Hong Siyu's Speculation

Another morning, Lin Yun sat in his office, staring blankly at the computer screen.

Staying over at Xia Liang's home was already a week ago, and Xia Liang's drive for practice and academics had clearly grown stronger. After that, the two new Magical Girls welcomed their own summer vacation, while Lin Yun continued his exhausting working life.

Of course, calling it exhausting was mainly due to his self-imposed pressure.

Working aside, he also needed to properly review junior high school knowledge to help Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang with tutoring. Besides all that, there was another primary task: he had to exterminate Aberrant Beasts.

Whether it was because summer had arrived, making Aberrant Beasts as dense as mosquitoes, Aberrant Beasts that were previously seen once every ten-odd days could now be spotted every few days.

Even a few days ago, at the same time, attacks had occurred in two different locations.

Thanks to Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang now barely qualifying as entry-level battle strength, where even handling stronger eggs posed no problem, they finally split up with Larkspur and simultaneously resolved the Aberrant Beasts in both places.

No matter how clear he was on his own abilities, Lin Yun had to admit that the Magical Girl team in Fangting City was indeed short on people.

They lacked people in combat, lacked people in teaching and training, and even lacked people in information investigation.

Looking back at the Fangting City Aberrant Beast records from the past few years, he and Hong Siyu had already found quite a few clues through their review, and could almost be certain that other hidden Aberrant Beasts existed. But precisely because of missing information, they did not know whether any of them had reached the Pupa Stage.

Such a situation, coupled with the recent bountiful harvest from exterminating Aberrant Beasts and obtaining quite a few Echoes, caused a certain thought to involuntarily pop up in Lin Yun's mind: what if he completely abandoned the plan to live in seclusion and just resigned like this?

The Echoes obtained by Magical Girls driving away Aberrant Beasts could actually be used to acquire wealth.

Although they couldn't be directly exchanged for money in the Material Realm, whether it was acquiring the Kingdom's currency or trading for gold, silver, and jewels, there were as many methods as one wanted to turn contributions into wealth.

If they didn't mind being arrested by the Investigation Institute after exposure, Magical Girls could also exchange contributions for supplies or weapons and sell them to civilians of the Kingdom or lower-level Mages of the Material Realm, which was an even safer and more profitable business.

Of course, few people were willing to trade the identity and power of a Magical Girl for this kind of unseen wealth. Therefore, weapons and supplies produced from the Magic Kingdom still commanded high prices among Mages in the Material Realm.

With Lin Yun's lifetime Magical Girl identity, as long as he was willing, he could completely abandon his current job and take exterminating Aberrant Beasts as his primary source of income. In fact, Anya always called herself a freelancer before she died, and this "freelance" profession was a Magical Girl. Back then, she even joked with Lin Yun about whether she should become the one to financially support the whole family.

Right now, a lifestyle similar to Anya's was laid out before Lin Yun: earning rewards by exterminating Aberrant Beasts, where he only needed to take out a small portion of Echoes to subsidize household expenses and it would be more than enough, with everything else usable to enhance the team's strength.

This kind of life sounded thoroughly viable, but Lin Yun was still agonizing over the choice.

For no other reason than simply being unwilling.

His choice at age seventeen to stop being a Magical Girl, return to the life of an ordinary person, and focus on the college entrance examination and job hunting had never stemmed from considerations of personal gain.

He did not want to be a Magical Girl, and didn't even want to be entangled with the Magic Kingdom anymore. To this day, he refused to personally contact the Kingdom, and there were many more complex reasons behind this.

At this thought, a memory flashed across his mind: it was a scene in a small hospital room where a man on the bed smiled and said something to him.

...Dad, was my choice back then really correct?

Leaning back in his chair, he couldn't help but mutter to himself.

Yet this question was destined to have no answer; the person who could give him an answer was no longer in this world, and had even been buried by time in a corner of memory, unable to speak with him anymore.

Immersed in his own thoughts, just as he was agonizing over his upcoming choice, the cell phone in his pocket suddenly rang.

Picking up the phone, the contact displayed on it was Hong Siyu.

He looked at the screen, paused slightly, then picked up the phone and pressed the call button: "Hello?"

"Senior, are you there?" Hong Siyu's voice came from the other end of the line.

"Mm." He grunted in a low voice.

"Did you recruit any new recruits recently?" The voice on the opposite side was quite flippant.

Lin Yun looked at the computer screen and said indifferently, "If there's no urgent matter, can I hang up on you?"

"Disclosing it won't make you lose any flesh. The Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau's records still don't have the codename 'Little Brocade' to this day, which is enough to show how trustworthy I am, right?" Hong Siyu sounded somewhat dissatisfied.

