Chapter 17: Murderous Intent

“Huh?”

Hui Jin was already in a bad mood, and after hearing this classic and annoying line, she felt a smoldering rage settling in the pit of her stomach.

She snorted coldly, turning her head to look at the newcomer.

She saw a middle-aged man wearing a cheap white suit, his tie crookedly knotted, with a stubbly beard and sallow skin.

He was baring a mouthful of teeth blackened by smoke, running his hand through his wig-like blond hair from front to back.

The man thought the girl hadn’t heard him clearly and leered, about to repeat himself when—

Hui Jin spat out a single word:

“Scram.”

She saw the man’s smile freeze.

“…Little girl, what did you just say? This uncle didn’t quite hear…” he said in a sinister tone.

“I told you to scram.”

Hui Jin repeated, her fingers tapping impatiently on the claw machine’s console.

The man’s face completely fell.

He slowly walked toward her, his face gradually shadowed, his eyes raking over Hui Jin with undisguised, ugly desire.

“I see you have no idea what’s going on here, little girl…”

“There are cameras here,” Hui Jin said coldly.

Physical disgust sobered her up a little.

While subduing this man would be easier than killing a chicken, she didn’t want to use her magical girl powers within the camera’s range.

“Cameras?”

The man looked up at the camera behind and to the side, even waving at it.

He turned back, grinning widely.

“There aren’t any inside, right?”

He pointed into the pitch-black depths of the alley.

Facing such a young girl, the man thought he had the upper hand.

He curled his hand into a tube shape, shaking it up and down twice, licking his lips.

“Since you’re quite to my taste, I’ll give you a chance. After all, I’m not a bad guy… If you help me out willingly, I’ll be gentle with you. How about that?”

So disgusting… really disgusting…

Disgust showed on the girl’s face.

Churning anger flowed from the cracks in her heart throughout her body.

She looked up, not at the man, but at the camera behind him.

…Does it even matter?

Since everything will be over soon anyway, it’s fine if I’m exposed.

With a slight thought, magical power began gathering in her palm.

But ordinary people couldn’t sense magic.

The middle-aged man took the girl’s silence for fear.

He could no longer suppress his excitement and quickened his pace.

“Since you won’t agree, then this uncle has no choice but to be rough, right?”

Maybe I should just kill him outright…

Hui Jin’s blood-red eyes darkened with black.

In the next second, a broken sword wrapped in flames materialized in her hand.

She could already picture the man’s head separated from his body.

At that very moment, a familiar male voice suddenly rang out at the mouth of the alley:

“Wow, this one is so cute!”

His tone was as relaxed as if he were on a picnic.

The man stopped.

His pancake-yellow face showed impatience.

He turned his head to see who was so blind as to ruin his fun.

Hui Jin also snapped back to reality.

She dispersed the broken sword with magic, looking at her palm with some alarm.

What was I just thinking…?

She looked up and saw Xia Che waving at the man, but his eyes were looking over here.

His eyes were clear and bright, devoid of any emotion, yet they made Hui Jin feel somewhat guilty, and she instinctively averted her gaze.

Noticing this, Xia Che just smiled and said:

“I was talking about this blind box doll… Ah, sorry, am I disturbing you?”

The man thought the smile was a provocation and angrily retorted:

“Yeah, what the hell do you want? If you know you’re in the way, why don’t you fuck off!”

“Sorry, although this might sound a bit impolite…”

Xia Che was still smiling, but his tone carried a chill.

“…But the one in the way is you, right?”

“You motherf*cker!”

The man flew into a rage.

He roared and charged forward, his skeletal body swinging his bony arm in a wide arc, aiming a punch at Xia Che’s face!

“Watch me beat your face—”

Before his trash talk could finish, the man found his wrist seized in an iron grip.

No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t break free!

He was just about to curse when he suddenly felt the world spin.

“…Huh?”

Why was he looking at the sky?

Thud!

A huge impact sound left him dazed.

He didn’t feel pain, just a ringing in his head.

What happened?

The man was stunned for a good while before Xia Che’s handsome face appeared in his field of vision, his tone still light and cheerful:

“Sorry, I was a bit heavy-handed. Did that hurt?”

Only then did the man realize he’d been thrown over the shoulder!

He wanted to spew curses, but the foul words at his lips turned into a pathetic whimper:

“Wah…!”

It hurts!

Why does it suddenly hurt so much!

D-did I get a comminuted fracture?!

The man’s anger instantly turned to fear.

He screamed, trying to feel his body, only to find he couldn’t even control his hands.

“Where are my hands? Why can’t I move? Where’s my body? Waaahhh…!”

Xia Che crouched down, smiling at him.

“It’s fine. You’re just numb from the fall. You’ll be okay in a bit. Look…”

Perhaps the man’s will to survive was too strong.

Before Xia Che could finish, he thrashed like a flopping fish, struggling to get up, only for his legs to give way.

With a thump, he knelt right in front of Xia Che!

Xia Che reached out to help him up.

“Ah, my subject, you may rise!”

“Go to hell—!”

The man screamed, pushing his hand away.

Ignoring his noodle-soft legs, he leaned against the wall and scrambled away, drawing the attention of several people nearby.

However, the attention quickly returned to him because he hadn’t run far before he face-planted on the ground, his butt sticking high in the air.

Soon, camera flashes went off nearby.

Hui Jin was a bit surprised.

This guy looks quite refined.

He can fight like that?

Xia Che admired his handiwork with satisfaction for a moment, then turned and walked up to her, rubbing his neck.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Hui Jin maintained her cold expression, arms crossed over her chest, her tone accusatory.

“Why are you here?”

“Passing by. Coincidence,” Xia Che answered vaguely.

Of course he couldn’t say that Sakura Blizzard had told him Magical Girl Hui Jin looked very off—her exact words were ‘she looks like she’s about to die.’

So he immediately asked Sakura Blizzard for Hui Jin’s location, told Ye Xiao Chi to eat slowly, and rushed over as fast as he could.

When he arrived and didn’t see Hui Jin, he spotted a suspicious-looking blond man with a sleazy smile entering the alley opposite.

After some hesitation, he decided to check it out.

He hadn’t expected to actually find Hui Jin here.

“You just now…” Xia Che started, then stopped.

Standing at the alley entrance, he had clearly seen the broken sword in Hui Jin’s hand and the killing intent in her eyes.

She was like a completely different person from the expressionless girl before him now.

“You saw wrong,” the girl replied firmly.

Xia Che just sighed.

He hadn’t even said anything yet.

Wasn’t that a confession without being pressed?

He wanted to ask more, given how worrying Hui Jin’s state had been just moments ago.

But he noticed the girl’s tightly pressed lips, her small clenched fists, and her trembling, petite frame.

So he softened his tone instead.

“By the way… Miss Hui Jin, what are you doing here?”

Seeing he wasn’t pressing further, Hui Jin seemed to relax a little, at least her body wasn’t as tense.

She turned her face away.

Her emotionless deep red eyes fixed on the blind box inside the claw machine.

Her lips moved, but only a few meaningless breathy sounds came out.

Xia Che followed her gaze and couldn’t help but be surprised.

“You’re playing the claw machine?”