Tianxing Found Out

When Su Wan woke up, the first thing she said was:

"I'm dreaming, right?"

No one answered her.

On the table in the family waiting room sat the things the Association had sent over: an elegant fruit basket, a card expressing concern, and a document with a gold-embossed cover—the "Magical Girl Registration and Training Intent Letter."

The gold-embossed emblem glinted under the lights.

It should have been the highest honor. Countless families dreamed of signing that document.

But Chen Zhou looked at it as if it were a notice that his daughter was dying.

"When did it happen?"

After a full ten minutes of silence, Chen Zhou finally spoke. He held an unlit cigarette, turning it over and over between his fingers.

"Last night..." Chen Qianqian sat across from him, her hands on her knees. "When I was tied up in the warehouse."

"Why..." Su Wan's voice was painfully hoarse, her eyes swollen like walnuts. "Why did it have to be you..."

"Mom," Qianqian said softly, "last night, if I hadn't become a magical girl—"

She paused.

"There might be two bodies in intensive care right now."

Silence fell over the waiting room again.

Chen Zhou's hand stopped turning the cigarette.

"Dad knows," he said hoarsely. "Dad knows all of that. You saved Yang Chen, and I'm proud of you. I mean it. I've never been prouder in my life."

"But Qianqian..."

He looked up. His eyes were bloodshot.

"'Magical girl' sounds glorious. But I've lived nearly fifty years, and I can see what it really means—you're the ones sent to take the hit."

"When monsters appear, everyone else runs back, and you step forward. Why? Because of that little bit of light inside you."

"Seven years ago..."

His voice trembled.

"Seven years ago, that's how Yang Chen's parents died. An entire family was gone overnight. When I carried him back from the edge of the ruins, he didn't say a word. He just stared straight ahead like a wooden doll... I'll never forget what he looked like."

"You're my only daughter."

"I don't want to get a call like that in the middle of the night."

Beside him, Su Wan started crying again. "I don't need you to make a name for yourself. I just want you safe... How am I supposed to sleep at night now..."

Qianqian lowered her head.

Tears fell one by one onto the backs of her hands.

But when she looked up again, her gaze was remarkably steady.

"Mom, Dad. I understand everything you're saying."

"But last night, I watched Yang Chen get knocked down by the Fallen Beast again and again, and I couldn't do anything."

"That feeling... I never want to feel it again."

"I can't stand by and let it happen."

She turned toward the intensive care unit. Beyond two doors, he lay there, his body covered in bandages.

And... he hasn't let go of it at all...

If he does something dangerous again, who's going to protect him?

Chen Zhou looked at his daughter.

He looked at her swollen eyes, her bandaged wrist, and the face that had lost its childishness overnight.

Suddenly, he found he couldn't tell her no.

He stayed silent for a long, long time, until the cigarette was crushed out of shape between his fingers.

Then he reached out and slowly pushed the gold-embossed letter across the table to his daughter.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Then go."

He stood and walked to the window, turning his back on his wife and daughter. Outside, dawn was close.

"But remember one thing."

"Every single time, you come back alive."

"That's an order."

At the same time, in Celestial Star's dorm room at the city branch.

Celestial Star hadn't been able to sleep since returning from the hospital.

She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The sensation from a few hours earlier still lingered in her fingertips.

No.

Something was very wrong.

In the warehouse, she had wrapped her hand in Magic Power to tend the boy's wounds.

But something hadn't been right.

The Fallen Beast had left extensive external injuries, especially across his back.

Judging by their size, the wounds should have been deep too... He should have died.

There was no way his internal organs could have escaped the attack.

Yet when she examined him, not a single wound had actually struck a vital spot.

It made no sense.

Surely Thousand Blades, a newly awakened combat-type magical girl, hadn't learned healing magic the moment she awakened?

That made no sense either!

After tossing and turning for two hours, she finally scrambled out of bed, put on her round glasses, and opened her computer.

Branch access. Retrieve the files.

Surveillance footage from the night of the concert.

She brought up the footage of the front rows first.

The third song, during the instrumental break—right when the Fallen Beast had begun to grow underground.

Onscreen, the boy in a baseball cap handed his glow stick to the girl beside him and left his seat.

Celestial Star hit fast-forward.

Twenty-three minutes later, he returned to his seat.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she pulled up the combat records from the underground pipe network.

Her breathing tightened.

There was one last clip.

Sublevel three, maintenance passage, camera C-117.

Of all the footage archived that night, it was the only camera that had caught Love releasing her transformation.

She opened it.

The footage was dark and badly speckled with noise.

A pink glow spread through the passage. The magical outfit peeled away layer by layer like flower petals, leaving a figure standing at the center of the light—but the lighting was too poor. The figure's features blurred into static. No matter how much she sharpened the image, brightened it, or adjusted the curves, she couldn't make out the face.

But.

She could see the figure raise a hand and adjust something on her head.

A baseball cap.

Celestial Star leaned back in her chair and went still.

Only the hum of the computer fan filled the dorm room.

The screen's light flickered across her round glasses.

"...Found you."

She spoke softly to the screen.

"Magical girl Love."

"Also known as 'the helpful citizen,' Yang Chen."

Outside, the sky was beginning to brighten.

Celestial Star stared for a long, long time at the blurry figure in the baseball cap on her screen.

But it didn't make sense.

This made even less sense.

Yang Chen was male. How could he transform into a magical girl? And one who had reached at least Lamp-Lighting Rank the moment she awakened?