Pitch dark—the lights had all gone out.
The music box melody grew ever louder.
Yingmeng pushed through the crazed, tightly packed crowd, her bell long since useless.
She had to rely on her Mirror Flower, Water Moon ability to force her way through people’s bodies.
When she reached the center of the crowd, she saw that the once small, pink plush bunny had become monstrously large.
Inside its body echoed the tune of “Für Elise” from the music box.
Countless vines extended from its hands, piercing anyone who dared touch its palms.
The moment the victims made contact, barbed vines stabbed into their bodies, draining their blood in an instant, leaving behind only dried-up corpses with blissful expressions.
Yingmeng pulled out her crystal pen and quickly drew a crude longsword out of thin air.
She hurled the blade at the bunny’s hands, but the poorly made sword barely did any damage—only slicing through a single vine before becoming unusable.
At that moment, the plush bunny, still sucking the blood of those around it, turned its attention to her.
Its button eyes radiated a strange expression, as though her attack was something deeply abnormal.
The bunny abruptly severed all its blood-sucking vines and stood up, looming over the girl on the ground.
“Welcome to Paradise of Happiness~”
The music box tune inside it was replaced by a bizarre, contextless phrase.
“Welcome to Paradise of Happiness~”
“Welcome to Paradise of Happiness~”
…
The same line played on loop, again and again.
The crowd echoed the words and began a series of suicidal acts, dying right before Yingmeng’s eyes.
At that moment, Yingmeng hadn’t yet drawn her next illusion-light image with magic.
For a second, she envied those who could unleash flashy attacks with just a flick of the wrist.
But her belief as a magical girl made her reject that thought instantly.
I’ll defeat you—today—it ends here!
Yingmeng sketched a flashlight, then conjured a small shard of mirror in her hand, crushed it, and flung the pieces into the air.
[Dream Refraction]
Yingmeng turned on the flashlight and shone its beam toward the airborne mirror shards.
Instantly, the light refracted through the fragments, flooding every corner of the checkout area.
By the time the plush bunny adjusted to the magic-infused light and looked around, it saw countless Yingmengs surrounding it, each in a different pose, attacking.
The bunny didn’t hesitate—it spun around instinctively, its massive arms smashing through every Yingmeng in sight.
Each time one was struck, she shattered back into glass fragments.
But it also hit the real Yingmeng.
“Ugh!”
Yingmeng was slammed backward by the hammer-like force, thrown several meters through the air.
She struggled to stand up from a shelf, her legs trembling—her strength completely drained.
She didn’t feel despair—Yingmeng knew she had already achieved her goal.
“It’s over.”
She pressed the activation button she had just drawn, and in the next instant, the magical bomb she’d planted on the back of the plush bunny’s neck exploded, sending its head flying.
“Succss…success…”
Yingmeng didn’t even get the last word out before her smile froze.
The headless plush bunny continued charging forward.
The blood flowing from its severed neck was quickly absorbed by the vines sprouting from its back, repurposed as fuel to keep it moving.
The strategy had failed.
The plush bunny wasn’t even the real body!
“So… it still… didn’t work?”
Yingmeng could feel her entire body wracked with pain—she had no strength left to keep fighting.
“Stop right there!”
Just then, a sweet, delicate voice rang through Yingmeng’s mind.
Before she could react, flames suddenly erupted around her.
Ye Jinyi tossed away the lighter she had grabbed from a store shelf, paying no mind to the corpses she had set ablaze, and dashed straight toward Yingmeng.
Ye Jinyi grabbed her hand without hesitation, not even checking if she was in pain, and dragged her into a mad sprint to escape the inferno.
“Shifu?”
Yingmeng couldn’t understand why Ye Jinyi was here—hadn’t she already run off?
“You didn’t run?”
“If my disciple didn’t run, what’s a shifu doing running away?”
“Told you, if you can’t win, just run. Bet you’re suffering now, huh.”
Ye Jinyi ran at full speed with Yingmeng, trying to escape the hellish sea of fire she had set herself.
Even now, she couldn’t stop herself from throwing out snarky comments—it was like that was the only way she could feel alive.
But when Ye Jinyi and Yingmeng reached the turn at the staircase, they realized the way forward was blocked entirely by fire.
Smack!
Ye Jinyi slapped herself hard.
“Really went and dug my own grave, huh…”
Cough, cough!
Hearing Yingmeng’s coughing, Ye Jinyi quickly tore off her own mask and put it on her.
“This should block some of the smoke, right?”
“Welcome to Paradise of Happiness~”
“Welcome to Paradise of Happiness~”
The plush bunny’s voice rang out from behind them, mechanical and cheerful, like some sick joke of a children’s show host.
The scraping sound of vines dragging across the floor, along with the clacking of metal joints, made it clear the thing was getting closer.
Ye Jinyi quickly turned toward the giant bunny slowly making its way through the fire.
In her eyes now, the plush bunny no longer looked like a rabbit at all—it was more like a grotesque fusion of machine and vines, twisted together into a monster.
“There’s no time.”
Yingmeng was now too weak to even move.
The bunny was part of it, but so was the fact that Ye Jinyi had set the store ablaze—smoke was something no human body could withstand.
“I’ll carry you.”
Ye Jinyi tried to lift Yingmeng onto her back, but given her current size, it was more like dragging Yingmeng’s body forward with both hands, forcing herself to move.
Ye Jinyi strained under the crushing weight, taking one step at a time.
“Shifu…”
Yingmeng struggled against the dizziness brought on by the carbon monoxide.
“Leave me… go…”
“No way!”
Ye Jinyi wasn’t about to let Yingmeng give up on herself.
“Forget about me… You can still… run on your own…”
Ye Jinyi froze.
She suddenly realized—she was still running.
Only this time, she was dragging Yingmeng along with her.
But what difference did that make?
Running was still running.
She wasn’t a hero, wasn’t a magical girl, wasn’t even a proper adult.
She was just some unlucky fool who got saddled with a ring and randomly turned into a loli.
She couldn’t even save herself—what right did she have to think she could save anyone else?
“I…”
Ye Jinyi’s throat tightened.
“What kind of shifu abandons her disciple?!”
Ye Jinyi shouted, full of defiance.
Maybe it didn’t make much sense, but this—this was the one thing she clung to.
It sounded ridiculous, sure, but Ye Jinyi was determined to be that fool.
“But… if you leave… me behind, at least one of us… might survive, right?”
“What kind of joke is that?!”
“My life doesn’t have many days left anyway. Even if I don’t die today, it won’t be long. But you’re different—if you survive, you still have a future. Shenzhou still has a future. What this country needs is you, not me!”
“Today, you’re surviving no matter what—because you’re coming back with me to play cards!”
“Shifu… thank you for coming back for me.”
Ye Jinyi’s tears spilled out in an instant.
“Don’t thank me, dammit!!”
“I didn’t come back just to hear you say crap like that! Got it?!”
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