Seriously? A trap? Jiecheng Yuan wondered.

She couldn’t figure out what the other girl was after, or even who she was. She’d gone over every Magical Girl who’d appeared in the game from beginning to end, but couldn’t remember this girl at all.

She didn’t think the girl would do something like that, but it never hurt to be cautious.

Even if it was a trap, the Jiecheng Yuan from the original story would’ve gone without hesitation, right?

Whether she wanted to learn what had happened that night or make sure Li was safe, she had to go.

“Are you still there?”

Jiecheng Yuan typed out a line in the message box. Her fingers hovered hesitantly for a long while before she hit Backspace and cleared the screen.

“I was taking a bath just now and didn’t see your message. Are you still there?”

The new message didn’t feel very polite either. It sounded as if she were deliberately putting on airs, so Jiecheng Yuan deleted that one too.

After rewriting and deleting her message several times, Jiecheng Yuan finally hit Send.

“I’m on my way. Sorry I didn’t see your message sooner.”

Less than a minute later, a new message popped up on the screen. It was only a short sentence: “Hurry.”

By the time Jiecheng Yuan pushed open the café’s door, with its hanging wind chime, the hour hand on the old clock behind the counter had passed the ten mark. In the dim light, the only two people in the shop—the owner behind the counter and the silver-haired girl sitting in a corner—both looked up at her.

“An iced Americano.” Jiecheng Yuan quickened her pace, bent down, and sat across from the girl. She placed her order as briefly as possible, then turned to the girl once the owner had left.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Mm.” The girl had changed into a more casual long dress, and her elegant handbag sat on the sofa beside her. She was stirring the half-cup of coffee in front of her, no longer steaming. That faint hum could probably be taken as a reply: “Quanshan Baqi.”

“What?” Jiecheng Yuan knew it was a name, but she’d never heard it before and had no idea why the girl had said it.

“My name. Quanshan Baqi.” The girl kept stirring her coffee as she repeated it. “You know what that means, right?”

“Mm.” Jiecheng Yuan didn’t really understand, but she nodded anyway. A Magical Girl’s true identity was supposed to be a secret.

To her, the other girl telling her her real name was the highest form of goodwill.

“I can guess what you want to ask. Listen to me first. I wasn’t the one who wanted to turn you into this. I did it because someone else told me to. She gave me the power of a Magical Girl, and in return, I had to help her with this job.”

Baqi dropped a bombshell right out of the gate. Jiecheng Yuan had suspected the attack wasn’t the other girl’s idea, but it had only been a suspicion. Hearing it confirmed still made her heart sink.

“I got this power on Saturday morning. That person told me it would break up the boring life I was living, so I agreed.” Baqi continued, her eyes fixed on the little whirlpool forming in her coffee.

“She told me to wait for that black-haired girl to come downstairs that night, just like she said, and then put something inside you. She said that would make you drop your false, saintly act, accept your true self, and become one of us. All I had to do was make sure you joined us, and my job would be done.”

“She also said she’d come help me if anything went wrong.”

Clink—

Her stirring stopped abruptly. Baqi let go of the spoon, and its handle struck the side of the cup with a sharp clink.

“I was tricked.”

Baqi spoke quickly. Her steady breathing grew more and more ragged, and her expression was utterly different from how carefree she’d seemed that morning.

“You didn’t become one of us, and now someone’s after me too. If I transform, a Magical Girl attacks me. She never came to help! Tell me! What am I supposed to do?” Baqi made no attempt to answer any questions. She slammed her clenched fist down on the table. The coffee in her cup sloshed back and forth, nearly spilling onto the table.

As the girl spoke, Jiecheng Yuan’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter. The important parts were always glossed over, leaving her with the helpless feeling that Baqi just couldn’t grasp what mattered.

The owner brought over the coffee at just the right moment and set it down in front of Jiecheng Yuan. It also cut through Baqi’s agitation, and she fell silent as if all the air had gone out of her.

Wasn’t it perfectly normal for corrupted Magical Girls to be attacked? Why was she so worked up?

And could the power of a Magical Girl really be given to someone? In the game, they all needed some specific catalyst to turn their innate qualities into power and become Magical Girls.

From what Baqi said, she hadn’t just become a Magical Girl as if someone had bestowed the power on her—she’d also skipped a whole lot of steps and gone straight to becoming corrupted. That had never happened in the game.

More importantly, she didn’t show the signs of corruption either. At least, her personality hadn’t been completely twisted, and she didn’t seem to understand what it meant to make other Magical Girls lose.

Baqi didn’t seem able to have a normal conversation right now, so Jiecheng Yuan stopped asking the questions she wanted answered and changed the subject. “Did anyone see you transform? Or when you changed back?”

“I transformed once in front of you. I don’t know if anyone saw me. And when I changed back, I used the phrase you told me to.” Baqi answered.

“Anything else?” Jiecheng Yuan pressed.

“I transformed once this afternoon, but there’s no way anyone saw me! And yet, not long after I transformed, I was attacked again. What’s going on?”

Baqi grew agitated again. Behind the counter, the owner stopped working the coffee machine and looked over at them.

“Keep your voice down,” Jiecheng Yuan reminded her. “Every Magical Girl’s outfit has magic that interferes with other people’s ability to recognize her. As long as no one sees you transform or change back, nobody can know your real identity. Didn’t you know that?”

“I didn’t know…” Baqi answered, obediently lowering her voice.

“And you didn’t know that corrupted Magical Girls are considered the enemy by every other Magical Girl?”

“What does ‘corrupted’ mean?”

“Then you don’t know where Xiwei Li—the black-haired girl you mentioned—is either?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what do you know?”

“That’s all I know! She—she never even told me what would happen if I lost! You’re the only one who’s helped me. You’re the only one…” Baqi bit her lower lip, her voice catching in a sob.

Jiecheng Yuan took a deep breath, trying to calm the heart pounding in her chest. This wasn’t why she’d come to meet Baqi at all. Why had someone so clueless become a Magical Girl?

When she thought about it, it made sense. Baqi’s ignorance was exactly what made her so easy to use. They’d used her to corrupt Jiecheng Yuan, then simply thrown her away…

And if she took it a step further, maybe the reason the mastermind hadn’t told Baqi any of this was that she wanted Baqi to be discovered and defeated soon after finishing the job—so Baqi’s mouth would be sealed forever.

“Oh, there’s one more thing.” Still sobbing, Baqi wiped away the tears welling in her eyes with the back of her hand.

“The person who turned me into this changed back before she left. I didn’t get a look at her face, but the uniform she was wearing was the same as yours.”