Off Work, Then I Become a Magical Girl
Book 2: Chapter 40: Temporary Body

Vol 2 Chapter 40 Temporary Body

When Lin Yun got off the subway and arrived at Emerald’s research lab, he happened to catch sight of Hong Siyu stepping down from the treatment bed, finishing up the day’s session. The Toy Fairy was sitting nearby, still fiddling with something.

Gripping the Heartstone in his pocket, Lin Yun briefly sensed the magic around him, and immediately noticed something different about the magical fluctuations surrounding Hong Siyu. His heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively stepped toward the research lab.

But just before his foot touched the floor, the Toy Fairy at the bedside sensed the magical fluctuation from the runes at the doorway. It looked up at Lin Yun, raised a paw, and made a halting gesture. “Wait a sec, don’t come in yet.”

Lin Yun froze mid-step.

His slightly confused gaze said everything he was thinking. Catching his expression, Emerald didn’t play coy—her puppet’s paw curled, and one finger pointed directly at the Heartstone in Lin Yun’s hand. “Transform first. Don’t come in with your real body.”

Only then did Lin Yun realize he hadn’t transformed into a Magical Girl yet. He stepped back, glanced down both ends of the hallway to make sure there were no eyes or security cameras, and then transformed into Veronica before stepping into the lab.

“Is there some kind of risk if I enter in my real body?”

Activating the rune on the door and shutting it behind her, Veronica asked with a hint of doubt, “I feel like this happened last time too.”

“It’s a bit of a pain to explain, but in simple terms, this room’s space has been partially altered by the Kingdom. It’s in a sort of transitional state.”

Once she saw Veronica had finished transforming, Emerald looked back down, tinkering with the control panel of the treatment bed. “A Magical Girl’s magic body can enter just fine, but if you walk in with your real body, some… unwanted side effects might occur.”

Veronica glanced at Hong Siyu, then casually stepped over to the bed. “Like what?”

“Like your body getting blasted apart by an overload of magic, and turning into a soul-based being.”

The Toy Fairy casually dropped a bombshell. “Or maybe your body becomes so saturated with magic it becomes incompatible with the Material World. You step outside and suddenly you’re missing a few parts.”

“That sounds worse than entering the Kingdom physically.” Veronica raised a brow at the grim picture being painted.

“That’s because the Kingdom is a stable world. The rules between worlds have regulated transition points. But this? This is a makeshift space, far less stable.”

Emerald had no problem admitting her tech still had kinks. Her voice lazy and drawn out, she explained, “You could even think of it as a theft deterrent. If some thief from the Material World tries to break in, chances are they’ll just explode on the spot.”

“…Is this really the kind of defense a Magical Girl should be using?”

“Didn’t you say it yourself before? I’m the Jewel Scepter.” Emerald’s tone didn’t ripple at all.

A person who’s long abandoned their pride can't be hurt by words—clearly, she had no intention of correcting the nickname and instead wielded it like a shield.

And since she put it like that, Veronica didn’t press further and switched topics.

“So, why’d you use the Magic Mirror to call me on my way here?”

The more time Veronica spent dealing with her, the more she understood Emerald’s personality. She no longer tiptoed around her like she did with Chrysoberyl Cat’s Eye. “You should know whipping out a Magic Mirror in public draws a lot of attention. I couldn’t exactly do that. If you picked that timing, it better not have been just for laughs.”

“I’m too old to understand you youngsters’ trends. As for that—well, you’ll have to ask her.”

Dodging with a half-truth, the Toy Fairy gestured toward Hong Siyu. “She can explain.”

That’s when Veronica remembered—she had sensed something off with Hong Siyu’s magical fluctuations the moment she walked in.

It had been a month since Hong Siyu was sent to the Kingdom for treatment after the Moon Festival. After all this time, things should’ve stabilized. Maybe not fully healed, but at least not worse.

But changes in magic fluctuations were often linked to one's True Form. The way they were acting made her feel uneasy.

“Something wrong?” Her first instinct was that the treatment had gone sideways. She frowned.

