Troubled Mind

Are the starry skies of the Otherworld real or fake?

Qingyin, catching the night breeze, looked up at the stars and dispersed the heat accumulated from staying in the barbecue restaurant for too long as she pondered a philosophical question.

Walking down a street with sparse pedestrians, the quietness rivaled the late night of the real world.

Her line of sight caught Yuyan, who had left early and was currently lingering by the railing of the pond.

Nursing the thought of getting to know her student better, Qingyin slowly approached and stopped at her side, leaning on the railing alongside her:

"Why aren't you going home after leaving early? Are you troubled by something?"

Yuyan noticed the presence beside her was Qingyin, and the vigilance she had raised slightly a moment ago melted away again as she answered the other's question:

"No, I just don't know where to go right now."

"Go home, or go to the home of the person you have a crush on," Qingyin suggested in a flat tone.

"..." Yuyan did not reply.

It was obvious she was unwilling to go into detail about her current distress and remained caught in a dilemma.

Continuing the deep dive would easily cause aversion, so Qingyin shifted to a casual tone to start the next topic.

"Why is your Magical Girl moniker Yuyan?" Qingyin finally got the chance to voice her curiosity:

"I have an acquaintance named Yuyan, too."

"Hahaha..." Yuyan inexplicably became somewhat awkward and replied vaguely:

"I'm not very good at picking names, so I just casually grabbed a name I'd heard before."

"When did you become a Magical Girl?" Qingyin asked next.

"About half a year ago, I guess. I don't remember the exact time." Clearly, Yuyan didn't want to talk about this either.

Half a year ago?

Wasn't that around the time Ye Yuyan resigned? And the two had the same name, so was it possible that Yuyan was actually...

The moment Qingyin thought of this possibility, she immediately dismissed the conjecture.

How could anyone be stupid enough to use their real name as a Magical Girl moniker?

Even with cognitive magic impairment and slight changes in physique and appearance, it would still be riddled with loopholes.

No Magical Girl wanted to expose her real-life identity for no reason.

At this point, Qingyin wiped away her suspicions and ruled out this unreliable guess without evidence.

The base was large, and duplicate names were common—completely normal.

Her own moniker might also share the same name as someone else's.

"If you have something on your mind and don't want to say it, then I won't bother you." Qingyin certainly couldn't be bothered to spend effort cracking open a Magical Girl's heart in a short time.

After all, she wanted to go home and climb the tower for a bit.

"Although I don't know what you're agonizing over, when you encounter a difficult choice, just ask your own heart," Qingyin offered brief comfort, borrowing Youyue's phrasing:

"A Magical Girl's heart cannot lie to itself. I'm leaving."

Adolescent girls were always prone to sentimentality.

Qingyin flew straight away, leaving Yuyan to ponder by herself.

Returning home, Qingyin took out the items stored in her Heartglow Stone and casually placed them on the desk.

Changing back to his original appearance, Ye Qing raised a hand and sniffed himself.

"Smells all like barbecue."

The plan had changed.

He snatched a random outfit from the closet and dived into the bathroom; he had to wash up thoroughly before getting online.

The hot water sprayed by the showerhead washed over his body, and Ye Qing felt a long-lost sense of refreshment—that feeling of washing away the exhaustion after finishing work.

Ye Qing was somewhat reluctant to admit it in his heart, but he genuinely felt the fulfillment of life and couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

Being a Magical Girl was actually pretty great.

It was a day that was neither too tiring nor too idle.

He wouldn't get so tired as to doubt life and the future, nor would he be so idle as to repeatedly reminisce about the past and old memories.

When night fell on days like this, playing games felt even more exhilarating.

In a cheerful mood, Ye Qing became a bathroom singing king, starting to belt out a tune and greatly prolonging his shower time.

The moment he stepped out of the bathroom, the good mood he had previously gathered was instantly shattered by half.

