Chapter 46: Hong Siyu's Guess

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

It had already been a week since he stayed at Xia Liang's home; Xia Liang's motivation in cultivation and studies had clearly strengthened. Since then, the two Newcomer magic girls had entered their summer vacation, while Lin Yun continued his hardworking career.

Of course, calling it hard work was mainly due to his own self-imposed pressure.

Working on the side was one thing, but he also needed to appropriately review middle school knowledge to help Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang with tutoring. Besides these, there was another urgent task: he had to subdue the Remnant Beasts.

He didn't know if it was because summer had arrived, so the Remnant Beasts had become as dense as mosquitoes; previously, one would see a Remnant Beast only once every ten days or half a month, but now one could be seen every few days.

In fact, a few days ago, at the same time, attack incidents occurred in two different locations.

Fortunately, Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang were now barely considered combat-ready; even dealing with stronger Eggs was no problem. In the end, they split up with Senior Cuique and simultaneously resolved the Remnant Beasts in both locations.

And even with a clear understanding of his own abilities, Lin Yun had to admit: the magic girl squad in Fang Ting City was indeed short-staffed.

Short-staffed in combat, short-staffed in teaching and training, and even short-staffed in information gathering.

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

Given this situation, plus the fact that subduing Remnant Beasts recently had indeed yielded rich rewards and gained considerable Echo, a thought suddenly arose in Lin Yun's mind: why not completely abandon the plan for a secluded life and just resign?

The Echo obtained by magic girls driving away Remnant Beasts can actually be used to acquire wealth.

Although it cannot be directly exchanged for money in the Material World, whether obtaining the currency of the Kingdom or exchanging it for gold, silver, and jewels, there are countless ways to turn contributions into money.

If one does not mind being investigated and arrested by the Investigation Bureau after exposure, magic girls can also exchange contributions for supplies or weapons, then sell them to civilians of the Kingdom or lower-level Magicians in the Material World; this is even a guaranteed profit.

Of course, very few people are willing to trade a magic girl's identity and power for such illicit wealth. Therefore, weapons and supplies produced in the Magic Kingdom remain high-priced among Magicians in the Material World.

With Lin Yun's status as a lifetime magic girl, as long as he was willing, he could completely give up his current job and make subduing Remnant Beasts his primary source of income. In fact, An Ya, before her death, always called herself a freelancer; this "freelance job" was being a magic girl. At that time, she even teased Lin Yun, asking if she should come and support the entire family.

Right now, a lifestyle similar to An Ya's was placed before Lin Yun: earning rewards by subduing Remnant Beasts. He would only need to use a small portion of the Echo to subsidize household expenses, which would be more than enough; everything else could be used to strengthen the squad's power.

This life sounded certainly feasible, but Lin Yun was still deliberating.

The reason was nothing else; he simply did not want to.

At the age of seventeen, he chose to stop being a magic girl and return to ordinary life, focusing on the college entrance exam and job hunting; this was never a choice based on interests.

He did not want to be a magic girl, and did not even want to have any connection with the Magic Kingdom; until today, he had refused to contact the Kingdom personally. There were many more complex reasons behind this.

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

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

Leaning back in his chair, he couldn't help but mutter this to himself.

However, this question was destined to have no answer. The person who could give him an answer was no longer in the world, even buried by time in the corners of memory, unable to speak to him anymore.

Immersed in his own thoughts, just as he was struggling with the upcoming choice, suddenly, the mobile phone in his pocket rang.

He picked up the phone; the contact displayed on it was Hong Siyu.

He looked at the screen, paused briefly, 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.

"Mm." He responded in a low voice.

"Have you recruited any newcomers recently?" The voice on the other end was rather frivolous.

Looking at his computer screen, Lin Yun said indifferently: "If there is no urgent matter, can I hang up on you?"

