Chapter 239: Ke Mingqing VS Half-Witchified Ember

The corridor was dead silent.

In the thick, deathly absolute silence, the magical girl Ember slowly raised her head, unmoving as she locked eyes with Ke Mingwei.

Ke Mingqing was a much more pitiful sight. Squatting on the floor like an awkward third wheel, he swept up cigarette ash with his left hand while his other wrist draped limply over his knee.

He just tilted his head back and silently watched the father and daughter, looking like a Japanese street punk.

'Good grief...' he sighed inwardly. 'Could these two be any more stubborn?'

After a while, the corridor remained dead silent, so Ke Mingqing finally spoke up. "Dad throwing cigarette butts around is one thing, but could you magical girls please not transform right in the middle of a hallway? It's seriously uncivilized."

He paused, muttering, "How do you think that makes us superheroes feel? We have to sprint all the way to a train station just to grab our gear, and we have to pay to maintain our suits out of pocket."

His words fell on deaf ears. Ember and Ke Mingwei remained silent, locked in a staring contest like two stubborn grade-schoolers refusing to blink, neither willing to look away.

Just as Ke Mingqing opened his phone's stopwatch to time how long they could keep this up, Ke Mingwei finally spoke. "Witch..." he said, his expression dark. "Why are you pretending to be my daughter?"

Ke Mingqing froze.

Ember startled slightly as well, her eyes widening beneath her bangs.

Dead silence reclaimed the corridor.

"You've gotta be kidding me..." Ke Mingqing stared at his father, dumbfounded.

'Dad, are you seriously still holding a grudge over your daughter shooting you at the train station?' he thought.

It wasn't surprising that Ke Mingwei harbored some resentment over that incident—after all, his own son was the one who had taken that bullet in his place.

Because of that, he genuinely couldn't fathom that the magical girl who had pulled the trigger back then was his own daughter, Xia Zili.

In his eyes, the magical girl Ember was nothing more than a highly volatile, murderous, and irrational super-human species criminal who had slipped under the radar. Naturally, his first instinct was to completely deny what was right in front of him.

After a long moment, Ke Mingqing lowered his head, closed his eyes, and pressed his palms together as if in prayer.

He let out a long sigh and muttered softly, "Dad... you're on your own."

Ember stood frozen for a long, long time. After another stretch of silence, she tore her gaze away from Ke Mingwei's face.

The corners of her mouth twitched stiffly, as if she were trying to smile but couldn't quite manage it. Finally, she pursed her lips and took two steps back, pressing her back against the wall. She lowered her head and took a deep breath. A ripple of magic expanded from the soles of her feet, and in the next instant, she shot away from the rooftop.

Only then did Ke Mingwei suddenly freeze.

He watched the girl's vanishing silhouette and slowly lowered his head. His mind replayed the look on her face just a moment ago—indignant, heartbroken, and full of childish stubbornness.

For many years, he had seen that exact same expression on a certain girl's face. And then, finally, it clicked.

"...Xiao... Li?" he murmured, genuine shock bleeding into his belated realization.

"Bingo, Dad! Did your thick skull finally crack open? Could you really not tell that the magical girl I was talking about was my sister?"

Ke Mingqing groaned in exasperation. He silently unclasped his hands, abandoning his prayers for the old man. Honestly, the fact that Ember hadn't instantly put two bullets in Ke Mingwei's head was probably a miracle born from those very prayers.

"How is that possible..."

Ke Mingwei stumbled backward, murmuring hoarsely as a complex array of emotions twisted his expression.

It was hard to tell if it was shock, fear, or anger—anger at himself for failing to piece together his own daughter's identity sooner. Finally, the older man squeezed his eyes shut in a hard frown, his shoulders slumping as he backed against the wall.

He buried his forehead in his hands, his veins bulging, and closed his eyes.

As the world went dark before his eyes, his chaotic thoughts suddenly cleared. Memories flooded his mind: the harsh things he had said at the dinner table so long ago, and Xia Zili's explosive reaction to them.

It explained why his daughter had suddenly changed into a completely different person after puberty, constantly locking herself in her room and refusing to talk to the rest of the family.

It explained why the magical girl Ember, who normally kept everyone at a hostile distance, would go out of her way to look out for the superhero Blue Pigeon. It explained why she had crossed the city alone to save him when he was abducted by a Clock Maker copycat.

In this moment, all the confusing, tangled threads from the past seemed to finally find a logical outlet.

But that outlet pierced straight into Ke Mingwei's heart. Those clues fell like sledgehammers, violently battering his chest over and over again. He could almost hear a fierce ringing in his ears.

A long moment passed before Ke Mingwei finally opened his bloodshot eyes, shaking his head to toss away the chaotic thoughts.

He took a deep breath, looked up at Ke Mingqing, and asked, emphasizing every word, "A'Qing... since you knew about this, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Ke Mingwei's tone was incredibly heavy, carrying a trace of blame. Yet even that hint of blame was drowned out by the sheer bewilderment on his face.

"Because I didn't know before either!"

Ke Mingqing stated matter-of-factly, "Besides, if she hadn't transformed right in front of you, would you have actually believed me if I just told you?"

Ke Mingwei had no answer to that.

He hung his head in silence for a long while before furrowing his brow. "Where's Xiao Li? Where is she? I have to go find her right now."

"Whoa, don't, don't, don't!" Ke Mingqing hastily stopped him. "Do not go after her right now. I'm afraid she won't be able to resist putting two bullets in you. Let me coax her first, then we can think about setting up a meeting between you two."

"But—"

"No 'buts.' She hates you right now." Ke Mingqing paused, then suddenly said, "She used to hate me this much, too."

With that, he dusted the cigarette ash off his palms, pushed himself up from the floor, and quickly strode out onto the rooftop.

The young man stepped onto the railing and leaped, his body turning into a bolt of dark blue lightning that plummeted straight down.

Listening to the roar of lightning fade into the distance, Ke Mingwei stood entirely alone in the empty corridor, his head bowed.

He leaned against the wall, gazing down at the faint trace of ash left on the floor. He stood in silence for a long time before his body slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.

There was only one place Ke Mingqing could think of where his sister would go after getting her heart broken. He sprinted down the long street like a storm of wind and lightning. The areas he ran through grew increasingly dilapidated and filthy, the ground gradually covering with dust and sand.

It wasn't long before he stopped in front of the abandoned train station.

Ke Mingqing slowed his pace, the arcs of electricity on his body slowly fading away. He stepped into the familiar railway tunnel, following the edge as he walked forward, but after a moment, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He heard crying coming from the depths of the darkness. It was an incredibly eerie sound—an intermittent, hitching sob that sounded exactly like a deeply wronged child weeping.

"Little Grey...?"

Ke Mingqing froze for a moment, the name slipping out almost instinctively.

He snapped his head up. In that moment, all the lights in the entire tunnel flickered on, their dim, yellow glow washing over his thin frame like a tide.