My Aloof Mentor, Ziwei

Liang Bing turned the receipt and leave request over twice, then handed them back.

"What's your counselor's name?"

"Zhou Wenbin. Fourth floor of the administration building. Want me to recite his phone number?"

"No." Liang Bing paused. "Has your sister's fan club calmed down lately?"

"Not a chance." Just thinking about it gave Su Bai a headache. "Last night, they even dragged me into voting for Ziwei in some 'Best Battle Scene' poll."

Liang Bing snorted and was about to turn away when the radio on her shoulder crackled.

"Enforcer Liang! Building Three, Room 502. The target's temperature is thirty-five point two degrees and still falling!"

She grabbed the radio. "Mana reading?"

"Two hundred and ten units, still rising! The medical team says her vitals don't match the corruption model. They suspect a benign mutation!"

The students in the classroom had no idea what that meant. All they saw was the woman in the black trench coat gripping her radio tighter.

"Maintain the lockdown. Nobody moves." She strode toward the door. "Tech team, aim the detection array at 502. I want real-time readings!"

The front door shut, leaving two Enforcers on guard outside.

Su Bai stood up. "Excuse me. Coming through."

An Enforcer at the door held out an arm. "No one leaves the classroom during lockdown."

"Just getting some water." Su Bai pointed to the vending machine three meters away. "It's right where you can see me. My blood sugar's low, and half a biscuit didn't help."

The Enforcer looked at his ashen face, then at the vending machine, and stepped aside. "Come straight back."

"Thanks, man."

Moisture beaded on the vending machine's glass. Su Bai inserted a coin and bent down, taking his time.

His terminal glowed in his palm. The encrypted Star Communication Network interface filled the screen, but to anyone else, it looked like an ordinary food-delivery order page.

The network Magical Girl Mint had built could trace an awakening surge to its host's terminal, with a margin of error no wider than a bed.

"Master, that pocket watch has been resonating with her wavelength all morning. It's a ready-made vessel."

"Mm." Su Bai found the cyan marker and typed.

"[Star Magical Girls · Guidance Notice]"

"The wind inside you is going out of control. If you want to live, do as I say."

"Hold the silver pocket watch at your chest in your hand. Draw the wind into it. Don't let even a trace escape."

Sent.

"If the reading drops straight to zero, won't the Monster Hunting Bureau get suspicious?"

"They can be suspicious. They still won't find anything." Su Bai picked up the drink that had dropped from the machine. "Better than watching her awaken on the spot."

Room 502.

Ye Qingqing lay curled in a corner of her bed, feverish and barely aware of her surroundings. Agents kept coming and going outside, and the instruments' beeping made her temples throb.

Her terminal buzzed.

The moment she read the words on the screen, she came fully awake.

Star Magical Girls. It was them. Lady Ziwei had said someone would come.

"Draw the wind... into the pocket watch..."

With trembling hands, she pulled out the silver pocket watch at her chest. It was all her mother had left her, and its engraved vines burned against her fingers.

She closed her eyes and followed the instructions, guiding the wind battering through her limbs into the watch's cover, strand by strand.

The first strand slipped inside. The pocket watch clicked.

The cyclones raging around the room had found an outlet. They surged into the tiny watchcase.

Three seconds later, the wind stopped.

Only a gentle breeze remained in the dorm room, stirring the curtains.

Ye Qingqing stared at the watch in her hand. Its case felt cool and perfectly still. Even its ticking had grown steady.

Downstairs, the instruments all stopped beeping at once.

"The reading?!" someone shouted in the corridor, voice cracking. "It was two hundred and ten just now!"

"Zero! Every reading's at zero!"

"Is the equipment broken?"

"All three machines at once?!"

When Liang Bing rushed into the second-floor corridor, all six screens of the detection array showed flat lines.

Inside 502, the medical team bustled around the sleeping girl. Her temperature was thirty-five point eight and rising, and her breathing was steady.

