[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl":3,"chapter-off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-chapter-61":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Off the Clock, Then a Magical Girl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2349981,4594,"Chapter 61: Old Photo","off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-chapter-61",61,"\u003Cp>Lin Xiaolu gripped the frame of her phone, her fingers tightening unconsciously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She could see the magical girl in the photo, wearing a cherry-pink fluffy skirt, smiling alongside others, and with some indescribable emotion, holding the slightly shy blue-haired magical girl beside her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two people who, in her understanding, should never have crossed paths were standing so intimately in this photo, causing Lin Xiaolu to open and close her lips subconsciously, yet she could not utter a word.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Is that so? She desperately wanted to ask one more question.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if she had any doubts in her heart before, the moment she saw this scene, they truly vanished into thin air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, it should have been like this all along.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The many unusual things about her mother while she was alive; why her father was so tight-lipped when she died; why the mysterious magical girl Lark was so particularly attentive to her... the reason for everything fell upon the answer that \"Mother was a magical girl.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was like finding the original key to an unbreakable lock; with just a gentle turn, it clicked open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the past, she had never thought her mother could have any connection to the identity of a \"magical girl.\" In her memory, her mother was just a slightly strange housewife who always insisted on calling herself a freelancer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her personality was optimistic, even scatterbrained; she was lazy and careless in her daily life, sometimes even more childish than Lin Xiaolu herself. But she was a good mother who truly loved and doted on her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She could recall the scene of snuggling in her mother's arms watching magical girl cartoons on TV; she had not forgotten the smile on her face when she told her, \"I want to be a magical girl when I grow up.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Xiaolu suddenly remembered many, many things: the mother who would look for her to sleep together as a child but leave halfway through; the mother who would be eating with her after she grew up but suddenly say she had to go out to buy something; the mother who clearly promised to come to the parent-teacher meeting but broke her word, later claiming she had misremembered the time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"So... that's how it is.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her vision was blurred by tears before she knew it; tears spilled from her eyes, flowed down her cheeks, and dripped onto the phone screen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her throat tightened, her voice choked; she felt that she was already a magical girl who saved others and shouldn't be so weak now, but no matter what, she couldn't stop the sobbing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"So it was like this.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It turned out that a real magical girl had always been by her side; she had been a child favored by a magical girl from the very beginning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was just that she only learned all this two years after losing her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, Lin Xiaolu only shed tears, but soon she covered her face and sobbed uncontrollably.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had thought that in the two years since her mother passed away, she had cried enough and shed enough tears. She had come to terms with it, become numb, and wouldn't cry so miserably over her affairs again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for no reason, when she discovered that there was another layer of connection—\"magical girl\"—between her and her mother, she suddenly found that she still had so much she wanted to say to her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Becoming a magical girl is not as easy as imagined.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Residual Beasts are so disgusting, so hateful, so terrifying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Practicing magic power is very hard and very boring.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Magical Kingdom seems to be a very complicated place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Senior Lark is a very good person.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She has partners to fight alongside now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps she has already begun to understand her father.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And... she didn't expect that after two years, she would still miss her so much.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Complex thoughts mixed with sorrow were locked in the small car cabin; even though the car sped along, they were bound by longing and could not be cast aside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Xiaolu cried bitterly; Xia Liang beside her didn't know how to comfort her, and Lin Yun in the front seat remained silent, saying nothing more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At least in his view, it was a good thing to be able to cry at a time like this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If one kept sorrow and tears bottled up inside, burying longing and regret deep in the heart forever, then after a long time, one wouldn't even be able to confirm if that emotion still existed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The crying in the car lasted for a long time, until Lin Xiaolu gradually stopped and began to sob softly, then Xia Liang patted her back and continued to ask Lin Yun:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Uncle, but if what you say is true, this photo seems to have another problem.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She looked at Lark and Anya in the photo and asked, somewhat puzzled: \"If Xiaolu's mother was a magical girl of the same generation as Lark, then shouldn't she have retired long ago?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As far as she and Lin Xiaolu knew, Lark was a resident of the Magical Kingdom.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, Lark had never said which city she was from, and she always emphasized that she was much older than them, and was corroborated by others as a \"big shot,\" so she really didn't look like a magical girl from the material world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding Lark's emphasis on being an adult, the two girls had actually always remained skeptical, but now that they saw this photo, the remaining doubts vanished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"She did not retire.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing that Lin Xiaolu's emotions had stabilized quite a bit, Lin Yun sighed inwardly and then said expressionlessly: \"Because Lulu's mother was special; she was a lifelong magical girl, different from the others.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This brand-new concept left Lin Xiaolu, with tears hanging from her eyes, and Xia Liang, who was comforting her, feeling bewildered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>—\"Lifelong? Xiaolu's mother was lifelong?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike the two bewildered girls, the one with the biggest reaction in the car was actually Moko.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was not surprising, because among those present, besides Lin Yun, only it knew the meaning of this term.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing that Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang had no concept of this, it immediately explained: \"A lifelong magical girl means that because of special contributions or deeds, she was allowed to remain in the material world forever; it's a proof of being very powerful!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Mom... was very powerful as a magical girl?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Xiaolu whispered while choking, repeating what Moko said, and as if realizing something, she looked up blankly: \"Then, then in that case, how did Mom die?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As she asked, she reminisced, and suddenly remembered another key point, staring straight at the driver's seat in front of her, as if she could see her father through the back of the chair:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"When you told me to 'forget her' back then, was it because of this reason?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This question pointed directly to the core of the matter. After the release of her grief and longing, she finally realized that her mother's death was actually not simple.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Yun did not speak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His silence did not represent a refusal, but rather came from contemplation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His gaze drifted to the rearview mirror, meeting Lin Xiaolu's red-rimmed eyes in the reflection. As their gazes met, he could see that although there was sorrow in his daughter's eyes, they were still clear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So he spoke.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"...In these days of being a magical girl, you should have heard at least something about how magical girls determine their strength, right?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Yun withdrew his gaze, staring somewhat blankly at the road outside the windshield: \"White Card, Character Card, Flower Card. Although I don't know the specific meaning, she once had a title before she passed away.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His words paused slightly, but there was not a single sound in the back seat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether it was Lin Xiaolu, Xia Liang, or Moko, they were all drawn in by his words, holding their breath and waiting quietly for the second half of his sentence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps he should light a cigarette at this moment to set the mood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Yun had this thought for no reason, but he didn't have the habit of smoking, so he could only let out a long sigh, as if exhaling his own worries:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"It is said that in the latter half of her magical girl career, other magical girls acknowledged her as the 'strongest Flower Card'.\"\u003C\u002Fp>",1403,"2026-06-21T02:45:47.620Z",1,"Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite","43d5a64a91d0f338c71d007fdf2c2c4368c7afe61f5b7cb4c27681b1b8ca9594","off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-chapter-62","off-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-chapter-60",364,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Foff-the-clock-then-a-magical-girl-cover.jpg"]