Bai Jingxuan once had a dream.
When thought itself was naive and her family was still intact, she dread of becoming a music artist.
Although mories from her childhood were sowhat blurry, Bai Jingxuan could vaguely recall owning a music box. It seed to be a gift from her parents, and whenever she was in pain, the gentle and soothing music from the music box would liberate her from suffering.
Even though she could now only rember a broken tune, it did not prevent her from having a considerable fondness for music.
But later, her parents died due to an attack by Remnant Beasts, and Bai Jingxuan was sent to an orphanage. The music box from her mories was also lost amidst the upheaval, never to appear again in Bai Jingxuan's life.
The orphanage wasn't that bad, but it also lacked the ans to help her recover her lost possessions. Even if a caregiver presented her with another music box based on her description, it was ultimately a different object, never again to have the comforting effect on her ailnts. Her dream thus beca a mory covered in dust.
Perhaps, it wasn't just the dream. From a certain point that Bai Jingxuan herself had not noticed, she lost "desire."
The sensations of joy and anger lost their bearing, and the concepts of good and evil couldn't find a asure. She didn't know why to be happy or why to be sad, only able to observe others' words and expressions and follow the emotions they displayed.
She was well-behaved, because there was nothing to resist; she was quiet, because there were no personal desires. She was like a doll lacking self-awareness, appearing to mimic human form, but empty inside.
There had been peers who bluntly called her an "empty shell." However, even when addressed in such a way, Bai Jingxuan remained oblivious.
Why was she an "empty shell"? She didn't understand.
But she truly didn't know what she wanted, her desires a blank slate, her emotions a blank slate. Nothing could give her a direction to rivet her attention to, to search for her own existence.
She was like a ship lost in the deep sea, surrounded by the vast ocean, unable to distinguish any direction from another. Only, the ship she sailed was nad "self," and the surrounding ocean was called "life."
Did she want money? Or did she want fa? Did she want to beco a doctor? Or did she want to beco a teacher?
She kept asking, observing others' dreams. Then she would take these dreams and try them on for size. Like a custor in a clothing store trying on garnt after garnt, not knowing what she wanted, so with the determination to try on every piece in the store, she sought to find the one that fit her.
This confusion persisted until a few months ago—until the attack on the orphanage, until the mont Moco appeared before her.
Would becoming a "Magical Girl" be the direction she was searching for, the garnt she wanted to wear? By becoming a Magical Girl, could she regain the emotions she had forgotten, the desires she had lost?
Bai Jingxuan didn't know the answer.
But whenever she recalled the mont she was saved by Sakura, her heart still felt admiration and thrill, gratitude and relief. The emotions from that ti now seed so vivid, giving her a long-lost sense of "being alive."
—"So, I told myself I wanted to beco a Magical Girl like Senior Sakura."
Walking slowly through the streets of Lixing District, Bai Jingxuan said softly, "At least the from back then was indeed moved and grateful for such actions, those emotions were not fake."
"...I see."
Walking alongside her, Tian Sheng listened to the end of Bai Jingxuan's story with a sowhat solemn expression: "Although I can't rember the details now, it was then, at the orphanage, that you beca a Magical Girl, right?"
"Yeah," Bai Jingxuan nodded.
It was morning, and the location was close to the "Lakeside Spring" residential area in Lixing District. Three weeks after the Full Moon Festival incident, the Abnormal Strategy Bureau approved the request of Team Three to search the residential area, allowing them to head to "Lakeside Spring" to look for traces of Black Ash Dawn.
On the way to Lakeside Spring, the third squad encountered Bai Jingxuan on patrol, and then, their group gained a little tail.
As the team leader, Li Yingwei repeatedly tried to persuade her, but it was largely ineffective. The other team mbers also didn't know how to reason with a Magical Girl, so, the troubleso task ultimately fell to Tian Sheng.
And that was tough on Tian Sheng.
Because he didn't know how to communicate with Bai Jingxuan either.
Even though he had been a caretaker at the orphanage and knew the child Bai Jingxuan, a male caretaker could never intimately take care of a girl's daily life, so he was not overly familiar with her.
He just favored the child because Bai Jingxuan was well-behaved and sensible, and he would chat with her from ti to ti. But considering a child living in the orphanage probably didn't want to bring up the past, their conversations were about trivial and mundane daily life matters, deliberately avoiding touching on deeper subjects.
If Bai Jingxuan hadn't been so proactive in sharing her past stories with him, he would probably still be clueless about what to say now.
"But, the senior you're talking about... she has already... passed away."
He tried hard to organize his words, avoiding touching her scars: "Black Ash Dawn is likely the culprit, so that's why you hate them so much, want to catch them, right?"
"It's abu..."
Bai Jingxuan started to speak earnestly, but then she seed to rember sothing, lowered her gaze, and silently corrected herself, "I want to punish them."
"You were about to say that word again, weren't you?"
Tian Sheng scratched his head with so helplessness: "I don't understand, is this also the behavior of the 'Senior Sakura' you ntioned?"
"No, that's the teacher's behavior."
Bai Jingxuan raised her fist: "But the teacher was Senior Sakura's teammate. She did it for the sake of the senior, and I think it's not wrong, it's cool!"
"Even if it might be wrong?"
"It must be right, right?" Bai Jingxuan tilted her head.
"...That's what she said, Director."
After sighing, Tian Sheng took out the phone from the other pocket and put it to his ear: "You've heard it, those are her reasons, I really can't persuade her."
After saying this, he fell silent, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone and nodding his head from ti to ti.
Then, he extended the phone towards Bai Jingxuan, ignoring her shocked, hurt gaze, like that of a betrayed, he looked away and scratched his cheek:
"Xiao Xuan, the Director wants you to take the call."
Previously displaying fearlessness and giving lengthy speeches, Bai Jingxuan suddenly looked like a primary school student who had done sothing wrong, sheepishly taking the phone.
Then, casting another heart-breaking traitorous glance at Tian Sheng, she answered the call:
"Hello, Dad... I an, Uncle."
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