As she approached the ground, Yin Lin used her wand to slow her descent and struck a perfect landing pose.
After accelerating her fall to startle her targets, she drifted down from the sky.
There wasn’t a hint of wind.
The tip of her left foot touched the ground first, followed by a graceful flutter of her silver hair and skirt, giving her an ethereal, otherworldly appearance.
Then, her right foot landed, and she stood firm.
It was a textbook “Angel Descending” scene.
‘Wait, why isn’t anyone gasping?’
Yin Lin scanned her surroundings but didn’t see a single soul.
‘Damn it, did nobody see my carefully prepared Magical Girl Landing Animation?’
Finally, a dockworker spotted her.
She tapped her wand against a shipping container, making a loud clanging sound.
The man waved at her, rubbed his eyes, and a look of pure excitement crossed his face.
Once he confirmed his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, he let out a sharp cry.
But then things turned strange.
The worker closed his eyes, pressed his palms together in front of his chest, and bowed his head slightly as if reciting a silent prayer.
Ten seconds later, he snapped his eyes open and immediately began texting his friends, family, and coworkers.
He started shouting again, pointing at the silver-haired girl atop the container and yelling to the other workers on the wharf.
“A Magical Girl! It’s a Magical Girl!”
He was gripped by an intensity that Yin Lin found hard to understand.
Half a minute later, a large crowd came running over.
Their movements were eerily uniform — eyes closed, heads bowed, and hands pressed together.
Were they… praying?!
It was exactly what people did when they saw a meteor shower, making wishes in the hope they would come true.
Yin Lin flew down from the container, performing her Magical Girl Landing Animation once more, which elicited another round of gasps from the crowd.
“I tracked a Demonic Creature here,” Yin Lin said, getting straight to the point.
“I just discovered that several of these containers are suspicious.”
“A Demonic Creature? Where? Is it nearby? Is it here?”
The dockworkers immediately grew tense.
“It’s already fled the area; it’s not nearby.
However, there’s something suspicious about this spot, so I’ve come to investigate,” Yin Lin said, steering the conversation back to the containers.
The workers seemed to hesitate.
Some began to ask their superiors for instructions, while others looked conflicted.
Eventually, someone stepped forward to lead her to the container she had pointed out.
The specific container was buried at the very bottom of a stack, making it difficult to move.
Yin Lin’s abilities had their limits.
She was physically fragile and couldn’t move a heavy shipping container on her own.
The workers asked her to wait a moment, as the Captain was on his way.
After only five minutes of waiting, the Captain arrived.
He came racing across the wharf in a vehicle, driving so fast he nearly caused an accident.
He climbed out and began fixing his clothes as he ran toward the cargo ship.
Despite the sweltering heat, he made sure his uniform and hat were perfectly straight, as if he were going to meet a high-ranking official.
He was a middle-aged man with a short, graying beard.
After boarding the ship, he approached Yin Lin.
Just as he was about to shake her hand, he seemed to remember something.
He opened his eyes, reached out, then quickly closed them again, bowed his head, and performed a “prayer” before finally shaking her hand.
“Hello, I am the Captain of the Hotpot, Zhao Xiao. Please forgive my earlier rudeness.”
Yin Lin noticed that these people were quite friendly and didn’t show any of the panic typical of criminal suspects.
She stated her purpose clearly: she had found something suspicious and was here to conduct an investigation.
After she pointed out the problematic container, Captain Zhao Xiao marked it and contacted the wharf to have the containers stacked on top hoisted away one by one.
It took thirty minutes to extract the first special container from the bottom of the pile.
A crowd of workers and the Captain gathered around Yin Lin, waiting for her to open the container and reveal its contents.
Since the container was sealed and couldn’t be opened through normal means, a worker used hydraulic shears to snip the seal.
Following the workers’ instructions, Yin Lin pulled the doors open.
Everyone was both afraid and intensely curious about what lay inside.
Special black rods were slowly moved out.
The interior was packed with them.
Yin Lin pointed toward some plate-like objects, and the workers began to help unload the cargo, carrying the items out piece by piece.
“This container is transporting graphite,” Captain Zhao Xiao said as he flipped through his ledger.
“Graphite?” Yin Lin watched the workers.
“Is it common to ship this much over long distances?”
The Captain replied, “It’s fairly common. Not all cities have retained their industrial capabilities. Even for graphite products that are common in Yiri City, many other cities in this era find them very hard to obtain. Is there something wrong with this graphite?”
Yin Lin nodded.
She had already picked out the special graphite rods; there were two in total.
She tried touching them, but felt nothing unusual.
She tried to lift one, but found it impossible — it weighed roughly 100 kg.
Only Huan Hong would be able to lift something like that; it was out of the question for Yin Lin.
They continued to open several more containers, gathering all the problematic materials in one place.
In addition to the graphite rods, there was alumina ceramics and several other common materials.
Together, they made up several tons of “Magical Materials.”
The workers stared at her while she scratched her head in confusion.
‘What are these for? Why do they contain mana? Why would anyone need these?’
Her little head was starting to ache from the confusion.
Feigning composure in front of the workers, she found a corner to contact Jin Luan and Huan Hong.
She explained part of the situation and asked what these materials could be used for.
Huan Hong replied with only a question mark.
Jin Luan, however, was much more reliable.
[To make electronic products?]
[What are you doing? Don’t go running around; it’s dangerous outside right now.]
[Don’t go off and do things behind our backs again.]
[Never mind. Where are you? Tell me, and I’ll come over immediately.]
After thinking it over, Yin Lin sent her the location.
While waiting, Yin Lin continued to gather details about the shipment from the workers and Captain Zhao Xiao.
As a responsible captain, Zhao Xiao had a good habit — he always made sure he knew exactly what the Hotpot was carrying.
He didn’t just look at reports; he would personally go to the site to watch the shippers load the cargo, inspecting at least 20% of it to know the general nature of the freight.
This habit had saved him from legal trouble several times.
He had once caught a shipper trying to smuggle live people in a container, and another time he found someone hiding restricted items inside a normal shipment.
Therefore, when chatting with Yin Lin, he was able to answer most of her strange questions.
This particular shipment was bound for a port city near the Suez Canal.
It was unclear if that city actually needed the goods or if it was merely a transit point where another ship would take over the transport.
He had received many freight orders like this over the past two years.
As Zhao Xiao reminisced, he habitually reached for his cigarette case.
Noticing the young girl standing nearby, he pulled his hand back and continued talking about the shipper.
The shipper was an ocean trading company with a branch office in Yiri City.
The client was very generous, generally paying higher shipping fees than others while having very few requirements for transport conditions.
However, one thing was odd — there were two directors Captain Zhao Xiao dealt with.
Sometimes it was an old man, and other times it was a beautiful woman in a formal suit.
Yin Lin memorized the name of the shipping company, preparing to investigate them.
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