Chapter 3: The Taste of Memories

At that very moment, Gu Tong was in the kitchen, thinking about her plan.

Deceiving a little girl shouldn’t be too hard.

Turning a Magical Girl into a Monster wasn’t difficult either.

All she had to do was drive her into complete despair.

The girl’s inner demon would consume her, transforming her into a creature resembling a monster.

But there was a method to making someone despair.

This was human territory, and openly abusing a human child could cause trouble.

Gu Tong’s identity was sensitive right now, and she absolutely couldn’t attract outside attention.

Using magic to brainwash the girl was no different.

The fluctuations in her magical power would attract other Espers, so Gu Tong had to find a way to create despair discreetly.

She also couldn’t let the girl die or kill herself in the process.

Gu Tong needed to raise a powerful, useful cannon fodder for the future: a Magical Girl who would obey her commands.

Besides, deception was built on “trust,” so she first had to gain the girl’s trust.

But that wouldn’t be a problem for Gu Tong.

As a human psychology expert who’d watched 500 movies, she knew plenty of ways to make someone miserable while still earning their trust.

Humans needed to find meaning in life to feel at ease.

She only had to provide the bare minimum of food to keep the girl alive, nothing more.

That way, the girl wouldn’t grow suspicious, and despair would slowly seep into her heart.

But then again, as someone who’d only watched movies, Gu Tong found herself thinking.

She understood human psychology, but she didn’t know what humans needed to survive in the first place.

As she pondered this, she looked at her phone.

Being as clever as she was, she’d already learned how to use a smartphone in no time.

She simply copied what she’d seen in the movies, opened a webpage AI, and started a voice search.

The AI quickly listed the requirements.

Gu Tong skipped the theoretical information and the seven essential nutrients she couldn’t understand, going straight to the answer at the end.

Hmm, meat.

Hmm, vegetables…

Uh… eggs and milk, too.

Human survival supplies sure were a hassle.

She had to eat at least two meals a day and get seven to nine hours of sleep?

The more Gu Tong read, the more she frowned.

How could humans be such troublesome creatures?

They needed so many things just to stay alive for long.

But it didn’t matter.

Anything was a worthwhile investment if it helped her obtain the Witch’s Legacy.

Gu Tong decided that from then on, she’d give this Mad Dog only the necessary meat, eggs, milk, and vegetables, and allow her to sleep for just nine hours a day. Not a second more.

She imagined that if all she provided each day was enough to keep this Mad Dog fed, while the girl went hungry and couldn’t find any meaning in her life, she’d naturally fall into despair.

And since she was providing the basic necessities for survival, she wouldn’t need to use magic and risk being discovered.

At the thought, Gu Tong couldn’t help laughing.

“Haha, I’m so cruel and evil.”

But since she couldn’t cook, Gu Tong started looking up cooking tutorials online.

“RUMBLE—”

A peal of thunder cracked across the sky, and the view outside the window turned stark white.

Chen Qinyao looked outside.

At some point, it had started raining.

The monotonous, repetitive patter of the rain grated on her nerves, and the heavy air made her uncomfortable, as if something were about to happen.

“Big Sis?”

The nightmare she’d just had left Chen Qinyao worried, and she instinctively called toward the kitchen.

The only answer was the patter of rain.

She swallowed and looked around the familiar, cramped rental apartment.

The bunk bed faced the door, and a small, old refrigerator stood on the left.

A lot of rope was tied to the upper bunk’s railing, with the other end fastened to a nail in the doorframe.

The ropes hung in midair, holding freshly washed clothes and some household items.

They blocked what little light there was, swaying faintly whenever thunder boomed outside.

Had the room… been cleaned?

All the takeout containers that had been scattered beside the trash can were gone.

The clothes drying on the ropes had been taken down, and even the jasmine by the window beside the bed had come back to life and bloomed.

Her sister only cared about her own “career.” She’d always had to clean the room herself, so who had cleaned it now?

Before… Before, she’d seemed to have a fever.

What date was it today?

She’d just woken up, and her mind was still hazy.

She couldn’t tell reality from dreams.

Maybe this was still a dream.

How could jasmine that had been dead for so long bloom again?

But the rain outside made her uneasy.

Following the sound of the range hood, the girl walked out, ducking beneath the hanging clothes before gripping the doorknob.

Just as Chen Qinyao was about to call for her sister, she caught a whiff of something fragrant.

The aroma of food stirred her somewhat numb sense of smell, and her muddled thoughts gradually cleared as the haze lifted.

But her sister couldn’t cook.

When her sister occasionally got the urge to make something herself, it usually meant she’d lost a lot of money that day.

Only then would she cook something to soothe herself before finding an excuse to hit her.

The stronger the smell grew, the more uneasy Chen Qinyao felt.

For the next few seconds, she could even hear her own heartbeat.

Thump… thump… thump…

With a click, Chen Qinyao opened the door and looked outside.

The unit entrance on the left had been pushed open and propped up with a brick to keep it from swinging shut.

The damp smell of rain mingled with the scent of cooking oil drifting out.