“No, it’s not exactly that…”

Still in her Magical Girl form, Hong Siyu finally spoke up, hesitantly flipping her Magical Notebook in her hands, her eyes darting everywhere. “It’s just… something came up.”

Veronica glanced at her, then at the Toy Fairy, and asked a bit seriously, “What is it? Did Your Excellency Chief try to charge you some absurd treatment fee?”

“Hey, I can’t just let that slide. That kind of question insults my integrity. I feel deeply wounded.”

Emerald immediately dragged out her words in protest. “Even if I’m desperate for funding, I wouldn’t stoop to scamming my juniors like that.”

“Haha… You’re making the Chief sound so shady, senior.”

Hong Siyu gave a helpless smile and relaxed her grip on the notebook. “It’s actually kind of good news. We were just discussing a plan. If everything goes well, I might be able to return to my real body.”

Veronica blinked at that.

“Return to your real body?”

After a brief pause, she immediately followed up, “Seriously?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit complicated, but we think it’s doable.”

Hong Siyu tilted her head slightly. “But… let’s just say, it might not be a ‘return’ in the usual sense.”

“I get the feeling you’re about to say something that’s going to give me a headache.”

“…You really are a senior. Spot on.”

Hong Siyu nodded with her eyes downcast. “My real body still isn’t fully healed. It’s unstable. So, to go back and live normally, Your Excellency Chief came up with an idea.”

“What idea?”

“To use my True Form as a model… and create a ‘temporary body.’” Hong Siyu said honestly.

Veronica didn’t respond at first. She just stared at her, taking several seconds to process what that meant. Her gaze was too direct, which made Hong Siyu lower her head even further, as if thinking of something embarrassing.

After a long silence, Veronica finally spoke again. “By ‘temporary body,’ you mean literally building a body from scratch and using it as your physical form in the Material World?”

“No wonder you ranked top five in Ability Blooming speed over the last century—your comprehension is amazing.”

Emerald chimed in, her backhanded compliment earning her a cold glare from Veronica, which she brushed off entirely.

“Technically, because Morning Glory’s original body was too heavily damaged by the Ravager, even after removing the Ravager’s concept, there are still too many corrupted organs to restore. Healing will take time and requires her to stay dormant. So we’re giving her a backup body.”

“Sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie,” Veronica said bluntly.

“Don’t underestimate our Kingdom’s research division. Some sci-fi films from the Material World couldn’t dream of what we’re capable of.”

Emerald shook her head, conveniently forgetting she just claimed to not understand “young people things.” “Fiction draws from reality, and the Kingdom’s legends are often where people’s fantasies begin.”

“What about feasibility?”

Veronica asked cautiously, “Is the tech ready? What’s the risk?”

“Mature? That’s not a concern. We perfected bio-fabrication decades ago. We’ve had countless successful applications—not just humans, we can even replicate Fairy bodies to a degree.”

Emerald pointed at her own Toy Fairy form. “The only thing we can’t do is conjure a soul from thin air. All the bodies we create are soulless vessels. But that’s a good thing—it means no ethical concerns. Just a body, no consciousness.”

“Sounds like you’ve had this plan in mind for a while.”

“I won’t deny it.”

Emerald nodded. “You know Morning Glory’s condition is bad, and yours is worse. Fangting City lacks top-tier firepower. As the future holder of the Beast Core, I can’t say I feel safe about this city’s defenses.”

“So you want an injured person to shoulder more?” Veronica frowned.

“Don’t be hasty, Junior. I never said it was a sacrifice. Artificial bodies are safe, with zero load or harm to the user.”

Emerald lifted a paw, trying to reassure her. “I promise Morning Glory won’t be harmed by this. In fact, she’ll benefit—she can immediately start training to stabilize her Flower-tier strength and return to normal life.”

“And what about your own will?” Veronica turned to Hong Siyu.

“It was my idea, and I agreed to it.”

Hong Siyu looked up seriously. “I told you before, Senior. Even if it’s just for a little while, I want to protect this city, protect our juniors—and protect you.”

