Chapter 19: The Strings of a Doll

Even so, Xia Xingyan fought back with every ounce of her strength, resisting desperately.

Tian Lanxing’s words echoed in her ears.

“Have you forgotten how far you’ve come?”

“So much time has passed, and haven’t you still persevered?”

Long-buried memories now surfaced with startling clarity.

At the age of eleven, she had viewed life as nothing more than a gilded cage.

Her father perpetually spoke of family honor, while her mother constantly demanded perfection.

There were no praises, no smiles.

Only endless lessons and unattainable expectations.

She moved like a delicate doll, her days dictated by pre-set commands.

No one ever asked if she was tired, nor if she could bear the burden.

One day, the doll’s strings finally snapped.

She climbed to the top floor of her father’s company, standing precariously at the edge of the forty-first story.

The evening breeze billowed her skirt as she gazed down.

The city’s dazzling lights formed a deceptive sea of stars.

Not a single one of them shone for her.

Spreading her arms, she closed her eyes and leaned forward.

‘Goodbye, dull world.’

A sensation of weightlessness enveloped her.

The wind howled, and the world spun.

‘So, this is what it feels like before dying?’

‘It doesn’t seem so bad after all.’

Just as she braced herself to be splattered into an unrecognizable mess.

A warm embrace caught her amidst her rapid descent.

She looked up.

A pair of eyes, holding the depth of starlight, gazed gently back at her.

It was a celebrity she had only ever seen on television.

“Little one, is bungee jumping really that much fun?” Tian Lanxing asked with a smile.

“Of course not fun… but… but I… wuwuwuwu…”

In the moments that followed, she wept, releasing all the grievances, frustrations, and pain she had harbored for years.

Tian Lanxing simply held her, suspended in mid-air, offering neither comfort nor impatience, merely waiting patiently for her tears to subside.

It was a long while before Xia Xingyan finally calmed.

“Living is so exhausting…” she choked out, sobbing.

“Yes, living can indeed be very tiring,” Tian Lanxing surprisingly agreed with her.

Xia Xingyan froze, taken aback.

Tian Lanxing continued.

“But there are always moments that make you feel truly glad to be alive.”

“Your life should not be defined by others.”

Tian Lanxing gently set her down and patted her head.

“Go find those moments that make you think, ‘It’s truly good to be alive.’ Then, live for that beauty.”

The excruciating pain still tore at her nerves, yet that voice provided Xia Xingyan with her sole anchor.

****

Once the students had returned to normal, the battle on the teaching building’s rooftop truly escalated into a white-hot frenzy.

The Puppeteer, appearing utterly deranged, conjured a series of dark Void (TL Note: A dimension of malevolent energy and entities.) teleportation arrays that bloomed around him.

From these, his army of puppets surged forth.

These puppets contained low-level Void cores within them.

Devoid of pain and tireless, their only directive was destruction.

Flame Rose and Morning Dew quickly found themselves embroiled in a bitter struggle.

“There are too many!” Flame Rose exclaimed, shattering a puppet’s head with a whip-kick, only for more puppets to swarm from all directions.

Morning Dew’s shield of intertwined vines wavered precariously, yet she gritted her teeth, desperately maintaining it to create openings for Flame Rose to attack.

Their stamina rapidly depleted; they wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

“We have to take him out first!” Flame Rose shouted.

The two exchanged a glance, instantly reaching a mutual understanding.

****

Meanwhile, on the campus lawn.

Xia Xingyan’s will, firmer than ever before, actively began to resist the encroaching Void energy.

‘Yes, live!’

‘Especially when beautiful moments are unfolding.’

“Excellent,” Tian Lanxing said, a look of approval gracing her features as the Abyss Seed (TL Note: A powerful artifact, often used for purification or absorption of negative energies.) in her hand shone brightly.

Xia Xingyan let out a muffled groan of pain as a viscous mass of black energy was forcibly pulled from her body by Tian Lanxing, subsequently absorbed by the Abyss Seed.

The purification was complete.

“Phew…”

Gu Qing exhaled in relief, just as he prepared to put away the Abyss Seed.

However, a sudden anomaly erupted at that very moment!

