Chapter 94 - 90: Monster in the Mirror

Chapter 94: Chapter 90: Monster in the Mirror

"Don’t!"

Jiang Wanqiao shot to her feet, desperate to stop him.

But she was a step too late.

Gu Qing had already picked up the book and casually flipped to a random page.

One look was all it took for him to be completely dumbfounded.

The contents of the book weren’t the original Spanish version of *One Hundred Years of Solitude* at all.

Instead, it was filled with all sorts of Spells and Magic Circles.

He casually flipped a few more pages.

He saw Transformation Devices and Magical Girl wallpapers.

In that instant, Gu Qing understood everything.

This so-called original edition of *One Hundred Years of Solitude* was just a dust jacket. The real book inside was all about Magical Girls.

To put it bluntly, Jiang Wanqiao was reading a Magical Girl book but used an *One Hundred Years of Solitude* cover to look sophisticated.

The situation was more than a little awkward.

Jiang Wanqiao’s face was flushed with embarrassment, so ashamed she wished she could just die on the spot.

She took a deep breath and decided to come clean. "Okay, fine. The truth is, I’m an otaku, and I’m a huge fan of anything related to Magical Girls."

"The book in your hands is a collector’s edition tie-in for a Magical Girl anime. I just bought it a few days ago."

"As for why I put the *One Hundred Years of Solitude* cover on it... It’s not that I’m trying to be pretentious or anything. I’m not that kind of person. I just didn’t want anyone to find out I’m an otaku."

Having said all this in a fit of desperation,

Jiang Wanqiao let out a sigh of relief, bracing herself to be teased by Gu Qing.

However, Gu Qing didn’t tease her. He just kept flipping through the Magic Book with a look of great interest.

After looking through a few more pages, he looked up at Jiang Wanqiao and asked, "You know, this Magical Girl stuff is actually pretty interesting. It kind of makes me want to get into it."

"Huh?"

Jiang Wanqiao was stunned for a moment, thinking she must have misheard him.

She never would have imagined that a guy like Gu Qing would actually be interested in Magical Girls.

’Wait!’

’He’s not... interested in me, is he? Is he using Magical Girls as an excuse to find some common ground?’

’But this is... this is so sudden!’

Jiang Wanqiao’s thoughts were thrown into disarray.

Gu Qing glanced at the [Magical Girl] tag above Jiang Wanqiao’s head and asked,

"This Magical Girl stuff really is interesting. Would you mind showing me the ropes?"

He wasn’t interested in Magical Girls at all.

What he was truly interested in was farming Attributes from her [Magical Girl] tag.

Jiang Wanqiao snapped back to her senses, her cheeks flushing slightly as she nodded.

"Sure. If there’s anything you want to know about Magical Girls, you can ask me anytime on WeChat or Nightalk. Um... I’ll send you some related anime later. You can see if you like them."

"Okay, send them over. I’ll watch them when I have time,"

Gu Qing said with a smile.

For the rest of the time, the two chatted about the topic of Magical Girls.

It was mostly Gu Qing asking questions and Jiang Wanqiao answering.

They actually hit it off quite well.

There’s a saying that goes:

If two people are having a great conversation, and the other person likes everything you like and is interested in everything you’re interested in, then it’s certain that the one with high emotional intelligence is ’accommodating downwards’ to your level.

Right now, Gu Qing was the one with high emotional intelligence in this conversation.

And the only reason he was willing to spend time ’accommodating downwards’ to Jiang Wanqiao and her love for Magical Girls was that she was valuable to him.

Otherwise, he couldn’t be bothered to talk about Magical Girls.

More than ten minutes passed like this.

Lin Tianyang, who had just gone to the balcony for a smoke, slowly sauntered back in.

Seeing the two of them hitting it off so well, he grinned and teased, "Why are you two having such a great time? Is this the start of an office romance?"

As soon as she saw him approach, Jiang Wanqiao immediately shut her mouth, no longer talking about Magical Girls.

’It’s bad enough that I’ve already exposed my otaku side to Gu Qing.’

’I can’t let anyone else find out.’

’Otherwise, there’ll be no place for me in Night Court anymore.’

So Jiang Wanqiao thought to herself.

Gu Qing smiled at Lin Tianyang. "Brother Yang, don’t tease her. Girls get embarrassed easily."

"Fine, fine. I won’t tease her anymore. I’ll just tease you instead."

Lin Tianyang was all smiles.

Gu Qing felt it was about time to leave and said to Lin Tianyang, "Brother Yang, it’s getting late. How about you take me back to school now?"

Lin Tianyang glanced at his phone. "It really is getting late. Let’s go, I’ll take you back to school now."

Gu Qing waved goodbye to Jiang Wanqiao.

Then he and Lin Tianyang left the office.

He got on his motorcycle and headed back to Hai City University.

...

「Meanwhile.」

Deep beneath Hai City University.

The masked man who had previously tried to capture Gu Qing to use as a lab rat appeared cautiously inside the cavern.

After checking the cavern for any signs of disturbance and confirming the location hadn’t been exposed, he walked straight into the depths. He beckoned to the man-faced rat lying on a stone platform and said,

"Xiaoqing, come here for a moment. I have some bad news for you."

Hearing this, the man-faced rat dragged its enormous body off the stone platform and quickly crawled to a stop in front of the masked man.

The masked man caressed the one pretty face the man-faced rat had left and said to her,

"Your sister, Xiaoyue, was just captured by the people from Night Court. You might never see her again."

"SOB, SOB SOB SOB, SOB SOB..."

The man-faced rat cried bitter tears, struggling to speak human words, but only a series of sobs came out.

The masked man comforted her, "It’s okay. Your sister is still alive. The people from Night Court won’t kill her. When the Rat King emerges, we’ll capture a few of their members as hostages and trade them for your sister."

After he finished speaking, he looked down at the man-faced rat, a wicked fire in his eyes. "Come on, Xiaoqing. Now that your sister Xiaoyue is gone, you’ll have to take her place. Use that pretty little face of yours to help me relieve some stress."