Chapter 17: You are too extreme!
“Come on, next game.”
Wen Yaquan stirred the stew, pulling a chess set from the cabinet.
Influenced by her orphanage dean, she loved chess.
Among the magical girls, only Jiang Lingwei, secretly a boy, shared her passion.
They used to play and chat for hours.
Only the old fairy, [North Wind], and a couple others knew Jiang Lingwei’s true identity.
Wen Yaquan just thought she knew a lot of “boyish” things for someone so soft and clingy.
“About Yunxia’s magic costume—you sure you don’t want it?” Wen Yaquan leaned forward, asking again.
“No.” Jiang Lingwei shook her head. “I’ve cast a protective spell. Keep it here.”
“I feel better knowing Yunxia’s alive. She probably left with Ming. With Mie here, she’ll find it.”
“What?!” Wen Yaquan gasped.
Crash.
Chess pieces scattered to the floor.
“What’s that?” Jiang Lingwei asked, helping pick them up.
“You think she’s dead?”
“Isn’t she?!”
“Use your brain.” Jiang Lingwei struck an Omni-Man pose, pointing at her head. “If a magical girl dies, does her magic costume stay?”
“No, right?”
“Exactly. It’s here, so she’s alive.”
Whoosh.
Wen Yaquan stood, grabbing her bag. “Then let’s find her!”
“Sit down!” Jiang Lingwei pressed her shoulders, forcing her back. “Stop rushing! Where’s the calm researcher you promised?”
“I can’t stay calm! I thought she was dead, and now you say she’s alive? Where is she?”
“You didn’t find her then, and it’s the same now.”
Wen Yaquan’s personality, shaped by multiple memory wipes and slight magical aptitude, mimicked a magical girl’s impulsiveness without the power.
No wonder Jiang Lingwei wasn’t shocked by the street’s explosives.
Though excited, she stayed calmer.
Wen Yaquan’s third-person account clarified her companions’ and her own existence.
This was her world—no time travel, just a coma.
Minus the part about having a daughter.
“We got it wrong back then,” Jiang Lingwei said, moving a chess piece.
“It’s a Demon Realm.”
Monsters often create such fields, draining life and suppressing magical girls’ powers.
Their stealth makes them hard to detect, even for fairies.
They craft battlefields favoring themselves, a headache for Jiang Lingwei’s team.
“A Demon Realm? I thought so, but the size—hard to believe,” Wen Yaquan said.
“What if it’s tied to the space-time rift that brought the old fairy?” Jiang Lingwei suggested.
“What?” Wen Yaquan stared. “No way. It was just a point at our latitude.”
“Not quite. It wasn’t just a Dark Portal—it was a rift to an unknown space.”
She captured a piece. “We misjudged it. It’s not just a ‘door.’”
“What happened after?” Wen Yaquan leaned in, mind drifting to the snowy screen that day. “Your signal vanished fast. I tried reconnecting, but nothing.”
“…”
“We reached the core,” Jiang Lingwei said after a pause. “I overdrew my magic and passed out. I don’t know what happened next.”
For her, it was days ago.
Closing her eyes, she saw her team charging, shouting, dodging, healing, amplifying attacks…
“Sigh,” Wen Yaquan echoed. “I don’t blame you. It was the plan.”
[Aurora]’s pure light magic boosted any ally’s power, nearly matching their attacks.
Their plan: Jiang Lingwei held a light magic barrier, sending others to the rift in peak condition.
Only [Aurora] could do it.
Everyone, including her, protected her as the core.
Something happened after, unknown to the comatose Jiang Lingwei.
The aurora, though dazzling, was too fleeting to end the eternal night.
Silence fell, broken only by chess moves and the stove’s hum.
“Haha, that was ages ago,” Wen Yaquan laughed suddenly.
“I feel old seeing you,” she sighed. “Magical girls stay in their twenties. I’m a forty-year-old aunt. Where’ve you been? How’ve you been?”
“Don’t ask about me yet.”
For Jiang Lingwei, there were no “years.”
Ignoring her pawn, she moved her rook, attacking. “Tell me about you. You’ve got a kid?”
Relieved, she smiled. “Never thought you’d find a husband and settle down. He must be something to tame you.”
“What!” Wen Yaquan glared. “I’m very elegant~”
“So, where’s he? Letting you run a shop?”
“Heh.” Wen Yaquan blushed, girlishly shy. “Met him during post-depression studies. He’s at a research institute, busier than me.”
“After despair, I tried everything. Confirmed the city center’s Demon Realm was beyond me, I left Songji City.”
“I wanted to escape, but I couldn’t. I’m responsible for bringing you back—as partners, as someone saved by you, as one of the last who knows magical girls are human.”
“But without magic, I’m useless. No spells, no casting.”
“So I left to study, hoping tech could break the magic. I was ready to die alone searching for you.”
“Then I met him. He confessed, I agreed. We married, had a daughter… Then Songji became a restricted zone. I couldn’t return.”
Beaming with pride, she added, “My daughter’s brilliant—second in class, sometimes tied for first. Impressive, right? Didn’t you say you were second or third?”
“She’s a good kid,” Jiang Lingwei nodded. “But inheriting your brains? Dad’s genes might help more.”
“What!” Wen Yaquan slammed a chess piece. “Check!”
“Huh?”
Jiang Lingwei saw she’d been cornered—by a pawn she’d ignored.
“Hmph, you haven’t improved,” Wen Yaquan smirked. “Too weak. I, the Dark Flame Dragon Master, reign supreme~”
“Done in by a pawn,” Jiang Lingwei shook her head.
Her chess skills once topped Wen Yaquan’s, but their “befores” weren’t equal.
Wen Yaquan stuck a note on her face. “A small soldier crossing the river’s worth half a chariot. Careless! Now, where’ve you been?”
“Honestly, I wish I knew.”
Clearing the board, Jiang Lingwei shared her recent awakening, including discovering her daughter.
“…What…” Wen Yaquan froze for ten seconds, floored.
Finally, she frowned. “Found that man?”
“Don’t know… maybe he abandoned us.”
Whoosh!
“What are you doing?!” Jiang Lingwei grabbed her as she leapt up. “Where’re you going?”
“Screw him! Let me go! I’m ordering explosives to blast that bastard! How dare he ditch our Little Aurora?! Is his family a bomb wholesaler?!”
“Calm down! I’ll handle it! We haven’t found him! Who’re you blowing up?!”
“You’re too soft! I’ll blow up this city first, then the next!”
“You’re insane!”