Chapter 72: The Weight of a Mother’s Grief

Overall, Ink Crystal had no intention of probing further into the girl named Huo Qingqing.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t, but rather that she chose not to. She merely wanted to ascertain if entities like Ox Mask would reveal themselves when someone like her approached the Saintess.

The outcome, however, was negative.

In other words, Ox Mask did not interfere with the Saintess’s normal life. As for the Saintess’s true identity, Ink Crystal believed she was indeed a genuine Saintess.

Why couldn’t she make a definitive judgment? While Magical Girls are concentrations of positive energy and should, in theory, sense life forms composed of negative energy, this actually depended on the type.

Negative energy itself possessed a degree of concealment. Unless a Magical Girl was particularly attuned, they wouldn’t be able to sense negative energy, especially if the target didn’t openly release their power or reveal their unique nature.

Otherwise, Ink Crystal would have long since discovered Lin Han’s true identity. Similarly, monsters weren’t necessarily able to detect the presence of Magical Girls.

When Magical Girls weren’t transformed, their positive energy also remained concealed. Their identities wouldn’t be easily discovered by monsters, nor would their true forms be known.

Teacher Lin, however, was a rather special case. His transformation likely included a design that allowed him to detect and absorb negative energy.

As for why Zhang Xiao could sense it to some extent, it was probably due to the unique ability of the giant infant-like monster she had previously birthed. This ability was not universal.

Therefore, Ink Crystal lacked concrete evidence to definitively declare Huo Qingqing a Saintess.

Yet, if asked to judge, she believed she was. No specific reason was needed.

With her intellect, she could conjure tens of thousands of convoluted excuses if she needed to rationalize it, but such reasons would be meaningless and couldn’t serve as irrefutable proof.

Thus, after the three parted ways, Zhang Xiao asked, “Sister Ink Crystal, can you be sure?”

“Hmm… it’s hard to say, but you can treat her as a reliable ally. If you encounter danger, she might even lend a hand.”

Ink Crystal offered this answer.

Zhang Xiao nodded. “Then I understand.”

****

When she returned home, she found Lin Han wasn’t there. She pulled out her phone and saw a message from him.

He had said he would be staying at the hospital to play games with that boy, hoping to help him open up.

Playing games with a stranger! Surely playing games with little Ink Crystal was far more interesting?

She looked at the empty room, a sigh escaping her lips. Teacher Lin had only just moved in, less than a month ago, yet suddenly, without him, the room felt so vast, so lonely.

She had always lived like this in the past.

She sighed again, then, following Lin Han’s instructions, changed the house password and sent the new one to him.

“…I don’t feel like cooking alone!”

She lay back on the sofa, opening her phone and logging into the Magical Girl website. She scrolled for a while, but no other Magical Girls had messaged her.

Play a game? She hadn’t played in a while—she didn’t really feel like it now.

She went up to the rooftop. The rooftop already had an observation deck, so she brought out a chair and sat there, gazing out at Clear Sky City. When Magical Girls were bored, they were supposed to diligently patrol the city.

However, her patrols of the city didn’t seem to hold much significance. Logically, Clear Sky City should be quite peaceful. Ever since Magical Girl Rainbow Jade rose to fame, crime in Clear Sky City had significantly decreased.

Even when disasters struck, they were caused by monsters born from various circumstances. In truth, she ought to be quite busy: searching for the Masked Rider’s whereabouts, investigating Teacher Lin’s past, and finding a way to revert to her original form to give Liu Xingyue an explanation.

But now, she wanted to do nothing. She simply sat there, watching as night gradually descended upon Clear Sky City.

Yet, even the darkness could not swallow the city’s radiance. The nights in Clear Sky City were truly vibrant and lively, much like when she and Teacher Lin had gone out for barbecue.

She was uncharacteristically idle, doing absolutely nothing, merely observing the scene before her and emptying her mind.

Until a certain moment.

She suddenly shot up from her chair, her gaze fixed on a particular spot.

“A monster?!”

When a monster was born, Magical Girls would sense it. That arrogant negative energy was almost impossible to hide. At this very moment, it was raging within someone, either killing its host or—parasitically residing within them.

Regardless of the possibility, for Magical Girls, there was something that absolutely had to be done. She was already in her transformed state!

She immediately soared into the sky, transforming into a streak of dark light, heading towards the source of the monster’s aura.

