Ye Tao shook her head desperately.

“No way, no way. If it’s that senior, he might have already joined SAVE’s Special Operations Division by now.”

“So what?”

“How can you not be curious at all about where that senior went? This is a campus legend! A legend!”

“Yeah, yeah, right, right, a legend—”

Jiang Wanfeng replied dismissively.

Ye Tao stared at her for a few seconds, suddenly looking as if she had an epiphany, and threw her hands up.

“Well, well, I actually knew it would be like this from the start.”

She threw an arm around Jiang Wanfeng’s shoulders, looking deeply distressed.

“I shouldn’t have tried talking about romance gossip with a brocon like you.”

Jiang Wanfeng’s expression instantly froze. She turned her head bit by bit to look at Ye Tao.

“…What did you say?”

“A brocon, a brocon.”

Throwing caution to the wind, Ye Tao just spilled everything.

“Your phone screen is your brother, isn’t it? Don’t even try to deny it now. Ahh, I really want those boys who are obsessed with you to get a good look at what the person they like is actually like in private.”

The tips of Jiang Wanfeng’s ears turned red bit by bit, and a suspicious blush crept up her cheeks. Taking a deep breath, she maintained a calm tone and said:

“That is just a family photo.”

“What kind of normal person sets a family photo as a three-piece combo for their lock screen, home screen, and Penguin chat background?”

“…Did you peek at my phone?”

“So you admit it?”

“I did not.”

“You totally did!”

Jiang Wanfeng fell silent. This made Ye Tao feel as if she had just seen the flag of victory, and she began to chatter on even more endlessly.

After Ye Tao had acted like a broken record repeating “brocon, brocon” for quite a while, Jiang Wanfeng looked away and muttered under her breath:

“We aren’t blood-related anyway, so what does it matter…”

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

Jiang Wanfeng turned and started to walk away.

“I need to make a trip to the club.”

Ye Tao shouted from behind her:

“She’s running away! The brocon is running away!”

Jiang Wanfeng’s footsteps faltered slightly, almost causing her to trip. Her face flushed red, and she walked even faster.

It wasn’t until she turned the corner of the corridor that she let out a soft sigh and rubbed her face, but the heat in her cheeks just wouldn’t seem to go down.

Honestly.

That idiot Ye Tao, what was all this nonsense about being a brocon?

She just cared about her brother, that was all.

After all, that guy didn’t take care of his health, his work was exhausting, and he was always pushing himself too hard…

So she was just a bit of a worrywart. That was perfectly reasonable.

Very reasonable.

While convincing herself internally, Jiang Wanfeng made her way across the second floor of the teaching building, rounded the corridor leading to the music room, and finally arrived in front of an old, rarely used clubroom.

She pushed the door open and walked inside.

The room was very quiet.

The curtains were drawn halfway, cutting the sunlight into soft diagonal rays that fell across several desks pushed together.

Slumped over one of the desks was a sleeping girl.

The girl was almost unreasonably beautiful.

Her long black hair cascaded like a waterfall, her skin was so pale it was nearly transparent, and her eyelashes were long and slender. She somehow made the ordinary school uniform look like it belonged in an idol drama, and even her sleeping posture looked like a meticulously composed painting.

If Jiang Wanfeng was the kind of youthful girl who made people think, “She’s so pretty, I want to get closer to her,” then this girl was more like a famous painting displayed in a glass case, the ideal “white moonlight” of countless boys’ dreams.

On the other side of the room, a petite girl sat reading by the window.

She had soft, short chestnut hair, delicate features, and a quiet aura, resembling the kind of literary girl who practically lived in the library and never spoke above a whisper.

Seeing Jiang Wanfeng enter, she put down her book and offered a smile as soft as a grassy meadow.

There was also a fluffy white plush toy sitting on the desk.

The toy had long ears, a soft white body, red jewel-like eyes, and a blue bow tied around its neck. It looked like a mascot bought from a children’s toy store.

Jiang Wanfeng closed the classroom door behind her.

The next second, the plush toy on the desk suddenly came to life.

“Puha—”

It nimbly flew into the air, twirled around, and spoke in a crisp, bright voice like a child’s:

“Everyone’s here! Well then, the forty-second operation meeting of the Qingchuan Public Magical Girl Tea Party is officially starting!”

