Du Lingxuan returned to the castle with a batch of filthy little cat blobs. Two of the larger cat blobs carried a stone weighing a thousand jin, from whose hollow bubbled clear spring water, as though they had carried off an entire springhead infused with the scent of magic.
The witch at the entrance inspected them.
A witch in military uniform approached. She wore a peaked cap, with black hair, blue eyes, and dignified features. Her back was so straight it seemed never to have bent, and a medium staff hung at her waist like a sword.
She came over and examined the identification papers word by word. Her furrowed brow eased.
"Ms. Du Lingxuan?"
"That's me." She flicked her cat ears, shaking off a few drops of rain.
On the way, they had run into a weather team fighting another weather team—torrential rain against torrential rain. One side had lightning, while the other had only cannon fire that roared like thunder. Yet the cannons had narrowly won a round, capturing an outpost and calling for witches to garrison it. Among that group of servants, there would surely be one or two who could become "young ladies"; if they accumulated enough merit, becoming "ladies" was possible too. (Young lady = witch, lady = witch; they were merely forms of address.)
"You had quite a haul today," the uniformed witch said.
"Not bad, not bad. These cats and I went exploring, and only after much trouble did we find a decent fortuitous spring..."
Du Lingxuan's voice trailed off.
She had been influenced by those Cat Lamps' boastful, smug personalities again!
Control yourself. Keep quiet and get rich, she told herself.
"Did you happen to see a group of witches riding silver-white brooms on the road? They called themselves the White Broom