"We do suspect that. The purple light Miss Sun saw didn't belong to the Nanako series. The more reasonable guess is that someone used some method, with the help of certain merchandise, to create those character images and direct them to attack you."
"You mean magic?"
"'Sorcery' might be a more accurate term. We still don't know the exact conditions, process, or results of casting this spell, but we've formed a rough idea of what it involves."
"..."
"Did you have any conflicts with these two? Not just you personally, but also Miss Zhou and the others who died. Did they have any run-ins with either of them?"
"Well, Xiaohao pursued Yuanyuan. I remember he gave her quite a lot of things. Yuanyuan probably didn't accept them. She returned the more expensive ones, and gave him something in return for the cheaper little things. She even asked us once what she should do. That person... wasn't her type... Back then, we were in two clubs. That was our sophomore year, right?"
"Right. It was our sophomore year."
"There were also upperclassmen in the clubs. Our club and the Foreign Languages University anime club were like sister clubs, and we got along really well with a few clubs at Minqing University and Minqing Polytechnic, too. Back then, our club and the Foreign Languages club teamed up to create a work for the national cosplay competition. I mean... neither of our clubs was a big deal nationally... We weren't one of those major clubs. But the two club presidents had decided to do it, and we'd all gotten along well, so we did it together... just for the experience. The upperclassmen were really enthusiastic. We met every weekend, and chatted in the group, too... That Xiaohao kept a pretty close eye on