A Distinctly Magical Era

After lunch, Jiang Zhenling led Jiang Han to the door.

"Where's your broom?" her younger sister asked in confusion, then sighed. "Sis, you're such a grown-up. You can't keep forgetting things."

Jiang Han felt utterly stifled. If she had not been reborn into this strange world, she would never have ended up being lectured by her little sister. But it was true that, unfamiliar with both the people and the place, she could only rely on others.

After sighing, her younger sister took Jiang Han back to the room on the second floor.

"A broom. If you don't use one to go out, you'll have to take Bus No. 11." Making a popular deadpan joke of the era, her younger sister took a well-maintained broom from the shelf in Jiang Han's bedroom and tossed it into her hands. "Don't leave it in your room after using it next time. I know you like it, but it's more convenient to put it on the broom rack by the entrance."

Jiang Han nodded tightly. The broom was heavy in her hands, yet she could feel the magic power within her flowing into it.

Her younger sister seemed to sense something and looked around. After thinking briefly, she did not rush outside. Instead, she observed Jiang Han's room for a while, then walked to the desk and grabbed a wooden wand about a meter long from a small rack on its left side. She also took a witch's hat from the desk's bookshelf.

She glanced at Jiang Han. "Are you really sick? You didn't even bring your wand."

Fortunately, her younger sister had gotten used to her elder sister's strange behavior today and did not say anything else. She merely pressed the witch's hat lightly onto Jiang Han's head, then tucked the medium-length wand into the side of her elder sister's waistband.

The two sisters went to the door.

Her younger sister picked up a broom from the entranceway, pushed the door open, then turned to Jiang Han. "I'll fly ahead in a bit. Just follow me. Don't fly too high, and don't try to go too fast."

"Mm..." Jiang Han answered.

Although she did not know how to fly, she had thought of a way. Standing at the entrance, she adjusted her hat in the mirror by the door while constantly watching her little sister from the corner of her eye. Whatever her sister did, she would simply copy her.

Jiang Zhenling first touched the tail of her broom to the ground, turned sideways, and sat on it side-saddle. With a light tap of her toes against the floor, the broom floated up...

It did not look difficult.

Jiang Han copied her sister's movements and floated up while sitting side-saddle. When riding the broom, she could feel a powerful attraction coming from its handle, as if she were sitting on an invisible cushion. It was not tiring at all—quite the opposite, it was incredibly comfortable.

Her younger sister glanced at her and asked doubtfully, "Sis, are you on your period?"

"No!"

Jiang Han truly hated the words "period" and "sis."

Hearing her deny it, Jiang Zhenling tilted her head and inspected her noncommittally. After choosing her words, she said, "Normally, you straddle the broom and launch straight out. Seeing you take off so obediently side-saddle today feels really strange."

She faltered halfway through, thought for a moment, then said with utter sincerity, "Sis, seeing you act ladylike makes me sick."

"..." Jiang Han felt that if she kept talking, her little sister might anger her into internal injuries.

Before her younger sister could say anything else so "direct and sincere," Jiang Han tapped the ground with her toes again and floated more steadily. The cool air made her feel pleasantly refreshed.

Flying was not difficult—or rather, it was even easier than Jiang Han had imagined. It was as simple as controlling her legs to walk in a certain direction. After floating around for a short while, she had already grasped the knack of flying.

After she played around for a while, her younger sister had locked the front door and floated up on her broom to the same height.

"Follow me! Don't fly too fast, and don't fall too far behind!" Her younger sister raised her voice considerably, yet it sounded even softer in the air than before. She pressed one hand against the front end of her broom and slowly began to accelerate.

They were not flying very fast, so Jiang Han had no trouble keeping up. At her leisure, she was able to take in this familiar yet unfamiliar city.

Unlike the Nanxiang of her previous life, this coastal city in the nineties was prosperous beyond anything that belonged to the nineties. Skyscrapers stood everywhere, while astonishing Sky Gardens revealed the witches' formidable engineering capabilities.

There were not many pedestrians on the streets below. Ordinary people rode bicycles or took buses to travel around. In the sky, countless witches flew on brooms, their techniques varied enough to dazzle the eye. Some wore eighties-style aviator sunglasses and padded coats, speeding along at velocities far beyond ordinary airplanes.

The city seemed divided between the ground and the sky. Countless tiny Sky Islands floated overhead, bearing the witches' buildings.

Jiang Han turned around and saw that the residential complex where her home was located was itself a fairly large Sky Island, silently floating in the air like a scene from a fantasy world.

Although Jiang Han had been hopeless with directions in her previous life, identifying directions while flying through the air was much easier than driving on the ground. The route was practically a straight line.

Their final destination was a strangely shaped Sky Island, a semicircular ring lined with countless shops along its two edges, like a street floating in the sky. It was strange because the island somehow flipped over from the left side of the semicircle to the right: the left side was a normal Sky Island, while the buildings on the right were constructed beneath the island. Quite a few witches flew circles around it on their brooms.

Near this Sky Island was another tiny floating island, roughly twenty square meters in size, with a road sign planted on it reading "All-Things Trade Street." Witches would occasionally stop there to rest before flying into Trade Street, creating a thriving scene.

They landed on a platform within Trade Street. As soon as they touched down, a witch in a jungle-green cloak came over to greet them. She wore a sand-colored hood and asked in the enthusiastic tone characteristic of the era, "Hello, comrade. Are you here to store your brooms?"

Jiang Zhenling took her own broom and accepted Jiang Han's as well, handing both to the witch. "Hello, comrade. May I ask about the fee?"

The witch took out a small notebook and wrote down a few lines. "Free from nine this morning until seven this evening. Please register your names, comrades."

Jiang Zhenling went over and wrote down both sisters' names, then took the receipt and tucked it into her robe pocket.

The comrade witch carried the brooms over her shoulder and walked toward the guard room by the platform to store them.

It had to be said that this era might have been a little rough around the edges, but most people who called one another comrades were trustworthy. Perhaps that was a kind of public trust that genuinely existed in society.

Jiang Han followed behind her younger sister, trying her best not to appear too curious.

The shops along the street were all strange witch-run stores. One sold high-backed flying chairs that could replace brooms, while another hawked all sorts of scrolls. Some comrades handed out recruitment posters for the "Literary and Art Troupe," while still other shops displayed notices reading, "Major Forest Development, Major Ocean Development, Seeking xx Materials."

There were also plenty of distinctive slogans: "Seize opportunities, dare to seize opportunities, bravely seize opportunities"; "Develop the economy, increase the witch population."

The entire Trade Street was Western and Eastern, magical and even fantastical.