Chapter 11: The Unseen Truth: Black Mirror’s Descent into Doubt

Clutching the USB drive she had received from Rainbow, Black Mirror’s heart hammered faster than usual, a natural response considering the contents would dictate her next steps, potentially even defining the very meaning of her existence as the Corrupted Black Mirror.

She became acutely aware of her tension and unease; a jumble of emotions stirred her normally vivid imagination, attempting to shroud her entire thought process in a fog of delusion. Consequently, she deliberately emptied her mind to spare her fragile nerves any undue strain.

‘Relax, relax,’ she thought. ‘At least let me confirm if what I hold is genuine.’

Black Mirror held no doubts about Rainbow’s capabilities; the entity claimed to be the first, and longest-surviving, Epidemic-Spreading Class (TL Note: A classification for Corrupted entities, denoting the highest and most dangerous threat level, capable of widespread devastation.) Corrupted entity born in Jingping City. Considering Rainbow’s unique abilities, Black Mirror found this claim highly credible.

As monsters born from the negative emotions of living beings, Corrupted entities had been continuously studied and understood by humans throughout their prolonged battles with Magical Girls. Though many mysteries still clung to them, the veil of mystery shrouding them had largely been peeled away, and people were beginning to define this peculiar threat much as they defined Magical Girls.

In-Situ Class, Infiltration Class, Erosion Class, and Epidemic-Spreading Class — these were the classifications established by so-called official agencies, ranking Corrupted entities by their strength and threat level from weakest to strongest. Among these, the Epidemic-Spreading Class was a classification not publicly disclosed, almost akin to a fleeting urban legend, with only a select few Magical Girls truly comprehending the terror of an Epidemic-Spreading Class Corrupted entity.

Rainbow, a Corrupted entity, simultaneously possessed abilities akin to self-division and disguise. In her few encounters with it, Black Mirror had personally witnessed these powers; self-division allowed Rainbow to exist in multiple individual forms simultaneously, and when combined with its flawless disguise capabilities, it could easily conceal itself within crowds, undetectable. Rainbow could be considered both a single, complete individual and a collective comprising numerous mutable entities, making its annihilation far from simple.

One of the reasons Black Mirror found it difficult to fully trust Rainbow stemmed precisely from this: its true form remained unknown. In their several meetings, it had adopted different guises—a child, an elder, a man, a woman—and in every form, it behaved with startling naturalness. This mastery of impersonation, so profound it bordered on the unnatural, unsettled Black Mirror. She realized she would likely never be able to discern Rainbow’s true intentions from its expressions, actions, or words.

Even if Rainbow acted with the utmost friendliness, at its core, it was a genuine monster. At least, Black Mirror believed there was a fundamental difference between her current self and an entity like Rainbow, though she couldn’t quite articulate why she held such certainty.

The sky gradually darkened, the early summer evening breeze carrying a hint of dry heat. Whenever she saw the moon’s silhouette slowly emerge from the deepening blue, Black Mirror felt a sense of calm that allowed her to relax.

She was currently sitting on the rooftop of an inconspicuous abandoned building, located near the city’s outskirts, far from the bustling center. There were no people or surveillance devices nearby, ensuring no one would disturb her. A laptop rested on her knees—an Nth-hand item (TL Note: A Chinese colloquialism for a heavily used, second-hand item, implying it’s been through many owners.) she had recently acquired. After replacing a few components, it was barely usable. Presently, it contained no personal data, so she had no need to worry even if the USB drive carried viruses or hacker programs.

Upon inserting the USB drive into the port, a folder named “♪(^∀^●)ﾉ” quickly popped up on the screen. Ignoring the unusual file name, Black Mirror double-clicked the folder with her mouse, opening its contents. What greeted her were three folders corresponding to the past three years. After a brief moment of thought, she opened each folder and then randomly clicked on some of the files within.

Dates, numbers, and standardized descriptions briefly summarized cases steeped in lament, pain, fury, and the stench of blood. Such sorrow stretched endlessly across the cold screen.

“This is it then. All the electronic files, accident reports, and other materials for every traffic accident recorded by the Jingping City Public Security Bureau over the past three years… Rainbow truly acquired them.”

Looking at the pages of information that nearly filled the drive’s capacity, Black Mirror confirmed that this was precisely what she had commissioned Rainbow to obtain. In reality, she only needed a small portion of it; she wanted to confirm a suspicion she harbored.

Clicking on the records from July two years prior, she held her finger to the screen, slowly scrolling downwards, her gaze fixed on the content—the time, location of each incident… Black Mirror feared she might overlook a crucial detail.

