Chapter 246: Major Event 3: Night of the Witches (6)

On the morning of September 30, inside the church deep within the mansion at the very center of Terminus Night.

A pool of blood was ringed by cobblestones. The crimson liquid flowed ceaselessly, seemingly nourishing the grotesquely shaped altar.

Two massive crosses towered above the altar. The Doll Witch sat perched atop the first one, hugging a teddy bear. She hummed a soft tune, swinging her pale legs back and forth.

Beside her, the girl in a gothic dress, bound to the second cross by iron chains, remained fast asleep with her eyes quietly shut.

The magical girl Ember hung her head. She looked pale and haggard, her eyelids trembling slightly.

In her daze, she fell into a dream. It took her back about a year, to when she had just started high school and transferred to a completely new environment.

Restricted by her identity as a magical girl, Xia Zili generally avoided making friends at school so she wouldn't accidentally drag anyone into danger.

Choose friends carefully and keep your identity a secret—this was the first social lesson every dependent superhero and magical girl was supposed to learn. Countless youths had paid a heavy price because they couldn't resist the urge to show off and revealed their identities to their classmates.

For example, walking into the classroom the next morning only to find everyone pointing phones at their face, cheering, "Holy crap, we have a superhero in our class!"

Meanwhile, their most trusted friend would be hiding in the corner, offering an awkward, guilty laugh when they made eye contact.

Or, for example, shortly after a villain uncovered their identity, they might find their best friend hanged from Leijing Bridge.

Written in blood across the bridge would be the words: "You do not deserve friends. You are only meant to be entangled with me for the rest of your life."

That being said, in the autumn of that year, Xia Zili made her very first friend at school.

That friend's name was Xie Lin.

Xie Lin was a completely ordinary person. She didn't possess any badass, earth-shattering superpowers, nor did she have a mutant gene that could turn someone into a gorilla.

And, of course, she lacked the ability to transform into a magical girl just by striking a cute pose in mid-air.

But if you stopped measuring her by the standards of the super-human species, Xie Lin wasn't actually all that ordinary.

She was a deeply rebellious girl. Outside of school, she dressed with a striking, boyish charm—so much so that other girls would ask for her number on the street. She smoked, she drank, and she loved photography. She was a textbook delinquent, the kind everyone kept their distance from. She never ran with a crowd, either. Most days, she just stuck to herself, tinkering with her camera. She was a total weirdo.

Yet, this weirdo had broken into Xia Zili's highly secluded life like a home invader. At first, Xia Zili gave her the cold shoulder, but Xie Lin just kept sticking to her, annoying Xia Zili to no end.

Xia Zili stuck to her principles. She knew she had already been lonely for so long; if she didn't keep it up, wouldn't she be treating her past self like a fool?

The way they actually became friends was almost funny.

One day, it was Xia Zili's turn for classroom cleaning duty. Right after school, she received an emergency alert from the Magical Girl Company, so she transformed in the stairwell of the academic building and flew off to take out a gang of bank robbers.

By the time she made it back to the classroom, it was already 5:30 PM. By all rights, the discipline committee should have written her up, but when she walked in, she found the blackboard and podium spotless.

The sun was setting in the west. A short-haired girl was sitting sideways on the podium, head bowed as she quietly toyed with a camera, a faint smile on her lips.

Xia Zili froze.

"There. I cleaned the classroom for you. Being my friend isn't too much to ask in return, right?" Xie Lin said, looking up. She raised her camera and snapped a picture of Xia Zili's face with a click.

Xia Zili looked up, then lowered her eyes again. After a long hesitation, she said in a half-joking tone, "If you're friends with me, you'll die."

Xie Lin blinked. She thought about it seriously for a moment, then shook her head. "That's fine. I'm going to die anyway."

She would drag Xia Zili along to ditch class. Xia Zili remembered a time during PE when the two of them hid on the rooftop alone, dragging a pair of broken desks over to the railing.

They sat on the discarded desks, watching the sunset bathe the entire academy in twilight. The running track looked as though it were paved with gold, and the flushed, wine-red clouds drifted slowly across the sky.

While Xia Zili was lost in thought, Xie Lin took the opportunity to snap a photo of her profile.

Xia Zili turned and glared at her, but Xie Lin just hummed in amusement. Setting her camera down on the desk, she pointed toward the rooftop of another academic building in the distance.

