126: Chapter 126 The Magical Girl Who Sells Out Instantly

A few days later.

Su Bai stood at the entrance of the card-making room, watching the person who walked out of the bathroom.

Her hair was not yet fully dry, with a few damp strands of black hair clinging to the sides of her cheeks. Her skin was so pale it was almost transparent, like a plant that had grown in a dark corner and was being moved into the sunlight for the first time. Her features were excessively delicate; a trace of the indifference she had possessed in the underground arena still lingered in her brows and eyes, but paired with this face, it had instead become a cold, aloof sense of distance.

Her figure was slender, wrapped in the white shirt Su Bai had casually handed her.

The shirt was a bit large, with the neckline slipping below her collarbones.

Su Bai was silent for three seconds.

"...Who are you?"

"Qin Ye."

"I know you're Qin Ye. My question is, what's going on with your face?"

"I don't know." Qin Ye looked down at her hands, which were no longer wrapped in bandages. Her fingers were slender and her joints prominent, and the dark gold gear patterns beneath her skin were still slowly rotating. "The medicine you gave me. And those system rewards. I soaked for three days. A layer of skin peeled off. And when I came out, I was like this."

Su Bai turned his head to look at Kyubey, who was crouching on the sofa.

Kyubey tilted its head.

[The body remodeling potion from the system rewards, combined with the nano-repair fluid formulated by Researcher Yun Zhi, has produced results within the estimated range. Her previous appearance was masked by muscle atrophy and long-term malnutrition; now, it has simply been restored to the gene's original expression level.]

"Could you have told me about this in advance?"

[You didn't ask.]

Su Bai swallowed the retort that had risen to his lips.

Fine.

In any case, he had already seen enough absurd things to fill an encyclopedia. From Kyubey to Magical Girl to Time Stop to Stand, now there was an extra wild dog girl he had picked up from the underground arena, who turned into a beauty who could be an idol after a three-day medicinal bath—

That was probably just daily life.

Qin Ye rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, her movements still possessing that crispness from the underground arena, without any wasted motion. She raised her eyes to look at Su Bai, and there was no ripple in those eyes despite her restored appearance.

"When is training?"

"Rest today. We start tomorrow."

"Okay."

Qin Ye walked to the sofa and sat down, picking up the Stand Card on the table and examining it over and over. The dark gold beetle pattern glinted at her fingertips, perfectly synchronized with the breathing frequency of the gear patterns on the back of her hands.

Kyubey's tail swished slowly twice.

[Heart rate stable. Blood pressure normal. Mental Power density has increased by another three percentage points compared to three days ago. Su Bai, the wild dog you picked up has better aptitude than estimated.]

"...Don't call her a wild dog."

[She calls herself that.]

"That was before." Su Bai walked to the card-making table and sat down, opening his notebook. "Now she is my partner."

Qin Ye lifted her eyelids to glance at him.

She said nothing.

She lowered her head and went back to looking at the card.

His phone suddenly vibrated.

It wasn't a group chat, but a private message from Lin Xiao. Su Bai tapped the screen, and a line of bold text with an exclamation mark hit his retinas directly.

[Lin Xiao]: [Su Bai, have you seen the news!! Tianbao Pavilion has gone crazy!!!]

[Su Bai]: [Haven't seen it yet. What's wrong?]

[Lin Xiao]: [Go look for yourself!! It's on the homepage of every platform!!]

Su Bai opened his browser.

In the top ten trending searches, he occupied six of them alone.

The title of the first one was: Tianbao Pavilion & Lins Chamber of Commerce Joint Release — First Batch of One Million Kyubey Cards Released Simultaneously Nationwide. Second: Magical Girl Frontline Combat Highlights, Over 8 Billion Views Across the Internet. Third: Live Coverage of the Imperial Capital Tianbao Pavilion Flagship Store Opening, Queue Exceeds Ten Thousand.

He tapped on the third one.

The video was filmed at the entrance of the Tianbao Pavilion weapons flagship store in the Imperial Capital. The camera panned from the store entrance all the way to the street corner, and then from the street corner to the next block; the frame was filled with dense crowds of people. The darkening sky was lit up like daylight by countless magic light signs, and the queue snaked from the store entrance to the end of the line of sight. Security personnel were holding megaphones, shouting themselves hoarse to maintain order, their voices already cracking.

