When Lin Xiaolu, dragging the reluctant Bai Jingxuan and Xia Liang out of the secret base, Hong Siyu had already seated herself in her car and driven out of the parking lot.
Without ti to explain further, Lin Xiaolu hurriedly followed, rushing out of the residential area. After flagging down a taxi on the road, she told the driver, "Follow the car ahead."
Faced with such an odd request, the driver certainly had his doubts, but he didn't refuse—after all, the young girls didn't seem to have any ulterior motives. As he pressed the accelerator to follow the car ahead, he probed with a few questions, trying to tease out the purpose of the girls' pursuit to satisfy his own curiosity. However, Lin Xiaolu clearly had no intention of revealing their plans, and he wisely refrained from asking further.
During the weekday afternoon, the streets were relatively empty of traffic. While this made the driving smoother, it also increased the likelihood of Lin Xiaolu and company being exposed. To avoid getting too close and alerting Hong Siyu, the girls chose to hang back, just like the last ti.
While maintaining distance provided the advantage of a more covert pursuit, they also ran the risk of losing their target if not careful. Lin Xiaolu had no choice but to sit in the passenger seat, concentrating intently on Hong Siyu's travel route.
This left Bai Jingxuan in the back seat to plot a bit of mischief.
With her sister focused on the tracking, it seed like an opportunity to attempt so small maneuvers.
However, she was unaware of Xia Liang's thoughts. In her view, passing along a ssage without Lin Xiaolu noticing in such a confined space wouldn't be challenging, but the real difficulty was deceiving Xia Liang seated beside her.
Surreptitiously slipping her hand into her coat pocket to feel her phone—a phone even provided to her by Erald Sparrow after joining the Magical Girl squad—Bai Jingxuan glances guiltily toward Xia Liang.
The action was highly covert, rely ant to check the other's movents, with no additional intent. But to Bai Jingxuan's surprise, when she looked at Xia Liang, she found Xia Liang was also looking at her.
Not only that, as their gazes t, Xia Liang even winked at her.
I'll cover for you.
Mouthing the words, Xia Liang silently conveyed her ssage to Bai Jingxuan.
Having said that, and worried that Bai Jingxuan wouldn't comprehend, Xia Liang pointed thoughtfully at her pocket, glanced at Lin Xiaolu through the rearview mirror, and mid a phone call gesture.
With this series of gestures, even if Bai Jingxuan wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, she understood Xia Liang's aning: It seed Xia Liang was on her side.
Certain of this, she breathed a sigh of relief, her tense body eased sowhat. She deftly pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and, like a primary school student avoiding the teacher's gaze, hid the phone behind the backrest of the driver's seat, taking care to light up the screen.
As she did so, Xia Liang pretended to sprawl casually over to the passenger seat, poking her head out beside Lin Xiaolu and loudly asking, "How's it going? Can you tell where she wants to go yet?"
"Go where?"
Lin Xiaolu looked at her curiously, "How would I know that? I can't predict the future."
"Haven't you noticed she's heading toward the suburban overpass?"
Xia Liang stretched out her left hand, pointing vaguely forward, creating an obstacle between Lin Xiaolu's field of vision and the rearview mirror: "Heading toward the suburbs at this ti, isn't it obvious? She's off to work."
Since there was an oblivious taxi driver next to them, she couldn't very well say "Hong Siyu is heading to Abnormal Strategy Bureau." Instead, she used "work" to hint at this, but it was enough for Lin Xiaolu to catch her drift.
However, understanding did not an Lin Xiaolu agreed with Xia Liang's point of view.
"You're oversimplifying things," Lin Xiaolu gripped the seat belt in front, staring out the front window: "If she was really just going to work, why would she head out looking like this?"
The "look" Lin Xiaolu referred to was Hong Siyu's Magical Girl form.
For reasons unknown, since Hong Siyu returned to Fangting City as a Magical Girl, she has rarely shown her true form, choosing instead to operate mostly in her Magical Girl persona.
This wasn't sothing significant by itself—a simple mindset could interpret it as just personal preference. But in Lin Xiaolu's eyes, it was a glaring red flag.
"I told you, you're overthinking it..."
Xia Liang chatted intermittently beside Lin Xiaolu, seemingly casual and unfocused, while Bai Jingxuan took the chance to compose her ssage on her phone as inconspicuously as possible.
Due to her limited experience with mobile phones, Bai Jingxuan had a low typing proficiency and had to concentrate on the keyboard to type. The awkward position, combined with the taxi's occasional jolts, made her progress exceptionally slow.
Fortunately, Xia Liang was masterful at extending the conversation, using various irrelevant topics to distract Lin Xiaolu's attention so that it never strayed to the back seat. This gave Bai Jingxuan enough ti to compose her ssage slowly.
Ti passed by the second, and when the ssage was nearly complete, Bai Jingxuan's forehead was coated with a thin layer of sweat. Her toes curled tightly, she bit her lower lip, and she would glance toward the passenger seat every now and then, fearful that Lin Xiaolu might suddenly turn their head for a peek.
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