She clutched her stomach, laughing as she said how stupid the two boys over there looked, drinking canned beer to act grown-up.

Xia Zili turned to look and realized that one of them was her older brother, Ke Mingqing, and the other was his best friend, a guy named Jiang Qingzi.

She stared at Ke Mingqing's profile for a moment before grumbling, "The stupid-looking one imitating Rain Crow's pose and choking on his beer is my brother."

Xie Lin froze for a second. She offered an awkward, toothy grimace, resting one hand on the desk while lifting her juice to take a sip with the other. She tilted her head, curiously appraising Ke Mingqing.

After a long pause, she finally said, "Oh. Your brother is actually pretty handsome. He just gives off kind of a loser vibe."

"I hate him more than anything," Xia Zili said.

"Really?"

"Yeah." Xia Zili nodded, pulling her gaze away from Ke Mingqing's goofy face. "If I don't go to him, he never talks to me. Not a single word—"

"You're so weird," Xie Lin said with a laugh. "You lock yourself away, but you're always hoping someone else will come find you."

"Isn't that how you met me?"

"Without me, you'd be a loner for the rest of your life."

"So annoying."

Sometimes, Xie Lin would take her for a ride along the coastal highway on her motorcycle, speeding over a carpet of fallen maple leaves. Xia Zili would hold tightly to her back, listening to the crashing waves and gazing out at the sea shimmering under the autumn sun. Seagulls soared over the sparkling water, and the girls' hair whipped wildly in the wind.

One night, Xia Zili was taking a walk with her along the beach.

They took off their sandals and ran barefoot, leaving a messy trail of footprints in the sand. Xie Lin dragged her along in a mad dash until Xia Zili finally stopped. Looking at Xie Lin's wrist, Xia Zili suddenly said she wanted to tell her a secret.

Xie Lin kept one hand on her camera and threw her other arm over Xia Zili's shoulder. With a bright smile, she declared she would share a secret, too.

"Shall we say them at the same time?"

"Sure."

"Three..."

"I'm a magical girl."

"I have cancer."

After the words left their mouths, both Xia Zili and Xie Lin froze.

After a long silence, they slowly looked up, meeting each other's eyes in the pale moonlight.

The waves crashed softly against the shore. Xia Zili looked into her eyes with an expression caught between anger and heartbreak. She stayed silent for a long time before she finally opened her mouth.

"You go first?" she croaked.

"There really isn't much to say. My family couldn't afford the treatments, so we kept putting them off. Now, it's completely incurable."

"I'm sorry," Xie Lin said softly. "I've been dragging a good student like you around causing trouble, making you skip class and everything... honestly, I just thought that dying alone in a hospital room would be too lonely. So I wanted to come back to school and find someone to go a little crazy with me."

She looked down at the camera in her hands.

"I take pictures every day because I'm hoping that after I'm dead, someone can look at these photos and remember me," she said with a soft laugh. "It makes me feel like my situation isn't entirely miserable."

"You never thought to tell me?" Xia Zili asked quietly.

"I did tell you. The day we became friends, you told me, 'If you're friends with me, you'll die.' And didn't I answer you then? I told you I was going to die anyway."

"You're so cruel—"

"Alright, stop making that face, okay?" Xie Lin said gently. "It's your turn. Let me see this magical girl thing."

Xia Zili kept her head down, staying silent for a moment before taking two steps back. A layer of hazy, cocoon-like light wrapped around her body.

When the cocoon of light shattered, she had transformed into a long-haired girl wearing a gothic dress and gripping a pitch-black umbrella.

"No way—" Xie Lin's jaw dropped.

"What do you think?" the magical girl Ember asked, tilting her head.

"I think—you're so pretty. Can I take a picture?"

"Absolutely not."

Ember opened her umbrella and carried Xie Lin into the sky. They soared over the sea, flying through the clouds before finally landing atop a seaside cliff. It had once been a scenic spot, and old wooden benches still sat overlooking the water.

They sat side by side on one of the benches, bathed in the pale moonlight. Xie Lin still seemed to be processing what had just happened and didn't speak for a long time.

"I can save you," Ember suddenly said after a while.

"How are you going to save me?"

"My master is the most powerful magical girl in the world. It's just cancer. She'll definitely have a way to cure it."

"Really?"

"Of course. She'll be back in China in a week. I'll take you to see her then."

Xie Lin was silent for a long time. Suddenly, her eyes turned red, and she reached out to gently hug Ember's shoulder. Ember, however, pushed her away with a look of mock disgust.

