Clothing

Eight in the morning, Sweet Nest.

While Jiang Han was fast asleep, clutching her pillow, the bedroom door was gently pushed open, and Jiang Zhenling, already dressed and ready for the day, walked in.

Frowning as she looked at her sister, who was still sound asleep, she gave a light cough, sat on the edge of the bed, and toyed with the icy-colored tips of her sister's hair, twisting them before touching her sister's still-warm cheek with the back of her hand:

"It's time for class, you need to wake up from your dreams."

Jiang Han's body shuddered. She opened her icy eyes, still clouded with sleep, and looked at her sister with a mix of coquetry, pleading, and submission. Then, she covered her nose, took a breath, opened her mouth to yawn, closed her eyes, and curled up, hiding her petite frame within her long hair.

--Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle...

Not only that, she shrank even further into the quilt. Thanks to the fact that a witch's hair possesses magic and shares a close bond with its owner—meaning it doesn't hurt even when crushed—she curled up in her hair like a petite, delicate hedgehog, hiding in the blankets, as peaceful as if she had passed away.

"...Sister Han, Sister Han?" Jiang Zhenling continued her efforts.

Touched by this persistence, the hedgehog-like Miss Jiang half-opened her eyes again. She rubbed affectionately against the hand that was still stroking her face, then, as if hypnotized, spoke in fragments between seconds of sleep:

"The teacher... has an appointment with me... after noon... to meet again... let's go together... huff." Jiang Han was a person who kept her secrets well; even in a half-asleep state, she would never let them slip.

In her past life, as a Real Madrid fan, she had managed to survive for over a decade among colleagues who were all Barcelona fans. This was inseparable from her ability to keep secrets...

"I put your breakfast in the fridge. For lunch, I only prepared some steamed buns; you can heat them up yourself, or just don't eat them and wait for Mother Ye to come back and clean up tonight." After giving her instructions one by one, Jiang Zhenling walked out of the room and left first.

The sweet hedgehog nest fell quiet. Miss Jiang the Hedgehog curled up in her nest, snoring happily and kicking her legs from time to time, sleeping comfortably until past twelve noon.

She woke up groggily, turned over, and lay prone on the bed, her upper body stretched out like a cat's, her toes pressing against the mattress as she gave a feline stretch.

After a happy smile, she felt sufficiently awake. She checked the wall clock, estimated that she still had time, and then carried her clothes off to the bathroom.

After a refreshing shower, she changed into her outfit for going out, grabbed the money intended for new clothes, and skipped out the door.

The place she had agreed to meet Cen Jing was called the 'Southern Amusement Mall'. It wasn't far from Jiang Han's home, just about ten kilometers out to sea. It might have been a bit of a distance from Cen Jing's home, but that girl had a car, so distance wasn't much of a concern; it was mostly to accommodate Jiang Han that the location was set so close to her place.

Witches particularly love to create canyons and other natural hazards on floating islands.

The Southern Amusement Mall was just such a Sky Island. It consisted of a canyon where the cliff walls on both sides had been hollowed out to form many outward-facing streets, with shops and recreational facilities carved even deeper inside, much like a city that never sleeps built within a gorge.

Unlike the Witch Market, the shops here mostly sold finished products. For instance, you rarely saw raw material shops here; instead, finished 'Magic Scrolls', 'Spellbooks', and 'Bookstores' were common. There was also the Maritime Arena built by witches, much like an ancient Roman colosseum, only hidden among the clouds and the cluster of floating islands. If you looked through the gap in the canyon in the middle of the mall, and if your vision had been enhanced, you could see the hidden arena.

The Witch Market was for treasure hunting, while this place was for middle-class witches to shop.

Upon entering the mall, the beautiful-looking Jiang Han was occasionally pestered by other witches. Some asked if she was "taking on temporary work for the day," while others asked if she was "taking on 'one-day' 196 work." Jiang Han politely refused the former and spat at the latter while shaking her head.

At the agreed-upon spot, Cen Jing had already arrived.

This witch, dressed in a two-foot-sleeved hakama skirt, was sitting on a bench in the small plaza reading a newspaper. If not for her mature appearance, one might have mistaken this beautiful witch for a student based on her temperament alone.

Looking from afar, Cen Jing was also being pestered by two witches who seemed to be recruiting.

Jiang Han found it quite interesting to see this usually mature and charming witch looking a bit flustered as she refused them. She smiled, walked over, and greeted her:

"Good afternoon, Miss Cen Jing."

