“Don’t be nervous, I’m not going to eat you.”
Watching “Su Mu” curl up again in fear, Luo Jialan chuckled softly, releasing the latter’s hand and no longer pressing down on Su Mu’s chest with the formidable weapon she had barely managed to acquire, finally allowing her to catch her breath.
“But I do sense a different kind of aura from you, Su Mu.”
Luo Jialan’s fingertips poked at Su Mu’s cheek.
When she pulled her fingers away, a trace of Dark Magic Power was stripped off, coiling gently around her fingertips.
“Hey, Su Mu, you’re not a Magical Girl, right? To be honest, I’ve been wondering about this for a long time.”
Luo Jialan toyed with the cluster of Dark Magic Power—something normally utterly incompatible with Magical Girls.
Yet now, it lay in her palm like a tame lamb, showing no resistance at all, even seeming faintly affectionate.
This indicated that Luo Jialan’s body had already adapted to and could manipulate Dark Magic Power, meaning she was not far from becoming the Desire Witch.
Being questioned like this by Luo Jialan, Su Mu naturally couldn’t understand, but hearing her real name sent a shiver through her heart, making her unwilling to dwell on it further.
‘When exactly did Lando set her sights on me? What does she want to do to me? Who really is the Magical Girl, and who is the Strange Person?’
“Forget it, I won’t mess with you anymore. I already made a mistake with a little kid just now, and I have no intention of going after an underage person like you.”
Upon hearing this, Su Mu gave a grim smile as her mind short-circuited.
‘What do you mean you made a mistake with a kid? What does it mean going after an underage person? What on earth are you saying?’
‘Also, how do you even know I’m not an adult yet?’
“Can you tell me about your past, Su Mu?”
“Tell… tell what?”
“Anything. I want to hear it all.”
Luo Jialan brought her face so close it nearly touched Su Mu’s nose.
Her deep gaze seemed to pierce through every strand of hair, every inch of skin, making one instinctively tighten their clothes.
But contrary to Su Mu’s expectations, Luo Jialan’s words carried a trace of magic.
The illusion of Su Mu was instantly captivated by the gentle enchantment flowing from Luo Jialan’s lips, her entire being going blank and silent for a moment before she began to pour out her story like beans slipping from a bamboo tube.
Su Mu’s eyes widened.
She didn’t know what exactly the illusion saw, but she herself felt tense.
At this point, she couldn’t stop it, so all she could do was pray that everything would proceed smoothly.
She covered her ears, pretending not to care, thinking about trivial things.
Sometimes avoidance isn’t so bad—blink once, blink twice, and the ordeal passes.
Come to think of it, she still hadn’t figured out why Luo Jialan favored her so much.
Was it because of loneliness?
Or simply because she fit her tastes?
Maybe both.
After all, she was probably fascinated by Luo Jialan for the same reasons.
Su Mu still remembered the last words she said before Luo Jialan took her away—and she regretted them.
She regretted it because she once held onto hope.
But what hope could she still harbor for Luo Jialan?
“Well then, I’ll start from the beginning, Doctor. It’s just that I rarely talk face-to-face with others, so I’m a bit nervous.”
The confused “Su Mu” fixed her gaze on the blue-haired girl in the white coat before her, eyes flickering like a child afraid of making mistakes.
“It’s alright, just speak freely. It’s only the two of us here.”
A sweet smile appeared on Luo Jialan’s face.
She needed no pretense; as soon as she invoked her magic, she seamlessly slipped into her role.
Now, she was Su Mu’s psychologist, her confidante, perhaps even her lover—but only hers.
That genuine smile instantly melted away the walls and burdens in Su Mu’s heart, allowing her to speak with relief.
“Alright, I’ll start then. Um, since I was little, I’ve felt different from others. No matter how hard I tried to reach out, I never got any attention.”
“When I say others, I include my mom. I should say I have a dad, but I’ve never seen him—neither in person nor in pictures. But I don’t have any special feelings about this absence.”
“My mom was always exhausted, reeking of alcohol. When she came home, she’d fall asleep immediately. There was hardly any chance for her to talk with me, and honestly… I didn’t want to bother her.”
At this, Luo Jialan frowned slightly but didn’t interrupt.
She listened quietly.
“Here comes the puzzling part. Around the time I started school, I had no friends. Almost no one remembered me. Once, I was even tricked into a car by human traffickers—well, I only learned they were traffickers later. They used candy to lure me, but because there were too many people, they lost me. I don’t know whether to call that lucky or unlucky.”
“Do you still remember those people?”
Listening to Su Mu’s words, Luo Jialan’s brows knitted tightly, the atmosphere turning heavy.
But she quickly caught herself, pretending to wipe her nose and restoring her warm smile.
“No, I don’t remember. Anyway, they wouldn’t remember me either. It’s not important. In short, my mom lost me, then the traffickers lost me. It was like no one cared about me. My middle school homeroom teacher couldn’t even call my name. When I was punished, I spent the whole day in the office. My mom didn’t come. No one at school remembered me being there, and no one even noticed I wasn’t in class…”
Luo Jialan fell silent.
In this regard, her experience was the exact opposite of Su Mu’s—after all, when she once broke a classmate’s nose, Luo Linglan showed up at school and roughed up those annoying kids’ parents with her fists.
In that sense, Luo Linglan might have been a competent mother.
She was perhaps luckier than Su Mu, even becoming a Magical Girl earlier.
Although Tang Nai was a detestable person, at least she could truly solve her own urgent problems.
“The only place I could rely on for emotional support was the internet. In a place where no one knew anyone else, people could freely vent about their lives. As long as you hid your name, even the most embarrassing experiences could be shared.”
That meant Su Mu could do it too.
She could blend in with these stories, some true and some false, and voice those unnoticed experiences of hers, even gaining hundreds or thousands of views—which was unthinkable compared to before.
By now, Luo Jialan had forgotten her original reason for questioning Su Mu.
Her own desire seemed to calm temporarily; she just wanted to listen as the girl in front of her continued to clear the dust from her heart.
“Everything could have gone smoothly if it had continued like this—until my fifteenth birthday. That’s when I became a Strange Person.”