Chapter 195: Chapter Sixty-Seven: Bai Ji and Bai Mei

Before becoming a magical girl, Bai Ji, or rather the girl named Qiu Yun, led an utterly ordinary life.

Ordinary looks, an ordinary figure, an ordinary personality, ordinary talents. The only thing that was not ordinary was her mother, who had left home forever due to a marital quarrel, and her father, who never came home at night.

However, in her perception, these things did not affect her too much; after all, her life continued. Her father rarely showed up but still provided her with living expenses and tuition, and she could still attend school normally.

Qiu Yun at school was considered an honor student; she studied very hard, so her grades were relatively good. She was also very obedient, and thus was appointed class monitor by the homeroom teacher.

If there were no other changes, Qiu Yun's life trajectory would probably be to advance through school normally, work normally, and then, relying on the job brought by hard study, leave this native family that had not a shred of familial affection left, find a husband who loved her enough, and welcome her own happiness.

At least, that was how she had planned it herself.

Until one day, someone suddenly appeared in the apartment where only Qiu Yun usually lived: a strange woman arrived with her father. The strange woman berated Qiu Yun as the child of a mistress, a "bastard," and then declared that she did not recognize her right to live in that room, telling her to leave the house.

During this process, Qiu Yun learned that there was not even a marriage between her mother and father, and that she was merely the product of an affair.

Her father stood silently by the side from beginning to end. Only after the woman left did he secretly give her a sum of money, then, merely sighing, waved his hand at her.

Qiu Yun tried to call her mother's phone, but all she received was the hollow broadcast voice saying, "The phone number is invalid."

From that day on, Qiu Yun was forced to leave home.

She moved alone into an old, cramped rental room. That person who could at least be called her "father" still secretly gave her living expenses, but the amount became smaller and smaller, barely enough to maintain food and shelter, and she could not even scrape together tuition.

To continue her schooling, Qiu Yun began looking for work, but her age prevented her from finding any decent part-time job; she could only do things like handing out flyers and tissues on the street. Trapped by the struggle for survival, her grades began to decline continuously, and it seemed everything was getting worse.

This life continued for quite some time, until one day, while she was handing out flyers on the street, she met a very special woman.

That woman was beautiful, tall, and had a unique temperament. A plush toy resembling a small raccoon sat on her shoulder, looking completely out of place among the passersby.

She did not reject Qiu Yun's flyer like most pedestrians did; instead, she took it and asked a question that sounded almost like a hallucination to Qiu Yun:

— "Interested in becoming a magical girl?"

Perhaps because a difficult life makes people numb, Qiu Yun at that time also posed an utterly bizarre question: "... Is there a salary?"

"Room and board included, plus bonuses."

From that day on, Qiu Yun received another name: Bai Ji.

Bai Ji's talent as a magical girl was unexpectedly good; although she could not be called a genius, she was definitely not "ordinary." Furthermore, because this was a "job" she had obtained with great difficulty, she practiced as a magical girl even more diligently than she had studied at school in the past.

Regarding the woman who hired her, Qiu Yun always showed respect; she respected the other's grace in taking her out of suffering, and also respected the other's strength as a magical girl, so she called her "Mentor."

Because of respect, there was admiration; because of admiration, there was aspiration.

To become a magical girl as formidable as her Mentor, Bai Ji always held herself strictly to high standards. Because of her effort and self-discipline, Bai Ji was able to stand out among her peers; in the qualification certification at the beginning of the year, she achieved the top overall ranking with a tenth-place finish in practical combat and a first-place finish in the written exam.

She believed this was all due to her Mentor's teaching.

She believed this was all due to her Mentor's techniques.

Her Mentor, Margaret, was the greatest magical girl in the world; at least in her mind, no one could replace that status.

So, when her Mentor mentioned going to Fang Ting City to "meet an old friend" and also revealed to her that "there might be a contest between young people," Bai Ji agreed without a second thought.

She knew the "friend" her Mentor spoke of; she knew that the magical girl named Senior Cuique was an extraordinary person. When visiting the other's student, she ought to uphold the occasion.

At the same time, she also hoped to continue surpassing her opponent and become a student who made her Mentor proud.