Because of her greeting, the pestering witches sighed and walked away; one had to admit they still had a modicum of grace.

The extremely beautiful young witch let out a sigh of relief and said, "Good afternoon, Miss Jiang Han."

Jiang Han sat down next to her. The witch returned to her usual elegant state. She swept a glance over Jiang Han's witch robe and asked with a smile: "The puppet show is sold out, so I booked tickets for the South City Witch Invitational... Besides watching the match, is there anything else you'd like to do?"

Jiang Han wore a thoughtful expression. She was considering whether she should actually buy clothes instead of just going through the motions and returning the money to Mother Ye when she got home.

It had to be said that Cen Jing's glance at her clothes made her realize that wearing this simple, plain witch robe and plaid skirt seemed a bit impolite.

She still cared about her image, so she said:

"I'd like to buy some new clothes. Does Miss Cen have any recommendations?"

"Do you want to buy casual wear, combat gear, formal gowns, apprentice robes, alchemy robes, or perhaps magical item clothing?" Cen Jing asked without hesitation.

Jiang Han was speechless. Are witches really this particular?

She could understand casual wear and combat gear, but the rest she could only try to comprehend... Formal gowns, did that mean clothes worn to be seen by others? Did apprentice and alchemy robes have something to do with witch alchemy?

Jiang Han calculated the amount of money Mother Ye had given her and asked tentatively:

"Shall we look at casual wear first?"

"If it's casual wear, let's look shop by shop; it pays to compare," Cen Jing said with a touch of insight and humor. "It's also possible we'll fall into a witch's Möbius strip, finishing three shops only to look at three more."

"..." As someone with decision paralysis, Jiang Han felt very uneasy inside.

As they tried shop after shop, Jiang Han saw all sorts of strange and wonderful clothes.

The greatest convenience for witches is that, as long as they have the courage, they can travel the world on a broomstick. If they are hungry, there is the Bread Spell; if thirsty, the Create Water spell; if tired, they can choose from various spell-cast mansions. This has led to a bizarre variety of clothing brands in the world's bustling metropolises.

Jiang Han passed by a shop that specialized in bandage-style outfits, supposedly 'Pharaoh Retro'. Jiang Han wondered, surely the Pharaohs didn't run around wearing nothing but bandages, did they?

On the way, they also looked at two specialty shops for combat gear.

Witch combat gear consists of an inner bodysuit, which is divided into one-piece and two-piece styles, and there is a logic to this as well.

Witches of the Conjuration, Evocation, and Transmutation schools all wear one-piece bodysuits. One-piece bodysuits have high defensive capabilities, and the materials used can be chosen for their extreme toughness. They also provide high resistance to elemental attributes, preventing a situation where, after casting a fireball, you might not know if you hit the target, but you've ended up naked yourself.

The two-piece style is mostly used by the Abjuration and Necromancy schools. Because these two schools require many spellcasting materials and sometimes rely on scrolls for output, they wear pants or skirts with many inner pockets on their lower bodies to store combat items.

Of course, this is just a general preference; many witches do not choose their combat gear according to these habits.

Take the strongest witch in the country, Lin Zhaojun, for example; she fights wearing a modern leather skirt and high-top shoes. Then there is Teacher Yu Sitong, who fights in a cape, but because her protective measures weren't thorough enough, she had her cape burned and was instantly defeated. Things in the arena, ahem, don't depend on the clothes, they depend on the person, yes, the person...

Take capes and cloaks, for instance. Lilith, one of the Great Witches, also fights in a cloak, but she has never had her cape or cloak burned in her entire life; her attention to detail is spot on.

Jiang Han didn't pay much attention to the matter of combat gear; such gear was a matter of fate... In any case, she was currently unwilling to specifically learn a spell just to protect her cape (Cape Protection is a level 4 spell, after all).

Casual wear... casual wear... Jiang Han sighed as she walked into one shop after another.

What was even more terrifying was that after she walked into one shop, her mind had already flown off to the next.

Watching the shopkeeper introduce a Dullahan Outfit to her, she didn't know what to say. That Dullahan Outfit was enchanted; as long as you put it on, heh, your head could actually be taken off:

"Comrade, do you have any normal clothes here?"

"Aren't these normal clothes? Little comrade." The shopkeeper said this quite brazenly, "Why don't you buy two sets of clothes, and I'll give you a dozen Pharaoh Witch egg fossils for free?"

...Who the hell are you trying to fool? Didn't witches only appear in 1443? Jiang Han immediately grabbed Miss Cen and left this shady shop.