The vast majority of people in the queue were girls.

There were people of all ages. Young adventurers in combat suits, students carrying school bags, noblewomen with handbags, and there were even several white-haired grandmothers squeezed in the middle of the line, holding support fans printed with Kyubey patterns.

A reporter shoved a microphone in front of a girl with twin tails.

"Excuse me, what time did you come to line up today?"

"Yesterday afternoon! My best friend and I took turns holding the spot!" The girl with twin tails had eyes that were frighteningly bright. "All six sisters from our guild came! Our guild leader was surrounded by three fifth-tier monsters at the Abyss Front last week; she signed a Kyubey contract on the spot and became a Magical Girl, and she chopped all three monsters down by herself! Pink! Fluffy skirt! Super cute! And her combat power was off the charts! Since that day, I swore that I must have my own Kyubey Card in this lifetime!"

"Do you not mind... the side effects?"

"soul gem transformation? That's not a side effect, okay!" The girl with twin tails rolled up her sleeve, revealing a fresh scar on her arm. "This life was already salvaged. Trading a soul gem for an immortal body plus independent spellcasting plus exclusive magic—what do you call this? This is a benefit!"

The reporter turned the microphone to a man wearing glasses next to her.

"Excuse me, are you also here to buy a magical girl card?"

The bespectacled man pushed up his glasses, his expression extremely serious.

"I'm here to line up for my girlfriend. She's working the night shift and can't make it."

"Then you aren't considering—"

"I've already bought one." The man's voice was extremely low. "I placed the order secretly last night. Chose anonymous delivery. Don't tell my girlfriend."

Before the reporter could ask more, a large man wearing Berserker armor snatched the microphone directly.

"I'm here to buy my third one! The first one is for myself, the second for my wife, and the third for my daughter! A whole family of Magical Girls! When we go out to fight monsters, the family of three transforms—just imagine that scene! Three pink and tender sisters! The enemies will die of laughter before they even make a move!"

The bullet comments exploded the moment this interview aired.

[A whole family of three pink sisters, hahaha]

[Abyss monsters: Why are there three times the Magical Girls on the other side???]

[Berserker uncle, are you sure you don't just want to complete the set yourself]

[The tone was so proud when he said the first one was for himself, hey]

[Pass it on, Magical Girls are a family business]

Su Bai swiped to the next news item.

A replay of the internal press conference of Tianbao Pavilion. In the camera, Young Master Qin Mo stood behind the podium, in a crisp suit, his hair combed even shinier than when he came to his house last time. On the holographic screen behind him, a line of gold-stamped characters scrolled—Kyubey Card first batch pre-order volume: 6 billion.

Qin Mo opened his mouth toward the camera, closed it, and opened it again.

Then he cried.

It wasn't acting; tears rolled directly out of his eyes, streaming down his well-maintained young face. He wiped them with the back of his hand, but the more he wiped, the more unstoppable they became. The butler beside him handed him a handkerchief, but he didn't take it. The shutter sounds of the reporters under the stage rang out like a barrage.

"I—I estimated it would be in the top three for the whole year." Qin Mo's voice was trembling, completely lacking the composure he had during the negotiation at Su Bai's house last time. "I thought that no matter how good the Kyubey Card was, with the side effects there, just reaching the top three on the annual list would have been like the ancestral graves smoking with good fortune. As a result, on the first day, 6 billion. This number has already exceeded Tianbao Pavilion's total weapon sales for the entire last year. And this is just the first day; there will be a second batch tomorrow, a third batch the day after, and the military has an additional order of 80,000 cards—"

He took a deep breath and wiped his face fiercely with his sleeve.

"On behalf of all my colleagues at Tianbao Pavilion, I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Su Bai. It was his trust that gave Tianbao Pavilion the opportunity to act as the agent for this epoch-making Rainbow Card. It was also his system that gave countless front-line soldiers an extra life. Thank you, Mr. Su Bai. Really, thank you."