During the period when Wuyuzi’s livestream was banned, Bai Qiu took the opportunity to gather the little magical girls in the living room for an emergency meeting.
Bai Qiu pulled out a blackboard from somewhere and wrote the theme of the meeting on it:
How to Establish a Correct View of Money
The little magical girls tilted their heads, not quite understanding why Bai Qiu had suddenly called a meeting.
“This is at Brother’s request. I’m here to instill a correct view of money in you kids who wield huge sums without any worldly experience.”
Bai Qiu pushed up a pair of nonexistent glasses.
“Tell me, what do you usually spend your money on?”
“Mm… mainly groceries, daily necessities, and things like that. Since we’re not short on money, I’ll just buy things I like when I see them.”
Li Ai spoke first.
“Not bad.”
Bai Qiu nodded with slight satisfaction.
“You should all learn from Li Ai-chan and spend your money where it counts.”
“Since the Association covers food and housing, I just buy whatever I want.”
Xilalite hugged her tablet and answered without even looking up.
“For me, clothes and accessories are the biggest expense.”
Alice’s answer was hardly surprising.
“Mmmah~~ Of course I just buy whatever I want~~”
Shang Mengyou lay sprawled on a balance ball, her two eyes fighting each other, looking like she hadn’t woken up yet.
“…Meow.”
She suddenly widened her eyes, her orange eyes full of disbelief.
“Um… uh, I buy, buy things I like.”
Jiu’s eyes darted around as she stammered.
Bai Qiu nodded and cleared her throat twice.
“I get it now. You all have your own ways of spending money, but…”
Bai Qiu paused and swept her gaze over everyone.
“You don’t seem to understand how hard it is to earn money these days.”
The little magical girls tilted their heads again.
“All your money comes from the Calamity Hearts you get from fighting Monsters, but the more you fight, the fewer Monsters there are.”
“Do you understand what that means?”
“Your money doesn’t come easy, so you must think carefully before spending it.”
“What if one day the Monsters are all gone?”
“What if people no longer need magical girls?”
“But Senpai.”
Li Ai raised her hand.
“According to the Association’s reports, the Monsters can never be fully wiped out.”
“…What? That’s a thing?”
Bai Qiu scratched her head in confusion.
“Yes.”
Li Ai stood up and walked to the blackboard, picking up a marker as she explained.
“Because Monsters are born from humanity’s negative emotions, special entity energy that can only harm the human psyche.”
“As long as there are multiple humans, humans will inevitably produce all kinds of negative emotions.”
“This is what Teacher Bai taught me.”
Li Ai drew a bunch of stick figures, then a dark cloud above them, followed by an arrow above the cloud whose endpoint was the Monster she had drawn.
It had to be said, Li Ai’s drawing skills were rather impressive.
She was fast and good.
It was just that Bai Qiu couldn’t help wondering if something was wrong with Li Ai’s brain.
‘How does she have memories that don’t exist?’
‘When did I ever teach her something like that?’
“Senpai also knows very well that normal weapons can’t harm Monsters.”
“Only magical girls can defeat Monsters and turn them into valuable Calamity Hearts.”
“And magical girls are Miracle Warriors born from the love and hope people crave.”
“Where there is hope, there is despair. Where there is despair, there is hope.”
“The two complement each other, tangled together, just like me and Senpai and Teacher, inseparable.”
Li Ai drew the magical girls on the other side—the five of them plus Bai Qiu—with a bidirectional arrow between magical girls and Monsters.
She wrote “Spiral” on the arrow.
Then she drew another arrow below this pair, with its endpoint being Calamity Heart.
“That’s not wrong…”
Bai Qiu nodded thoughtfully in agreement.
‘Also, did she just say something outrageous?’
Li Ai wrote her conclusion:
“As long as there are multiple people, there will be negative emotions.”
“With negative emotions, Monsters are born.”
“With Monsters, heroes are born.”
“So theoretically, Monsters can never be fully wiped out.”
“Clap, clap, clap.”
Everyone applauded.
Even Bai Qiu joined in.
“I feel like I learned something new.”
“Why doesn’t Senpai know about something like this?”
Xilalite looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“Is it strange that I don’t know?”
“Senpai, this is one of the required courses for magical girl beginners…”
Jiu reminded her in a small voice.
“…Huh? That’s a thing?”
“You guys aren’t messing with me, are you?”
Bai Qiu looked at them suspiciously, but the little magical girls all nodded in unison.
“A-Anyway, even though Monsters can never be fully wiped out, you know how many people you have to compete with just to get one Monster now.”
“And it’ll only get harder going forward.”
“It’ll be normal for you to go ten days or half a month without income.”
“So you must develop the habit of saving money and not spending recklessly, understand?”
Bai Qiu forcibly steered the topic back to how to establish a correct view of money.
She picked up the cocoa Li Ai had prepared on the side.
The warm, silky cocoa flowed slowly down her throat, making her feel especially cozy.
“But Senpai, you’re always donating to virtual streamers and playing those red and green things, always saying you’ve lost millions.”
Xilalite looked up and said.
“Cough, cough, cough!! Cough, cough, cough———!”
Bai Qiu nearly choked herself to death on a mouthful of water.
She pointed at Xilalite with a shaking finger.
“Who, who, who, who said that!?”
“Where, where, where did you even learn this from!?”
If the President found out she was teaching them about things like FX and stocks, it wouldn’t just be a matter of getting beheaded by the President.
She’d also get beheaded online and in real life.