Even if the opponent was a student of the Investigation Bureau's Inspector, she would not be intimidated; even if the opponent was a novice who had only become a magical girl for a little over half a year, she would not underestimate them.

Especially since this opponent actually dared to speak disrespectfully to her Mentor.

When her Mentor and her old friend met and greeted each other warmly, that short little thing named Bai Mei actually ran out to make a huge scene, even shouting words like "sexual harassment."

Such disrespectful speech, an attitude that could even be called contemptuous, made Bai Ji feel a sharp pain in her heart.

Out of propriety, she could not criticize the other or attack back in that situation; she would not behave rudely in that setting, because that would only make her Mentor feel embarrassed in front of the Inspector.

But this did not mean she had completely endured it.

After following the other to the base in Fang Ting City, Bai Ji proactively approached Bai Mei and proposed a "private contest." Of course, on the surface it was a "contest," but in reality it was to probe the opponent's depth; if the opponent was a fraud, she would simply take the opportunity to teach them a lesson.

Undoubtedly, Bai Ji succeeded.

The opponent obviously did not even know of the existence of the technique "Turbidification"; thinking that after prohibiting spells and magical armor, the contest of mana was merely simple physical strength, she suffered a major loss and was defeated in a single exchange.

But at the same time, Bai Ji also failed.

The Mentor discovered the secret contest; the Mentor not only did not praise her but, unusually sternly, told her that what she did was wrong, that using information asymmetry and loopholes in the rules violated the principle of a fair contest, and ordered her to apologize to the Fang Ting City team.

Bai Ji did not understand nor comprehend why the Mentor had to criticize her on this matter, but even though her heart was filled with a thousand resentments, she still chose to comply.

And then, until now, she watched helplessly as her opponent used Turbidification.

"It seems to be three days?"

After hearing the other say those words, the string of reason in Bai Ji's mind snapped.

To her own shock, the emotion overflowing from the depths of her heart at that moment was not "anger" or "humiliation," but a more ugly emotion.

Jealousy.

Why did the other, who had clearly been disrespectful to her Mentor, receive such favor from her Mentor, who was even willing to impart her ultimate technique completely?

Why was the other's personality so terrible, yet everyone around her coddled her like a princess? The Inspector in Fang Ting City treated her like a biological daughter; how doting they were was obvious even to a blind person.

Why did Heaven give such an exaggerated talent to such a person, when it took her, after forgetting food and sleep to practice for so long, to learn Turbidification, while this person only needed three days?

Bai Ji's mind was full of doubts about the other's words, but not a single one could be expressed methodically, because the emotion of jealousy had made her completely lose her composure.

She merely carelessly activated her magical armor and carelessly began to pour out her mana. Spells, Turbidification, magical armor—use whatever she could; the only purpose was to defeat this detestable person.

"Fanwen!"

Shouting the name of her magical armor, the pen clenched in her hand swept out rows of Favo runes in the air like a printer, and offensive spells smashed around everywhere as if they cost nothing.

And because the mana was used far too quickly, Bai Ji even exhibited the same symptoms as Xia Liang had earlier—dizziness and blurred vision; she could only bite her teeth tightly, almost grinding her molars to powder.

Her attacks were so fierce that Lin Xiaolu naturally did not fare well; having mastered Turbidification only recently, she could not yet wield it with ease, so she could only symbolically let the Blue Flame cancel a few attacks before having to dodge everywhere. The density of the attacks was so high that even dodging could not completely avoid them, so she still took several hits squarely.

But even so, she did not lose heart.

Before entering the field, the words Senior Cuique had spoken to her remained silently in her mind.

"Let Senior Cuique see me clearly now..."

This sentence, like some kind of spell, made Lin Xiaolu's heart incredibly clear.

Regardless of victory or defeat, regardless of others, she now only considered how to showcase the results of her recent cultivation.

Even if her ability to bloom had made no progress at all, even if her magic armor had shown no movement whatsoever, she had truly exerted herself, and the results brought by that effort were indeed real.

Then, at the very least, she had to let Cuique see these things.

The refinement of her flight techniques allowed her to dodge a portion of her opponent's attacks.

