Chapter 46: Hong Siyu

Another morning, Lin Yun sat in his office, staring blankly at his computer screen.

It had already been a week since he stayed over at Xia Liang’s home, and Xia Liang’s motivation in both cultivation and academics had clearly strengthened. Since then, the two new magical girls had welcomed their summer vacation, while Lin Yun continued his own laborious working life.

Of course, calling it laborious was mainly due to the pressure he put on himself.

Working was one thing, but he also needed to appropriately review middle school knowledge to help Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang with their tutoring. Besides these, there was another vital task: he had to subjugate Residual Beasts.

It was unclear if it was because summer had arrived, but the Residual Beasts had become as dense as mosquitoes; previously, one would only see a beast every ten days or half a month, but now one could be seen every few days.

A few days ago, attacks even occurred in two different locations at the same time.

Fortunately, Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang could now barely be considered beginners in combat, and even dealing with stronger eggs was no problem, so they finally split up with Lark to simultaneously resolve the Residual Beasts in both places.

Even with how clear he was about his own abilities, Lin Yun had to admit: the Fang Ting City magical girl squad was indeed short-handed.

They were short-handed in combat, short-handed in teaching and training, and even short-handed in information investigation.

Regarding the records of Residual Beasts in Fang Ting City over the past few years, he and Hong Siyu had already found many clues while searching, and it was almost certain that other hidden Residual Beasts existed. But it was precisely because of the lack of information that they did not know if any of them had reached the Pupa stage.

In such a situation, coupled with the fact that he had indeed gained quite a lot from subjugating Residual Beasts recently and obtained many echoes, a thought could not help but emerge in Lin Yun’s mind: what if he completely abandoned the plan of living in seclusion and just resigned?

The echoes obtained by magical girls for expelling Residual Beasts could actually be used to acquire wealth.

Although they could not be directly exchanged for money in the material world, whether it was obtaining the kingdom’s currency or exchanging them for gold, silver, and jewels, there were countless ways to turn contributions into money.

If one did not mind being arrested by the Investigation Bureau after being exposed, magical girls could also exchange contributions for supplies or weapons to sell to the kingdom’s civilians or low-level mages in the material world, which was an even more profitable business.

Of course, few people were willing to trade their identity and power as a magical girl for such illicit wealth. Therefore, weapons and supplies produced by the Magical Kingdom remained high-priced among mages in the material world.

With Lin Yun’s status as a lifelong magical girl, as long as he was willing, he could completely give up his current job and make subjugating Residual Beasts his main source of income. In fact, before Anya died, she always called herself a freelancer, and this "freelance job" was being a magical girl. At that time, she even teased Lin Yun, asking if she should be the one to support the whole family.

Right now, a lifestyle similar to Anya’s was laid out before Lin Yun: earning rewards by subjugating Residual Beasts; he only needed to take a small portion of the echoes to subsidize household expenses, and everything else could be used to improve the squad’s strength.

This life sounded very feasible, but Lin Yun was still struggling with the choice.

There was no other reason; he simply did not want to.

His choice at seventeen to give up being a magical girl, return to the life of an ordinary person, and focus on the college entrance exam and job hunting was never a choice based on profit.

He did not want to be a magical girl, and he did not even want to have any more involvement with the Magical Kingdom; to this day, he refused to personally contact the kingdom, and there were many more complex reasons for this.

Thinking of this, a memory flashed through his mind: it was a scene in a small hospital room where the man on the bed was smiling and saying something to him.

"...Dad, was my choice back then really correct?"

Leaning back in his chair, he could not help but mutter to himself.

However, this question was destined to have no answer; the person who could give him the answer was no longer in this world, and had even been buried by time in a corner of his memory, unable to speak with him again.

Immersed in his thoughts, just as he was still troubled by the upcoming choice, his phone in his pocket suddenly rang.

Picking up the phone, the contact displayed on it was Hong Siyu.

He looked at the screen, paused slightly, then picked up the phone and pressed the call button: "Hello?"

"Senior, are you there?" Hong Siyu’s voice came from the other end of the line.

"Yeah," he replied in a low voice.

"Have you recruited any newcomers recently?" The voice on the other side was quite flippant.

Lin Yun looked at the computer screen and said indifferently, "If there is nothing urgent, can I hang up on you?"

"It wouldn't kill you to reveal a little; the fact that the code name 'Little Jin' still doesn't exist in the Strategic Bureau’s records is enough to show how trustworthy I am, right?" Hong Siyu was somewhat dissatisfied.

