Chapter 25: So to Speak, The Visual Therapy Was Ineffective 😔

Lin Yu looked at the radiant smile on Li Qing’s face—the kind you’d expect from a “final boss.” His knees almost buckled, nearly dropping him to the floor before this so-called “attending physician.”

“Um… Li Qing… senior…”

Summoning the last shred of survival instinct left in a corporate drone, he made one final attempt to resist:

“I… I got up too fast this morning, my head’s still spinning a bit. Maybe… today’s ‘visual therapy,’ we could just—”

“Nope~❤”

Li Qing didn’t even let him finish. She wagged her finger, voice sweet to the point of nausea, smiling as she crushed his pitiful plea.

“Did senior forget the company slogan? ‘Strivers come first, contributors are honored, and those who dedicate themselves will never be shortchanged!’”

She recited Manager Qian’s favorite brainwashing slogan word by word, her smile growing ever more “kind.”

“Senior skipped breakfast just to get here on time, right? With such a spirit of sacrifice, how could we, as your colleagues, ever let you suffer a loss?”

As she spoke, she pulled out a thermal lunch box from beneath the console like a magician performing a trick.

“So I specially asked Auntie Wu from the cafeteria to save you a breakfast with love—it’s your favorite, the deluxe pork chop sandwich with extra eggs! Eat up! Once you’re full, you’ll have the strength to better receive the education of love~”

Lin Yu stared at the steaming sandwich, the sinful aroma of eggs and meat wafting to his nose. His eyes burned against his will.

Useless tears rolled down the corners of his mouth.

A wave of unspeakable emotion welled up inside him.

(…So this crazy woman isn’t entirely a devil after all… She remembered what I like… even went out of her way…)

“By the way,”

Li Qing’s smile remained pure and innocent, though her words fell like a guillotine blade over Lin Yu’s head,

“after this breakfast, today’s therapy—”

She picked up a pink [Psychic Static Punisher] plastered with cartoon stickers, her voice syrupy and full of “kindness” and “encouragement.”

“—if you dare close your eyes even once, or let your mind wander…”

“I’ll fry you~❤”

After eating,

Lin Yu was “gently” invited into a deceptively comfortable chair.

A pink helmet was strapped onto his head, and at once he found himself unable to look away.

His vision was forcibly locked on the screen in front of him, his ears drowned in a soundtrack brimming with “love and courage.”

Li Qing began narrating with wild hand gestures:

“Look, senior, look! This scene about falling in love—yes, yes, that heart-throbbing doki-doki feeling, that’s the truest energy source for magical girls!”

“And here! Look! Magical Girl Irina, Season Two! Do you see why their skirts are designed so short? You think it’s just for looks? Ah… well, of course that’s the main reason, but it’s also because it makes them full of youthful vitality! And that vitality totally counts as ‘positive energy’! What, you think it’d be better to fight monsters in overalls? Please, who would want to watch that? Girls should wear skirts, right? The shorter the better!”

(…No! Stop! I beg you, stop! I don’t want to know that short skirts supposedly serve some ridiculous purpose! I just want to wear my big, loose, safe boxers!)

Lin Yu screamed in his heart, but his body was pinned like a puppet, forced to endure this pink malice disguised as education.

And in the corner of this hellish tableau stood another figure, radiating icy pressure.

Chen Bing, arms crossed, face blank, watched both the flashy, meaningless fight scenes on the screen and Lin Yu’s foaming, vacant-eyed suffering.

Her brow stayed locked in a permanent frown, as if carved there.

(…Nonsensical.)

Inside, she subjected herself to a soldier’s self-interrogation of logic and disbelief.

(That triple spin kick midair took 1.2 seconds from takeoff to landing. Her core was completely exposed to enemy fire, leaving at least three fatal openings. By standard battlefield survival rules, she should’ve been hit with at least three bullets by 0.3 seconds. Why did the octopus-like villain just stand still like an idiot, waiting for her to finish the whole flashy move? This defies basic combat logic…)

(And that transformation sequence—why does it last thirty seconds? On a battlefield where every moment counts, that’s enough time for an enemy to kill her a hundred different ways. Is this supposed to be fighting, or performing?)

Chen Bing felt her worldview shattering under the weight of this absurd spectacle.

As for Lin Yu—he had long since given up resisting.

When the final anime ended with a cheerful “love and hope” girl-chorus over the credits, the room lights finally came back on.

The helmet and restraints clicked open on their own.

Freed, Lin Yu collapsed to the floor like a boneless heap, gasping desperately for free air.

His brain buzzed emptily, his entire being looking thoroughly broken.

“All done, all done…”

Li Qing tilted her fluffy pink head, eyes sparkling innocently as she asked,

“Senior~ how do you feel? After four straight hours of love’s education, don’t you… have some new thoughts about the glorious profession of ‘magical girl’?”

(…Thoughts?)

With stiff, frame-by-frame motion, Lin Yu turned his neck, hollow eyes staring at her face—so “cute” it bordered on terrifying.

After three seconds of static fuzz delay in his brain—

“…Yes.”

“Wow!”

Li Qing’s eyes lit up like twin stars.

“What is it, what is it? Tell me!”

“…I learned…”

His gaze remained empty.

“…that most magical girls’ enemies are… very polite.”

“Eh?” Li Qing’s smile froze.

“…They wait patiently for the heroine to finish a transformation speech over a minute long, strike all their flashy poses, and let every teammate deliver speeches about ‘bonds’ and ‘resolve’… before finally attacking.”

“…I also learned… magical girl skirts must be made of some anti-gravity material. No matter how many 360-degree spinning kicks they do in midair… the skirts never ride up.”

“…And I also—”

“Stop stop stop stop stop——!!!”

For the first time, a crack appeared in Li Qing’s eternally cheerful expression.

She stared at Lin Yu’s monk-like, world-weary face and the damnably realistic, logic-driven commentary spilling from his mouth. Quietly, in her mental notebook labeled ‘Senior Lin Yu Reform Plan’, she wrote a new line in bold red:

[Cognitive Correction Phase One · Visual Therapy… Ineffective /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~. Patient’s ‘Straight-Man Syndrome’ is more stubborn than expected. Increase dosage required.]

But outwardly, she kept smiling.

“Aiya~ senior’s learning perspective is really… unique.”

She beamed as she stood up.

“But that’s okay! Just ‘watching’ can’t make you truly understand us girls! So, the next step—”

She bent down, extending a soft, pale hand to the limp Lin Yu on the floor.

“—let’s go on a date~❤”

Lin Yu stared at the hand, desperately wanting to say, “I quit, dammit.”

But Li Qing clearly wasn’t giving him a choice.

“Come on, come on, senior~”

Like hauling a life-sized doll, she dragged him toward the door.

“If we don’t hurry, the limited-edition Strawberry Bubble Cloud Super-Exploding Yummy Baa-Baa Poo-Poo Milk Tea at that new influencer tea shop in District F will sell out!”

Lin Yu stumbled after her, dragged along like a ragdoll.

When he realized her direction was toward the door labeled “Women’s Changing Room,” his numbed nerves finally shrieked one last dying alarm!

“W-wait! Li Qing! Fine, fine, I’ll go to District F! But… this is the women’s locker room, right?! Why… why are you taking me here?!”

Li Qing turned back, tilting her fluffy pink head, smiling as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Why, to help you change clothes, of course~”