t covering her chest, and apologized again: “I’m sorry! I hope you can accept my apology. Whatever compensation you want, I’ll do it.”
“As long as I can manage it, anything is fine!”
Of course, the main point of transforming wasn’t to look cool, and it wasn’t because she was afraid of getting dirty either.
Jiang Yao was worried Sha Chong had suffered too much psychological shock and had entered a state of dissociation, now just staring blankly at her.
After all, Sha Chong was a magical girl too; she wanted to use her complete transformed state to try and awaken her.
If this didn’t work, then she’d have to head to South Sea Restaurant in the west and ask Ancestor Aurora for help to see if she had any ideas.
Lin Yu stood by, keeping an eye on the surroundings; if any passersby approached, she’d go out and lead them away.
She trusted her friend wasn’t the kind of female delinquent who’d strip people’s bras, but there was nothing she could say right now—her job was just to do what needed to be done and wisely stay silent.
No one could say if it was Jiang Yao’s apology that worked, or her transformation, or if Sha Chong just calmed down on her own.
In any case, a spark gradually returned to her eyes.
Blinking, Sha Chong murmured something, then broke free of Jiang Yao’s grasp and again backed into the wall.
“What?”
Jiang Yao stood up, reaching out. Even though she’d been right next to Sha Chong, she hadn’t heard a thing.
“…Don’t, don’t…don’t do this…”
Sha Chong looked even more nervous, ignoring the grime of the wall and floor behind her as she scooted further into the corner.
Compared to the radiant Jiang Yao and Lin Yu, she seemed so muddy and dirty.
No one would believe that such a person had saved many people and thwarted several dark plots as a magical girl.
“Sorry.”
Jiang Yao’s eyelashes trembled.
She apologized softly again, then stepped back to where she’d been.
But even so, Sha Chong still showed no sign of relaxing, only repeating louder:
“Don’t apologize to me!”
Hearing this, Jiang Yao looked a bit downcast.
Clearly, Sha Chong didn’t want to accept her apology.
Then Sha Chong’s next words completely threw her off:
“Don’t! Don’t do this! Scold me if you want, hit me if you want, just don’t be nice to me!”
“Huh?”
Sha Chong clutched her head, slowly sinking to the ground, her voice trembling in pain and despair:
“Please…just…scold me…”
“Shuijing.”
Lin Yu suddenly withdrew her arm, at the same time retracting all those invisible threads.
“Someone’s coming—they heard the noise and are coming this way. It won’t be easy to draw them off. Take Sha Chong-senpai and let’s go.”
“Oh, okay.”
Jiang Yao nodded. No matter what Sha Chong meant, she had to get her out of here first.
She definitely didn’t want tomorrow’s tabloids splashing headlines like, “Shocking! Two Magical Girls Force an Ordinary Girl to Do This!”
Not only would that cause huge trouble, but they’d have to deal with the Bureau afterward.
She rushed over to scoop up Sha Chong, not forgetting to grab the bra and shove it into her arms.
“No, don’t! Don’t be nice to me!”
Being picked up, Sha Chong kept repeating herself, struggling non-stop. Since she was rather tall, her thrashing made it even harder for Jiang Yao to hold her.
“Sha, Sha Chong… Wait—don’t kick me! I…”
Words had no effect; Sha Chong seemed to have fallen into another kind of confusion.
With no other choice, Jiang Yao suddenly put on a stern face.
She tried to deliberately stir up feelings of anger and irritation in her heart.
(Trouble, trouble, trouble!)
(Always giving me trouble! Can’t you just behave? Do you believe I’ll stuff another pile of mud in your [Girl’s Dirty Mouth]?!)
Sure enough, after repeating these thoughts, darkness started to close in around Jiang Yao’s vision…
“Shut up, Sha Chong. Be quiet and stop moving.”
With her cold, icy words, Sha Chong actually trembled and then stopped.
Lin Yu, behind Jiang Yao, gave her a questioning look.
Jiang Yao shook her head, snapping herself out of that state.
She wasn’t confident she could keep negative emotions in check; now wasn’t the time to explain.
Flying off with Sha Chong, she pulled out her phone with magic and sent a message to Jiang Lingwei.
The gist was that she wouldn’t be able to make it for lunch, a friend was having some trouble, and she needed to find a quiet place for her to rest.
After Jiang Yao flew out over the alley, Lin Yu also took out her phone and glanced at the messages.
“Yao Yao, you go ahead with her. I probably won’t be able to help for now.”
She flew over to Jiang Yao and said helplessly, “I have to head back—my mom’s asking where I am.”
“Okay.”
Understanding her situation, Jiang Yao nodded. The two of them parted ways, flying off in different directions.
At the same time, in the restaurant—
Wen Yachuan was holding her phone and muttering, “That’s strange, why hasn’t Xiao Yu replied to my message…”
Beside her, Jiang Lingwei was also looking at her phone, saying:
“Yao Yao did send a message though—let me check if the two of them are together…”
Glancing at the screen, Jiang Lingwei frowned.
“Looks like Sha Chong’s situation isn’t good.”
She sighed, leaning back in her chair, and said, “No way, I have to go check. Yao Yao said she can’t come back for lunch, Xiao Quan-jie, wait a sec while I ask Xiao Yu if she’s with her.”
“Okay.”
Just as Wen Yachuan nodded, she heard another message notification and checked her phone:
“Oh, never mind, Xiao Yu says she’s not with them—she doesn’t know where the two went, she’s already on her way back.”
“They probably ditched her using magic.”
Wen Yachuan pointed to the dishes on the table. “So when will Yao Yao be back? What should we do about all this food?”
Jiang Lingwei shook her head. “No telling, but I’ve got to go too. With Sha Chong’s situation, I have to see for myself.”
“Alright.”
Wen Yachuan looked helplessly at her old friend.
Jiang Lingwei hadn’t even finished her meal—just a moment ago she was chewing seafood fried rice and praising it, saying she wanted another plate, but now after reading the message, she was already rushing to check things out.
If it were her, when it came to magical girls the Bureau had already given up on, she wouldn’t care.
At most, she’d keep up her glowing, kind image in front of her daughter, but she wouldn’t bother with any real inspection or treatment.
After all, it’s not like they’re people she knows.
Only someone like Jiang Lingwei, a magical girl, would care about these “idle matters.”
But then… the world just needs people willing to meddle in “idle matters.”
She glanced at Jiang Cheng, her eyes saying:
(You got a problem?)
“Mm.”
Jiang Cheng caught the look, and immediately said to Jiang Lingwei:
“If you need any help, just call me. I support you because I like… mmph.”
Before he could finish, Jiang Lingwei stuffed a piece of oyster into his mouth.
“So mushy~”
She said it, but her actions showed she was in a good mood. Saying “Don’t forget to pack up the leftovers,” she hurried out.
“Gulp.”
Swallowing the oyster, Jiang Cheng quickly said to Wen Yachuan:
“I’ll support Xiao Wei in anything, unconditionally!”
Wen Yachuan was speechless.