Chapter 36: The Hero and the Sea

“Did I do something wrong?”

Jiang Ciqiu hadn’t expected Lin Xia to suddenly ask that. She propped herself up and blinked, looking a little lost.

“Huh? Why do you ask?”

“…Just a good friend’s intuition, I guess.”

Lin Xia wrapped his arms around his knees, which were drawn together, and turned his face slightly. His gaze was full of worry and self-blame.

From his perspective, the mood between them had been perfectly fine until just a moment ago.

And Jiang Ciqiu suddenly bringing up such a heavy topic had to be because he’d accidentally said or done something wrong. Though he could never say that out loud.

He didn’t want her to feel guilty, and he didn’t want A-Qiu to think she was some fragile thing that had to be handled with care.

“No, you’re just too sensitive,” Jiang Ciqiu bit her lower lip, deciding to use her other self as a shield. “I was just thinking about the magical girl Hongxia.”

‘Please. Even if she’s never won a Witch Hunt major, she’s still the other me with the number one discussion ranking among Shanhai City’s magical girls!’

“Hongxia?”

Lin Xia’s brows knitted as he remembered last night’s “I stay,” which had blown up the entire magical girl discussion circle.

“Yeah. Aren’t there rumors that she’s going to retire? She was as dazzling as the sun when she debuted, but now she’s forcing herself to keep going. She’s almost become a deadweight veteran holding the team back.”

Jiang Ciqiu raised a hand and pointed her fingertip vaguely at the blazing sun in the sky.

It was just past three in the afternoon, the sun at its harshest, yet Jiang Ciqiu’s gaze easily pierced the glare and landed somewhere farther, on something ethereal and distant.

The sun always sets. No matter how brilliant a magical girl is, under the erosion of time and pain, she either falls and transforms or quietly retires. Even the seven days of youth granted by fate’s pity must eventually come to an end.

“…What kind of person does A-Qiu think a hero is?”

“Very stupid people.”

Jiang Ciqiu answered almost without thinking.

“People who move themselves with something ethereal, sacrifice everything, and in the end get no gratitude they deserve. They might even be treated as monsters by the very people they protected, guarded against and pushed away.”

She thought of herself before reincarnation, and her fist clenched unconsciously.

She had only been disheartened by Lin Xia’s death and no longer wanted anything to do with magical girls. Yet under the banners of “confidentiality requirements” and “security reasons,” the organization she had served for eight years erased her memories. The consecutive deletion surgeries nearly turned her into a vegetative patient with brain death.

Those memories, deleted into scattered fragments, still couldn’t be pieced back together even now.

“I don’t think so.”

The boy beside her didn’t speak loudly, but his certainty was absolute.

Jiang Ciqiu’s lips tightened sharply, and her crimson eyes turned to Lin Xia in surprise.

In her memory, Lin Xia rarely opposed her directly to her face like this.

He had always been gentle. Even when he heard something completely wrong, he would wait for some casual moment afterward and correct it tactfully, rather than refusing to give an inch like now.

“In my eyes, whether it’s you, A-Qiu, or Hongxia and the other magical girls, all of you are incredibly dazzling heroes.”

The boy’s tone was so serious it was almost devout.

During these years when he’d been hospitalized for his strange illness, it was Jiang Ciqiu’s visits and encouragement, rain or shine, and the sight of magical girls on screen fighting calamity beasts no matter what difficulties they faced, that gave him the courage to keep fighting his fate.

“So I won’t allow A-Qiu to belittle heroes like that. Even if in my world you are just as important a hero, I would still argue with you.”

Meeting those clear, limpid eyes, which even held a stubborn light, Jiang Ciqiu’s heart gave a sudden leap. She was the first to yield, hurriedly and awkwardly turning her head to look at the surging waves in the distance.

‘Damn it, don’t look at a thirty-year-old office drone with that chuunibyou, sparkling light novel hot-blooded protagonist gaze! You ignorant brat!’

“So you’re saying… to you, I count as a hero too?”

Lin Xia nodded resolutely.

To him, Jiang Ciqiu was his childhood friend and his pillar of support during the time he was bedridden.

“Wow, I didn’t expect that. So I’m this important to you, and you like me this much? That really puts me, your brother, in a tough spot…”

Jiang Ciqiu deliberately dragged out her tone, and the word “like” fell like a spark into dry grass. Lin Xia’s throat caught, and a burning red blazed all the way up his neck.

