“Qiuyu, you look really beautiful when you smile,” Lin Xiaojue praised from the bottom of her heart.
Murong Qiuyu’s eyes, clear as autumn water, blinked. She dodged the gaze and lowered her head.
“Mhm… yeah.”
Seeing Murong Qiuyu’s shy appearance, Lin Xiaojue couldn’t help but want to tease her some more.
“By the way, Qiuyu, why go to the population archives… wait, the archives?”
Lin Xiaojue had just found a topic to talk about when she suddenly realized something was wrong.
“Mhm, I went to the population archives to change my personal records. The police should be on their way to arrest me by now.”
“Huh?” Lin Xiaojue froze.
“Huh!!!”
“Wuu — wuu —”
Right then, the piercing, shrill sound of a siren sliced through the rainy night. Looking back, the red and blue flashing lights of police cars sped along the road, splashing water all along the way.
“I remember that modifying the population archives isn’t a capital offense. At most, they’d probably lock me up for one or two years. It was clearly not like this during the residual beast disaster period,” Murong Qiuyu said somewhat guiltily, rubbing her nose as she watched the police cars racing toward them.
“Then hurry up and run!” Lin Xiaojue’s previous excitement vanished instantly. She pushed Murong Qiuyu’s back and hurried toward a side alley.
Fortunately, there were many old residential buildings nearby, and the small alleys left over from earlier years were still there.
Wooden junk racks covered by tarpaulins were piled on both sides of the alley, and the pungent smell of mixed trash drifted from a dumpster at the far end.
Filthy gray water accumulated on the ground, and the sound of raindrops pitter-pattering against tin sheets echoed overhead.
Lin Xiaojue pushed Murong Qiuyu all the way to hide under a rain gutter.
This spot was close to a residential window; a dim yellow light blurred through the barred window, suggesting someone was still inside.
“Wuu — wuu —”
Several police cars roared past the mouth of the alley, leaving behind only the sight of their speeding silhouettes.
Lin Xiaojue stood on her tiptoes and covered Murong Qiuyu’s mouth, trying her best to prevent this ditz from making any sound.
‘Senior Murong is great in every way, she’s just a bit of a ditz.’
Finally, after the sound of the sirens gradually faded into the distance, Lin Xiaojue slowly released her hand.
Her hand was covered in warm water droplets. She wiped it on her dress, her expression blank.
“Murong Qiuyu, can we please be a bit more law-abiding? You’re a magical girl, for heaven’s sake.”
Lin Xiaojue spoke crossly. Today, Murong Qiuyu had first made her act like a mother and then modified the population archives, bringing her no small amount of trouble.
She crossed her arms and glared with rounded eyes at the figure before her, who was a head taller than herself, only to see the other girl turn her head with eyes as calm as autumn water.
“We did avoid them today, but my clone sent back information saying they didn’t catch the person they wanted. Once they realized they had handcuffed a clone, they left, not caring in the slightest about my act of modifying the population archives.”
Murong Qiuyu rested her chin in her hand, her face showing deep thought.
“Ha?” Lin Xiaojue raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean they didn’t care? Since when could they distinguish your clones? Weren’t all the magical items confiscated by the Kingdom?”
Murong Qiuyu waved her hand, her dark brows furrowing slightly.
“Jue, you don’t understand what I mean. I’m saying that the one they wanted to catch wasn’t me; perhaps it was someone else.”
“If the target were me, and since they don’t have magical items, why wouldn’t they just turn in my clone to finish the job once they caught it?”
“You’re thinking too little of the police’s professional dedication,” Lin Xiaojue said, sounding bored.
“There must be something fishy going on. Perhaps their target was never me — “
Murong Qiuyu paused and looked at Lin Xiaojue. Lin Xiaojue rolled her eyes, her gaze asking, ‘What are you looking at me for?’
“Perhaps it’s you.”
***
A Japanese-style bedroom, a stack of tatami mats.
Outside the wooden door, wind chimes swayed in the rain, emitting a crisp and pleasant sound.
The fishy smell of soil washed by the rain diffused into the room from the courtyard outside, carrying a bone-chilling cold.
This made the red-haired girl kneeling on the floor tremble all over.
She was already wearing a yukata, leaving large patches of skin exposed to the air.
The cold continuously sapped her body heat, to the point where her entire body shaking and her teeth chattering would not have been an exaggeration.
But what made her even more terrified was kneeling there on the floor, waiting for the “Sister” in front of her to make an announcement.
Life or death, staying or being cast out onto the streets.
Everything depended on a single word from “Sister.”
“You didn’t catch her?!” The red-haired girl in front of her was also wearing a yukata, but unlike An Yumo kneeling on the floor, An Yuxi exuded a palpable sense of pressure.
“There was nothing we could do. Honestly, you shouldn’t have let Miss Lin leave in the first place, but you insisted on letting her go.”
The person on the other end of the phone tried to persuade her with earnest words, explaining the situation to An Yuxi word by word.
“Tsk.” An Yuxi clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. After hanging up the phone, she sat kneeling on the floor.
The wind whistled, carrying cold raindrops into the room. An Yuxi faced the curtain of rain. Droplets hit her face, and her crimson hair lay messy against her forehead.
This helped An Yuxi clear her head a bit.
She turned her head and looked at her sister, who was still shivering in place.
From start to finish, An Yumo kept her head lowered, not daring to look at her, looking exactly like a white rabbit playing dead after encountering a hunter.
An Yuxi let out a faint smile and retracted her gaze.
In common terms, the relationship between her and An Yumo was that of the real and fake heiresses.
However, she was the real one, and An Yumo was the fake.
One was a person who had taken everything from her without even realizing it, living her days in a daze.
The other was a person who fought on the front lines, growing as a magical girl.
They were two completely different things.
An Yuxi’s foster parents had already died tragically during a remnant beast tide, so An Yumo wouldn’t be able to find her biological parents even if she went back.
Instead of that, it was better for her to stay.
But An Yuxi knew clearly that being a magical girl was a high-risk profession.
One might die on the battlefield any day.
So, she had sent her sister into the organization.
Fortunately, after undergoing hellishly rigorous training, her sister was fine; her body was unharmed, or at least, she wasn’t dead.
Unfortunately, while An Yuxi survived, she only left an increasingly terrifying image in her sister’s eyes.
In truth, An Yuxi herself wasn’t sure.
Since becoming a magical girl, she was finding it harder and harder to control her power.
Perhaps one day, she would twist the gravity of this entire mansion, crushing the buildings into powder.
Mortals naturally feared this power.
“Fine, stand up.”
An Yuxi turned her head and spoke to An Yumo.
“Yes.” An Yumo stood up, respectfully maintaining a military posture with her hands pressed against her thighs, staring straight ahead.
“Heh.” The corner of An Yuxi’s mouth curled into a smile.
This made the panicked and uneasy An Yumo even more restless.
“Do you know what you did wrong?” An Yuxi’s tone suddenly shifted, instantly becoming gloomy.
“I… I shouldn’t have gotten the intelligence wrong. I mistook Murong Qiuyu’s clone for her real body and lost the opportunity to capture the target.”
An Yumo did not dare to say much. Faced with her “Sister’s” questions, she had only one way of responding.
That was to give a concise answer without saying a single extra word.
If she did, she would be crushed by gravity.
Like right now.
“You’re wrong.”
Boom!