Finally, the car entered an upscale residential area and came to a steady stop in front of a villa that looked very luxurious.
“All right…”
Jiang Yao seemed to finally break free from the tense and anxious state, blinking her eyes as she loosened her grip on the steering wheel.
“Mom, wait here for a moment. I’ll go open the door.”
“Mm…”
Jiang Lingwei, who was already feeling dizzy in the back seat, vaguely heard this before watching through the windshield as the girl ran to open the gate outside the villa and quickly hurried inside.
“Why is this kid in such a rush?”
Jiang Lingwei muttered softly.
Just now, Jiang Yao’s driving skills had really scared her. Several times, they were just one centimeter away! One more centimeter and they would have crashed into a heavy truck or something else.
Even if Jiang Yao could instantly transform, they’d probably be seriously injured.
And that speed—definitely far beyond the legal limits on all the roads they’d passed.
Since becoming a Magical Girl, Jiang Yao had quickly overcome her previous fears of heights and other psychological hurdles. The reason was simple: once someone could fly on their own, how could they still be afraid of heights?
But no one told her that Magical Girls also had to learn how to race cars! Is everyone in this new era like that?!
(Am I already an old relic?) (Sad)
“Mom!”
Carrying a small white first aid kit, Jiang Yao appeared again. She ran out of the yard and opened the rear door:
“Mom, let me bandage you up.”
“No need, really. It’s just a few small scratches—hey hey—”
Before she could finish, her hand was firmly grabbed without consent. The girl pulled out several rolls of bandage from the kit and began wrapping her hand directly.
Jiang Lingwei could feel a familiar yet strange coolness emanating from the inner side of the bandages, healing the wounds on her hand.
(Are these bandages infused with healing magic?)
After finishing, Jiang Yao didn’t relax. Instead, she carefully examined Jiang Lingwei’s whole body.
Luckily, her clothes and pants were made of pretty sturdy material. After the car crash, only a few minor abrasions appeared, with no significant damage—this had protected Jiang Lingwei’s skin well.
Also, it prevented any large-scale wardrobe malfunctions.
Still, the girl was uneasy. She went on to meticulously treat the tiny scrapes on her mother’s head and neck, scrapes so small that Jiang Lingwei barely even noticed them herself. Only after that did she seriously ask:
“Mom, are there any other injuries?”
“Not really.”
Jiang Lingwei moved her head a little, loosening the bandage around her neck with a helpless sigh.
This kid seemed a bit too worried. Besides Magical Girls who specialized in this kind of treatment, for anyone else, magical bandages were quite painstaking to make.
Using them so casually on scratches that would heal on their own soon felt a little wasteful to Jiang Lingwei.
“Mom! Please tell me if there’s anywhere else that feels uncomfortable!” Jiang Yao repeated seriously.
Looking at the girl’s serious and earnest adorable face, Jiang Lingwei found it hard to resist this feeling of being cared for. After thinking it over, she shyly replied:
“If I had to say, I twisted my ankle a little.”
“Your ankle?”
The girl hesitated a moment, then bent down to pull up both of Jiang Lingwei’s pant legs.
The left ankle was slightly red—this was from when the car was pushed up by the earthworm monster and hit midair.
“But it doesn’t affect walking. See? I walked straight to the safe zone just now and came back with you.”
Jiang Lingwei pulled her foot back. “No need to bandage it now. This taxi is probably still running up the meter, right? Let’s get out first.”
“No way! It’s not a big deal. I’ll treat it first.”
Jiang Yao immediately grabbed her foot and quickly pulled off the black sports shoes Jiang Lingwei had worn since leaving the hospital, along with the white socks.
A strange wave of embarrassment suddenly swept over Jiang Lingwei.
To expose her feet outside… it would be one thing if she were in a male form, but in female form, it felt very off.
She couldn’t explain why, but it just felt uncomfortable, like someone was staring at her.
On the other side, looking at the mother’s snowy white bare foot resting in her palm, wiggling its cute toes slightly out of unease, the young Magical Girl [Crystal], a high school girl Jiang Yao, once again realized that her mother was truly a beauty.
Even as a woman, she couldn’t help but be drawn to this beauty—not from any impure desire, but purely to appreciate it.
Perhaps it was also because she hadn’t seen her mother move around much before.
Despite the memory loss, Jiang Lingwei was now truly vivid and alive, and this gave Jiang Yao a sense of unreality.
She couldn’t refuse anything that confirmed this reality—that the woman before her was indeed her mother, awake and alive, and that she finally had a real family.
Although the previous ordeal, the hot weather, and the sports shoes had caused a little sweat on Jiang Lingwei’s feet, they emitted no unpleasant odor.
Instead, a faint, delicate fragrance lingered, which unconsciously drew the girl’s eyes downward from the ankle wound to those five plump, smooth toes…
“Mumble.”
