Chapter 56: Part (1): Uneasy Leisure

By the time they returned to the training base, it was already dinner hour.
After a quick change of clothes, Kexin and the others gathered in the cafeteria, deliberately keeping some distance from the other trainee magical girls.

Two members from Bai Xihan’s squad, Maosaki and Hiiragi, tried to invite her to eat with them, but Bai Xihan politely declined.
After all, during the helicopter ride back, Agent Guan had emphasized repeatedly that everything concerning the Corpse Mother was to remain strictly confidential. Too many people knowing could only make things worse.

“Come to think of it, Sister Mengyao disappeared the moment we got off the chopper.”
Qisi returned to their corner table, carrying a tray piled high with food. The cafeteria was designed like a buffet — take whatever you want, and the options were plentiful.

Her tray alone had crayfish, grilled steak, and some kind of meat completely drowned in sauce.
Kexin glanced at her own plate — mostly fried rice. Almost all carbs.

It wasn’t that she disliked meat; she just didn’t have the appetite for it — not after seeing an entire village wiped out by a monster.
She couldn’t even bring herself to imagine what it would be like if something like that happened to her own hometown.

“She’s got a lot to handle right now,” Bai Xihan said, her own tray equally loaded. “I heard HQ put her in charge of field operations for this mission. Coordinating the lockdown without alerting the Corpse Mother, monitoring online chatter — it’s a lot.”

“Still… something this serious is going on, and we’re just sitting here doing nothing. Is that really okay?”
Yan Luofei spoke softly as she stirred her porridge, blew on it, and took a small bite before sighing.

No one answered immediately — because everyone felt the same.
Every minute that monster stayed free, there could be new victims.

“They’re still working out a proper strategy,” Yuan Lingfeng finally said. “If we just charge in blindly, we might—”

She stopped mid-sentence, glancing nervously at Qisi to see if she’d noticed the slip. When she didn’t react, Yuan Lingfeng relaxed and changed the subject.
“The good news is, the Corpse Mother’s last known location is in a sparsely populated area. Containment should be… manageable.”

Kexin nodded slightly.
That part of the mountains really didn’t have many villages — all of them combined might not equal a single block of Muzhou City. Evacuating the residents wouldn’t be too difficult.

And with how hard it was for media or curious bystanders to reach the area, controlling a few key access roads would give them a massive operational zone to fight freely.

To destroy something like the Corpse Mother, they’d need to crank their magic output up by orders of magnitude.
Kexin imagined the battle in her head — if such firepower were used inside a city, there was no way they could explain it away as a “gas line explosion.”

Just then, she heard footsteps behind her — coming straight toward her.
Even without turning around, she could feel the gaze fixed squarely on her back. Instantly, she tensed.

“You guys are talking about the Cor—”

“Shh—!”

Before Luo Anying could finish the word, Kexin yanked her down into the seat beside her, cutting her off before she could say that word aloud.

Realizing what had almost happened, Luo Anying quickly clamped a hand over her own mouth, eyes darting around. “No one heard that, right?”

“Barely,” Kexin said with a sigh.

“Sorry, sorry! I just woke up from a nap, came down to grab something to eat, and—well, that caught me off guard.”
Luo Anying gave an apologetic smile, her voice still carrying that unhurried, lazy rhythm it always had.

“Most of the new recruits probably don’t know much about it anyway,” Yuan Lingfeng added after glancing around the cafeteria. The other trainees were chatting and laughing, completely unaware of the conversation in the corner.

Luo Anying gently patted the hand still resting on her shoulder. “Kexin, I’d like to get some food.”

“Ah?”
It took Kexin a full second to realize what she meant. When she did, her face flushed slightly as she pulled her hand back. “O-oh, right.”

“Hmm? What’s with that blush, Kexin?” Qisi said with a teasing grin, raising an eyebrow in mock suspicion.

“Oh? Interesting,” Yuan Lingfeng added, pretending to have just “figured something out.” Across from them, Yan Luofei looked up with equal curiosity.

Kexin, of course, denied everything immediately — she was being wronged!

“I—it’s not like that!”

“Your face is even redder now, Kexin,” Bai Xihan said as she pulled a small mirror from her pocket, offering it with a mischievous smile.

But the more Kexin tried to deny it, the hotter her face felt. It wasn’t embarrassment — more like overheating from the pressure.
She knew they were just teasing her, but the more she tried to think of a clever comeback, the more her brain locked up.

“Still denying it, huh?”

Taking a deep breath, Kexin made a solemn declaration: “I absolutely do not like Senior Luo.”