Literally beheaded.
“You say it yourself on stream all the time.”
Bai Qiu took a moment to calm down.
She walked up to Xilalite and rapped her on the head.
“Kids should study hard and watch fewer livestreams.”
“Hand me your account.”
“No.”
Xilalite hugged her tablet tightly.
“No isn’t an option.”
Bai Qiu held out her hand.
“Hurry up, or I’ll tell Brother later and have him give you extra training.”
“I’ll have him train you until you cry!”
“…Hmph!”
Xilalite glared at her and reluctantly handed over the tablet.
“Whoa…”
The moment she opened Xilalite’s profile, the first thing that greeted her eyes was a dazzling array of collections.
Not just the official sets from various periods, but also personally released collections.
She had every magical girl collection under the Magic Association, all fully collected.
Bai Qiu remembered that Xilalite’s official main account, the one for Magical Girl Nox, also had the complete set of magical girl collections.
Based on Bai Qiu’s experience pulling these things, this was no small sum.
Finally, she’d found something she could really lecture her about.
Bai Qiu casually opened a collection to check the pull history, ready to leave her no room to argue back.
“…76 pulls?”
There were 32 cards in total, meaning she’d only pulled about twice the number needed to get them all.
Bai Qiu opened several other sets.
The pull counts basically stayed around two to three times the card count.
The highest was 152 pulls.
Was this even reasonable?
Bai Qiu suspected she was looking at fakes.
‘It has to be Photoshopped, right?’
‘It absolutely has to be Photoshopped!’
‘How could anyone have luck this good!?’
Thinking about how she’d practically whaled through every banner to get the full sets, she couldn’t help but shed tears of envy.
“Senpai, why are you crying?”
“I’m crying because you made me angry.”
Bai Qiu wiped away her tears.
“You, do you even know how hard it is to earn money?”
“And you spend it on gacha pulls.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Xilalite waved her hand.
“Both my accounts combined only cost a few Grade III Calamity Hearts, and I’m really lucky.”
She narrowed her eyes at Bai Qiu with a sly grin.
“If Senpai wants, I could do your pulls too.”
“Of course, for a fee~”
“Ha. You think I need you?”
Bai Qiu snorted dismissively.
‘It’s not like I can’t afford to whale through a banner.’
Bai Qiu had already spent over a million on gacha games alone, not to mention the games she’d already quit.
To her, spending money on games was nothing worth mentioning.
She then checked the fan badge levels on her profile.
This kind of thing was the easiest way to estimate how much someone had spent.
First was the Level 42 Bai Qiu Qiu, with a Legendary Member tag next to it.
She recognized this ID too.
That person was always sending big red packets during the livestream.
After that were fan badges for other senpais, mostly between Levels 30 and 40.
“…Not ‘Does loving Bai Qiu need a reason?’ Hmm…”
Bai Qiu pointed at the screen on the tablet.
“Xilalite, explain this.”
“The money still ends up with Senpai and the Association anyway, and it’ll come back to me in the end.”
Xilalite said nonchalantly.
“I don’t mind you donating to me, but donating this much is not okay.”
“Use your money on something worthwhile.”
“Senpai donates way more to other streamers than I do.”
Xilalite retorted indignantly.
“Is that the same thing?”
Bai Qiu rapped her on the head again and returned the tablet.
“Watch fewer livestreams and read more books from now on.”
“Yees~”
Xilalite rolled her eyes and answered perfunctorily.
Bai Qiu didn’t say much more.
She simply silently noted down the UID of Xilalite’s alt account, planning to block her once this was over.
Even if she was one of her biggest sponsors, she’d still block her, lest she pick up bad habits.
This kind of thing had to be guarded against.
Don’t underestimate kids’ learning ability these days.
Though knowing Xilalite’s personality, she probably had more than just this one alt.
Of course, if Bai Qiu had self-control, she could avoid talking about topics she shouldn’t on stream.
‘But is Bai Qiu with self-control still Bai Qiu?’
Not talking about these topics on stream was indeed great.
But that was the thinking of a loser.
Not talking about it just because you’d get beheaded—what’s the difference between that and already being beheaded?
As the saying went:
‘Better to die in battle and lose the nation than to hand over the empire without a fight.’
“Anyway, that’s it.”
Bai Qiu stood before the blackboard again.
“From what I can see, your views on money are pretty normal.”
“You’re not spending recklessly where you shouldn’t, which is good.”
“Brother and I are both pleased.”
Her phone rang at that moment.
Picking it up, she saw a message from Wuyuzi telling her to go online.
The livestream had been unbanned.
“Then today’s meeting is adjourned.”
“I hope you have some self-control and don’t waste money where you shouldn’t.”
With that, Bai Qiu returned to her own room.
“…Is Senpai really in any position to say that?”
Xilalite muttered unhappily.
“Even I can’t defend Senpai this time.”
“Exactly.”
Alice and Li Ai sighed in unison.
“O-Okay, everyone.”
Jiu stopped everyone from disparaging Bai Qiu.
“I think Senpai is right.”
“We’re all too young and have no concept of money.”
“That’s you, Jiu.”
“Even though you earn the most out of all of us, you’ve sent Senpai more gifts than all of us combined.”
Xilalite pointed out sharply.
“Mm…”
Jiu gripped her phone.
“That kind of thing… everyone sent a lot anyway…”
By the end, her voice was barely audible.
No one said much more.
After chatting for a while, they each returned to their rooms.