Chapter 10: Doubts

"Alright, I understand the situation. We will contact the branches in other cities to see if we can relay this information to the Magic Kingdom side through the Seeders in those cities."

Listening to the voice coming from his phone, Lin Yun stared blankly out the window, took a deep breath, and sighed helplessly: "Mm, thank you, sorry for the trouble."

The time was the morning of the second day, and the location was Lin Yun's own office.

He was on a call with Hong Siyu.

The sudden incident from the previous night had ultimately affected his sleep, so he was currently bleary-eyed and not in the best state.

But he still had many things to handle, so he could not rest. Not to mention the massive amount of work piling up at the company early in the morning, he had many questions regarding the encounter in the Wetland Park the night before that he needed to communicate to the Extraordinary Strategy Bureau.

To ensure his daughter's safety, he had privately participated in the battle under the name of the magical girl "Cui Que" and repelled the enemy, but the incident was far from over. After all, from every perspective, there seemed to be a hidden hand manipulating everything.

In the end, he summarized four points of suspicion.

The first was that he could not reach Hong Siyu at the time the Remnant Beast appeared last night.

He and the Extraordinary Strategy Bureau had no official contact; currently, they basically exchanged information based on his personal relationship with Hong Siyu, but just last night, this connection was severed.

Judging from the information fed back from Hong Siyu, not only did she not receive his call, but there were no traces left in her missed call records either. It was as if Lin Yun had never made the call at all.

But in fact, this was impossible. Lin Yun clearly remembered choosing to contact Hong Siyu after discovering his daughter was missing, but the result was that it was not answered.

Secondly, there was the mysterious call that informed him in advance at noon on the day of the incident. After that day, the number could no longer be reached, and one could only get a voice prompt saying it was "out of service area."

The other party appeared very suddenly, their purpose was unclear, and they disappeared abruptly after providing him with information. Why was that?

The third point was the abnormal magic barrier at the scene.

This was not a technique a Remnant Beast should possess; at the very least, a Remnant Beast at the level of a "Huo" did not have such capabilities. Yet, Lin Xiaolu and he had only encountered one Remnant Beast at the scene, which meant there was at least one other enemy hiding in the shadows at the time.

But that enemy ultimately did not appear, and did not even make a move while watching the Remnant Beast being eliminated by him. What exactly was the other party's goal?

Finally, the fact mentioned by the Seeder named Moke—that before its arrival, there were no Seeders or magical girls in Fang Ting—was also a huge point of suspicion and a hidden danger.

It was just that, let alone lacking clues, there wasn't even an entry point to investigate this matter; it was completely a black box.

The above four doubts might involve a conspiracy involving Lin Xiaolu, forcing him to pay close attention.

But the fragmented information was truly too much; he couldn't piece together the truth with what he had, making his already sleep-deprived brain throb even more.

"So, how does it feel to make a comeback?"

Hong Siyu's question came from the other end of the call, which had not yet been hung up, pulling Lin Yun back to reality from his thoughts.

He lowered and then raised the hand holding the phone, gave the question a brief consideration, and then gave his answer:

"Pretty terrible."

It was very terrible; his magic was declining, his techniques were rusty, and the current state of Fang Ting worried him.

More importantly, the result of this sortie did not meet his expectations at all.

Although his initial goal was only to save his daughter, once he had successfully saved her, he began to consider whether he could put on a show, bluff the Seeder, and see if he could trick some information out of it. Once he obtained enough information, he would reveal his identity to his daughter, and everyone would be happy.

But in the end, there wasn't much useful information, his identity wasn't revealed, and he had even blurted out an agreement to Moke and Lin Xiaolu's request. Now, he would have to hide his identity while guiding Lin Xiaolu through her magical girl training.

Although this could also achieve the goal of "communicating with his daughter," it was not the way he wanted at all.

But thinking of his daughter's confession to Cui Que last night, he felt that if he exposed his true identity now, both of them would likely fall into an incredibly awkward situation. So, in the end, he still couldn't tell the truth.

Thinking about having to continue playing this awkward identity game, he couldn't help but rub his temples.

"Terrible... that really is a response with a personal touch."

Hong Siyu on the call seemed to laugh: "Senior, don't push yourself too hard. When a man reaches middle age, he should know when to accept things."

"Can I hang up now?" Lin Yun responded with an indifferent attitude to her suddenly emerging suggestive remark.

Hong Siyu laughed even louder this time: "Haha! Just making a couple of jokes, are you shy already?"

It was at this moment that the office door was pushed open, and a scruffy-bearded man walked in from outside. Upon seeing Lin Yun's action of being on a call, he pointed at his mouth and then at the door quite exaggeratedly, using body language to express his meaning: Do you want me to go out?

Lin Yun immediately shook his head and said to the phone: "Let's leave it at that, we'll talk about other things next time."

Then, completely ignoring the objections coming from Hong Siyu's side, he pressed the hang-up button.

The call ended, and he let out a long sigh of relief.

"Not bad, you've got it going on."

A stack of documents was thrown onto the desk in front of him, and the scruffy-bearded man walked up with a strange grin: "I heard a woman's voice; finally planning to tie the knot again?"

Lin Yun twitched the corner of his mouth and looked at him helplessly: "Which ear did you hear me flirting with someone?"

"The left one."

The man opposite him said dismissively: "Come on, just sign this for me."

This person's name was Liu Guanshan, the director of the Foreign Affairs Dispatch Department and a peer who often dealt with Lin Yun in the company.

The two had known each other since they were small employees, and having worked together for so many years, their relationship was quite good; they were the kind of friends who could occasionally have a drink together.

So, they were relatively unconstrained when talking, and topics like being a widower could be brought up, and Lin Yun wouldn't hold it against him.

Fishing a gel pen out of the pen holder on the side, Lin Yun took the documents while not forgetting to explain: "Not to mention I'm not in the mood, I wouldn't dare have such thoughts right now. The kid at home is already at odds with me; if I really told her I was going to find her a stepmother, she'd probably raise hell."

Of course, these were just polite excuses. The real reason was that he didn't want to find anyone, but saying such things would be too pathetic, and he didn't want to leave that impression on others in a work setting.

"Still acting up? Just coax her with some more pocket money."

Liu Guanshan didn't care and sat on the corner of the desk: "My kid is the same; no matter what they're acting up about, just give them some benefits and it'll be fine."

"I haven't told you, it's not about pocket money at all."

Lin Yun signed the documents while continuing: "If I could have known what she was thinking before, it wouldn't have reached this point."

"Want one?" Liu Guanshan, sitting on the desk, fished a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket.

"Talk after I finish signing."

"Hengyun said they're done for the day tonight and are treating everyone to a meal, you going?"

"No, going home to be with the kid."

"Heh, so family-oriented?"

"You can just think of me as family-oriented."

As Lin Yun said this, he couldn't help but feel a bit emotional inside.

He was indeed going to accompany his daughter tonight, but unfortunately, not as a father.

It was an unchangeable fact that his daughter had become a magical girl. With things having developed to this point, no matter how much he was unwilling to accept it, he could only proceed based on this from now on.

And right now, the first priority in a series of actions was, without a doubt, teaching.

—He had to be a good magical girl senior and go guide his own daughter on how to train tonight.