“Kexin doesn’t like me? That’s so heartbreaking~”

Perfect timing — Luo Anying had just returned with her food. And, as usual, there wasn’t a hint of sadness in her tone.

“Ah—no, that’s not what I meant, I—”
Kexin froze mid-sentence. Saying she didn’t like her was bad, but saying she did was even worse. There was no winning this.

Better to stay silent.

“So that means you do like her!” Qisi pounced immediately. “Silence means yes!”

Kexin shot her a death glare, silently wishing she could flip her the finger.

“Okay, okay, enough. You’re going to break poor Kexin,” Yuan Lingfeng said, clapping her hands to end the teasing before it went too far.

Then she shifted the conversation back on track.
“Anyway… why do you think it showed up again?”

“No idea,” Bai Xihan said, expression hardening. “But this time, we’re not letting it get away.”

“Yeah.”

Everyone nodded.

Kexin finally exhaled, relieved the focus was off her — though she silently vowed to get back at Qisi for this later.

Still, Yuan Lingfeng’s question lingered in her mind.

Months ago, Muzhou City had suffered a massive outbreak of abnormalities — high-level entities appearing all at once, overwhelming the Bureau’s forces.
The main strike team had taken catastrophic losses when reinforcements failed to arrive in time.

But the exact details of that incident were still classified. Even for someone like Kexin, a Special Agent, the deeper reports were off-limits. The others present had all been deployed to different battlefields, and even Qisi, who was stationed closest to the epicenter, didn’t know what had really happened.

None of the declassified documents mentioned the Corpse Mother at all.

Yet among the magical girls who had fought that day, there was a common belief — the Corpse Mother had been there.
Even Agent Guan seemed convinced, which was probably why she’d started planning the moment signs of its reappearance surfaced.

“Monsters don’t think the way we do,” Kexin muttered, sifting through what she knew. “They might not even need a reason to do what they do.”

No matter how she tried to connect the dots, nothing useful emerged.

After some more idle chatter, everyone went their separate ways.
Bai Xihan was finally dragged off by Maosaki for a walk; Yan Luofei and Yuan Lingfeng decided to explore the base together; Qisi headed for the gym.

Kexin, meanwhile, went straight back to her room.

The moment she kicked off her shoes, she flopped backward onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling light until her thoughts blurred — and before she knew it, she was asleep.

When she next opened her eyes, it was morning.

“Morning~”

“Mhm, morn—wait, ahhh!”

Sunlight filtered through the curtains and across Kexin’s face. Still half-asleep, she rubbed her eyes and sat up — only to see the back of Senior Luo standing by the bed, dressed only in her underwear.

Her bare skin gleamed pale under the light.

In an instant, Kexin realized what kind of situation she’d just woken up to.
She whipped her head away, rolling over to face the window.

Hearing the sudden rustle, Luo Anying turned around — and couldn’t help smirking at the sight of Kexin curled up in her blanket like a cocoon.

“Not getting up? We’ve got theoretical lessons this morning.”

Kexin poked her head out from under the covers, still not daring to look.
“I’m getting up, Senior Luo! You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Oh~?”

Luo Anying had half a mind to tease her again, but she did have a schedule to keep. She slipped on her shirt — surprisingly fast for someone who always spoke so slowly.

“I’ll go wash up first.”

Only when Kexin heard the footsteps move several meters away and the sound of running water in the bathroom did she crawl out from under the blanket.

In one smooth, well-practiced motion — perfected back in her dorm days at Muzhou First High — she changed into her Bureau-issued uniform and straightened the bed. Fifteen minutes between wake-up bell and morning assembly had trained her well.

While waiting for Senior Luo to finish, she picked up her Bureau-issued terminal.
Most of her classmates were out enjoying their holidays; no one from school had messaged her.

The only unread notification was from her mom, a simple good-morning text.
Before her magical girl days, going a week without calling home had been normal — life at Muzhou First left little time for anything outside training and sleep.

She quickly sent back a short reply, just to avoid getting a call later.

Her mom’s cheerful “OK~” emoji came seconds later.

Just as Kexin was about to put the device down, a new friend request popped up — from a military-simulation game group she’d recently joined.
The sender’s avatar looked familiar — one of the few active female players in that community.

“I’m done washing up.”

The sound of running water stopped, followed by Luo Anying’s voice. She emerged, brushing her hair as she walked.

Kexin hastily accepted the friend request and dashed into the bathroom — because according to the day’s schedule, theory class started in less than fifteen minutes!

From the way Senior Luo was taking her time, Kexin had thought it was still early.

“Don’t rush so much~” came the senior’s lazy, amused voice from behind her.