“Not that kind of like!”

“I know. Otherwise we really couldn’t be brothers.”

The girl rolled her eyes at him, then smiled slyly, like a child whose prank had succeeded.

Seeing the mischievous grin on her face, Lin Xia sighed helplessly, but the corners of his mouth unconsciously curved upward a little.

“A hero… I never thought I could become someone’s hero.”

Jiang Ciqiu looked up at the sky and gave a long sigh. She patted the fine sand off her pant legs, stood up, and strolled slowly toward the distant blue sea.

“Just a heads-up, my definition of a hero is pretty harsh. It has to be someone who, no matter the time or place, can immediately descend from the sky and appear before me the moment I shout for help.”

“Then it feels like they’d need space teleportation magic.”

“Exactly. It’s very difficult. Scared yet?”

Lin Xia followed closely behind her, keeping a few meters of distance between them.

“I’ll work hard.”

“Hm?”

The girl, who had been walking with small steps, paused.

The slightly westward sunlight poured down from in front of her, outlining her figure with a halo of light. For a moment, Lin Xia couldn’t make out her expression when she turned half her face.

But even so, he answered with firm determination.

“I’ll work hard to become the kind of hero you described, A-Qiu.”

“…Just because your health improved a little, you’re already busy dreaming of becoming a hero?”

A trace of resistance and bitterness crept into Jiang Ciqiu’s tone.

She didn’t want Lin Xia to end up like her future self, alone and covered in wounds, all for some ethereal desire to protect.

Being a hero is the lowest cost-performance job in the world, you idiot.

Even five insurances and a housing fund might not cover a year’s worth of checkups and medication for all the aftereffects and occupational diseases. You also have to sign a confidentiality agreement as thick as a dictionary. Who’d want to do it unless something was wrong with their head?

“Yeah. A dream where no one is lost and everyone can go home smiling.”

“You’ve been reading too many light novels.”

Jiang Ciqiu paused for two seconds, then suddenly turned back. She grabbed Lin Xia’s collar and pressed his head firmly into her chest, rubbing it vigorously.

“Childish! Chuunibyou! Fantasy-head! Ultimate idiot weakling!”

“A-Qiu, stop rubbing… it’s, it’s rubbing…”

Lin Xia’s muffled voice came from between the fabric, and only then did Jiang Ciqiu belatedly realize the boy’s cheek was pressed against her tightly bound chest.

Realizing that even good brothers shouldn’t be this physically close, she quickly pulled away and cleared her throat, pretending to be calm.

“Ahem. After all that, I’m a little thirsty. Go get my water for me. It’s in the side pocket of my bag.”

She pointed at the steps not far away, where both their backpacks and shoulder bags were placed.

Lin Xia smoothed down his messy hair and looked back at her with some worry.

“What, worried I’ll be taken by Lord Yebo?” Jiang Ciqiu shrugged without any sense of danger, her tone light. “They say it only takes couples. Relax. No matter what, it won’t catch me, a single dog.”

The boy seemed convinced. He nodded and turned toward the beach steps.

‘Tsk. I couldn’t help acting childish in front of him again. Jiang Ciqiu, oh Jiang Ciqiu, your mental age is almost old enough to be his dad! Can’t you be a little more mature and steady?’

Jiang Ciqiu continued walking toward the sea while scolding herself inwardly for her recent behavior.

The waves lapping the beach gradually rose to her calves. Feeling the refreshing coolness, the girl unknowingly took more than a dozen steps forward.

The blue of the sea stretched toward the horizon, slowly blending with the slightly lighter sky at the edge of her vision.

Only now did Jiang Ciqiu truly understand the meaning of the phrase “where water and sky meet.”

“The scenery is really nice… I’ll take a picture for my phone wallpaper and send a copy to that guy.”

The girl took out her phone, turned it horizontally toward the view, framed the perfect composition of sea and sky, and pressed the shutter in one smooth motion.

“Done! Taking photos isn’t that hard after all. Maybe I have a talent for photography…”

Jiang Ciqiu happily opened the gallery preview, but the smile at the corners of her mouth froze the moment her gaze moved to the lower right corner of the image.

Beneath the clear, see-through waves, a pitch-black mermaid floated quietly. Its rotting flesh was densely embedded with crimson eyeballs.

And every single eyeball was staring through the screen, fixed intently on her as she stood in the water.

“…What is this thing?”

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