Chapter Thirteen: Transformation Before Everyone's Eyes

Page 1 of 3

Hearing Li Xiaohan’s furtive gasp, He Yue looked utterly bewildered. “What is it now? Why are you making such a fuss...?”

“Aren’t you in the middle of getting divorced from your husband?”

“Why are you starting too...? Don’t try to talk me out of it, Xiaohan. Don’t become someone I hate.”

Li Xiaohan hid behind a pillar and whispered, “No, I ran into him at the mall. And I wanted to ask... does his family have any nieces in their teens or anything?”

“...No. Why are you asking?”

“I saw him with a girl who looked about fourteen or fifteen. They seemed pretty close. Could she be his illegitimate daughter?”

“For heaven’s sake, you really have quite an imagination. Where would he suddenly get an illegitimate daughter that old?”

“Hey, I’m worried you’re being taken for a fool without realizing it! If she were an illegitimate daughter, that might actually be better. Do you know they’re shopping together now? Shopping! You used to complain to me all the time about how much he hated shopping, but he’s doing it with a little girl—”

“Send me your location.”

The other end hung up immediately after those four words.

Li Xiaohan suddenly felt as though a great responsibility had been placed on her shoulders. She sent over her location at once, flung her three braids behind her back, and quietly followed Fu Lan, determined to find out what exactly the two of them were up to.

Unfortunately, she had barely begun tailing them when Fu Lan suddenly turned around and started walking back. Completely unprepared, Li Xiaohan froze on the spot.

There was nowhere for her to hide. Their eyes met, and Fu Lan recognized her immediately.

Fu Lan was equally stunned. He had originally been on his way home, walking with Shi Ningyu toward the escalators. Halfway there, he remembered that they were out of toothpaste, so he had turned around and gone back to the supermarket.

He had not expected to turn around and see He Yue’s friend, Li Xiaohan.

Yet fate was always so absurd.

Li Xiaohan was not only He Yue’s friend. She was also a detective from the Magic Affairs Bureau.

Fu Lan could still vividly recall the torment of the first time He Yue had taken the two of them out to dinner together. Fortunately, in his everyday state, he was completely without flaws, and he had not had anything to do with the magical world for many years. He could muddle through the occasional encounter.

But now, he had just completed a deal involving magical cinders, and he had an unregistered mage beside him—one who had been hunted only a few days ago, no less!

The only thing he could be grateful for was that all the magical cinders on him had already been handed over...

Fu Lan walked toward her, forcing a smile onto his face. If he could get away from Shi Ningyu quickly enough, he thought, there might still be hope.

But just as he was about to greet Li Xiaohan and draw her attention, Shi Ningyu came hurrying after him from behind.

“By the way, I just remembered—”

“Go!” Fu Lan hurriedly turned around and whispered, “There’s a cop over there!”

“Holy crap, what do we do? Then I—what about you?” Shi Ningyu stammered in alarm.

“It’s fine. You go first. I know her.”

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

“What...?”

Even more shocked, she stared at Fu Lan, but he forcibly shoved her backward and sent her away.

Li Xiaohan had been feeling slightly awkward, but the moment she saw what the two of them were doing, her anger flared.

What the hell? He was even bending down and whispering into that little girl’s ear? Shameless! Look at how nervous you two are. Doesn’t that prove you’re hiding something? Running away, are you? Well, well. The scumbag stayed behind. You’ve got some nerve...

Fu Lan braced himself and walked over to her with a smile. “Xiaohan, what a coincidence. Are you working here?”

“I’m off duty. You’re shopping here too, Brother Fu?” She forced out the last two words through clenched teeth.

Fu Lan restrained the urge to wipe away his cold sweat. “Yes. I was just passing by and needed to pick up a few things.”

“Just passing by, huh...? Then what was that just now?”

“Oh, her? She used to be my student. We happened to run into each other.”

“Oh. Your student.”

Li Xiaohan’s face was full of disbelief. She was just about to interrogate him further when a deafening crash of breaking glass erupted overhead.

Something had smashed through the mall’s glass atrium. Shattered glass rained down through the open central space toward the first floor, and the people below scattered in panic. Then the thing that appeared provoked an even greater wave of screams. Many were so terrified that they could not even cry out; their legs gave way, and they collapsed where they stood.

