Chapter 21: The Plan

While the two chatted idly, they’d already eaten half a pizza.

“So, what are you thinking?”

The woman picked up a small new slice and took a bite, listening as the girl revealed what she was really after.

“Hmm…”

The girl hesitated for a moment.

“Senior, don’t you think something’s off?”

“What kind of off?”

The woman didn’t think much of it and continued chewing her slice.

“I mean… the new year has barely begun, and yet weird things have been happening one after another.”

“On the very first day of the new year, the Flame That Burns the World returned. Now it’s just been barely over a week, and we’ve already discovered a being capable of inducing fear in a calamity.”

“Maybe I’m overthinking it, but I think all this needs a thorough investigation.”

“So how do you plan to investigate?”

The woman stared into Xing Wei’s eyes.

Acting without preparation was always dangerous.

“For starters, so many days have passed, and there’s still no trace of the Flame That Burns the World. Doesn’t that seem strange to you, Senior?”

Strange?

For us magical girls to exist at all isn’t already strange enough?

The woman had long since adapted to absurdity.

No matter how many strange events piled up, she wasn’t easily shaken.

“I don’t overthink like you do. If it were up to me, I’d just find it and deal with it. I only care about results.”

“Thinking too much only drains your mind.”

“Ehh~ Senior, you really know how to live~”

The girl propped her face up with her hands and gazed at her with admiration.

“Keep talking. World-level calamities still haven’t been clearly defined. Maybe your wild theory really is brushing up against the truth?”

The woman paused, recalling that childhood disaster for a second before pulling her thoughts back.

“We once believed all calamities originated from that gamma-ray burst known as ‘Abaddon.’ People used that infernal name to label the catastrophe.”

“After that, countless calamities appeared, and we naturally assumed they were all spawned by that burst. But the Flame That Burns the World shattered that belief.”

“From that moment on, we were forced to revisit the question we had ignored for too long—what is a calamity?”

“Still, we haven’t found an answer. But what matters most is the people’s lives. More important than understanding calamities is eliminating them. Human safety always comes first. Every life we save is a victory against death itself.”

“So when I hear your thoughts, I get this feeling—maybe we’ve found another path. A path to better understand this world.”

After saying that, the woman felt her mouth go dry and took a sip of her tea.

“Thank you for supporting me, Senior. If I said all this to a regular person, they’d probably think I was crazy.”

As Xing Wei spoke, she pulled out a pen, then dug into the school bag she had brought with her, retrieving a notebook. She flipped to a blank page and sketched a rough diagram.

Then she pulled out her phone and opened her gallery, scrolling to a photo she had taken a few days ago—the one showing the Flame That Burns the World.

She then handed both images to the woman.

“Don’t you think these two back views look incredibly similar?”

The sketch depicted the black-haired girl from the earlier projection, hooded and with her face obscured.

The photo showed a girl with light blonde hair, but the posture and movement were identical.

Xing Wei pointed to the materials and explained, “The biggest similarity between these two individuals is that their height is nearly the same.”

The woman looked up from the drawings and asked, “So you believe the black-haired girl is the Flame That Burns the World?”

“Not sure~”

Xing Wei shook her head helplessly.

“If I were on site, I might’ve been able to tell. My ability focuses on identifying and manipulating light.”

“The only reason I recognized the Flame That Burns the World before was because the spectrum in the ambient light of the sky matched exactly with the one in the recorded inferno.”

“But what we’re seeing now through the projection is what that thing saw.”

As she spoke, Xing Wei picked up the chip again, looking troubled.

“Its eyes can’t see much, so there’s no way I can identify anything accurately.”

“It’s like trying to see color on a black-and-white TV—even if you know it was actually in color, you just can’t see it.”

“So, you want to find the black-haired girl?”

The woman picked up on her intent. This was the only lead they had on the Flame That Burns the World.

Without a doubt, they had no choice but to follow it.

“Exactly!”

Xing Wei jumped up from her chair in excitement, pressing both hands on the table and leaning toward the woman.

Her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Then Xing Wei realized her outburst and quickly sat back down, a little embarrassed.

“Ahem,” she gave a tactical cough and continued her explanation.

“From what we saw in the footage, I get the sense that this girl is someone we can communicate with.”

“She clearly has incredible power, but based on her behavior, she didn’t seem likely to harm people intentionally—except for that single moment when the bell rang and that uncontrollable power surged out.”

“But to me, that looked more like a survival reflex triggered under extreme duress.”

“In other words, that girl might not even know what her own powers really are.”

“If we just give her a calm environment and don’t trigger any psychological defense mechanisms, I believe she won’t be a problem.”

After hearing Xing Wei’s theory, the woman finished her last slice of pizza.

“There’s still one problem. How are we going to find her?”

The woman looked at Xing Wei, who had gotten all fired up—just in time to rain on her parade.

But Xing Wei wasn’t discouraged. She immediately laid out her plan.

“At the very least, we can track down the magical girl she saved.”

With that, Xing Wei opened her phone and pulled up a file.

“G-rank magical girl Yingmeng, real name Huimengyi. The night after the battle, she went to Renmin Hospital for treatment.”

“The ambulance picked her up from an old residential community called Wenxin Garden. Because of privacy laws, I couldn’t access more detailed info, so this is as far as I got.”

“If the government’s willing to install a few surveillance cameras in that old community, I think we can still find her. The place isn’t big—three cameras would pretty much cover the entire street.”

“Then make it five. Use the extra two to figure out which building she’s in and install them there.”

Hearing Xing Wei’s request, the woman casually named a figure. After all, it wasn’t her money—resolving the issue quickly was what mattered most.

“Thank you for your support, Senior Mo Shuhua!”