Chapter 3: A Mother’s Reckoning

The two thousand-plus words of threats Su Qingyao had tossed out became an utter joke in the face of reality.

Or perhaps, who could have ever imagined?

That she would succumb at light speed the moment her daughter appeared?

Rarely, if ever, had Su Qingyao’s thoughts become such a chaotic mess.

Considering the Blue Witch’s vast experience, even confronting the so-called evil gods behind calamities wouldn’t likely stir such profound upheaval within her.

Yet, with her undeniable flesh and blood nestled in her embrace, feeling a heartbeat distinct from her own, separated only by delicate, tender skin, Su Qingyao inevitably fell into a brief trance.

Especially when the little one in her arms nuzzled her silky silver hair, then playfully whispered ‘Mama’ into her ear.

[‘It’s just a piece of flesh that accidentally fell off after an injury!’]

Her stubborn words from earlier had now become a boomerang, striking her softening heart without mercy.

In her daze, Su Qingyao tasted an inexplicable familiarity in this embrace, as if she herself had once been accustomed to such intimate closeness.

“Hmm… let me, Mama, test you.”

Su Qingyao loosened her tight embrace, allowing her daughter’s small head to emerge from her arm. The child’s endearing, vacant eyes met Su Qingyao’s gaze.

“What is your name?”

The young woman asked, striving for composure.

In her arms, the child, whose innocence was palpable, offered a genuine smile.

“Mama, my name is Muxue, Su Muxue!”

Su Muxue suddenly grinned, answering with evident delight.

While a young magical girl’s demeanor might typically be as cold as ice, Su Muxue’s enthusiasm before Su Qingyao left the newly-minted mother feeling utterly disoriented.

“Alright, alright.”

Su Qingyao nodded, letting her hand rest on the snowy hair that had eagerly nuzzled against her, stroking it with tender care.

‘So smooth and soft, it made one want to stroke it a few more times.’

“Then I’ll call you Xiaoxue.”

“Okay!”

Su Muxue tilted her head. Her witch’s hat seemed to be pulled by an invisible ‘hand,’ remaining faithfully tilted to cover one side of her hair, even without any visible support.

This only made Su Muxue appear even more petite and delicate.

“So, Xiaoxue, are you a magical girl?”

Stirred by a newfound tenderness within, her already gentle voice gained a touch of warmth and softness.

‘In other words, she had unconsciously “squeezed” her voice.’

Su Qingyao loosened her arms, allowing Su Muxue to ‘duck-sit’ on her thighs, making it easier for them to whisper face-to-face.

“Mhm.” Su Muxue nodded vigorously.

“One day, a big monster appeared in front of everyone, and our teacher told us to run away quickly.”

“As I was running, I accidentally tripped over Booboo—oh, Booboo is… a very big plushie!”

“Let Mama guess, did Booboo ask you to make a contract with it? Saying that you could save everyone that way?”

“That’s right!”

As if affirmed by Su Qingyao’s understanding, Su Muxue, who had been stumbling over her words, joyfully confirmed:

“Booboo said I have a lot of magical girl talent.”

[‘Of course you do. Just look at who your Mama is.’]

The inheritance of magical girl talent was a subject largely deciphered long before her own demise.

The Blue Witch kept her thoughts to herself, unwilling to interrupt Muxue’s heartfelt account:

“And then, and then, I agreed, and then I became the magical girl, Snow Lotus!”

Su Muxue proudly raised both hands.

“So, Xiaoxue, did you defeat that big monster in the end?”

“No, I didn’t!”

An unexpected twist.

Yet, Su Muxue showed no sadness or similar emotions.

“Eh, why didn’t you win?”

Su Qingyao’s tone immediately took on an exaggerated upward inflection.

“By the time I rushed over, the big monster had already been defeated by a strange uncle.”

‘No wonder Muxue said she didn’t win; someone else had stolen the kill.’

Then again, if circumstances were truly so dire that a primary schooler had to confront a calamity, Su Qingyao would seriously question whether the decisive battle had even been won.

Beyond that, Su Muxue’s experiences after becoming a magical girl largely unfolded as Su Qingyao had anticipated:

Her magical power fluctuations were detected by the Magical Girl Bureau, recorded, and she was subsequently inducted into the ranks of apprentice magical girls.

Though not required to actively participate in combat, she still had to attend regular magical girl training and, under supervision, collectively hunt weaker magical beasts…

‘This had essentially become vocational training!’

Su Qingyao looked down at Su Muxue, who had fallen into a deep sleep in her arms. Once asleep, the girl’s magical attire naturally dissolved into tiny, pure white specks of light, reforming into a skirted school uniform.

