The black armored transport vehicle sped along the highway, its engine roaring low as it echoed across the empty road.
Fei Xia leaned against the bulletproof glass window.
Her usual half-lidded dead-fish eyes were unusually wide open, staring intently at the scenery flying past outside.
This was the first time in her life she was leaving the towering steel walls of the main city.
For someone who had always lived in the central district, everything beyond the walls was another world—the gray zone that news reports always spoke of vaguely.
“Passing through the main district checkpoint. Identity verification complete.”
Following the cold electronic voice of the vehicle’s broadcast, the heavy gate slowly rose.
The convoy left the prosperous main city behind.
The view outside the window changed instantly.
Towering skyscrapers were replaced by low, densely packed shacks and rusted makeshift buildings.
The glow of neon lights vanished, replaced by a gray concrete palette and clouds of dust.
This was the outer district, also known as the slums—the forgotten edge of prosperity.
Through the window lightly coated with dust, Fei Xia saw a scene that left her stunned.
On a gravel-filled empty lot, a long line of ragged, sallow-faced poor people stretched out.
Most of them had numb expressions, waiting silently for something.
At the very front of the line, a patch of pure white stood out jarringly in the drab world.
It was a magical girl wearing a white dress with short white hair.
Floating beside her was a cat familiar with black wings and golden vertical pupils that scanned the surroundings.
The white-haired girl wasn’t holding her staff. Instead, she stood behind a makeshift iron stand, gripping a long-handled ladle.
She scooped thick, steaming porridge filled with minced meat and egg drops from a large iron pot and steadily handed the bowls to the thin, outstretched arms.
“Take your time. Be careful, it’s hot.”
The girl’s white sleeves were stained with grime, fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and exhaustion was clear on her face. She had obviously been working for a long time.
Yet every time she handed over a bowl, she curved her lips into a sincere smile toward those weary faces.
The people who received the porridge held the bowls with both hands, bowed deeply with genuine gratitude in their eyes, then quietly moved aside to devour the rare warmth.
“Wow… Is that Bellflower-senpai from the logistics team?”
Amber Flowing Light, sitting beside Fei Xia, suddenly leaned over, pressing her face almost against the glass and fogging up a small patch with her breath.
The energetic idol had lost her usual stage flamboyance.
Watching the scene outside, her voice grew unusually soft, carrying both admiration and a faint trace of guilt.
“I heard she comes here whenever she has free time… even though she doesn’t get paid for it.”
Amber Flowing Light subconsciously touched the unopened bag of snacks in her pocket.
The hand that wanted to take it out to share withdrew.
In this atmosphere, eating something like that felt almost like a sin.
“That’s their choice.”
Qinghai Starlight, sitting across from them, spoke gently, her gaze soft yet helpless.
“Not everyone prioritizes profit. Some people… simply want to do this.”
Fei Xia remained silent.
She unconsciously tightened her grip on the terminal in her hand, the cool metal pressing into her palm.
Looking back at the white-dressed girl’s tired but bright smile and the numb expressions of the poor, an uncomfortable tightness formed in her chest.
The convoy continued forward, leaving the temporary shelter far behind.
As they passed the outer district checkpoint, the scenery outside grew increasingly desolate, carrying a bone-chilling silence.
The asphalt road was already broken into pieces. Purple-red weeds grew wildly from the cracks, reaching half a person’s height and swaying menacingly in the wind.
By the roadside, several completely rusted armored vehicle wrecks lay crookedly.
Their metal frames were twisted by extreme heat into bizarre angles, still vaguely showing their former shapes.
In the distance along the horizon, a vast stretch of tilted and collapsed building ruins spread out.
Some buildings had been cleanly sliced in half, while others looked as if they had been instantly melted by extreme heat, silently testifying to the past horror.
Aside from the occasional hoarse caws of crows flying across the sky, only deathly silence remained.
“Is that… the legendary B City?”
Amber Flowing Light’s eyes sparkled. When she saw the building ruins outside that looked like they had been trampled by a giant beast, her voice trembled slightly.
“It feels… even more eerie than what the textbooks described.”
The atmosphere inside the vehicle instantly dropped to freezing point with those words.
The escort team members who had been chatting quietly all fell silent at once.
They gripped their weapons tighter, their expressions turning solemn.
It felt like they were driving through a massive graveyard built from broken walls and ruins.
“Ten years ago, this place used to be a prosperous city—even more so than T District.”
Qinghai Starlight broke the silence. Her voice was soft, but in the quiet vehicle it sounded especially clear.
Fei Xia turned her head slightly, her gaze sharpening.
“Ten years ago?”
Qinghai Starlight nodded, her eyes somewhat distant.
“I wasn’t a magical girl yet back then. I only saw it in the news.”
“To stop the monster known as Miden… the General Bureau gathered nearly all the combat forces in the country at the time.”
She paused, her tone growing heavier.
“It’s the most tragic page in the textbooks. They say hundreds of magical girls were sacrificed… In the end, less than one in ten survived.”
“Most of those who lived suffered severe psychological trauma. Even the strongest seniors from that time mostly disappeared afterward and never appeared again.”
“It was from then on that the General Bureau completely reformed its system.”
Thud—
The wheels rolled over a large piece of rubble, causing the vehicle to shake violently. The supply crates in the back compartment collided with heavy thuds.
Ten years ago…
Fei Xia unconsciously repeated the time point in her mind.
Ten years ago… what was she doing?
No, but… how could that be?!
She clearly felt it was important, yet she couldn’t recall anything.
It was as if an eraser had brutally wiped away that segment of memory, leaving only blurred traces.
She tried to remember, tried to decipher something through the remaining smudges.
Without any warning, a sharp, intense pain suddenly stabbed into her brain.
“Ugh…”
Fei Xia let out a muffled groan. Her face turned deathly pale in an instant.
The ruined scenery before her eyes shattered and dimmed like a broken mirror.
In that momentary darkness, a terrifying image flashed across her retinas.
It was a pair of eyes.
They had no pupils, only crimson rings.
Running through the blood-red was a ferocious vertical scar that cut across the side of the eye, as if warm blood was still flowing from it.
Those bleeding eyes stared at her fixedly, filled with suffocating madness and despair.
It was only there for a split second.
Yet it instantly drenched Fei Xia in cold sweat. Her heart felt gripped by an icy hand, making every breath painful and difficult.
“Hey! Little Red Bean? What’s wrong?”
Amber Flowing Light beside her was startled. She saw Fei Xia’s face turn paper-white and her body trembling slightly.
“Fei Xia?”
Qinghai Starlight across from them also noticed immediately. She leaned over and gently held Fei Xia’s cold arm.
“Are you carsick? Do you want to get some fresh air?”
The warm touch pulled Fei Xia forcefully out of the terrifying vision.
“…I’m fine.”
Fei Xia panted heavily and shook her head hard, forcefully shoving those blood-red demonic eyes back into the depths of her mind.
She gently pushed away their hands and subconsciously shrank deeper into the shadow of her seat.
Her voice was extremely hoarse:
“It’s just… a bit stuffy in here.”
As the vehicle drove away from the edge of B City, the compartment gradually became lively again.
However, the fear brought by those eyes lingered around Fei Xia’s heart like vines, refusing to dissipate for a long time.