At that moment, Jiang Lingwei really wanted to tell her that everything was fine—that everyone just had their own things to deal with.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
How could she utter such a lie?
Patting Wen Yaqian’s back a few times, Jiang Lingwei spoke softly, “It’s so good to see you again.”
“Yeah!”
Wen Yaqian wiped her face and said loudly, “Let’s go upstairs and talk!”
“Shh—shh!”
Jiang Lingwei quickly put up a finger, signaling her to keep her voice down, while waving apologetically to the other customers.
“Let’s go, let’s go.”
Holding Wen Yaqian’s hand, Jiang Lingwei walked as if she were the owner herself, heading left.
But after just a few steps, Wen Yaqian pulled her back.
“Ah… the stairs to go upstairs are on the right.”
Wen Yaqian said.
“Is that so…”
Glancing left, Jiang Lingwei’s vision blurred for a moment before she shook her head and smiled bitterly.
“Sorry, I thought this was still the old shop.”
“More or less… oh, oh.”
Wen Yaqian blurted out loudly, then lowered her voice after Jiang Lingwei’s fierce glare.
“Seriously… whose shop is this anyway?”
With no choice, Jiang Lingwei followed Wen Yaqian up the stairs on the right.
“Meow.”
Hearing the two walk past, Hei Dou lifted her eyelids, let out a soft meow, then rubbed against the windowsill and stretched out to enjoy the sunlight on her belly.
After climbing two floors, the third floor of the café was Wen Yaqian’s private space.
She had decorated it like a small house, fully furnished.
Not only that, but the modest-sized room was adorned with various interesting murals on the walls, heaps of figurines of characters Jiang Lingwei had never seen, and all kinds of small decorations placed everywhere.
“Wait a moment, I’ll prepare some food.”
With that, Wen Yaqian headed to the kitchen.
Jiang Lingwei wasn’t really hungry; she had a lot she wanted to say but had been pinned down on the sofa by Wen Yaqian, watching her rush off.
So she could only say, “Um, can I take a look around?”
“Sure~”
Wen Yaqian shouted from the kitchen.
Jiang Lingwei got up from the sofa and looked at the patterns on the walls and the various small game boxes in the cabinets.
As she wandered, she saw family photos and wedding pictures displayed above the cabinet.
The man wasn’t handsome, wearing glasses with a gentle, scholarly vibe. They were holding a delicate little girl who shyly smiled at the camera.
Of course… after all these years, it made sense that Wen Yaqian was married.
(Her husband seems like a very good person.)
At this age, having a happy family was definitely a blessing.
Coincidentally, she had a daughter, and so did Jiang Lingwei.
(But my husband disappeared.)
“Slap.”
Jiang Lingwei smacked her own forehead, dispelling the random thought, and silently chanted to herself:
(Don’t think about that man, don’t think about that man, don’t think about that man…)
Walking further, she noticed a small door between Wen Yaqian’s shelves.
Written on it with a brush were the words: “Buried inside here are my past filled with courage and brilliance, only a true Magic Girl can open this.”
“Pfft.”
Jiang Lingwei couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yaqian’s always liked messing with stuff like this.”
“But since magic really exists, it’s not entirely just childish fantasy, right?”
“Yaqian! There’s a door here—can I open it and take a look?”
“Sure~”
From the kitchen came the sounds of cooking and Wen Yaqian’s cheerful voice: “Forget everything else! Don’t tell me anything first—today I’ll let you taste my cooking, then we’ll talk about everything that’s happened over the years!”
“Then you better do your best—”
Jiang Lingwei smiled and nodded, reaching to break the seal on the door and grab the handle.
“Hm?”
It didn’t open the first try.
Jiang Lingwei added her left hand and pulled with both hands—
At that moment, Wen Yaqian’s panicked voice came from the kitchen:
“Wait? What door did you say? Oh no, don’t—”
“Pfft—”
A water gun immediately shot out, drenching Jiang Lingwei’s face, and red lights began flashing inside the small door’s space, accompanied by alarms ringing.
“Ding ding dong dong! Ring ring ring!”
Wen Yaqian’s phone on the table started ringing with an alert.
Caught off guard and soaked, Jiang Lingwei stood dumbfounded, then incredulously wiped her face with her hand.
“What is this thing?!”
Wen Yaqian quickly set the pot down, stopped the alarm on her phone with one hand, and rushed over with a towel in the other. “Don’t worry, it’s the Saint Water of the Vatican!”
“Where did you get that? Wait, why do you have this thing?”
More than anger, Jiang Lingwei felt on the verge of laughter.
“Oh come on, I got it from the Western Bodhisattva.”
“I originally planned to use it to defend against evil spirits. I didn’t even know where to find Magic Girls. I heard the Westerners had Magic Girls’ Blessing in the form of holy water, so I got some. If you want to look inside, there are also various protective charms.”
Wen Yaqian wiped Jiang Lingwei’s face with practiced ease, making her genuinely think—no wonder she was someone with a child.
(Wait, is she treating me like a kid?!)
“What’s inside that needs such a big setup?”
Jiang Lingwei said helplessly.
At the mention, Wen Yaqian’s hand froze.
“Yeah… it’s probably better that I entrust it to you.”
She placed another dry towel on Jiang Lingwei’s neck and pointed inside the small door. “I planned to tell you later, but since it’s come to this, I’ll show you now.”