The elevator doors beside the unit entrance were shut, and the number 5 flashed on the display.

The stove was wedged between the unit entrance and the elevator, making the space feel incredibly cramped.

“Once it’s cooked through, add the minced ginger and garlic, then turn the heat all the way up. Once the ginger and garlic are cooked through, add the other ingredients…”

A cooking tutorial played on the phone.

Under the warm light, a woman in a pink apron hummed a little tune Chen Qinyao had never heard as she stir-fried the food.

Her movements with the wok were awkward, but she managed to toss it with sheer force. It looked incredibly rough.

The sound of the door opening caught the woman’s attention.

She glanced at Chen Qinyao and said, “You’re awake?”

Big Sis… was okay?

Seeing the familiar figure, Chen Qinyao relaxed a little, but fear soon welled up inside her.

That meant her sister must have lost a lot of money today.

She was going to get beaten!

The woman looked at her and suddenly raised a hand.

Almost instinctively, the girl immediately closed her eyes.

She didn’t dare dodge.

If she did, she’d only get beaten harder.

All she could do was stiffen up and close her eyes, waiting for a slap or punch.

But the next moment, no fist struck her, and the woman didn’t suddenly yell at her.

Instead, she felt a warm touch against her forehead.

The girl trembled and cracked one eye open, sneaking a glance at the woman in front of her.

The woman touched Chen Qinyao’s forehead.

“You’re not hot anymore. Come in and eat.”

As she spoke, the woman served up the food, stepped around Chen Qinyao by the door, and went to the table inside. She set the steaming dishes down.

Click.

The sound of disposable chopsticks being snapped apart.

Without even looking at Chen Qinyao, the woman reached behind herself and handed them over.

“Fish-fragrant shredded pork. I just learned how to make it.”

Only then did Gu Tong turn around and look at Chen Qinyao, who still hadn’t moved.

Chen Qinyao glanced at the fish-fragrant shredded pork on the table.

It looked delicious, but she had no intention of picking up her chopsticks.

Why did Big Sis seem so… strange today?

But she didn’t dare ask.

As she looked at the steaming plate of fish-fragrant shredded pork, she felt her stomach twist, then growl in protest at the aroma.

Since the day she’d come down with a high fever, Chen Qinyao hadn’t had a drop of water or a single bite of food.

Her hands trembled with hunger, and as soon as she smelled the food, her stomach began making embarrassing noises.

Her sense of taste, dulled by a steady diet of fast food, began to stir again, and Chen Qinyao swallowed.

Hunger and reason fought for control of her body.

She didn’t dare pick up her chopsticks right away.

Instead, she stole another glance at the woman across the table, watching her expression.

It hadn’t changed.

She wasn’t displeased, but she wasn’t happy either.

Big Sis seemed unusually expressionless today, yet her mood was unusually steady.

The girl swallowed.

Urged on by her hunger, she tentatively picked up her chopsticks.

As if she’d guessed what Chen Qinyao was thinking, Gu Tong deliberately picked up some food and ate it, showing her that there was nothing wrong with it.

After hesitating for a moment, Chen Qinyao couldn’t resist the food’s allure and picked up her bowl and chopsticks.

As soon as she tasted it, Chen Qinyao could tell the dish had too much salt and was a little burnt.

It should have tasted awful, yet she also felt something strange.

The feeling seemed familiar, yet somehow unfamiliar.

But Chen Qinyao couldn’t quite put the feeling into words.

The last time she’d felt this way seemed to have been many years ago.

It had also involved a woman, a single mother who’d recently divorced and was struggling to hold a family together.

Those images flashed through her mind like an old, distorted movie.

“What would you like to eat, Yaoyao?”

The woman came home from work and, without even taking off her uniform, pretended to head into the kitchen as she asked the little girl she’d picked up, “What do you want?”

“French fries!”

The girl shouted happily.

“You just had those last time. How about Mommy makes you fish-fragrant shredded pork? I just learned how to make it~”

In Chen Qinyao’s memory, her mother’s face had grown blurry.

She’d thought she’d forgotten her, but that was how memory worked.

A similar taste was enough to bring back long-buried memories.

Click. Suddenly, Chen Qinyao felt a warm hand touch her forehead, and her thoughts were yanked back to the present.

The woman touched Chen Qinyao’s forehead.

“You don’t have a fever. What are you spacing out for?”

“N-nothing.”

When she came to and saw the woman watching her, Chen Qinyao didn’t know what to do and hurriedly replied.

“You’ve been staring into space since that first bite.”

Seeing Chen Qinyao sitting there like a Buddha in meditation, staring at the food in her bowl without picking up her chopsticks, Gu Tong thought the girl had figured out her plan.

When she saw that the girl didn’t react otherwise, she asked tentatively, “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing. I’m not thinking about anything. It’s just a little sour.”

Chen Qinyao covered her nose, trying to take a deep breath to ease the sudden ache.

“Huh?”

Gu Tong picked up a bite and tasted it, then frowned.

“It’s not sour. There’s something wrong with your tongue.”

“No.”

Chen Qinyao’s voice trembled a little.

“It is sour.”