That was a somewhat sad story.
The protagonist was a little girl around 12 years old.
The little girl’s name was Lu Shuangshuang.
When she smiled, she had two shallow dimples on her face.
Heijiang Medical University Affiliated Hospital was a fairly well-known hospital in Black River City, renowned for its long-standing expertise in hematology and malignant tumors.
At the time, my mother had a sudden high fever, so my father pulled some strings to get her admitted to Heijiang Medical University Affiliated Hospital.
Even now, I still remember the room number where my mother stayed—Bed 22 on the third floor.
Lu Shuangshuang’s room was Bed 23 on the third floor, right next to my mother’s bed.
That day, after coming to the hospital with my father to see my mother resting in Bed 22, I noticed the little girl next to us sitting on a middle-aged man’s lap, watching a video on his phone.
I could tell the middle-aged man looked haggard, his lips pale, but there was light in his eyes.
I still remember the anime the man and the little girl watched that day: Clannad.
The scene happened to be where Ushio Okazaki threw herself into her father Tomoya’s arms and said, “The only places where you can cry are the bathroom and in Daddy’s arms.”
Since I had watched that anime too, the little girl left a deep impression on me.
The next day, my mother’s condition improved, and she woke up.
The doctor said that after two more days of IV fluids, if nothing went wrong, she could be discharged.
Meanwhile, the little girl in the next bed went in for surgery.
Her surgery lasted from morning until afternoon, with two relatives accompanying her.
After returning from surgery, the little girl didn’t cry or fuss.
She sat quietly alone, hugging her toy bear and staring into space.
I looked at her, and she noticed me too.
With an oxygen tube still hanging from her nose, the little girl weakly greeted me.
“Big brother, my name is Shuangshuang. What’s yours?”
I asked her, “Did the surgery hurt?”
She said it still hurt a little.
I asked her again, “Where’s your dad?”
She said her dad couldn’t come until evening.
“Why don’t you go keep that little sister company?”
Perhaps my mother couldn’t bear to see such a young child so lonely, or maybe she felt her own condition was stable and she didn’t need looking after.
After hearing our conversation, she urged me to go play with the little girl.
So I handed her my phone and watched videos with her.
The show we watched was an old yuri anime, Black★Rock Shooter.
Besides the toy bear, the little girl had also brought her backpack.
On that backpack was a very classic image of an asymmetric twin-tailed girl.
When I asked the little girl what she wanted to watch, she pointed at her backpack and said, “Who is this big sister?”
I said it was Black Rock Shooter.
“Is there an anime about Black Rock Shooter? I want to watch it.”
So we watched this old yuri anime together.
“The people in the Otherworld… fight for our pain. Only when the people in the Otherworld feel pain or die do we in the real world not hurt, right?”
After finishing the anime, the girl Lu Shuangshuang seemed reluctant to part.
“So if we in the real world are always feeling pain, would the other me in the Otherworld… be able to live a little easier?”
“Watanabe equals Takanashi… because the little bird is playing games, so no eagles appear…”
“A colorful little bird… from white to multicolored, reborn in a fall, flying away on the pain…”
“Hmm…”
The little girl kept sharing her understanding of Black★Rock Shooter with me.
Until her father arrived.
“Sorry, Dad’s late.”
When that haggard middle-aged man walked into the ward, I saw the little girl get excited all at once.
“I want a hug.”
She said to the man sitting on the edge of the bed.
He picked her up and held her.
The next second, the little girl burst into tears.
“What’s wrong? Does it hurt… does it hurt?”
The man was a bit flustered, but he gently patted her shoulder.
“It hurts… it hurt a lot this afternoon. Even the pain pump didn’t work. This big brother kept me company.”
The little girl cried and spoke in a wronged tone.
“It doesn’t hurt now…”
The man didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Then why are you still crying if it doesn’t hurt now?”
“Be-because…”
The little girl wiped her tears and said, “Because Ushio said… said that the only places you can cry are the bathroom and in Daddy’s arms.”
***
At that time in the hospital, I was sitting nearby, and my nose stung.
On the third day, our family completed the discharge procedures and left Heijiang Medical University Affiliated Hospital.
I always thought that after the surgery, the little girl’s condition must have improved a lot.
I never expected that I would meet her family like this.
“So that’s how it was.”
On the tree-lined path of the neighborhood, where the sirens of fire trucks kept sounding, after listening to my story about the little girl, Tang Xiaolu, walking ahead, let out a soft sigh.
“So it seems that female driver outside should be Lu Shuangshuang’s mother.”
“Yeah.”
I was silent for a few seconds.
“Soon, someone nearby will call an ambulance to take that aunt to the hospital… Do we have a way to find out which hospital? I want to go see her after school tomorrow.”
“We do. There are several computers at the secret base. A magical girl who used to be a hacker there taught me some basics. Just checking on someone shouldn’t be a problem.”
Leading me to a building marked “Building 3” in the neighborhood, Tang Xiaolu found a hidden spot and waved the Sovereignty Magic Wand.
The next second, countless black chess pieces formed a simple staircase, leading straight to the roof of this building.
“Top floor, Room 801.”
Tang Xiaolu was the first to jump onto the black chess piece staircase.
“Come on. This building has the fewest residents in the neighborhood, and there are no surveillance cameras around. We can just go straight up.”
“Okay.”
Following behind Tang Xiaolu, I stepped onto the suspended black chess pieces, making a swish swish swish sound as we reached the top floor.
“Huh?”
Then, on the top-floor corridor of Building 3, Tang Xiaolu and I spotted a girl.
A magical girl.
This magical girl’s uniform was similar to mine—all black.
She stood entirely in the shadow of the doorway, and her presence was so faint that even in our transformed state, neither of us had noticed her.
“Excuse me, who are you…”
In the darkness, Tang Xiaolu noticed someone standing at the door and quietly moved to shield me behind her.
“In one month, this city will face the most powerful witch, ‘Koutili.’ Her primary target is your Black River City No.3 High School.”
The magical girl in the shadows didn’t answer Tang Xiaolu’s question.
Instead, she looked at me with a strange expression.
“Also, Huang Yao, I don’t recommend you team up with Tang Xiaolu.”
The girl’s eyes, like an abyss, fell on me.
Her tone carried an indescribable complexity.
“She will kill you.”