“All right.”
Jiang Lingwei nodded.
She was the kind of person who acted immediately once she made up her mind—just like Yaqian.
Wen Yaqian’s childhood was spent in an orphanage. It was said that near Songji City, a woman who was driving a cart to sell vegetables in the county heard a baby crying from the roadside grass.
She went over and found an infant.
She quickly kept the child warm, fed her some porridge, and took her to the County Police Station.
Since there was no suitable shelter in the county at that time, they had to send her to a larger orphanage in the city.
The whole story was quickly pieced together because the day before, the police had been chasing a gang of human traffickers on the run.
Wen Yaqian was probably abandoned by the traffickers in their haste to escape.
Later investigations found more pitiful remains beneath the slope behind the grass where the woman found her.
Compared to that, Wen Yaqian was undoubtedly lucky.
Although a bit weak, she survived and quickly regained health at the orphanage.
The orphanage’s Director Zhang named her Yaqian, so she was called Zhang Yaqian then.
When she was ten, her biological father—a wealthy man—found her and restored her surname to Wen.
There was no melodrama of a jealous younger son fighting for inheritance or a grieving mother dying early.
Her father loved her mother dearly; unfortunately, her mother died shortly after giving birth.
In fact, the reason Wen Yaqian was stolen was because her father was overwhelmed with handling her mother’s funeral and grief.
The man was grateful for everyone’s efforts and the director’s care, so he didn’t change her name and vowed to make it up to her.
However, when Wen Yaqian was fifteen, her father died in an accident, leaving her alone in the world once again.
Yet, even in that state, she surprisingly didn’t go astray.
Or rather, perhaps influenced by the anime she watched, fifteen-year-old Wen Yaqian developed quite a severe case of… chuunibyou.
Normally, this wasn’t a big deal. With time, it would naturally fade, becoming a humorous story among old friends or an embarrassing memory one would cringe at later.
But Wen Yaqian was different. Maybe it was her childhood trauma and grief over her father’s death.
Her chuunibyou didn’t fade even after entering university and adulthood.
She firmly believed Magic Girls existed in this world and that a Dragon of Darkness was sealed inside her arm.
She could harness the dragon’s power to become the Flame Dragon Magic Girl! For this, she even paid someone a lot to tattoo a black dragon on herself.
Then, she met the real deal.
A genuine Demon Beast appeared before her.
She thought it was a test, so she charged headlong at it.
The result was obvious—firearms barely hurt the Demon Beast, and a young woman wielding a random chair, ignorant of the beast’s weaknesses, yelling “Everyone back off! I’ll fight it!” couldn’t stand a chance.
Fortunately, The Old Man’s first contracted Magic Girl, North Wind, was already in action.
A single bullet pierced the Demon Beast’s head, saving her and erasing her memories.
Who knew that this kind of thing would happen to Wen Yaqian ten times in her life? The tenth time, the memory-erasing magic instead restored all her previous memories.
Even The Old Man said that if they erased any more, her brain would shut down and she’d become an idiot.
When she finally found the organization, Wen Yaqian eagerly applied to become a Magic Girl.
The Old Man rejected her straightforwardly.
“You have the minimal qualifications to use magic, but you’re not suitable. Sorry.”
But Wen Yaqian didn’t give up. She immediately offered to serve as backup support, saying she had money, a place to build bases, could provide any equipment, and could even be a researcher.
All of these were firmly refused by The Old Man.
He looked as cold as a stone.
In the end, Wen Yaqian bribed him with unlimited amounts of his favorite potato chips, and The Old Man immediately changed his tune.
She became the only member of the Magic Girl team who wasn’t actually a Magic Girl… a girl (?)
By the way, it was a recently joined pink-haired Magic Girl—who preferred to remain anonymous—who secretly told her that chips worked as bribes.
After opening the small door, the two entered a narrow corridor.
Wen Yaqian guided Jiang Lingwei deeper into this near-secret chamber.
Her tone grew heavy.
“I don’t know if I should call myself lucky or unlucky, but overall, I guess I’m lucky.”
“Every time, I manage to turn danger into safety, every time things turn out well.”
“Maybe the luckiest thing in my life, besides reuniting with my father, is meeting all of you.”
“No.”
Jiang Lingwei stepped past two protective charms and followed behind.
“Not just meeting, but ‘fighting side by side.’ We all feel honored for that.”
“Ha ha…”
Wen Yaqian’s nose twitched, her voice trembled a little, but she stubbornly turned her head away and tried to sound cheerful.
“Flattery sounds nice, hmm hmm hmm, but when you see what I’m about to show you, don’t be shocked.”
Passing the last narrow corridor, Wen Yaqian turned on the light in a small room.
There was nothing else inside except something encased in glass at the center.
“Let me see if I can…”
Seeing it, Jiang Lingwei’s words caught in her throat, unable to say anything no matter how hard she tried.
Wen Yaqian stood silently beside her.
After a while, Jiang Lingwei said in disbelief,
“Th-that is… Cloud Glow’s…”
“Go ahead, enter the code 0703. The glass will lower by itself.”
Inside was a strangely shaped Cross Scythe, glowing faintly.
It was the Magic Equipment belonging to Magic Girl Cloud Glow.
One of them.