****

“…Liuyun! Why?!”

Rainbow Jade stared at the converging negative energy, unable to comprehend. She simply couldn’t understand.

Her child’s mood seemed so good today, which was why she had brought him home.

But why? Why was there such a massive presence of negative energy? She truly shouldn’t have let him go out alone.

It was precisely because she had allowed him to leave her side, to experience different sights, that he harbored such resentment towards her. If she hadn’t agreed to let him go to school in the first place, if he had stayed by her side, such a thing would never have happened.

‘My child, why have you become like this?’

When Ink Crystal arrived at the scene, she saw Carnelian. She had initially felt quite relieved, believing that since Carnelian was there, any monster could be easily defeated.

But—

Carnelian was being brutalized. It was a giant monster entirely different from any Ink Crystal had seen before. Rather than an animal, it resembled a plant—a mass of roots and stems covered in green leaves, sprawling wildly.

One of these stems had wrapped around Carnelian, slamming her heavily onto the ground.

“!”

Carnelian offered almost no resistance. Her expression was utterly despairing, as if her life was completely over.

Ink Crystal immediately looked towards the monster’s core. In the very center of the giant mimosa-like monster, a boy lay peacefully, as if in a deep sleep.

“It really is Ye Liuyun!”

During the arena competition, Ink Crystal had already felt that Ye Liuyun’s condition wasn’t quite normal. She and Teacher Lin had previously sensed something amiss—but she never expected Ye Liuyun to actually end up in this state.

Carnelian was a veteran Magical Girl who had resolved countless monster and villain disasters, yet why had her own child fallen into such a state?

Regardless, the current situation was that Carnelian had lost her will and belief to fight. Ink Crystal didn’t know if she could defeat this monster—but stalling for time was certainly possible.

As for defeating the monster? She did possess two new skills, but she wasn’t planning to make victory her strategic goal. If she only thought of winning and made a mistake, she had to consider the possibility of not winning and then make a contingency plan.

“Bee Sting!”

The dark Ink Crystal Sword appeared in her hand. With the speed of a bee sting, it severed the root segment that had coiled around Carnelian.

Carnelian tumbled to the ground, rolling twice, then struggled to her feet as if awakening from a nightmare, staring blankly at the monster before her.

‘No, I don’t have time to wake her up.’

Why was the location precisely a place like a bathhouse? There were too many people here. She saw many people, wrapped only in towels, running frantically.

She had to quickly buy some time for the civilians to escape completely.

“Bee Sting!”

She used the skill once more, directly thrusting towards the giant monster’s core—the spot where Ye Liuyun lay sleeping.

She had previously awakened Zhang Xiao by directly attacking her, using intense pain to succeed. The same principle should apply to Ye Liuyun. If she pierced his body with her sword, the severe pain and the threat to his life might just shock him out of this state.

Once he awakened, the scale of the current threat would drastically diminish.

“Stop!”

A crimson streak of light slammed into Ink Crystal’s sword. Her sword shattered instantly.

She quickly retreated, seeing Carnelian standing before her. Carnelian was blocking the spot where Ye Liuyun lay.

‘She shattered my sword with her fist?’

Of course, the Ink Crystal Sword was condensed from her own magic, so it was normal for an opponent with higher magical intensity to break it. But she truly felt Carnelian’s immense power.

‘As expected of a veteran Magical Girl.’

“Carnelian! Are you still so deluded? I know that’s your own son, Ye Liuyun, but with him like this, have you forgotten your duty as a Magical Girl? With your power, you could easily defeat this monster, even if it might cause him some harm. But subjugating the monster before us is the mission of a Magical Girl!”

She disliked using verbal persuasion. But in this situation, she had no choice but to try to convince her.

If she didn’t intervene, Carnelian would just hang there, taking a beating. If she did intervene, Carnelian would stand against her.

“You don’t need to tell me what to do, Magical Girl Ink Crystal!”

“That sounds nice, old woman. But the fact is, if you don’t need me to tell you, then tell me, what will you do? Did his transformation have nothing to do with you?

This morning, when we met, Teacher and I originally intended to intervene, but you seemed so confident. And now? What’s the result? You still say such things?”

He Yao was an otaku who often harbored vulgar thoughts about others, but she usually wouldn’t voice them. Yet, speaking them aloud now didn’t seem so bad; it felt quite satisfying.

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