"Revealing a little won't cost me a piece of flesh; the records of the Hetero Strategy Bureau still don't have the codename 'Xiao Jin' until now, which is enough to show how trustworthy I am, right?" Hong Siyu was somewhat dissatisfied.

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

This statement was actually half true and half false.

In Lin Yun's view, although the magic girls of Fang Ting City were indeed short-staffed, it was not suitable to continue recruiting in the short term.

In the long run, recruiting is necessary; Fang Ting City must eventually rebuild the magical defense forces of the younger generation, and he cannot bear everything alone forever; but in the short term, recruiting new magic girls might create loopholes in his protection.

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

"Eh—"

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

"Speak." Lin Yun was concise.

"Alright, it's about the aid issue mentioned before. The Investigation Bureau is unwilling to send people, so I contacted several Hetero Strategy Bureaus in central cities again. The responses they got from the local Sowers were largely the same: they said they couldn't spare any manpower."

Hong Siyu's voice carried some indescribable emotion: "However, the answers the Hetero Strategy Bureaus of York City and Jinglan City got from the Sowers were... rather interesting?"

"What answers?" Lin Yun frowned slightly.

Hong Siyu asked somewhat abruptly: "Senior, didn't you ask me before if I was hiding something from you?"

"Yes, I said so."

"Then it's perfect; now it's my turn to ask you that question."

Hong Siyu's voice shifted from frivolous to steady: "In the past, didn't you also have something you didn't tell us?"

Lin Yun's expression tightened slightly, but his voice remained flat: "I'm not clear; what do you want to say?"

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

After a pause in speech, Hong Siyu continued: "Do you want me to read them out?"

"... Read them." Lin Yun was somewhat helpless.

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

The sound of fingernails tapping against a screen came from the other end of the phone; it seemed Hong Siyu was operating something on her mobile phone. After a short while, her voice came again:

"The Sower of New York City, 'Pikali', said verbatim: 'The next 20th year is coming soon; I'm not going to wade into this muddy water.'"

"The Sower of Jinglan City, 'Xiao Youyou', said verbatim: 'You're talking about Fang Ting City? The Fang Ting City where that one is? Why not just forget it? Anyway, they dare not go.'"

"Moreover, even if others tried to press further, they showed a very secretive attitude."

After saying all this, seeing that Lin Yun remained silent, Hong Siyu's end also fell silent for a moment.

After a while, her voice sounded again with hesitation: "Senior, this 'next 20th year' should refer to next year, and the reasons they mentioned must be... or at least, different from the Investigation Bureau's reasons, right?"

Lin Yun closed his eyes.

Just as he had always insisted to Moke that his codename was "Senior Cuique," though that was indeed the name he used now, it was also because this was Fang Ting City, and he worried Moke might react to his former codename.

The Sowers, or rather the Fairies, were different from the Magical Girls; at least in one matter, they always knew more than the Magical Girls.

"Ha, of course, I could guess even if you didn't say it, though I wouldn't dare be certain."

Lin Yun remained silent the whole time, 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 twenty years ago, you, Senior, were summoned to the Rose Palace..."

— "That's enough, Hong Siyu."

Interrupting her with a voice, Lin Yun opened his eyes; his expression was somewhat wooden, or even somewhat cold and hard: "No need to continue, you've guessed correctly."

"As expected?"

"Mm, at least part of it, you're right."

"That really is an unimaginable feat."

Hong Siyu's voice carried a touch of sigh: "So that's how it is; no other Magical Girl would dare do this, right?"

"Who knows?" Clearly unwilling to continue the topic, Lin Yun gave no definite answer.

"So, does this mean we really won't have any reinforcements?"

"Mm, we won't."

"In that case..."

Probably sensing the stiffness in the atmosphere, Hong Siyu actively changed the subject: "Senior, you mentioned before that you were giving special training to the newcomers for next year's certification test?"

"Yes." Hearing her mention this, Lin Yun also stirred up a bit of emotion again.

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

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