“Clap, clap, clap!”

The literary girl was the only one in the room smiling and applauding.

Jiang Wanfeng walked expressionlessly over to the girl who was still fast asleep, bent down, and pinched her cheek.

“Wake up, Su Lingyin.”

“Uwaaahhh, ow ow ow ow ow—!”

Su Lingyin was instantly yanked awake. Teary-eyed, she covered her face, her gradually focusing eyes darting left and right. Realizing what had happened, she loudly protested:

“Xiao Feng is too violent! I protest!”

“Protest denied. You were the one who said we should have a strategy meeting during the long break, President. What’s the big idea of sprawling out here to sleep?”

Su Lingyin rubbed her face and said indignantly:

“You have the nerve to say that? We clearly agreed yesterday to patrol the city together at night to find the true culprit behind the recent frequent Mutant Incidents. But halfway through the patrol, you just went home. I patrolled all night, and now I’m finally getting a chance to catch up on some sleep.”

She turned to look at the literary girl, as if finding an ally.

“Yumian, you be the judge!”

“Alright, alright—”

Like comforting a child, the literary girl—Wen Yumian—smiled wryly and waved her hands, saying in a gentle tone:

“Wanfeng surely has her reasons.”

“Ughhh—favoritism—”

Su Lingyin’s behavior was a stark contrast to her refined lady-like appearance; she was making a fuss exactly like an elementary school student.

Jiang Wanfeng looked away with a bit of a headache.

“It can’t be helped. I still have my brother at home.”

Su Lingyin puffed out her cheeks.

“Here it comes, the classic brother excuse.

“If I stay out all night, my brother will worry.”

Wen Yumian said in a gentle voice, “Have you still not told your brother that you are a Magical Girl?”

“A Magical Girl, huh…”

Jiang Wanfeng was stunned for a moment, then lowered her gaze and shook her head.

“My brother is just an ordinary person.”

She paused for a moment before adding, “Besides, he works at SAVE.”

The doll lying on the table had already grabbed a small piece of cake and taken a happy bite, letting out a weirdly satisfied sound. With its mouth full of food, it mumbled:

“Mmm, since he works at SAVE, it really would be hard to bring up.”

The doll’s name was Lulu, an envoy from “The Kingdom.”

Magical Girls were different from those Ability Users who naturally awakened supernatural powers; their powers came from an alternate dimension known as “The Kingdom.”

The Kingdom would occasionally send envoys like Lulu to Blue Star to find girls with the right aptitude who harbored strong wishes, forming contracts with them and bestowing them with magical powers.

Magical Girls usually repel Calamities, protect civilians, and occasionally complete missions assigned by the Kingdom.

Therefore, in terms of their stance, they also belong to the Order Faction.

However, the relationship between SAVE and the Kingdom has always been delicate.

There has been cooperation, but also quite a few conflicts.

Many higher-ups in SAVE have always believed that the Kingdom is, after all, not humanity’s own faction. No one knows what it truly wants, and no one can guarantee that the Kingdom won’t one day pull Blue Star onto its chessboard.

Power is safer when held in humanity’s own hands.

Because of this, most Magical Girls will not reveal their true identities to SAVE.

Lulu finished the cake and happily flopped back onto the table, its round belly facing the ceiling.

“Anyway, if you don’t want to tell your brother about your identity, and you don’t want to drag him into any trouble, it’s best to keep some distance from your ordinary brother. You’re graduating soon anyway, so you can’t possibly stay by your brother’s side forever…”

Before it could finish its sentence, the temperature in the classroom seemed to suddenly drop a bit.

A terrifying aura enveloped the carefree Lulu—

The cake in Lulu’s mouth caught in its throat, and its originally narrowed red eyes slowly opened wide.

Trembling, it raised its head and saw Jiang Wanfeng looking at it with a truly terrifying expression.

It was an expression that seemed to say, “Say one more word, and I’ll stuff you in the washing machine and spin you for a whole day.”

“W-Waaah—”

Terrified to the point of its hair standing on end, Lulu flew into Wen Yumian’s arms, sobbing.