Doubts

"Alright, I understand the situation. We'll contact branches in other cities and see if we can relay the information to the Magic Kingdom through Seeders from elsewhere."

Listening to the voice from his phone, Lin Yun stared blankly out the window. He took a deep breath and sighed helplessly. "Mm. Thank you. Sorry for the trouble."

It was the morning of the next day, in Lin Yun's own office.

He was on the phone with Hong Siyu.

The sudden incident the previous night had ultimately affected his sleep, leaving him bleary-eyed and in poor condition.

Yet he still had plenty to deal with, so he could not rest. Setting aside the mountain of work the company had dumped on him early that morning, he also had many questions to discuss with the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau regarding what had happened at Wetland Park the night before.

To ensure his daughter's safety, he had secretly joined the fight under the name of the Magical Girl "Larkspur" and driven back the enemy. But the incident was far from over. After all, no matter how one looked at it, it seemed as though a hidden hand was controlling everything from the shadows.

In the end, he had identified four suspicious points.

First was the fact that he had been unable to contact Hong Siyu at the moment the Aberrant Beast appeared the previous night.

He had no official channels of communication with the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau. At present, he essentially relied on his personal relationship with Hong Siyu to exchange information, yet that connection had been cut off last night.

According to the information Hong Siyu had given him, not only had she failed to receive his call, there was not even a trace of it in her missed call log. It was as if Lin Yun had never made the call at all.

But that was impossible. Lin Yun clearly remembered choosing to contact Hong Siyu after discovering that his daughter had gone missing, only for the call to go unanswered.

Second was the mysterious call that had warned him in advance at noon on the day of the incident. After daytime, that number could no longer be reached, and all he got was an automated message saying it was outside the service area.

The other party had appeared abruptly, with unclear motives. After providing him with information, they had vanished just as suddenly. Why?

Third was the abnormal Magic Barrier at the scene.

This was not a technique an Aberrant Beast should have mastered. At the very least, an Aberrant Beast at the Looper level did not possess such an ability. Yet Lin Xiaolu and he had encountered only one Aberrant Beast at the scene, meaning that at least one other enemy had been hiding in the shadows.

But that enemy had never appeared. Even after watching the Aberrant Beast get destroyed by him, they had not acted. What exactly was their purpose?

Lastly, there was what the Seeder named Moko had said: before it arrived, Fangting City had contained no Seeders or Magical Girls. That was also a massive question mark and a hidden danger.

This matter lacked not only clues, but even a starting point for investigation. It was a complete black box.

These four doubts might be connected to a conspiracy involving Lin Xiaolu, and he could not afford to take them lightly.

But there was simply too much missing information. The truth could not be pieced together from what he currently had, making his already sleep-deprived brain throb even more painfully.

"So, how did it feel to make a comeback?"

Hong Siyu's question came through the still-unended call, pulling Lin Yun from his thoughts back into reality.

The hand holding his phone lowered, then rose again. After briefly considering the question, he gave his answer.

"Pretty awful."

It really was awful. His magic had weakened, his skills had grown rusty, and Fangting City's current state worried him.

More importantly, the outcome of this operation had completely failed to meet his expectations.

His initial goal had only been to save his daughter. But once he had successfully rescued her, he began considering whether he could put on an act and bluff the Seeder into revealing some information. Once he had gathered enough intelligence, he could reveal his identity to his daughter, and everyone would be happy.

In the end, however, he had gained little useful information, failed to reveal his identity, and, in a moment of poor judgment, agreed to Moko and Lin Xiaolu's request. From now on, he would have to conceal his identity while guiding Lin Xiaolu through Magical Girl training.

While that would still accomplish the goal of "communicating with his daughter," it was not at all the way he wanted to do it.

But when he thought of what his daughter had confessed to Larkspur the night before, he felt that revealing his true identity now would probably leave both of them in an unbearably awkward situation. So in the end, he still could not tell her the truth.

At the thought that he might have to keep playing this awkward identity game, he could not help rubbing his temples.

"Awful, huh... That really is an answer full of personal flair."

Hong Siyu seemed to laugh over the phone. "Senior, don't keep pushing yourself so hard. Once a man reaches middle age, he should admit what needs admitting."

"May I hang up now?" Lin Yun responded coldly to her suddenly crude joke.

Hong Siyu laughed even louder this time. "Haha! I was only making a couple of jokes. Are you getting embarrassed already?"

Just then, the office door was pushed open, and a scruffy, bearded man walked in. Seeing that Lin Yun was on the phone, he dramatically pointed at his mouth, then at the door, conveying his meaning with gestures: Should I leave?

Lin Yun immediately shook his head and said into the phone, "That's it for now. We'll talk about the rest next time."

Then, completely ignoring Hong Siyu's objections from the other end, he pressed the hang-up button.

Only after the call ended did he let out a long sigh of relief.

"Well, look at you."

A stack of documents was tossed onto the desk in front of him. The scruffy man approached with a mischievous grin. "I heard a woman's voice. Finally planning to find yourself a new love?"

Lin Yun tugged at the corner of his mouth and looked at him helplessly. "Which ear of yours heard me flirting with someone?"

"The left one."

The man across from him did not care in the slightest. "Come on, sign these."

This man was named Liu Guanshan. He was the director of the External Affairs Dispatch Department and a colleague of Lin Yun's who frequently worked with him.

The two had known each other since they were low-level employees. After working together for so many years, they had maintained a fairly good relationship, close enough to occasionally have a drink together.

As a result, they spoke without much restraint. Even topics such as being widowed could be brought up, and Lin Yun would not hold it against him.

Taking a gel pen from the pen holder beside him, Lin Yun accepted the documents and explained, "Leaving aside the fact that I'm not in that mood, I wouldn't dare entertain that idea now. Things between my daughter and me are already tense enough. If I told her I was finding her a stepmother, wouldn't she raise the roof?"

Of course, that was merely something to say. The real reason was that he did not want to find someone. But saying that aloud would sound far too pitiful, and he did not want to leave others with that impression in a work setting.

"Still fighting? Just give her more spending money and sweet-talk her."

Liu Guanshan did not care either way, plopping himself down on the corner of the desk. "My kid's the same. Whatever they're upset about, give them something and it goes away."

"Haven't I told you before? It's not about spending money."

Lin Yun kept signing as he spoke. "If I'd known what she was thinking earlier, things wouldn't have gotten this bad."

"Want one?" Sitting on the desk, Liu Guanshan pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket.

"After I finish signing."

"Hengyun says they're wrapping up tonight and inviting us to dinner. You going?"

"No. I'm going home to spend time with my daughter."

"Heh, such a family man?"

"Sure, call me that."

As Lin Yun said this, he could not help feeling a little wistful.

He really was going to spend the evening with his daughter, but unfortunately, not as her father.

His daughter becoming a Magical Girl was already an irreversible fact. Things had reached this point, and no matter how unwilling he was to accept it, he could only proceed on that basis from now on.

And at the top of his long list of priorities was, without question, teaching.

—He had to be a good Magical Girl senior and go teach his own daughter how to train that evening.