Veronica quietly held her gaze.

After a moment, she closed her eyes, then opened them with a sigh. “Thank you… and I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. You’ve saved me three times already.”

Hong Siyu gently ran her fingers over the cover of her notebook. “Besides, you know… I’m mostly doing this… for you.”

Her voice was soft, but both Veronica and Emerald heard it loud and clear. Veronica pressed her lips together and turned her gaze away—whether it was embarrassment or something else, she didn’t say. Emerald, meanwhile, let out a playful whistle.

“Ah, youth… it’s a wonderful thing.”

“So?” Veronica turned to Emerald with a deadpan look. “Is there another reason you told me all this? If you just wanted my opinion, I doubt you’d call me mid-commute with a Magic Mirror.”

“Oh, that.”

The Toy Fairy leaned back slightly. “It’s still about the artificial body. To make it fit her best, we’ll model it after her True Form. But, you know… her physical body looks nearly twenty years older than her True Form. If we want the spare body to match the original, some extra tweaks are needed.”

“‘Extra tweaks’... so you’re saying it costs money?” Veronica caught on immediately.

“Yeah, but we can roll it into the Beast Core transaction.”

The Toy Fairy shook its head. “Main thing is, Morning Glory had another idea.”

“…What idea?” Veronica turned to Hong Siyu again.

“I said, maybe we could just save on the extra cost.”

Hong Siyu fiddled with her notebook. “I think it’s fine not to adjust anything. Just use my True Form’s appearance for the spare body…”

“If you want to return to work and daily life, that’s not a corner you should cut.”

Veronica thought it over and seriously suggested, “Since Your Excellency Chief already promised there wouldn’t be any extra cost, there’s really no need for you to worry about that part.”

“It’s not really about the cost…”

Hong Siyu’s voice grew softer and softer. “It’s just… I kinda hope that once I’m back, I can still look like my True Form.”

Veronica instantly understood what she meant.

And honestly, it wasn’t hard to get. Hong Siyu wasn’t the first Magical Girl to express such a desire—others had said the same in the past. The older one gets, as the real body starts to age, the harder it becomes to let go of the youthful look of their True Form.

A Magical Girl’s True Form might not always be the peak of their beauty, but it always radiates youth and energy. Sure, women in their thirties or forties have their own charm, but most still wish to stay young forever—and Magical Girls are no exception.

In fact, there really are Magical Girls who joined the Magic Kingdom for this seemingly silly reason: they couldn’t accept the idea of aging after retirement, so they chose to remain Magical Girls forever.

Hong Siyu wasn’t obsessed to that level, but wanting to look younger was understandable… right?

As she thought this, Veronica caught a strange glance from Hong Siyu out of the corner of her eye—and suddenly she wasn’t so sure anymore.

“I mean, it’s not impossible,” Veronica said after a pause. “But if your spare body looks like your sixteen-year-old self… are you still planning to go back to work at the Countermeasure Bureau?”

Another silence followed.

“I do want to go back,” Hong Siyu said softly.

“…You want to go back looking like this?”

“You promised, didn’t you, Senior?”

Hong Siyu’s voice was gentle. “That when I came back, you’d let me be your secretary.”

“I did promise that, yeah…”

Veronica swallowed hard, inexplicably nervous. “But you’re going to show up at the Countermeasure Bureau looking like you’re sixteen—isn’t that a bit…”

Only then did it dawn on her why they’d called her with a Magic Mirror halfway through her commute.

All that stuff they said before? Just setup. Background info. The real question they needed her to answer wasn’t whether Hong Siyu should accept a spare body—it was whether Director Lin Yun of the Countermeasure Bureau was willing to hire a secretary who looks like a sixteen-year-old girl.

“…Yeah, that’s a no,” she blurted out almost instinctively.

“I think it sounds great. Sixteen-year-old high school girl as the Director’s secretary,”

Emerald chimed in lazily, completely ignoring Veronica’s sharp glare. “Besides, don’t you often transform into a Magical Girl in your real body? Just go to work like that. Elementary schooler Director and high schooler secretary—I bet morale in the Bureau will skyrocket.”