The Abyss Seed, which had been relatively docile moments before, suddenly burst with intense malice, transforming into a black ray of light that shot towards Gu Qing’s glabella.

It was too fast!

Gu Qing tried to dodge, but having expended a tremendous amount of starlight energy to purify Xia Xingyan, his physical reactions were half a beat too slow.

“Aaaargh!”

An indescribable agony erupted within Gu Qing’s mind.

Jealousy, hatred, tyranny, despair… negative emotions surged into his heart like a floodgate unleashed.

The sorrow of seventeen years past, all the pain he had desperately suppressed, was amplified a hundredfold in that instant!

Unable to bear it, he collapsed backward.

“Tian Lanxing!”

Xia Xingyan, having just recovered, saw her idol collapse and immediately panicked.

Without a second thought, she rushed over to support Tian Lanxing’s body.

‘What should I do?’

After a moment’s thought, Xia Xingyan gritted her teeth, hoisted the unconscious Tian Lanxing onto her back, and sprinted towards the infirmary.

Upon reaching her destination, she found the room completely empty.

Just as Xia Xingyan stood bewildered, the Tian Lanxing on her back suddenly emitted a burst of light.

The legendary magical girl vanished, replaced by a blonde-haired girl.

It was none other than Bai Shiyu, the newly crowned campus belle of Saint Cherry Academy.

It took Xia Xingyan a moment to process what she was seeing.

‘Bai Shiyu is Tian Lanxing?!’

‘This beautiful girl, who appeared to be around her own age, was actually the beacon she had sought for half her life?’

****

The battle on the rooftop was also drawing to a close.

The two converged their remaining starlight energy into a single beam, no longer defending, but actively pushing forward, forcefully tearing an opening through the horde of puppets.

“Hmph, merely the struggles of the dying.”

The Puppeteer confidently raised his hand, preparing to block the beam.

However, Flame Rose seized this opening, channeling all her strength into her legs, transforming herself into a blazing meteor that shot directly at the Puppeteer!

“What?” He gasped, his face paling with shock.

The Puppeteer hastily summoned his magnum opus, a colossal puppet forged from steel, to shield himself.

“Naive, for a mere apprentice magical girl to delude herself into thinking she can break through my barrier!”

“Blazing Rose Strike!”

Gu Qianqian’s right leg, wreathed in flames, slammed into it with full force.

“Boom!”

The scene the Puppeteer had anticipated, one of successful defense, did not materialize.

Instead, with a crisp crack, spiderweb-like fissures appeared across the supposedly impregnable barrier.

“Impossible!” The Puppeteer panicked.

‘This power, this starlight energy so pure and absolute, how could it possibly manifest in an apprentice?’

Immediately afterward, flames erupted from the puppet’s cracks.

“No! My grand performance has only just begun! How can I die here?!”

Amidst the Puppeteer’s unwilling last words, the puppet shattered with a thunderous roar.

Flame Rose, unstoppable, plunged her legs through the fragments, striking him squarely in the chest.

“I won’t accept this! I won’t accept this, noooo!”

Flames consumed him, his clown mask melting in the intense heat, turning into ashes along with his body.

The puppet army, now uncontrolled, crumbled to the ground.

Gu Qianqian deactivated her transformation.

“Hoo… hah…”

She knelt, panting heavily, sweat dripping from her hair.

‘She had actually won!’

An unprecedented sense of accomplishment swelled within her.

‘Mom, did you see that? I can protect everyone now too.’

“Qianqian, are you alright?”

Lin Xiaolu also deactivated her transformation, her face ashen, yet her entire being radiated excitement.

‘She did it; she didn’t hold them back, and together with Qianqian, she defeated such a terrifying enemy!’

Yet, her joy was short-lived as she immediately thought of the President.

‘She didn’t know what had been injected into her, but their senior had already gone to help.’

Lin Xiaolu peered down from the rooftop, but saw no sign of the two.

After descending to the ground floor, Lin Xiaolu closed her eyes, sensing the residual starlight energy of Tian Lanxing to track their whereabouts.

Then, she realized something was amiss.

‘Given their senior’s strength, why was the residual starlight energy so faint?’

“We need to get to the infirmary quickly; Senior Tian Lanxing is in danger!”