“Ugh—!”
A suppressed roar tore through the morning stillness.
Mu Xi shot up from the bed, her chest heaving violently.
Cold sweat drenched her thin pajamas, clinging stickily to her back.
The familiar, faintly musty ceiling entered her vision.
The panic at the edge of that nightmare slowly receded like the tide, leaving behind only a cold, lingering dread.
She gasped for air, silver-white hair plastered in a messy tangle to her damp neck and temples.
Once her wildly beating heart calmed a little, Mu Xi weakly threw off her blanket.
Her feet touched the icy floor, and the chill made her shiver.
Dragging her heavy steps, she walked to the bathroom.
She twisted the faucet; icy, bone-chilling water gushed forth.
Mu Xi cupped a handful and splashed it hard onto her face.
The stabbing cold instantly woke her foggy mind, temporarily pressing down the bloody afterimages lingering in her eyes.
She raised her head.
Damp bangs stuck to her forehead as she gazed into the mirror.
A face too young, even childish, stared back—so pale as to be almost transparent.
But those eyes, which should have been clear, looked like two congealed drops of blood, harboring a bottomless dark red.
And that shockingly frosty silver hair, so different from ordinary people—who would ever imagine, inside this seemingly sixteen-year-old girl’s body, was imprisoned the soul of the one once called “Crystal Orchid,” the Magical Girl burdened with blood and despair?
The pale, quiet figure in the mirror. Mu Xi stared fixedly.
For a split second, the mouth in the mirror seemed to curl up in an eerily cold and blurry smile.
“Eh?”
Mu Xi’s heart skipped a beat, and she blinked hard.
When she focused again, the mirror showed only her own pale, anxious face, and those gloomy red eyes.
Everything was as usual—as if a trick of the light or a hallucination left behind by the nightmare.
“Again…that rainy night five years ago…” she muttered, her voice dry and hoarse, thick with exhaustion.
“My mind’s a mess. Forget it, I’m not going to school today.”
She shook her head as if to shake off that eerie illusion along with the nightmare.
She picked up her phone and tapped quickly on the screen to send a leave request.
The motion carried a numb, practiced familiarity.
After a simple wash-up, the kitchen became her temporary refuge from her thoughts.
She took two slices of bread and half a wilted cucumber from the fridge.
The frying pan went on the stove; blue flames licked at the bottom.
Once the pan warmed, Mu Xi picked up the oil bottle and sprayed just a few stingy drops.
The oil sizzled, tiny “zzla” sounds crackling in the heat.
With practiced ease, she cracked two eggs and slid them into the pan.
The clear whites quickly set into milky softness, wrapping trembling yolks in the center.
She sprinkled a little salt and black pepper, carefully flipped the eggs until the edges turned golden and tempting, then set them aside.
Half a cucumber went onto the cutting board.
Mu Xi’s right hand instinctively clenched in the air—as if muscle memory had been awakened—suddenly, a point of Starlight gathered and stretched in her palm, instantly becoming a faintly glowing Starlight Dagger made of pure celestial energy.
The icy energy made her fingertips tremble.
“Shhh, shhh, shhh.”
The Starlight Dagger sliced the cucumber, making soft cutting sounds.
Three uneven slices fell onto the board. The rest of the cucumber was put away.
Next came the important ritual: plating.
Bread as the base. Wait, there was something important.
Mu Xi stacked the slices together; the Starlight Dagger twirled deftly in her hand, flashed, and neatly trimmed away the rough bread crusts.
She looked at the scraps.
“I don’t like the crust.”
She gathered them into a small bowl.
Separating the bread slices, she laid one down, placed the perfectly fried egg on top, then layered on the cool cucumber slices, and finally covered it with the other slice.
Mu Xi gripped the Starlight Dagger—now more like a ceremonial table knife—angled the blade with focused care, and with a crisp “chack,” cut the sandwich cleanly in half diagonally.
The triangular cut revealed golden egg, green cucumber, and the soft white core of the bread.
A simple egg sandwich, solemnly placed on a plate, carried to the living room.
The old television was switched on; the screen flickered a few times before a news anchor’s precise yet flat voice came through: “Welcome to Red Sea City’s morning news, today…”
Mu Xi sat cross-legged on the sofa, picked up half of the sandwich, and took a gentle bite.
The soft bread had a hint of wheat and sweetness; the warm fried egg spilled thick yolk that wrapped her tongue, and the salt and pepper perfectly accented the egg’s flavor.
Crisp cucumber balanced out the richness, adding a refreshing layer.
“Mmm…”
A satisfied, nasal sigh slipped out before she realized.
Mu Xi reflexively covered her mouth, chewing slowly.
To her, this simple, handmade warmth was a rare happiness in her gray life—a glimmer of Starlight that let her keep going.
The TV voice faded into background noise.
The anchor recited the same news as always: another area attacked by monsters, another Magical Girl appearing in time to avert disaster…
Ever since the epic battle that wiped out the “Crystal Orchid Squad” and defeated the S-Class Catastrophe Broodmother, much of the city’s overwhelming fear seemed to have lifted.
Although vast Pollution Zones and powerful monsters still surrounded the city, people living in “Eden” had grown used to this fragile peace, immersed in a numbing sense of safety.
After breakfast, Mu Xi pulled on a baggy black hoodie, the hood drawn so low it almost hid her striking silver hair and brows. She stepped outside.
Her neighborhood was old and quiet, neither prosperous nor a slum. In the chilly morning, the air smelled of grass and earth.
A few people in tracksuits jogged past, their footsteps steady.
At the exercise area not far away, a few elders moved slowly, chatting about family matters.