The old silver pocket watch lay beside her pillow, its surface dark with age.

"Enforcer Liang..." A tech team member's voice wavered. "The source of the surge is gone."

Liang Bing looked down at the compass on her wrist. Its crystal had gone dark, and its needle hung limp and motionless.

They had spent the entire morning on this, locking down buildings and setting up a detection array. They had even alerted the Night Watchers.

In the end, they hadn't found a trace.

"Enforcer Liang, the teaching building lockdown..."

"Lift it." She stared at the screen. "We've... been played again."

The lockdown ended at four that afternoon.

Liang Bing stood beside the command vehicle, watching students pour out of the teaching building. Over her radio, the tech team was still reviewing those three minutes when the readings had fallen to zero.

"Enforcer Liang, should we pack up?"

"Yes." She switched off the radio. "We'll go back and write the report."

Inside the teaching building, chairs scraped and bags rustled.

Lin Guoguo slung her bag over her shoulder and stretched her stiff neck. "A whole day of this. No classes, and I missed two meals. What was the Monster Hunting Bureau even trying to do?"

"Give themselves peace of mind." Su Bai picked up his backpack.

"How do you know?"

"If they'd actually found something, they wouldn't have stopped at locking down the buildings."

Lin Guoguo thought it over for a couple of seconds. "Fair point. Hey, want noodles? There's a new place on the back street. My treat."

"Can't. I've got a delivery tonight."

"Another night delivery?" She looked him up and down. "Su Bai, you've been working nights every day lately. You've lost so much weight. Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Don't worry. I'm hard to kill." Su Bai headed for the door. "Rain check on the noodles."

"A rain check? That's what you said last time!"

Back street, convenience store.

Su Bai loaded his basket with six energy bars, two bags of chocolate, and a box of compressed biscuits.

"Master," Kabi muttered from inside the back of his collar, "with that much food, are you going to war or on a picnic?"

"Both." Su Bai set the basket on the counter. "I've got a lesson to teach, and I might have to fight afterward. Better eat enough first."

"A lesson for the new recruit?" Kabi perked up. "Master, how are you going to teach her?"

"Practical training."

"Huh?"

"On a Magical Girl's first lesson, theory is useless." Su Bai scanned the payment code. "She needs to take a hit before she learns how to land one."

"...That's exactly how the big villains on TV teach people."

"As long as it works."

Dusk, the mountain behind campus.

The old air-raid shelter lay deep in the woods. Vines covered most of its entrance, and only half its rusted iron door remained, hanging crookedly from the frame.

Ye Qingqing followed the directions on her terminal, looking back every few steps.

The silver pocket watch in her palm stayed hot. A faint cyan glow shone through its engraved vines, brightening, then dimming.

There was only one line on the screen.

"At dusk, come to the air-raid shelter on the mountain behind campus. Come alone. Tell no one."

She stood at the entrance and peered inside. It was pitch-black. Wind poured from its depths, carrying the earthy smell of soil.

"Hello... is anyone there?"

Her voice echoed in and bounced back. No one answered.

She tightened her grip on the pocket watch and stepped inside.

As her third step landed, a violet-gold curtain of light silently spread across the entrance, shutting out the daylight.

Ye Qingqing flinched and spun around to run.

"You're here now. Don't leave."

From deep in the shadows came the sound of high heels striking the ground. Click. Click. Click.

A tall figure emerged slowly from the darkness. Layers of dark-gold lace Magical Armor draped her body, and she held a Great Scythe. Violet-gold patterns on its blade lit up half the passage.

An invisible pressure spread through the shelter. Dust rose from the ceiling and hung suspended in the air.

"L-Lady Ziwei!"

Ye Qingqing's voice trembled with excitement. She gathered her skirt, hurried forward, and bowed deeply.

"Thank you for saving me this morning! Let me introduce myself again! I-I'm Ye Qingqing, a second-year student at Tianqiong University, in the Life Sciences College. I..."