Chapter 67: Fairies and Friends

Fang Ting City First Social Welfare Institute is located in the Lixing District and is one of only two large-scale welfare institutes in this city.

Many children who have lost their parents due to accidents and have no one to raise them, or elderly people who have no one to care for them after reaching old age, are brought here by the municipal government upon their own consent to receive relatively comprehensive care.

The welfare institute covers a large area, with nearly 3,000 beds in the facility and as many as 400 staff members, possessing relatively generous medical conditions sufficient to provide rehabilitation therapy for every elderly person or child suffering from a disability.

Bai Jingxuan has already lived here for three years.

In three years, she went from being ignorant to being able to discern right from wrong. Most of the other children in the welfare institute came and went, being adopted after a short stay in the institute and gaining new families; only she was left behind, like a piece of substandard goods picked over in a vegetable market.

In fact, purely in terms of personality, Bai Jingxuan is not a difficult child to get along with; she is very quiet and very sensible. Compared to other 11-year-olds, or even older children, her speech and conduct appear more mature.

As for her appearance, she is also very cute, with a fair face and pretty features, wearing a chin-length bob cut. Because of her clothing and behavior, she actually appears a bit boyish, which is quite endearing.

But the medical eye patch she wears over her left eye reveals a fact to outsiders: there is something wrong with this eye of hers.

In truth, she is indeed missing an eye.

Not only that, she also suffers from an undiagnosable and difficult-to-cure congenital disease, the symptoms of which manifest as intermittent dizziness and fatigue, and in severe cases, even a partial loss of control over her limbs.

This series of problems caused those couples who attempted to adopt her to fall into hesitation once they learned the truth, and there was no lack of those who gave up directly. After back and forth, in the end, no one was willing to take Bai Jingxuan away.

Thus, three years passed, and Bai Jingxuan still lives here.

Occasionally, someone would ask her if she felt sad, but she didn't actually feel there was anything wrong with such days: the caregivers at the welfare institute are all very friendly and take good care of her; the grandpas and grandmas in the institute also like her very much and often call her over to chat together; this includes the director of the welfare institute, Auntie Liu, who also frequently looks after her.

Perhaps the only drawback is being a little lonely.

In the afternoons of these past few days, she has always liked to head to the shade of the courtyard alone to read books quietly.

This is a habit she did not have before; in the past, she would not specifically seek out such a secluded place alone, as she preferred to go to more lively places. Regardless of who it was with, just chatting a few sentences would make her feel more fulfilled inside.

The reason she does this now is because she has a little secret.

Or to be more specific, she has a new friend.

—"Xiaoxuan! I'm here!"

Accompanied by the call coming from above, on this agreed-upon afternoon, Bai Jingxuan welcomed the object of her waiting.

So she also put down the book in her hand, looked left and right to confirm no one was watching, and secretly waved at the "friend" above, whispering a greeting: "Good afternoon, Miss Fairy."

She had a fairy friend.

This friend looked like a pink cat on the outside, but was only the size of two of her palms. It had a pair of transparent wings on its back, flapping and floating in the air, with tiny light orbs drifting around its body, truly just like the fairies described in fairy tales.

"I've said it many times, just call me 'Moke', 'fairy' or whatever is too distant!"

Gradually descending from the air, the fairy who called itself "Moke" said to itself: "Just like I wouldn't call you 'human', such a form of address is actually very rude, you know."

"Mm, I know, Moke." So Bai Jingxuan nodded very obediently.

Her acquaintance with Moke was on an afternoon a few days ago.

At that time, she was just passing by this place by chance and happened to have a whim because of the scorching midsummer weather to stay in the shade for a while, and it was this action that allowed her to meet the fairy flying in from the air.

At that time, she didn't know what a fairy was either; she just saw a cat flying in the air and felt it was very novel, so she couldn't help but strike up a conversation with the other party.

What surprised her even more was that this cat could actually talk.

Then she learned that the existence of the other party was what is known as a "fairy" in legends.

The fairy who called itself "Moke" was very humorous and willing to chat with her for a long time, telling her many fairy-tale-like stories, and later on, words like "magical girl" began to appear in its descriptions.

Bai Jingxuan knew about magical girls.

Or rather, her life was saved by a magical girl.

In the year she was 8, her parents took her out together to go to the hospital for a routine check-up for her incurable congenital disease, when they happened to encounter a Remnant Beast.

At the time, Bai Jingxuan didn't even understand what was going on at all; she only remembered that when she was sitting in the hospital lobby with her parents, laughing and talking with them, a violent impact suddenly occurred around them.

An out-of-control Remnant Beast crashed into the hospital and began to destroy and kill like a madman.

The hospital was damaged under the attack of the Remnant Beast, and a large number of medical staff and patients lost their lives in that attack. Later, Bai Jingxuan heard others say that it was the most tragic casualty event in Fang Ting City in the last ten years.

In this incident, Bai Jingxuan lost her parents and also lost her left eye, yet she was the only one who survived.

A magical girl arrived in time, saved the remaining citizens, and defeated the Remnant Beast.

Although Bai Jingxuan was still young at that time and her perception of life and death was not that strong, as she gradually grew up, she also understood what kind of grace it was to have saved her life.

Therefore, she held a favorable impression of magical girls.

It was just that in Moke's words, magical girls seemed to have shed the halo in the eyes of others, becoming more real and more grounded in daily life.

It told quite a few interesting little stories related to magical girls and even claimed that it knew the magical girls of this city. According to the examples it gave, some of the magical girls in Fang Ting City failed their school exams; some were so stupid they couldn't even learn how to use magic power; and others were bullies who liked to pick on fairies.

Although she didn't know how much of these words were true or false, and they even contained quite a few negative evaluations, it didn't prevent Bai Jingxuan from feeling that what it said was very interesting, and because of this, her reverence for magical girls increased a little more.

Because she felt that precisely because magical girls are actually just ordinary people, their willingness to fight and save others makes their actions appear all the more precious.

It was just when she began to think this way that, two days ago, when she and Moke were enjoying the afternoon time and chatting happily with each other, Moke suddenly proposed this to her:

"Xiaoxuan, do you know? You can actually become a magical girl too!"