Upon hearing Su Mu’s words, Luo Jialan showed no surprise.
What Magical Girl would deliberately create such a terrible image for herself online?
The only possible explanation was that she needed to stir up others’ negative emotions to gain Dark Magic Power.
Using trolling to obtain Dark Magic Power—tsk tsk, what a genius idea.
But after all, Strange Persons have no guides; it’s only natural they would take all sorts of bizarre paths.
Yet Luo Jialan clearly knew that the Su Mu she had seen was already a thorough Magical Girl, without the slightest trace of the detestable aura of Dark Magic Corruption.
What exactly had happened in between?
Not just Luo Jialan, but Su Mu herself also wanted to understand what had transpired within her.
“Heh, it’s ridiculous. I always thought someone online would understand me, keep listening like before, just treat what I say as nonsense… but this time, everyone actually took it seriously.”
Su Mu’s original account hadn’t been used for a long time, largely for this reason.
“It’s hard to imagine the first time people paid attention to me was because they were afraid of me—afraid I would target them, drag them down with me.”
Ordinary people didn’t really understand Strange Persons; they only knew they were mysterious and terrifying, constantly threatening those around them.
Only Su Mu, who had truly experienced it, knew how that felt.
“But I didn’t change my temperament, nor did I plan to harm anyone. Sometimes, I just wanted to die quietly by myself—starve to death. I’m afraid of pain; if I regret it, there would still be time.”
Su Mu murmured to herself, her voice growing lower and harder to catch.
“But, well, I changed my mind. Since no one wanted me to be okay, why should I care? I noticed then that their fear and rejection gave me some Dark Magic Power—not much, but enough to keep me going. So, a bold idea popped into my head.”
At this moment, Su Mu was no longer the despondent girl from before.
Her once clouded, clear blue eyes now sparkled with excitement, like a foreign child seeing a panda for the first time.
There was light in her eyes, though it wasn’t exactly a shining thing.
But seeing this Su Mu, Luo Jialan’s restless heart inexplicably quieted bit by bit.
She hoped this peaceful beauty could last.
‘If only a little longer, I want to keep listening to you, always, always.’
“Is it possible that as long as I anger other people online, they could provide me with enough Dark Magic Power? I don’t need much—just enough to survive. No one would ever discover this secret.”
And so, the genius girl Irina was born.
“They’re always arguing online, constantly fussing over trivial things. Even about whether March 8th or March 11th is bigger, they’d go red in the face. At such times, I became a venting outlet. Let them all curse me; wouldn’t that make everyone happy?”
The illusion of Su Mu let her hands fall, revealing a playful smile.
At this moment, she looked less like Su Mu and more like Irina.
But what she said wasn’t entirely true.
She had only angered more people, created many disputes that never should have existed, making an already filthy environment even worse.
But one thing was correct—the people online argued every day.
Her involvement didn’t cause any substantive change.
There were far worse people than her.
No one cared whether she did evil or good; no one cared if she lived or died.
If that was the case, why couldn’t she fight for her own survival?
“Then… why a Magical Girl?”
“Uh, simply because it could attract more attention. Besides, I knew the most about Magical Girls from the Forum—they seemed so perfect it was as if they weren’t real. Sometimes, I was curious about what was behind them.”
Thus, a few fanfictions about Magical Girls emerged.
Unknowingly, they became inextricably linked to these otherwise unrelated girls.
Luo Jialan nodded thoughtfully.
From her perspective, Su Mu’s actions couldn’t be deemed wrong—only a helpless move.
In the face of survival and fate, original values no longer applied.
What replaced them was the most ruthless standard: what keeps you alive is right; what leads to death is wrong.
Accordingly, Su Mu was reviled, becoming a pariah everyone wanted to destroy.
This was the inevitable consequence of her helpless choice—though she needed exactly this consequence.
“And then?”
“Well, what I gained far exceeded my expectations. The internet is truly a great invention; it connects almost everyone together. Through a small platform, everything is gathered, letting me achieve results far beyond other Strange Persons without much effort. I quickly became powerful—powerful to an incredible degree.”
The illusion of Su Mu suddenly lifted her face.
For a moment, it even seemed as if she wanted to break free from Luo Jialan’s influence.
Her eyes began to fade at an astonishing speed.
“But I never got to try it out. I couldn’t really go cause trouble on the streets.
But I guess it only took me a month to jump from an ordinary person to a Strange Person touching the C-Rank threshold. At that time, my account had about ten thousand followers.”
By the way, now it was close to a million.
Hearing the illusion’s words, Su Mu was momentarily stunned.
How could she not know about this?
“Little Su Mu, this illusion seems to be malfunctioning. Quickly retract her.”
Irina’s voice, about to recover in ten minutes, was more urgent than before, as if worried the situation was spiraling out of control.
It wasn’t hard to guess what was making Irina so anxious—it was exactly what the illusion had been saying.
But Su Mu chose to trust Irina’s words—she had always trusted her and didn’t need to understand the reasons behind them.
‘Since Irina said so, there must be a reason.’
With a thought, the abnormal illusion shattered like grains of sand, turning into a scattering, murky Magic Power that quickly dissolved into the surrounding walls and disappeared.
The abrupt change startled Luo Jialan, who stood up cautiously and looked around.
After a moment, she understood the reason.
“Su Mu, you’re listening too, right? Are you worried she’ll say something you can’t bear to hear?”
Under the bed, Su Mu’s heart pounded fiercely in her chest, almost bursting from her throat.
‘What should I do, Irina? You told me to do this, and now she’s going to catch me.’
Irina listened to Su Mu’s inner voice, wiping the thin sweat from her forehead.
‘Damn it, miscalculation. How could this illusion still retain those memories?’