‘…’

‘…’

‘—’

Unconsciously, she had scrolled to the very end. The results before her eyes finally answered some lingering doubts that had plagued her mind, yet her consciousness immediately plunged into an even deeper fog. As if disbelieving her own sight, Black Mirror scrolled back up from the bottom, her finger’s movement growing slower and slower, and her breathing, without her notice, grew heavy.

‘…’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing. What should have been there was gone.’

A jolt of electric current rapidly coursed through Black Mirror’s body. She instinctively covered her right ear, trying to alleviate the sudden ringing in her ears.

“Ha… haa… damn it.”

Setting the laptop aside, Black Mirror leaned back, letting her body fall onto the dusty ground. She had anticipated various reactions from herself, but in the end, she could only manage a few helpless, dry laughs, hurling a curse at the night sky above.

‘…’

July 22nd.

July 22nd, two years ago—a day she could never forget.

It was the day her mother died.

That day, her mother and Jin Shiling’s father were involved in a traffic accident while driving home in the early hours of the morning. Both died instantly at the scene.

The incident was ultimately ruled a common accident caused by fatigued driving at night. Zhang Qingwei and Jin Shiling received this conclusion from the police even before they had emerged from their grief. Looking at the appraisal report handed to him, filled with bizarre, bureaucratic jargon, he himself was utterly unable to accept it, yet powerless to resist, and in that oppressive atmosphere, he was compelled to sign his name.

The four of them had been living together, their days unfolding in an orderly fashion just a few days prior. Now, turning around, he saw only an empty living room. Everything familiar within his sight seemed to have been shrouded in a thick layer of dust in an instant, a gray that bleached away all vibrant colors. He had never experienced such a profound sense of severance.

Memories, vivid and clear, passively replayed again and again in his mind. He dared not touch them, yet dared not stop them, fearing that his composure might shatter, twisting and distorting the memories beyond their original form. Yet, simultaneously, the realization that these memories would only become a worn blankness with time made him fantasize about permanently imprinting them onto his very being, making them an inseparable part of himself.

When people cannot face reality, they will find ways to deny it, filling and combining unrelated content to stitch together a ‘truth’ that only they themselves believe. Zhang Qingwei considered himself not so fragile, but if that were truly the case, he wouldn’t be appearing here in this guise; if that were truly the case, he wouldn’t be seeking out these very archives.

Reality, however, offered him an excuse: the location of the accident was, by coincidence, one of the few blind spots in the so-called ‘omnipresent surveillance.’ No one witnessed the moment the accident occurred. This accursed unknown allowed a slim hope to take root deep within his heart, festering like a persistent illness.

Twenty minutes before the police determined the accident occurred, Zhang Qingwei had called his mother. At that time, both their voices sounded perfectly normal; despite it being late at night, they were excitedly sharing their recent travel experiences. It was hard to imagine that those two, still buzzing with excitement, would soon after die from fatigued driving.

“Go to bed early, my cub. Goodnight. See you tomorrow morning.”

Those were the last words Zhang Qingwei’s mother left for him. Regrettably, he had not experienced a single night of peaceful sleep since.

The true impetus that led Zhang Qingwei to investigate the accident was a rumor he accidentally overheard from a Magical Girl while operating as the Corrupted Black Mirror, and from that rumor, he learned a fact.

Since their inception, Magical Girls had been crowned as embodiments of hope and justice. They were heroes who rescued people from danger, pioneers active on the frontline against Corrupted entities. They embodied humanity’s imagination of all things beautiful, perfect beings without flaw—

But how could that be? Magical Girls, in the end, were products of humanity. As long as they were human, they could not be perfect; as long as they were human, they would make mistakes, not to mention that most of them were still maturing girls at the outset.

Many literary works depicted stories of once upright individuals who, upon suddenly gaining immense power, lost themselves and continuously fell into depravity. Magical Girls… were merely a thinly veiled retelling of that same story.

At a certain point, people naturally realized a problem: Corrupted entities, as threats difficult for humans to handle, would be dealt with by Magical Girls, their natural enemies. However, this meant Magical Girls similarly lacked an equivalent check on their power. Corrupted entities could topple skyscrapers and turn prosperity into desolation, and Magical Girls could do the same. In human society, the threat posed by both was, in essence, no different.

The fear humanity harbored for an entity was not measured by the harm it had inflicted, but by the potential harm it *could* inflict.

Although the power possessed by Magical Girls would gradually weaken with age, it would not completely disappear. This power itself required no sacrifices and was not subject to restrictions like