“What do you mean?”
On the corridor in front of Room 801, Building 3, Xingjianyuan Residential Area, the black-clothed magical girl’s words instantly made Tang Xiaolu bristle.
“Who are you saying will kill Xiao Yao? Me?”
“You are instilling a wrong set of values into the newcomer.”
Facing the bristling Tang Xiaolu, the girl in the shadows maintained a completely expressionless face throughout.
“That car rolled over and caught fire. Not to mention the risk of explosion at any moment, you should know that our enemies as magical girls are Witches. Only Witches produce Grief Seeds.”
The girl’s eyes moved, glancing at the still-smoking block not far away, her tone cold.
“You are leading the newcomer to waste her Magic Power on such irrelevant matters, which will accelerate her progress toward becoming a Witch.”
“Irrelevant?”
Tang Xiaolu was getting angry.
“A matter of life and death, and you tell me it’s irrelevant? Yes, I am indeed a magical girl, but at the same time I am also a human. I was born into this world as a human first, and then became a magical girl—since I was born human, am I supposed to stand by and watch people die?”
The girl’s gaze fell on the Soul Gem on Tang Xiaolu’s chest.
After a long moment, she uttered a single sentence.
“Are you sure you are human?”
“You!”
This time Tang Xiaolu was truly furious.
“If I’m not human, then am I a ghost? By that logic, aren’t you human either?”
“Mn.”
The girl lowered her eyelids.
“I really am not.”
Then she added, “All of you are the same.”
“You—”
Tang Xiaolu raised her Scepter of Sovereignty, pointing it at the girl.
“Have you already abandoned your humanity?”
“You think you are human, you want to keep your humanity, and that is why all your companions died.”
Facing the Scepter of Sovereignty now inches from her, the girl said coldly, “You teach the newcomer to follow so-called ‘born human’ rules. That mindset will kill her one day.”
“I’m just doing what an ordinary person should do. As for Xiao Yao, I believe she will have her own judgment.”
Tang Xiaolu’s voice rose several decibels.
“Are you here to sow discord?”
This time, the girl did not reply.
The magical girl who had been standing in the shadows vanished.
“She ran off?”
Tang Xiaolu kept her posture protecting me while swinging the Scepter of Sovereignty a few times toward the shadows ahead.
“What a weirdo. Suddenly popping up, saying a few provocative words, then running away.”
After confirming that magical girl had indeed left, Tang Xiaolu withdrew her staff.
“By the way, was her ability teleportation or concealing her presence? Just now downstairs, I couldn’t even sense her…”
“That magical girl is very strange.”
I sensed something off.
“Lulu, do you remember what she looked like?”
“Huh? She isn’t…”
As Tang Xiaolu spoke, her body suddenly froze.
“Wait, now that you mention it, I really don’t remember what she looked like or what clothes she wore. I only remember she was a magical girl…”
I walked over to the shadows where the girl had been standing.
“Her ability might be related to concealment or disguise.”
“Well, if she dares to run over and say weird stuff again, I’ll bash her head with a chess piece.”
Tang Xiaolu took out the prepared key and opened the door in front of her.
“But in a way, she does have a point. If we magical girls use too much Magic Power on helping people and don’t fight Witches, going a long time without getting a Grief Seed, our Soul Gems really will get corrupted by impurity. So if something like this happens again… Xiao Yao, it’s up to you to decide whether to save them or not.”
“Usually, according to anime plot development, such a strange person will transfer into our class tomorrow as a new student.”
I followed Tang Xiaolu into the room and teased, “Then as a key character, she’ll reveal the truth behind some mystery, or very awkwardly join our magical girl team.”
“Please no. I don’t like her at all. Even if she does transfer, I don’t want to be friends with her.”
Tang Xiaolu clicked the light switch on the wall, and with her back to me, said in a relaxed tone, “Never mind that person. Make yourself at home, treat this place like your own.”
Room 801, Building 3, Xingjianyuan Residential Area had that classic “duplex” layout.
Entering from the front door, the first thing that caught the eye was an extremely spacious living room.
At the far end, the living room connected to a balcony.
On the left side were the kitchen and several guest rooms, along with a staircase leading to the second floor.
Compared to the living rooms of ordinary families in my memory, this “secret base” of Tang Xiaolu’s was decorated in a dreamy style.
The overall color scheme of the living room was that soft, fluffy girly style, mainly light pink, creamy blue, and pale purple.
Many pieces of furniture were also cute in design—for example, a cloud-shaped beanbag sofa beside the TV, cat-paw-shaped pillows on the magic carpet, and Lolita-themed little chairs with lace edges around the afternoon tea table.
Besides that, the lighting here wasn’t ordinary incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, but sparkling crystal chandeliers and a string of little star lights climbing up the wall like morning glories.
When lit, they looked like crushed stars deep in the universe—very beautiful.
“Thanks.”
Bathed in the soft starlight, I obediently walked toward the living room and found a spot near the corner to sit down.
“Don’t be so formal. It’s just the two of us here.”
Seeing me like this, Tang Xiaolu let out a chuckle.
“Do you always sit so stiff and straight at home too?”
She walked to the refrigerator by the kitchen door and opened it.
“What would you like to drink?”
“Anything is fine.”
I looked at the wind chime hanging on the balcony door and asked curiously, “Is this the secret base you mentioned, Lulu?”
“Sort of. But strictly speaking, the real secret base is upstairs. On the second floor, there’s a space a friend of mine created using magic.”
Tang Xiaolu came back with two bottles of juice and handed one to me.
I took the juice.
“Thanks.”
“And this—this is the key to the room.”
Tang Xiaolu placed the key she had used to open the door into my palm.
“If you want to come play in the future, just use the key to let yourself in.”
“Huh?”
I felt a little embarrassed.
“Lulu trusts me that much? We’ve only known each other for less than a day…”
“Didn’t I tell you? Out of all the classmates, you left the deepest impression on me. I noticed you as early as the military training at the start of school. I trust my own judgment.”
Tang Xiaolu took a sip of juice, light shimmering around her as she canceled her magical girl transformation.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs and take a look—and by the way, you don’t need to transform here.”
“Oh…”
With a thought, I also canceled my transformation, returning to the cute nightgown and bunny slippers I had changed into after my shower at the dorm.
Together with Tang Xiaolu, I went to the second floor of the house and entered the innermost bedroom.
Tang Xiaolu moved aside a bookshelf in the corner of the room and pressed something on the wall behind it.
“This is our secret base—the Heijiang Magical Girl Adjustment Room!”
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