“Ah… Feng Ling, have you seen a guy about this tall around here?”
Lian Ge gestured a height, a whole head taller than Feng Ling.
“He was limping because of a leg injury. Is he okay?”
Feng Ling pretended to be stunned for a moment, then said casually, “Oh, I saw him, I saw him. He was still watching the battle when I arrived. Really no sense of safety at all. I already dragged him away and sent him home.”
“Then I’ll call to make sure he’s safe.”
Lian Ge canceled her Transformation.
The blue light receded from her body like an ebbing tide, and her Grecian-style white robe turned into a thin white shirt.
She took out her phone from her pocket, lowered her head to open the contacts, found the number labeled “Brother Jiang Zhu,” and dialed.
Feng Ling was startled, but quickly realized that her phone, along with all her belongings, temporarily disappeared during Transformation and would only reappear when she canceled it.
No matter how much she called, no one would answer.
Sure enough, Lin Ciwei took the phone away from her ear.
The dialing screen on the display was still fruitlessly ticking the seconds, but the only response was a constant busy tone.
“Eh? Why isn’t he answering? He didn’t run into danger on the way, did he?”
Unable to get through to Jiang Zhu, she was still a bit worried.
Feng Ling took this opportunity to say something, and also probe to see what kind of image she had in Lin Ciwei’s eyes.
“That guy… is he your boyfriend?”
“No, no… just,” she paused for a moment, thought about her wording, then finally said, “just a blind date.”
Seeing her like this, the blind date must have gone south, and Feng Ling was quite satisfied with that.
The two of them had long since been on different paths.
Being tied together by a blind date and childhood memories was hardly a good thing.
It was better to go their separate ways and have no further contact.
A vehicle with flashing red and blue lights had already driven into the residential complex.
The Association Logistics Team’s car had arrived, and workers in white uniforms got out and ran over.
Feng Ling hurriedly waved goodbye to Lian Ge.
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going now. See you.”
Before her words faded, she leaped into the air and flew up high.
Feng Ling’s rental apartment was not far away.
The whole place was just a single room, even the bathroom was enclosed on the balcony with frosted glass.
Of course, the rent was very cheap.
She had originally planned to rent a place near her company after finding a job, but after being forced to become a Magical Girl, that plan had to be put on hold.
He closed the door, confirmed the curtains were tightly drawn, then grasped the Azure Gem on the bow at his chest and canceled the Transformation.
A cyan light flashed and faded in the cramped room.
Feng Ling’s translucent, gelatinous skin returned to normal color and texture, and Jiang Zhu reappeared in the room.
He fished his phone out of his pocket.
The screen lit up, showing two missed calls, both from the same person.
Jiang Zhu called back.
Before he could speak, a voice came from the other end: “Brother Jiang Zhu, are you okay?”
Jiang Zhu subconsciously opened his mouth to say, “I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t worry,” but the words were already at the tip of his tongue when he forcibly swallowed them back.
‘…No. The purpose of tonight’s blind date was to lower her affection. It finally went south. I can’t throw it all away now.’
He reminded himself inwardly.
“Fine, fine,” he adjusted his voice to a casual tone, even with a hint of complaint.
“Taking you home almost got me killed. You look fine, so I’ll hang up now.”
Before Lin Ciwei could reply, he hung up and turned off the screen.
The screen went dark, reflecting his blurry face.
Jiang Zhu casually tossed his phone beside the pillow and fell onto his back on the bed.
“Ah, so tiring.”
It was hard to believe so many things had happened in just one day: getting caught setting up a stall in the afternoon, the blind date in the evening, and fighting Demon Beasts with all his strength at night…
Jiang Zhu lay in bed, without the slightest desire to move, and soon fell asleep.
He had a dream for the first time in a while, dreaming of Lin Ciwei.
Strangely, in the dream, she still looked like her childhood self, but was wearing a Magical Girl outfit and lecturing people with authority.
She was practically a replica of Magical Girl Lian Ge…
But for some reason, right after scolding like that, she clung to him nonchalantly and sweetly called out “Brother Jiang Zhu.”
“Xiao Lin… Lian Ge…”
Jiang Zhu muttered her name and woke up under the noise of Lin Ciwei’s (in the dream) clamor.
He didn’t know what the dream meant, but he felt it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Knowing that Lin Ciwei was Lian Ge gave Jiang Zhu a deeper understanding of her, allowing him to formulate a better plan to make money.
Several parallel ideas quickly appeared in Jiang Zhu’s mind, including optimizing his own money-making scheme, as well as targeting the “Scab” Lian Ge.
However, Jiang Zhu’s understanding of Lian Ge was still insufficient.
Even though they were childhood friends, he didn’t know how just one college semester could have transformed Lin Ciwei so completely…
Could it really be because of the ideal of being a Magical Girl?
He hadn’t yet figured out Lian Ge’s thoughts, but he had a clear idea on optimizing the money-making scheme.
“Right, why do I have to stick to the time-consuming and laborious on-site autograph? I can just pre-make them.”
The biggest problem with on-site autographs was the time window—she had to complete the entire process from setting up to packing up after the battle before Lian Ge arrived.
This window could be as short as a few minutes, or as long as ten-plus minutes.
If Lian Ge came quickly, the business would be ruined.
But if she wrote the autographs and blessing messages in advance and made them into finished products, she could just take them out and sell them right after the battle, then run away.
By the time Lian Ge arrived, she would have already slipped away.
However, if it were just plain “pre-made autographs,” the onlookers might not accept the downgrade in service, so Jiang Zhu planned to give the “pre-made autographs” a nicer shell—postcards.
As soon as he thought of it, he acted.
He grasped the Star Crystal.
A cyan light flashed, and Jiang Zhu disappeared into the light, replaced by the Magical Girl Feng Ling wearing a cyan dress.
She used her transformed fingers to hold the mouse, opened the graphic design software on the laptop, and began to layout and create.
As for why she transformed before starting work… although Feng Ling was indeed greedy, she also had a craftsman’s spirit.
Facing her fans, she couldn’t allow the postcards that her fans eagerly anticipated to be actually made by a stand-in.
This might be the sense of dislocation that came from being a male Magical Girl.
She always believed that although Magical Girl Feng Ling shared the same cognition as herself, in essence she was not the same person.
Of course, it was precisely because of this sense of dislocation that she could act cute without any regard for self-esteem—after all, it had nothing to do with “Jiang Zhu.”