“Old Song, what the hell happened to you?”
It wasn’t just Qian Dehao—plenty of people in Copywriting Team 2 were staring at him, their expressions strange.
Song Wuli explained himself, then shuffled over to his workstation.
“I… uh, got a stomach ache. Ate something bad.”
“No, wait, Old Song. What does a stomach ache have to do with all those injuries on your body?”
Qian Dehao followed him over again.
Song Wuli: “Oh, you mean these injuries?”
Qian Dehao: “What else? You got some other problem?”
Old Song sat down carefully, turned on his computer, and casually started chatting with Qian Dehao.
It had only been a day since they last saw each other, and somehow both of them had ended up covered in injuries again?
Bruised and swollen faces, swollen joints, a ton of scrapes and cuts all over—it looked like they’d been in a car accident.
Song Wuli had an excuse ready: a car accident.
He’d made up the excuse on the way over, practically airtight.
After hearing his story, the coworkers didn’t suspect a thing.
“Old Song, you know what? Maybe you should go to Yinmiao Temple and get a talisman or something. You’ve been cursed with bad luck these past few months. You get hurt every couple of weeks. Think you’ve got a plague god attached to you?”
Qian Dehao was half serious.
Song Wuli briefly thought about what was underneath Yinmiao Temple, then quickly shook off that dangerous idea.
Why was he being so committed to being a magical girl anyway? He just needed to help out with the incidents Huan Hong and Jin Luan couldn’t handle. He shouldn’t go looking for trouble when there was none.
He chatted a bit more with his coworkers, and inevitably the topic of the battle at dawn came up.
Everyone had faint panda eyes, their spirits both drained and hyped at the same time—two contradictory states showing on their faces at once.
Clearly, no one had gotten much sleep.
“You guys see that swing Huan Hong took with that staff? That was so cool, I nearly cried watching it.”
The newcomer Chang Yong couldn’t stop talking about Huan Hong.
“I’m telling you, Huan Hong’s swing with that staff was absolutely amazing.”
“Too bad she lacks the power. If Jin Luan hadn’t saved her, she’d be dead.”
The other newcomer, Chang Kaihuai, was also chatting about magical girls.
Qian Dehao didn’t talk much about it, just lamenting how badly the city had been damaged and how many citizens had been killed.
Song Wuli was itching a little—no one had mentioned that peerless, flawless beauty yet, and he was getting impatient.
“Even without Jin Luan, Huan Hong wouldn’t have died. Her reflexes are amazing. You think she couldn’t dodge that attack?”
Chang Yong started defending Huan Hong.
“You think you know Huan Hong better than Jin Luan? They’ve been comrades for years. If Jin Luan went to save her, do you really think Huan Hong could’ve dodged on her own?”
Chang Kaihuai at least had some logical thinking.
Song Wuli looked toward the office entrance, hoping to see Huang Yijun show up.
Old Huang didn’t appear—instead, the supervisor came in first. Everyone instantly shut their mouths and stopped chatting.
The battle from last night was still fresh in everyone’s minds. They held some resentment toward the supervisor, but it wasn’t easy to say out loud.
Silence was a form of resistance.
The supervisor felt the awkwardness too. As he passed through the office area, he coughed a few times, then proactively brought up Song Wuli’s situation.
“Why is everyone gathered here? Xiao Song, you’re hurt again? You alright?”
He was both showing concern for Song Wuli and trying to defuse the awkward atmosphere between himself and his subordinates.
Old Song ran through the car accident story again.
The supervisor frowned and, for some reason, thought about it seriously.
Looking at Old Song’s injuries, he seemed a bit suspicious.
His experience was different from Qian Dehao’s. He’d sat in the supervisor’s seat for a long time. Countless people had asked him for leave, and he’d seen countless excuses and photos. Plenty of people used car accidents as an excuse, and he’d seen a lot of injured people.
But the injuries on Song Wuli…
“You didn’t happen to get hit by a yellow car, something like a Ferrari, going 150 miles an hour, did you?”
The supervisor was half joking, trying to lighten the mood in the office.
But there was a hint of seriousness in it too. Based on the photos employees had sent for leave requests in the past, whatever had caused Song Wuli’s injuries must have hit with considerable force.
And another odd thing—if it could cause such severe superficial wounds, why no fractures or dislocations?
The supervisor didn’t dig deeper. He joked around with Old Song a little more, then finally asked if he wanted to take leave.
Old Song’s injuries were clearly grounds for taking leave. His visible wounds were everywhere—it wasn’t like an invisible injury like depression.
Facing the supervisor’s concern, Old Song naturally declined.
He loved working. A day without work made him physically uncomfortable. No one understood the joy of work better than he did.
“Alright then. If you want to take leave, just come find me.”
With that, the supervisor headed back to his office.
The hall returned to laughter and chatter, everyone bragging again.
Even when work time rolled around, no one could curb the conversation enthusiasm.
The newcomers seemed to have learned some of the unspoken rules of the company.
Besides gathering at the QA Team to watch when a big game version was released, overtime hours were more relaxed about work, so slacking off was allowed.
Recently, they’d learned another rule—after a major disaster, since the company didn’t give days off, management would be a bit more lenient.
No one would crack down on them. Even chatting while working was fine now, no one would care.
Song Wuli didn’t join the conversation. Since no one had mentioned that flawless, perfect beauty, he was feeling uncomfortable. Of course, there were also other serious psychological and physical problems weighing on him.
He held his stomach with one hand, sitting up straight.
He looked around, and when he saw no one was watching, he pulled out his phone to slack off a bit.
He opened a browser and searched.
[In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, where is the best place to hide a Soul Gem to maximize survival rate?]
The top answer was two words long.
Song Wuli picked up his coffee with a trembling hand and took a sip to refresh himself.
Meanwhile, the Human Alliance headquarters was also in a meeting—they’d been in meetings since dawn, several in a row, on and off.
Their meetings came in two types: external ones and closed-door ones.
The external ones were mostly for show, going through the motions.
The closed-door meetings were where real business happened, which was what was happening right now.
An older-looking official was speaking, his voice loud.
“Ha, so now they’re saying that because Magical Girl Silver Lin is too strong, her threat level needs to be raised, and we need to send people to arrest her immediately.”
“Then let me ask you—is Silver Lin’s magic power cannon instant? Does she need to aim? Does she need to charge?”
“Answer me!”
“Can her magic miss? Is her magic power cannon homing? Is her Spear of Creation homing?”
“Answer me! All of you saying Silver Lin’s threat level is off the charts and needs to be dealt with immediately—answer me!”
“You old farts are scheming to go after a child?”
“Speak up!”
“Is Silver Lin a child? Isn’t she still mentally immature?”
“You’ve even cooked up theories about Silver Lin possibly destroying the world and wiping out humanity. This is how you treat a magical girl who just saved humanity?”
This was clearly an official from the Witch Faction, defending magical girls’ interests—and ultimately, their own faction’s interests.
The matter of Jin Luan’s threat level being raised was unavoidable. The Eastern Alliance had already sent over photos from the scene.
Seeing the horrific state of those Star Summoning Society members in the underground tunnel, it was understandable that humans would feel uneasy.
It was a natural case of “the fox mourns the hare.”
Since Jin Luan couldn’t be protected, at least Silver Lin could be—that was one of the Witch Faction’s goals for today’s meeting.
Fortunately, Silver Lin had just accomplished a monumental feat. Protecting her at the Human Alliance meeting shouldn’t be too difficult.