"Cancer isn't contagious, you know."

"You can hug me once you're cured."

"Damn, you saying things like that is going to make me die of heartbreak right now. Do I even need cancer to finish me off?"

"Who cares—"

Back then, Xia Zili foolishly believed those days would last for a very, very long time. She thought that maybe being a magical girl didn't have to be so lonely. As a magical girl, she had been hugged by someone she knew for the very first time. And as Xia Zili, she had made her very first friend at school.

Even if she spent every night locked in life-or-death battles with criminals and went to school with heavy dark circles under her eyes—always looking listless and completely unapproachable—she would still have a great friend who tirelessly tried to make her laugh and stayed right by her side.

But she had been wrong.

Those beautiful days passed like flashes of lightning, gone in the blink of an eye, leaving her staring blankly at the fading sparks. And it wasn't until those final, lingering embers were cruelly snuffed out that she finally snapped back to reality.

That day, a few months ago.

The magical girl Ember held her black umbrella high, rushing frantically through a torrential downpour. Eventually, she spotted a four-armed man with dark purple skin standing in the middle of a long street.

"Ghost Hand Asura"—that was the criminal's title. He was holding the young girl up by her throat, and with his other three hands, he had ripped out her heart, intestines, and kidneys. Then, he shoved them all into his mouth.

He was chewing. The corners of his mouth twitched, and crimson blood poured endlessly from his lips.

Ember stared at the scene, frozen for a long, long time.

She looked at the girl's face, then down at the camera lying on the ground. In the next instant, consumed by uncontrollable rage, she plummeted from the sky with a savage expression.

She still remembered how that battle ended. Or rather, she would never forget it for the rest of her life—a surging beam of magic blasted from the tip of Cinderella, completely piercing through Ghost Hand Asura's body.

He exploded into a mist of blood. Blood gushed out like a waterfall, nearly dyeing an entire skyscraper red. Not even the pouring rain could wash away that savage crimson stain.

The dream shattered.

Inside the pitch-black church, the girl in the gothic dress's eyelids twitched, her lips trembling slightly. After a long moment, she furrowed her brow and slowly opened her eyes, finding her body bound in iron chains.

It took Ember a moment to process where she was. She slowly turned her head to take in her surroundings, her gaze finally stopping at the top of the other cross.

"Hello—" The Doll Witch sat atop that cross, swinging her pale legs as she spoke. "Welcome, our fourth friend."

The girl in the gothic dress tilted her head, staring at her without moving a muscle.

She remembered what the other party looked like; it was the Doll Witch who had once appeared in the photos. Her features were unmistakable: she looked just like a ten-year-old child, dressed in an ill-fitting black miko outfit with a miko hat on her head.

"Not going to talk?" The Doll Witch pouted. "Don't look at me with such cold eyes, okay? You'll make me sad."

Ember said nothing. Do not speak carelessly when captured, and do not reveal any information to the enemy—this was another lesson Xi Ziyue had taught her.

"Alright, let's switch to a topic you might find more interesting," the Doll Witch said with a smile. "Do you remember your friend? The one who was killed by that criminal named 'Ghost Hand Asura'?"

The girl in the gothic dress furrowed her brow, her gaze as cold as ice.

"How do you know that?" she finally asked.

"I've actually been paying attention to you for a long time," the Doll Witch explained. "Because we both know that activating Terminus Night requires a dual-crowned witch, and you happen to have that potential. So, on a whim, I tracked down your friend's corpse. That's right—the coffin burned at the funeral had absolutely no remains inside."

The Doll Witch paused. "And then, I turned your friend's corpse into my doll."

Ember suddenly froze. Her entire body began to tremble, and the iron chains binding her rattled violently, letting out a sharp clanging sound.

"Having her intestines, kidneys, and heart ripped out because of her friend must have been incredibly painful, right?" The Doll Witch spread her hands. "Who would have thought that even after death, she'd have to be dug out of her coffin because of that same friend, never to find peace."

Under the seething, furious glare of the girl in the gothic dress, the Doll Witch curled her lips into a smirk.

"Alright, it's time to guess. If your friend saw you again, what do you think she would want to say to you?" she asked.

Right then, Ember witnessed a sight she would never forget for as long as she lived.

A short-haired girl in a blue-and-white school uniform walked into the church from outside, gripping a camera in her hands.