"If there isn't, there isn't; I was just having a headache about the lack of manpower."

This sentence was actually half-true and half-false.

In Lin Yun’s view, although the Fang Ting City magical girl squad was indeed short-handed, it was not suitable to continue recruiting in the short term.

In the long run, recruiting was necessary; Fang Ting City would eventually have to rebuild the younger generation’s magical defense forces, and he could not bear everything alone forever. But in the short term, recruiting new magical girls might create loopholes in his protection.

The most reasonable plan was to let Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang reach the Bud stage first, and then let them consider recruiting new teammates.

"Eh—"

Hong Siyu drew out her voice, clearly somewhat disbelieving, but she did not continue to pester him: "Then, I have some news here, do you want to hear it?"

"Speak," Lin Yun said concisely.

"Alright, it’s about the issue of aid I mentioned before. The Investigation Bureau is unwilling to send people, so I contacted several Strategic Bureaus in the central cities again. The replies they got from the local Sowers were much the same, all saying they couldn't spare any manpower."

Hong Siyu’s voice carried some indescribable emotion: "However, the Strategic Bureaus of York City and Jinglan City, the answers they got from the Sowers were... quite interesting?"

"What answer?" Lin Yun frowned slightly.

Hong Siyu asked somewhat abruptly: "Senior, did you ask me before if I was hiding something from you?"

"Yes, I did."

"That’s perfect, now it’s my turn to ask you that question."

Hong Siyu’s voice changed from flippant to steady: "In the past, was there something you didn't tell us?"

Lin Yun’s expression tightened slightly, but his voice remained without any fluctuation: "I don't know what you want to say."

"Because I got some answers from them that might be a bit different from what I imagined before."

Pausing for a moment, Hong Siyu continued: "Do you want me to read them out?"

"...Read them," Lin Yun said with some helplessness.

Because he had already roughly guessed what the "different answers" Hong Siyu mentioned were.

The sound of fingernails touching the screen came from the other end of the phone; it seemed Hong Siyu was operating something on her phone. Before long, her voice came again:

"The Sower of New York City, 'Pikali', said exactly: 'The next 20th year is coming soon, I don't want to wade into this muddy water.'"

"The Sower of Jinglan City, 'Little Youyou', said exactly: 'You're talking about Fang Ting City? That Fang Ting City where that person is? How about we forget it? Anyway, I don't dare to go.'"

"And even if others tried to press for more, they acted as if it were a deep secret."

After saying this, seeing that Lin Yun remained silent, Hong Siyu was also silent for a moment on her end.

After a while, her voice sounded again with hesitation: "Senior, this 'next 20 years' should refer to next year, and what they said is... or at least, it’s a different reason than the Investigation Bureau, right?"

Lin Yun closed his eyes.

Just as he always insisted in front of Moke that his code name was "Lark"—although this was indeed the name he used now—it was also because this was Fang Ting City, and he was worried that Moke would have some reaction to his past code name.

Sowers, or fairies, were different from magical girls; at least in certain matters, they always knew more than magical girls.

"Ha, of course, even if you don't say it, I can guess, although I don't dare to be sure."

Lin Yun remained silent, and Hong Siyu continued as if talking to herself: "I wasn't a magical girl back then, but Sister Shengzi told me that after the 'Garden' defense battle nearly 20 years ago, you, Senior, were summoned to the Rose Palace..."

—"That’s enough, Hong Siyu."

Speaking to interrupt her, Lin Yun opened his eyes; his expression was somewhat blank, or even cold and hard: "No need to continue, you have already guessed correctly."

"Really?"

"Yes, at least part of it, you were right."

"That really is an unimaginable feat."

Hong Siyu’s voice carried a hint of exclamation: "So that’s how it is; no second magical girl would dare to do that, right?"

"Who knows?" Clearly not wanting to continue this topic, Lin Yun was noncommittal.

"So, this means we really won't have any reinforcements, right?"

"Yes, we won't."

"Since that’s the case..."

Probably sensing the stiffness of the atmosphere, Hong Siyu took the initiative to change the subject: "Senior, you mentioned before that you were doing special training for the newcomers for next year’s certification test?"

"Yes." Hearing her mention this, Lin Yun also regained some of his mood.

"Then, if you can't spare time in the short term, do you want to try another plan?"

Hong Siyu asked somewhat tentatively: "For example, let me go take a look?"