Su Qingyao surmised that Su Muxue had most likely transformed directly upon hearing of her awakening, then ‘flown’ into the Stasis Hall in her magical girl form.

And eventually, she had simply talked herself to sleep in her mother’s arms.

Su Qingyao sighed, rising from her hospital bed. After carefully moving aside a tangle of strange tubes and wires, she gently placed the deeply sleeping Su Muxue onto the bed.

‘Let me think.’

‘What did my mother do when I was little?’

The newly-minted mother fumbled for a moment, eventually managing to tuck Su Muxue into bed.

“Mama, will you watch over me?”

The sleeping girl murmured in her dreams.

Su Qingyao closed her eyelids, concealing her emotion-filled eyes in the darkness.

‘Su Muxue, my daughter.’

‘My child.’

First and foremost, she absolutely could not possess any ‘calamity’ related factors. The moment Su Qingyao, with her five years of combat experience, saw Su Muxue, she instantly recognized her as an entirely ‘pure human.’

This meant that the father must also be a pure-blooded human, just like Su Muxue.

“Hoo—” Su Qingyao took a deep breath.

‘That presented a serious problem.’

The most unbearable scenario was that a sufficiently powerful necrophiliac pervert had secretly infiltrated the Stasis Hall and done unspeakable things to her corpse…

Compared to that, a ‘cuckoo’s child’ would be a good outcome.

At the very least, Su Qingyao’s fury towards the opposite s*x could override the nauseating feeling of being defiled.

Unconsciously, Su Qingyao’s brows furrowed. Her maternal love for Su Muxue was not yet strong enough to make her forgive the biological father’s actions.

“What a terrible possibility,” Su Qingyao mused aloud, then abruptly shifted her tone: “You agree, don’t you?”

She turned, facing the ‘stranger’ whose face was obscured by a baseball cap.

The exact timing was uncertain.

However, according to Su Qingyao’s deduction, it was likely after she had seen Su Muxue and subsequently relaxed her constant magical surveillance of her surroundings that this uninvited guest found an opening to slip into the ward.

The so-called ‘uninvited guest’ was wearing a plain Stasis Hall work uniform, complete with a temporary staff badge pinned to their chest, appearing utterly inconspicuous.

However, anyone who bothered to look closely at the badge would only find a string of blacked-out characters under the ‘Name’ section.

“Ah, I knew I couldn’t hide it from you.”

The man in the baseball cap sighed quite casually, then took off his hat:

“Of course, I never intended to hide it from you. I merely wanted to make it easier to come in and see you.”

“That’s certainly your style, Senior Hero.”

Su Qingyao remarked playfully to the hand that had led her to salvation.

The Hero she remembered dated back to his high school days. Back then, the young man not only possessed striking youthful good looks, but what truly left an impression on Su Qingyao was the radiant, sun-like enthusiasm and confidence that always shone on his face.

Now, his face, partially obscured by shadow, remained youthful and handsome.

The blade of time had merely etched a slightly weathered look into his gaze, faint dark circles beneath his eyes, and transformed his once unwavering resolve into a gentle, casual demeanor.

This perfectly matched Su Qingyao’s past imaginings of how her senior would look in the future; she simply hadn’t expected to confirm it under such circumstances.

However.

To Su Qingyao’s surprise, upon hearing the address ‘Senior Hero,’ the casual composure on the Hero’s face utterly crumbled.

Though it was a fleeting moment, quick enough to be dismissed as an illusion, his casual demeanor soon returned.

Yet, one could still perceive a hidden nostalgia beneath it, accompanied by a profound sorrow.

“…”

A breath of silence passed.

Su Qingyao now understood why only the Hero had come to visit her, and not the Saintess who usually accompanied him.

“It seems, I should just call you by your name then.”

Su Qingyao carefully considered her words before cautiously putting forth her suggestion.

The Hero nodded:

“That would be best.”

“Then, Senior Lu Zhichuan. Please tell me, what exactly happened to my body after that decisive battle?”

Su Qingyao narrowed her eyes, a faint glint shimmering within them.

“I can, or rather, that was one of my intentions from the start.”

Lu Zhichuan inclined his head.

Immediately after, a lost story, one that should have remained silent in the annals of history, began to be slowly recounted by the one who had lived it.

****

What Su Qingyao failed to notice was this:

The mask of ‘casual composure’ that Lu Zhichuan wore on his face had actually shattered more than once.

However, the second collapse was carefully hidden deep within the man’s heart, unknown to the young woman, as he realized his momentary lapse.