(Yao Yao, Yao Yao! Stop swallowing your saliva! Mom’s feet are really pretty, but don’t look! Healing comes first! Can you get a move on with the job?ヽ（≧□≦）ノ)
A little angel dressed like a princess knight, with a halo floating above her head, suddenly appeared on Jiang Lingwei’s shoulder, shouting into her ear.
(Hehehehe, it’s no big deal! Daughter just wants to look at mom’s feet! Some people shouldn’t jump to conclusions, okay? Besides, this is appreciation of beauty! It’s perfectly normal behavior. (￣︶￣)↗)
Another little devil with sharp horns and fierce armor sat on her other shoulder, chuckling mischievously.
(Morally questionable!)
(Be true to your desires!)
Jiang Lingwei, whose foot was being held, looked at the girl with a serious gaze that slowly flushed red, her eyes drifting away.
Before she could say anything, Jiang Yao began shaking her head vigorously. Then she took a deep breath, pulled out a small brown bottle from the first aid kit, and evenly applied some cooling ointment to her ankle.
Before Jiang Lingwei could react, Jiang Yao quickly put the socks and shoes back on.
“All done, Mom!”
Jiang Yao stood up quickly. “W-we really are home this time!”
Her eyes shone with light and hope, her entire aura resembling an ancient sage leading the people—full of holiness and justice.
“Mm.”
Taking a deep breath, Jiang Lingwei got out of the car.
Magical Girls all had their quirks, and her child was no exception.
So it was normal to see her act a little strange sometimes.
Yes, exactly.
She looked up at the grand house in front of her.
The villa had four floors, plus an attic making it five levels in total. It looked very new, not like an old building.
Jiang Lingwei didn’t think Jiang Yao could have bought it through ordinary means. She guessed it was either left behind by the child’s father or purchased through some state welfare for Magical Girls after Jiang Yao’s transformation.
After all, Magical Girls were no longer hidden heroes working in the shadows.
From the description, it sounded like civil servants backed by the Fairy Kingdom.
Following Jiang Yao, she watched the girl scan her face at the door. The gate automatically opened, and the two stepped into the entry hall.
The villa had four floors, spacious rooms, and exquisite décor—though not overly luxurious, it was clearly valuable.
Compared to the small unit Jiang Lingwei had lived in before, this was, unsurprisingly, far better.
“Um, is our family really this rich?”
Hearing her question, Jiang Yao, who was bending down to get slippers for Jiang Lingwei, looked up and quietly said:
“Mm… Dad left a lot of money.”
Her voice grew quieter, barely above a whisper.
“…Okay, I get it.”
Jiang Lingwei didn’t want to talk about it and simply dropped the subject.
“Oh, right.”
Jiang Yao led her to a small elevator, and the two took it up to the third floor. “Mom, you and… your room are here. I live on the second floor. I…”
The girl’s eyes flickered uncertainly. “Anyway, I want to go downstairs and unpack first.”
“Okay.” Jiang Lingwei smiled, rubbing the girl’s head with the less-bandaged hand. “Go ahead. I’ll look around here by myself.”
“Mom…”
Being patted on the head made her breathing quicken slightly, a bit uncomfortable and flustered, yet she didn’t pull away.
“Don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous.”
Jiang Lingwei blinked. “Don’t forget, from my own memories, I’m only seventeen—just a year older than you. You can call me sister when you go out.”
“Mm hm.”
The girl nodded and put on a sweet smile again, then clattered down the stairs.
“Phew.”
Jiang Lingwei exhaled deeply.
Thankfully, nothing had gone wrong, and she felt like she’d managed to keep up the image of a good mother.
Suddenly having a daughter like this made her panic inside.
She really wanted to look it up online:
“How to communicate with a daughter one year younger? Urgently waiting!”
Opening a door, she found herself in a bedroom. A large bed stood in the center, with wardrobes and other furniture nearby.
On the nightstand by the bed, a rose-red box with a sticky note caught Jiang Lingwei’s attention.
It was about the size of two palms, styled like a gift bought from a jewelry store. Its unique color clashed with the rest of the room’s décor.
Walking over, Jiang Lingwei picked up the box and looked at the note on top, which bore two lines of beautiful handwriting:
【To my beloved Lingwei, to be opened by my wife.】
【To my eternal love.】
The moment Jiang Lingwei read these words, she felt a surge of magic flowing from her fingertips into her body.
Then, like an invisible eraser sweeping across the paper, the words instantly vanished, leaving the paper blank. The note spontaneously combusted into a wisp of faint black smoke and dissipated into the air.
“Click.”
A mechanism sounded as the box lid slowly opened by itself, reaching its fullest extent.
The magical energy that had appeared vanished as suddenly and quietly as a sudden gust of wind.
But Jiang Lingwei’s heart did not calm—it could not calm.
Sitting on the bed, she stared into the box’s interior. Inside was only one item, but it was unmistakable.
Her hand trembled slightly as she reached inside. With a familiar texture, she pulled out a necklace—
A necklace set with a pink heart-shaped gemstone, faintly cracked.