It was a Cockroach Mosquito, a magical beast whose form combined two of the most loathsome insects in existence, just as its name suggested.

The spiny hairs on a cockroach’s legs, its long antennae, the mosquito’s head and proboscis—none of its repulsive features was missing.

Worse still, the creature was the size of an adult human. It had long hind legs, proportioned much like a person’s and capable of supporting an upright stance, while a pair of cockroach wings beat against the air, keeping it suspended as it lurched wildly back and forth.

“Find somewhere to hide!” Li Xiaohan threw open her jacket and swiftly drew a toy-like pink plastic pistol from its holster.

The Cockroach Mosquito spotted her and immediately veered in another direction.

Li Xiaohan chased after it, firing several shots. Heart-shaped beams of light shot from the heavily decorated pistol, absurdly whimsical in appearance, yet the Cockroach Mosquito reacted as though facing a deadly threat, dodging in a panic. Its frantic collisions sent the surrounding people into even louder screams.

Fu Lan, however, breathed a sigh of relief and used the chaos to slip away in the direction farthest from Xiaohan.

The Cockroach Mosquito looked horrifying, but it was actually only a low-level magical beast that barely qualified as an elite. Its flying ability was the only troublesome part. Fu Lan knew Xiaohan’s strength; dealing with a single Cockroach Mosquito would not be a problem for her.

This was the perfect opportunity for him to leave.

He reminded himself again and again: You stopped fighting to protect others long ago. There is already a detective from the Magic Affairs Bureau here. Just leave it to her.

And, as it turned out, that was exactly what happened. Li Xiaohan soon drove the Cockroach Mosquito into a corner. Too busy fleeing for its life to attack anyone, it only came close to crashing into a few bystanders along the way, and Xiaohan forced it back with her pistol each time.

At last, the creature flew toward the entrance of a hot-pot restaurant. Faced with the closed doors, it hesitated, suddenly unsure where to go.

Li Xiaohan seized the opportunity and fired.

The heart-shaped beam struck the magical beast and burst into a ring of pink bubbles. The impact slammed it against the door, covering its entire body in a shimmering, hallucinatory film of light as it let out a piercing shriek.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

A chorus of vomiting sounds came from inside the hot-pot restaurant.

The film of light flickered for a while before disappearing, leaving behind a corpse turned grayish white. Li Xiaohan lowered her pistol and surveyed the area. Aside from some toppled objects, no one appeared to have been injured.

The onlookers came back to themselves and spontaneously began applauding.

Xiaohan gave them a brief nod in acknowledgment, then walked over to the Cockroach Mosquito’s corpse. She aimed the muzzle at it and began reclaiming its magical energy, while pulling out her phone and dialing a number with obvious irritation.

“...Yes, Wanda Mall. I happened to be on leave nearby... No one was hurt, but the glass is broken. We still need to confirm whether anyone was struck... How did this happen? Was no one patrolling nearby...? What? They escaped from somewhere else? You mean there are more outside?”

By then, Fu Lan had already run out of the mall. He had not yet decided whether to hail a taxi or rent a shared electric scooter when another wave of screams reached him.

He glanced over and cursed under his breath.

Three Cockroach Mosquitoes descended from the sky, flying toward a group of children practicing rollerblading. The children huddled together in terror. Two instructors stood in front of them, trembling all over. They were still wearing roller skates, making escape impossible under the circumstances.

There were no magic police here. The Cockroach Mosquitoes could hunt without restraint.

Li Xiaohan might emerge from the mall at any moment, and reinforcements from the road could arrive soon.

But the children had only a few seconds.

You left this life long ago. The world no longer needs you. The Magic Affairs Bureau is responsible now. They simply failed to arrive in time...

There would always be some magical-beast attack that resulted in casualties. Even in the past, you could never guarantee everyone’s safety. Things like this had always happened. They just had not happened directly in front of you...

But this time, I happened to see it.

In that prolonged instant, everyone near and far was drawn by the screams and stared tensely in that direction.

Perhaps not everyone...

Certainly not everyone.

But it was already too late to turn back.

Fu Lan pressed his left hand against his collarbone and drew it to the left, carving a trail of pale flame through the air.

“Transform.”