The improvement in the quality of her magic allowed her to clash with a Leaf-rank opponent without losing due to magic exhaustion.

The turbidified flames of her magic allowed her magic to ignore, or even counteract, the opponent's turbidified vibrations.

These advancements were all undeniably real.

As long as she displayed these things exactly as they were, letting Cuique see that she was truly striving and truly progressing, then that would be enough.

... Was it enough?

She suddenly questioned herself in her heart.

Merely displaying things to this extent seemed to lack something.

For some reason, Lin Xiaolu always felt that she ought to be able to do more.

Although this was merely an intuition, this intuition was now so clear; it was shouting at Lin Xiaolu with a clear voice, telling her that this feeling was just right.

And this feeling made her feel so strange yet familiar.

The last time she had this feeling was on the night of the Full Moon Festival; the time before that, she had this feeling during the crisis at Fuli Academy, but on those occasions, it was because she felt boundless fury toward her enemies that such a change occurred.

This time was different.

It was not an unconscious application driven by anger, but a simple feeling—that she could do it.

Just because, through repeated turbidification of her magic, she always felt that this was not her limit.

Gazing at the magic before her, which had turned into blue flames, her heart kept telling herself that she could go a step further, that she could display even more.

Could she turbidify it one more time?

This thought made Lin Xiaolu herself jump in fright.

In previous teachings, Asano Enka had discussed this issue with her; the answer was—theoretically feasible, but practically no gain.

Because turbidification itself was already a process of stripping away the commonality of magic to make it more individualized; could turbidifying it again make magic that was already individualized even more individualized?

The answer was negative.

In fact, turbidifying magic that had already been turbidified would only cause the magic to regain a portion of its commonality, and this commonality would cause the magic to return once again to its original form.

As for this effect, which seemed like two negatives making a positive, Asano Enka had not yet found the specific principle. But there was no doubt that turbidifying twice, even losing extra mental energy and magic in the process, only to obtain some unchanged magic, was indeed no gain at all.

Therefore, Lin Xiaolu was surprised by her own thought: she clearly already knew the result of "turbidifying one more time," so why did her intuition still tell her it was worth a try?

But soon, she cast this boring entanglement aside—after all, it was just a try; there would be no loss.

Holding this thought, she focused her mind on the magic in her hand, then used the techniques she had learned during this period to exert influence on that pale blue flame.

The fire-like magic in her hand gradually became calm with Lin Xiaolu's effort, and then the form of the flame slowly dissipated, leaving only the radiance of ordinary magic.

This action naturally could not escape Bai Ji's eyes.

What on earth was that person doing?

The first thought that popped into Bai Ji's mind was exactly that.

Turbidifying magic that had already been turbidified was something she had naturally tried; indeed, one could say that everyone in the Bai'an City squad who had learned this technique would make this attempt.

But the answers to these attempts all tended to be consistent—returning to ordinary magic.

And now, the opponent was actually making this attempt in the midst of battle; was she stupid? Or was she simply expressing contempt for herself?

Thoughts flowed through her mind, but Bai Ji did not start daydreaming like Lin Xiaolu; instead, she swung the magic armor in her hand once again, intending to land a few more attacks to end this annoying battle.

Regardless of what the opponent was considering, defeat her first.

With this thought in mind, Bai Ji pointed the nib of her pen at Lin Xiaolu, condensing magic above it, intending to take the opportunity to strike Lin Xiaolu down.

But at this very moment, a slight anomaly appeared in her vision. More precisely, it appeared on Lin Xiaolu herself.

Because that mass of magic, which had previously calmed down from its turbidified state and was now quietly resting in Lin Xiaolu's hand, seemed to be fading.

The original pale blue gradually lost its color, as if someone had drawn it out, becoming increasingly faint.

Was it an illusion?

Before Bai Ji could confirm this thought, she discovered that the magic in Lin Xiaolu's hand had faded a little more, until it changed from pale blue to an incredibly blinding white.

It told Bai Ji with its actual existence: this was not an illusion.

Then, this streak of white, starting from the small mass in Lin Xiaolu's hand, suddenly spread out.

White, at this moment, stole everyone's gaze.

(End of this chapter)