"If there isn't, there isn't. I was just having a headache over a lack of manpower."

This sentence was actually half-true and half-false.

In Lin Yun's view, although the Magical Girls in Fangting City were indeed short-handed, it was not an appropriate time to continue recruiting people in the short term.

In the long run, recruiting people was necessary; Fangting City would eventually have to rebuild the younger generation's magical-side defensive forces, and he couldn't shoulder everything alone forever. But in the short term, recruiting new Magical Girls might create vulnerabilities in his protection.

The most reasonable plan was to first let Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang Blossom to the Bud Stage, and then have them consider recruiting new teammates.

"Eh—"

Hong Siyu dragged out her voice, clearly somewhat disbelieving, but she didn't continue pestering him: "Then, I have some news here. Do you want to hear it?"

"Speak." Lin Yun was concise and to the point.

"Alright, it's about the assistance we mentioned earlier. The Investigation Institute was unwilling to send people, so I contacted several Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau branches in the central cities again. The replies they got from the local Seeders were largely similar, all saying they couldn't spare manpower."

Hong Siyu's voice carried some hard-to-define emotion: "However, the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau branches in York City and Jinglan City... the answers they got from the Seeders were somewhat interesting?"

"What answer?" Lin Yun furrowed his brows slightly.

Hong Siyu abruptly asked a question: "Senior, did you ask me before if I was hiding something from you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, perfect. Now it's my turn to ask you this question."

Hong Siyu's voice shifted from flippant to steady: "In the past, was there something you didn't tell us?"

Lin Yun's expression tightened slightly, but his voice remained completely level: "I'm not clear. What do you want to say?"

"Because I got some answers from them that might be a bit different from what we previously imagined."

Pausing briefly in her speech, Hong Siyu continued: "Should I read it out?"

"...Read it." Lin Yun felt somewhat helpless.

Because he had already roughly guessed what the "somewhat different answer" Hong Siyu spoke of was.

The sound of fingernails tapping against a screen came from the other end of the phone, seemingly as Hong Siyu operated something on her phone. Before long, her voice came through once more:

"The Seeder of New York City, 'Pikali's original words were: 'The next 20 years are almost here, I'm not going to muddy these troubled waters.'"

"The Seeder of Jinglan City, 'Little Youyou's original words were: 'You're talking about Fangting City? That Fangting City where that person is? How about we forget it? Anyway, I wouldn't dare go.'"

"And even if others tried to press further, they still put on an expression as if the matter was unspeakable."

Having finished saying this, seeing that Lin Yun consistently remained silent, the other end where Hong Siyu was also fell silent for a moment.

After a while, her voice sounded again with hesitation: "Senior, this 'next 20 years' should refer to next year, right? And what they said is actually... or at least, it's a different reason from the Investigation Institute, isn't it?"

Lin Yun closed his eyes.

Just as he always insisted to Moko in front of her that his codename was "Larkspur"—although this was indeed the name he used nowadays, it was also because this was Fangting City, and he worried that Moko might have some reaction to his past codenames.

Seeders, or rather Fairies, were different from Magical Girls. At least in certain matters, they always knew more than Magical Girls.

"Ha, of course, I can guess even if you don't say it, though I can't be certain either."

With Lin Yun continuing to stay silent, Hong Siyu continued as if talking to herself: "I wasn't a Magical Girl yet back then, but Sister Shengzi told me that after that 'Garden' defense battle nearly 20 years ago, you were summoned to the Rose Palace..."

—"That's enough, Hong Siyu."

Voicing an interruption, Lin Yun opened his eyes. His expression was somewhat blank, and could even be said to be somewhat cold and rigid: "No need to continue. You've already guessed correctly."

"Really?"

"Mm, at least a part of it. You thought right."

"That really is... an unimaginable feat, then."

Hong Siyu's voice carried a hint of amazement: "I see. No second Magical Girl would dare to do that anymore, right?"

"Who knows?" Evidently unwilling to continue this topic, Lin Yun was noncommittal about it.

"So, does this mean we really won't have any reinforcements?"

"Mm, we won't."

"Since that's the case..."

Probably sensing the stiffness of the atmosphere, Hong Siyu proactively changed the subject: "Senior, you said before that in order to prepare for next year's certification test, you're giving the new recruits special training?"

"Yes." Hearing her bring up this matter, Lin Yun also remobilized a bit of emotion.

"Then, if you still can't spare the time in the short term, would you like to try a different plan?"

Hong Siyu asked somewhat apprehensively: "For example, letting me take a look?"