Chapter 4: I thought I could sever all lingering feelings and forget everything.

Lin Xibai was led into a spacious hall.

The ceiling here was extremely high, the walls a soft beige.
A massive curved screen at the front emitted a cold, faint white glow, illuminating the somewhat empty long table below.

“It’s still the same as before, with two extra spoonfuls of sugar. You used to like it this way the most.”

A steaming porcelain cup was pressed into Lin Xibai’s slightly cool palm.

Luo Xingli stood beside her, her tone deliberately light.

“I’ve kept the cup from back then. Even though everyone said you wouldn’t come back, I still washed it very clean. I was afraid that if you suddenly returned one day and wanted a hot drink, you wouldn’t be able to find it.”

Lin Xibai lowered her head and looked at the deep brown liquid in the cup, its surface topped with a layer of fine milk foam.

“……”

Come to think of it, to prevent middle-age weight gain and the risk of diabetes creeping up on him, she had indeed habitually cut out most sugar.
Every time she went to the supermarket, he would stare at those flashy beverages on the shelves for a long time before silently picking up a bottle of tasteless mineral water.

But a magical girl’s body was just that unfair.
Her metabolism had been reshaped by magic; no matter how many calories she consumed, they could hardly turn into fat. Common illnesses were almost nonexistent for this body.
Physical functions were forever maintained at their perfect threshold.

It was a privilege, yet it constantly reminded her of the distance between herself and the normal world.

Lin Xibai picked up the cup, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Hiss…”

The rich cocoa aroma mixed with sweet caramel notes rushed into her nasal cavity.
She narrowed her ruby eyes, her small head trembling lightly a few times as if unable to suppress the physiological pleasure.
Only then did she let out a long, satisfied breath.

“Haa~~~”

She lowered her head and took small sips.

Sugar, sugar… yes… this was the feeling.
It was the joy that had been taken from her as a human, as a middle-aged man, now fed back to her through this body named Lin Xibai at ten times, a hundred times the intensity.

Her originally tense shoulders unconsciously relaxed.
Her entire being fell into a state of near-intoxicated satisfaction.

“Sister Xibai, be careful, it’s hot.”

Luo Xingli reminded her softly, but her gaze had already turned toward the huge screen.
She reached out and quickly tapped a few times on the control panel beside her.

The screen lit up. A complex identification interface flashed past, and a clear voiceprint pattern appeared in the center.
Immediately after, a processed electronic synthetic voice that revealed neither gender nor age sounded.

【Has the first-generation magical girl, Silver Xi, arrived?】

“That’s right, just as we agreed.”

Luo Xingli immediately straightened her back. The soft, dependent look she had when facing Lin Xibai quickly vanished, replaced by a businesslike attitude.

“As long as Sister Xibai agrees to help with a small favor, headquarters will issue the special medicine. That was our deal, right?”

“Help?”

Lin Xibai, who had been immersed in the aftertaste of the hot cocoa, paused. She lifted her ruby-like eyes from above the cup rim and looked at Luo Xingli’s profile, then at the cold screen.
An instinctive wariness quietly crept up. She felt that something was off about this “favor.”

“Let me make it clear first. If it involves combat… the current me probably won’t be able to help much.”

The voice on the other side of the screen seemed to have anticipated her answer.

【Don’t worry, no combat is required. In fact, you only need to move your lips and say a few words to settle it.】

“Huh?”

Before Lin Xibai could react, the image on the screen suddenly switched, jumping to a recent sensational news report.

【Qingchuan City Student Disappearance Case, Suspect Points to Unconfirmed Witch.】
【Officials urge citizens to work from home and are contacting high-ranking magical girls for intervention.】

The anxiety of the parents in the footage and the police’s vague statements conveyed heavy pressure.
The electronic voice then sounded, explaining the request.

【You’ve seen it, right? Due to the recent string of disappearance cases, our conventional forces in Qingchuan City are struggling to cope. We urgently need support from powerful magical girls.】
【Therefore, we hope you can enter the Flower Tower Kingdom as Qingchuan City’s representative and request the magical girl who is the Lord of the First Layer to help.】
【If it’s you asking her, she will definitely agree, right?】

“No, wait… You want me to go to the Flower Tower?!”

Lin Xibai’s red eyes trembled. The fingers gripping the porcelain cup tightened instantly. The clear sensation from the warm cup wall helped her steady her mind.

“What about the other magical girls in Qingchuan City? Has headquarters really run out of available personnel?”

【Manpower is insufficient.】

The electronic voice on the screen gave four cold words.

Lin Xibai frowned tightly, her originally rosy complexion turning somewhat pale.

Generally speaking, every major city would have at least four permanent official magical girls stationed there, plus some reserve girls. Their power was enough to handle the vast majority of disasters caused by ordinary void beasts.

If even headquarters was saying “manpower is insufficient,” it could only mean the severity of this disappearance case far exceeded what appeared on the surface.

But…

Lin Xibai took a deep breath and cast a sharp gaze at the screen.

“You at headquarters should know better than anyone what kind of existences the magical girls inside the Flower Tower are, right?!”

She didn’t need the other party to answer. Her words surged out like a long-suppressed tide, spoken to the other side yet more like a reminder to herself of that deliberately sealed history.

The Flower Tower.

It was a kingdom existing outside real space, a paradise for those magical girls who refused to obey headquarters’ management and whose magic concentration was high enough to distort reality.

The magical girls there were almost entirely from the first few batches of awakened girls.
They had experienced the great catastrophe of the dark era and witnessed their closest friends being eroded by magic and turning into witches.

That extreme pain and loneliness had caused irreversible distortions in their minds to varying degrees.
They had become paranoid, reclusive, or existed in ways ordinary people could not understand.

In the end, these problem children who could no longer integrate into society nor tolerate headquarters’ rules somehow gathered together and forcibly carved out a space of their own in the gap between reality and the void realm—the Flower Tower.

Eighteen years ago, when Lin Xibai retired, it was precisely because she had rejected the invitation to enter the Flower Tower.
She feared being assimilated, feared completely losing her self as “Lin Bai.” So, under everyone’s expectant gazes, she walked into the ordinary hustle and bustle of life, choosing to become an ordinary, exhausted, yet real person.

Back then, she had left without looking back, believing that severing the past would bring her a new life.

Now, she was being asked to return voluntarily, in the posture of a supplicant, to face those existences she had once refused to join.

Lin Xibai slowly lowered her head. Her gaze lost focus as it fell into the cup in her hands.

On the surface of the deep brown liquid, the fine chocolate foam was slowly breaking and dissipating, just like the calm she was trying to maintain at this moment.