Chapter 8: A terrifying night at the construction site, what is in the cement?

Lin Qingya set down the heavy bag of cement and cautiously approached the dark corner piled with discarded construction materials.

The metallic, bloody scent grew sharper as she drew closer.

The lighting here was dim, with only faint beams from distant floodlights casting long, eerie shadows across the ground.

Aside from the occasional rumble of an excavator, the only sound was her own nervous heartbeat.

What… was hidden here?

The corner was cluttered with heaps of discarded rebar, cement, and concrete blocks—so much that even a strong adult would struggle to clear a path by hand.

The heavy materials blocked her way, concealing the truth.

Lin Qingya frowned. Being alone calmed her slightly, but the obstacle before her posed a new dilemma.

Should she investigate further?

She had a bad feeling that if she kept going, she might uncover something truly horrific…

No, wait! She was a magical girl now! What was there to fear?

Just a quick peek—surely that wouldn’t hurt?

She shook her head vigorously, trying to dispel her overactive imagination.

No more overthinking. As the saying goes, hesitation leads to defeat!

Lin Qingya raised her right hand, palm open, her fair, slender fingers starkly visible in the dim light.

She focused her mind and silently chanted.

“Phase Shift!”

With a soft call, a strange transformation began.

The edges of her palm blurred, enveloped in a gentle white glow, becoming translucent, like a glitched texture in a video game with wall-clipping cheats enabled.

This was her unique ability—Phase Shift.

A conceptually overpowered ability.

When activated, she entered a special phase state, ignoring most physical laws.

It granted her three distinct applications:

First, visual invisibility, making her body transparent—simply put, “stealth.”

Second, attacks that bypassed all defenses, striking directly at a target’s internals—aka “true damage.”

Third, absolute immunity to physical and magical damage—known as “invincibility.”

Though she lacked the flashy magical tools of Weire and the others, Phase Shift was an incredibly broken mechanic.

The only downside? Her base stats were pitifully low.

Oh well, no big deal. As the saying goes, even the best martial artist fears a kitchen knife!

If brute strength wouldn’t cut it, she’d use a blade!

Melee lolita style—pure dominance!

Lin Qingya didn’t hesitate any longer. Maintaining her hand’s phased state, she reached toward the cold, hard pile of materials.

No collision, no resistance.

At this moment, she couldn’t help but grumble inwardly—having such a game-breaking ability and being sent to haul cement at a construction site was an absolute waste!

This magical girl transformation device was as messed up as high school physics.

Cold rebar, rough concrete blocks, sharp gravel—her hand passed through them all effortlessly, as if moving through air.

Her arm gradually sank into the darkness, patiently probing the heavy debris for the source of the smell.

Suddenly, her fingertips brushed against something with an odd texture.

Huh? What’s this?

It wasn’t cold like metal or rough like stone or wood.

It had a… tough, pliable feel, with irregular protrusions on its surface.

With a thought, Lin Qingya deftly hooked her fingers around the object and pulled her arm back.

As her hand fully emerged from the pile and solidified, the object dropped into her palm.

Under the dim yellow glow of a distant floodlight, Lin Qingya examined it closely.

It was a small fragment, about the size of a fingernail, grayish-white with a yellowish tinge, its broken edge revealing a porous structure.

A piece of… broken bone?

It was stained with dark red, dried blood.

Connecting it to the bloody scent, a chill shot from her soles to the top of her head!

A horrifying possibility exploded in her mind.

Could this… could this be…

A human… bone?

“Ugh…”

A wave of nausea surged to her throat, and Lin Qingya nearly gagged on the spot.

She flung the bone fragment to the ground, her body trembling with fear, her face turning ashen.

No, she couldn’t panic.

Lin Qingya forced herself to calm down.

If… if something heinous had happened here, she absolutely couldn’t ignore it!

The image of her father lying in a hospital bed fueled a sudden surge of courage within her.

This wasn’t just about magical girl justice—it stemmed from her admiration for her father and all the heroic police officers like him.

As the daughter of a hero, she couldn’t back down here!

Gritting her teeth, Lin Qingya suppressed her fear and nausea, activating Phase Shift again.

This time, she wasn’t aimlessly searching.

Following the source of the bloody scent, she reached deeper into the pile.

Soon, she made another discovery.

In a crevice between concrete slabs, she felt a sticky, congealed mass.

She pulled it out.

It was a lump of… unidentifiable tissue, mixed with cement.

Lin Qingya knew there was no room for denial now.

This wasn’t an accident—it was deliberate murder!

The killer had dismembered their victim and mixed the remains into the construction materials to dispose of the body!

Once the park’s renovation was complete, these concrete and rebar structures would become part of the city’s new landscape, burying the fragmented corpse forever.

All evidence would be sealed beneath the steel and cement, leaving the police with no body and likely no leads.

What a vicious, cruel method!

Lin Qingya’s hands and feet turned ice-cold.

She’d seen crime dramas and movies, but she never imagined such terrifying plots from the screen would manifest in her reality.

What should she do now?

Call the police?

But how could she explain why a high school girl was at a restricted construction site in the middle of the night?

How could she justify finding these remains in a pile of tons of materials?

“Hey, officer? I’m just a passing magical girl who happened to find human remains at the site!”

She’d probably be hauled off as a lunatic in seconds.

She forced herself to stay calm, to think clearly.

Find Weire and the others?

The thought was immediately rejected by her subconscious.

Bai Wanting’s implanted command made her instinctively shy away from interacting with others. The idea of explaining this complex, horrifying situation to people she’d known for less than half an hour filled her with suffocating anxiety.

She’d mess it up…

She’d stammer, fumble her words, and they’d think she was a weirdo…

Suddenly, she thought of Bai Wanting.

If Little Sister Bai were here, she’d know what to do… She’d hold her gently, tell her not to be afraid…

The thought of Bai Wanting miraculously steadied Lin Qingya’s panicked heart.

No, she couldn’t always rely on Little Sister Bai.

Lin Qingya slapped her cheeks, trying to shake off her weak thoughts.

She was a magical girl now, and the daughter of a heroic police officer.

Even on her own, she could do this!

Her gaze hardened with resolve as she forced herself to think logically.

The killer chose to dispose of the body here, using the park’s renovation to cover their tracks, which meant the renovation project itself was suspicious.

This wetland park had been abandoned for years—why was it suddenly being renovated now? Who was behind it? Who was the contractor?

Could the contractor be the killer, or connected to them?

Questions swirled in her mind, each one a potential clue.

She needed evidence and more information to expose the murderer hiding in the shadows.

Unfortunately, her leads were scarce. The first step was to investigate the possible identity of the victim.

Lin Qingya pulled her phone from the pocket of her magical girl dress.

Yes, this adorable lolita dress even had practical pockets.

Thank goodness for this tech-savvy era, letting a magical girl surf the web.

She opened the browser, searching for recent missing persons cases in the city.

The screen’s glow illuminated her grim expression.

Missing persons reports scrolled past her eyes.

“Wang, a student at XX Elementary School, ran away from home two days ago and lost contact with family…”

“Li, an elderly resident of XX Community, suffering from Alzheimer’s, went missing three days ago…”

None matched.

Given the decay of the tissue, she estimated the time of death to be around two weeks ago.

Patiently, she filtered through the reports, narrowing her search.

Finally, a news article from twelve days ago caught her attention.

[Missing Person Notice: Zhang Wei, an employee of the city’s leading enterprise, Pandora Group, went missing after work on the evening of the 15th. His whereabouts remain unknown.]