Before becoming a magical girl, White Thistle—or rather, the girl named Qiu Yun—had lived an utterly ordinary life.
An ordinary face, an ordinary figure, an ordinary personality, ordinary talent. The only things that could not be called ordinary were probably her mother, who had left home forever after a fight with her husband, and her father, who was always out all night.
Yet in Qiu Yun's understanding, those things had not affected her much. After all, her life went on. Her father rarely showed his face, but he still gave her living expenses and tuition, and she could still attend school normally.
At school, Qiu Yun was considered an excellent student. She studied very hard, so her grades were relatively good. She was also obedient, and thus her homeroom teacher appointed her class president.
If nothing else had happened, Qiu Yun's life would probably have followed an ordinary path: advancing through school, finding an ordinary job, then using the work her diligent studies had earned her to leave the family she had been born into, where not even a trace of familial affection remained. She would find a husband who loved her enough and welcome a happiness of her own.
At least, that was how she had planned it.
Until one day, when the apartment that usually held only Qiu Yun suddenly had other people in it. A strange woman appeared at home with her father. The woman berated Qiu Yun, calling her the child of a mistress, a "bastard," then declared that she had no right to live in that apartment and told her to leave the house.
Only then did Qiu Yun learn that her mother and father had not even been married. She herself was merely the product of an affair.
Her father stood silently to one