"It's the middle of the night, why are you here?!" Ye Qing pointed a trembling finger at Ye Yuyan on the couch.

"I'm back at my own home, do I still need to report to you?" Ye Yuyan flashed the keys to the rental:

"Isn't it a surprise?"

"Too much of a surprise turns into a minor scare," Ye Qing said unceremoniously, and after carefully observing her, he said in disbelief:

"You didn't come here without taking a shower, did you?"

"Yeah, got a problem?" Ye Yuyan crossed her arms.

"Take your dirty clothes back, or wash them by hand yourself!" Ye Qing protested.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'll take them back home."

"Really? Last time you said that, you deliberately left your dirty clothes in the basin on top of the washing machine for me to see."

Ye Qing felt that women's pursuit of doing laundry was somewhat overly tedious.

Intimates had to be washed by hand, and certain clothes had to go into a laundry bag before being tossed into the washing machine.

Socks and clothes couldn't be washed together.

He had never been that troublesome when doing laundry; he just shoved everything into the washing machine at once and called it a day.

Yet every time Ye Yuyan came over to his place to shower and spend the night, Ye Qing would suffer the next day having to hand-wash her intimates.

Not only that, because of the extra clothes belonging to Ye Yuyan, he had to wash his socks and clothes in two separate loads, which meant hanging them out to dry twice.

Painful, too painful.

"Trust me, trust me," Ye Yuyan said with a grin:

"Where did you put my clothes?"

"Check the bedroom closet yourself. Once you're done washing, we'll play some action games."

"Really!?"

The wooden block head had finally figured it out?

Yuyan's eyes lit up. No longer lying lazily on the couch, she dashed into Ye Qing's room without stopping to dig out the only complete set of intimates she had left here last time, then grabbed a pair of pajamas at random.

Rushing into the bathroom with the fastest speed of her life and scrubbing her entire body from head to toe, Yuyan had never thought she could be so efficient.

Stepping into Ye Qing's room with a happy smile on her face, she discovered it wasn't the action game she had imagined.

"Sit. The second half of It Takes Two. You left last time and I couldn't beat it by myself."

Ye Qing patted the armrest of the other gaming chair in front of the computer, where two controllers were already plugged in.

Everything was ready.

So it was an action game, huh? She thought it was an action game.

Ye Yuyan was deeply disappointed and sat down silently.

A computer game, well, that was fine too.

After passing the simple puzzle-solving stage and playing for a while, Ye Yuyan maneuvered her character to continue through the level while speaking with a feigned casual tone:

"Why didn't you look at the message I sent you?"

"Did you send me a message?" Ye Qing asked in puzzlement, opening his phone and instantly feeling shocked:

"Holy crap, you really did!"

Looking at a reaction that didn't look fake, Ye Yuyan pursed her lips, and then spoke in a soft voice:

"By the way, don't worry about Mom and Dad's matter. I had someone buy the suppressant medicine and it's already been delivered to them."

He didn't need to work overtime to pull strings and ask for favors.

He didn't need to be so exhausted that he had no time to check messages.

He didn't need to bear everything by himself anymore.

He could just... rely on me a little bit...

"Huh? I wasn't worried," Ye Qing said with a slightly dazed expression, completely oblivious:

"Because I had someone send the cure to Mom and Dad, and it can completely cure the spatial illness."

"Huh?" Ye Yuyan was confused.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

"Stop 'huh'-ing. Let's pull an all-nighter today and beat It Takes Two."

"Aren't you going to work tomorrow? You clearly didn't even have time to look at your phone or reply to my messages."

"I didn't look at my phone because I was playing games."

How could Ye Qing possibly expose such a major matter as being a Magical Girl?

"You son of a bitch, you jerk!"

Ye Yuyan cursed fiercely. Watching Ye Qing, who was utterly focused on the game, she couldn't help but feel a sliver of relief.

If he still had the mood to indulge in games, then she could rest easy.