Mu Xi turned and headed, with practiced familiarity, to a secluded corner deep in the neighborhood, half hidden by thick holly bushes.
She took a small, wrinkled plastic bag from her hoodie pocket and called softly, “Mimi.”
“Meow~” came a delicate reply.
A small yellow-and-white cat darted out from the grass and circled Mu Xi’s legs, its furry head rubbing against her shin.
“Good kitty, good kitty.”
Mu Xi crouched, reaching out to gently scratch the kitten’s chin and ears.
The little cat squinted in pleasure, purring louder and pressing its head into her palm.
“Sorry,” Mu Xi’s voice dropped, tinged with embarrassment and apology, “I… don’t have money for cat food anymore. You’ll have to make do with these.”
She opened the plastic bag—it held the bread crusts cut off this morning.
A cruel truth lay coldly before her: she, once the Abyssal-Class Magical Girl “Crystal Orchid,” was nearly penniless.
In these five years, the meager rewards from Magical Girl missions had long been spent.
She’d tried to find a normal job, but her too-petite, childlike body and face made interviewers see her as a minor needing a guardian.
She ran into walls everywhere.
The only small mercy was that no one knew her real identity.
She’d never dispelled her Magic Armament in public.
Her former comrades, her cherished students—no doubt they’d all decided that “Crystal Orchid” had, on that rainy night five years ago, been wholly consumed by the Pollution left by the Disaster Mother’s death, gone mad and slaughtered her squad, and died as well.
“Sigh…”
Confronted with this triple blow of poverty (in both senses), social alienation, and being forgotten as someone “already dead,” Mu Xi couldn’t help but let out another heavy sigh, like a stone dropped into a dead pond.
The little cat didn’t seem to mind the meager food.
It grabbed some bread crusts, spun nimbly, and disappeared back into the grass.
Mu Xi left the neighborhood and merged into the growing crowds on the street.
She bought a week’s worth of cheap instant food and discounted vegetables from the supermarket; the heavy shopping bag cut into her fingers.
Afterward, she wandered the streets aimlessly, like a puppet needing to recharge, pulled by invisible strings.
By the time she dragged her exhausted body home, the wall clock’s hands had quietly slipped past noon.
She dropped the shopping bag by the door and all but collapsed onto the sofa.
Yet a surge of deep discomfort twisted within her, worse than it had been on the street.
Her head spun, as if needles churned in her temples.
What truly alarmed her was the sharp, unbearable itch and stabbing pain along her spine—as if something was desperately trying to burst out from under her skin!
“Ugh…”
Mu Xi stifled a groan and bolted upright, arms clutched tightly around herself, fingernails digging deep into her flesh.
She could feel it—a cold, slimy, malicious living thing, writhing and swelling between her vertebrae, struggling to tear through her skin!
“Grrr—!”
She clenched her teeth and forced a painful growl through them.
“Stay…down!”
Veins bulged on her forehead, and cold sweat instantly soaked her temples and back.
Five years!
Ever since that rainy night, this Catastrophic Mutation from Pollution had been like a parasite clinging to her bones, crushed by her willpower but never gone.
Today, it raged more violently than ever before!
She couldn’t let it break free!
Mu Xi summoned all her mental strength, building an invisible dam deep within her mind to pit herself in a silent, perilous struggle against that lurking darkness.
Sweat trickled down her pale cheeks, dripping onto the sofa arm.
Time seemed to freeze; every second crawled by.
At last, those slimy, writhing appendages that nearly tore through her skin slowly, unwillingly retreated under the iron grip of Willpower Suppression, sinking back into the black abyss.
“Haa…haa…”
Mu Xi slumped into the sofa like someone pulled from water, completely soaked and utterly drained, gasping for breath, each inhale straining her aching muscles.
That fight had almost emptied her strength.
Her eyelids weighed as if filled with lead; her vision blurred and spun.
She couldn’t even change out of her sweat-soaked clothes—her body tipped to the side, and her consciousness plunged into darkness.
When she opened her eyes again, the world outside the window was pitch black.
Thick clouds smothered the moon, letting only the faintest, most meager moonlight—like the gaze of a dying man—struggle through the glass, grudgingly casting a small, blurred spot of light onto the living room floor, landing squarely on Mu Xi’s pale profile.
The room was utterly silent. No lights were on.
Mu Xi remained curled up on the sofa, staring blankly out into the impenetrable night.
A cold, soul-chilling loneliness like a silent tide submerged her completely.
The world seemed to contain only her, abandoned in a gap between time and space.
“So…lonely…”
The barely audible murmur vanished into the empty room, leaving not even an echo.
Gurgle—
Her stomach rumbled, dragging her back from icy thoughts to reality.
Hunger pierced her, sharply reminding her of her body’s existence.
She rose mechanically, went to the kitchen, and dealt with dinner using the remaining bread and a little jam.
The food tasted like wax.
Next was a shower.
Warm water washed her body but not her exhaustion or the chill rooted in her bones.
She dried off and changed into clean pajamas.
Mu Xi climbed onto the abnormally empty bed, cocooned herself tightly in the blanket, leaving only a pair of deep red eyes exposed in the dark.
She closed her eyes, long silver lashes casting a trembling shadow below them.
In her heart, she prayed silently, almost devoutly: Please, let me not dream again…
Don’t let me go back to that rainy night…
The room fell into complete darkness.
And in the deepest corner—where even the faint moonlight could not reach—a pair of ruby-like eyes silently opened, gazing fixedly and unblinking at the curled, lonely figure on the bed.
That gaze was cold, and watchful.