“What the Bureau needs is operational guidance, not flashy idol aesthetics.”

Veronica shot her a cold stare, dismissing the idea without hesitation. “Even if I didn’t care about the rumors this might stir up, what about Hong Siyu’s identity? She can’t just go back under the same name, right?”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

The Toy Fairy clapped its paws together. “Just tweak the resume a bit. Say she’s ‘Hong Siyu’s niece’ who transferred in from Tiandu City to take over her aunt’s job after she got injured. As for the age thing, put down 25. No matter how much people ask, it’s still 25.”

Veronica was utterly speechless at this point.

“Well then, if there are no objections, lie down here. Morning Glory’s case is mostly settled. Now we need to focus on your condition. We still need several therapy sessions to stabilize your injuries.”

Emerald patted the treatment bed and urged her on. “Let’s wrap this up quick—I’ve got work to do on the Beast Core research next.”

As it turned out, all that talk about “stripping down for treatment” was pure nonsense. The procedure didn’t require any nudity at all. Veronica barely needed to prepare—she just had to lie down, let her consciousness blur out for a bit, and the whole process was over.

Even when she left the lab, walking into the hallway with Hong Siyu, she still hadn’t figured out how to say no to this ridiculous plan.

While she was deep in thought, she dispelled her transformation, reverting back to Lin Yun, and entered the elevator with Hong Siyu trailing behind.

The two of them stood alone in the elevator car. Just as Lin Yun was still pondering how to reject their proposal, Hong Siyu suddenly spoke softly:

“Senior… if I’m going to work in the new body, the clothes I used to wear probably won’t fit. I’ll need a new outfit.”

“Size mismatch?”

Lin Yun snapped out of his thoughts, glanced over at her current form, and nodded instinctively. “Yeah, probably need to buy a few new ones.”

“Yes, something more appropriate for how I look now.”

Hong Siyu continued along his train of thought and then added in a much quieter voice, “So… could you maybe help me pick something out?”

The elevator fell silent. The bright white lights above flickered slightly as the floors ticked by, casting a dim and unsteady glow.

After a pause, Lin Yun finally understood what she was really saying—what kind of feelings were tucked inside that simple question. His expression grew a little complicated.

“…I can go with you.”

His voice softened. “But… some things—thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“…I already said, you don’t have to apologize.”

Hong Siyu stared calmly at the blurred reflection on the elevator doors. “Just having you with me is enough.”

Another silence followed. Then came a soft chime as the elevator arrived at the first floor, and the doors slowly slid open.

Outside the office building was the city’s largest shopping plaza. Even just looking through the glass wall from the elevator, one could see the twinkling neon lights.

“Shall we go there?” Lin Yun asked suddenly, eyes still facing forward.

“Yeah, let’s go there.”

Hong Siyu also looked ahead and gave a soft reply.

Their footsteps fell in sync as they walked out through the elevator doors. For the first time in the twenty years they’d known each other, they seemed truly close.

Their hands brushed behind them—one higher, one lower because of the height difference. The lower one lifted slightly in the motion of reaching out… but in the end, the hand pulled back and gripped the hem of her shirt instead, keeping pace with the other as they stepped out into the evening.

Before them, lights and color.

Behind them, quiet and cold.

Human civilization had thrived in this world for over a thousand years. In the modern city, people could be right next to each other—and yet, feel a thousand miles apart.

…

…

Under the same neon lights, walking in the cold winter night, Lin Xiaolu suddenly stopped just outside the shopping plaza, as if sensing something. She turned her head.

At first she looked toward the front entrance in confusion, then backed up a few steps to get a better view.

She stared at two familiar silhouettes, her expression growing even more puzzled.

“What is it?”

Xia Liang, who was carrying a bunch of shopping bags and feeling quite satisfied with their haul, turned to ask.

Lin Xiaolu didn’t answer.

She stepped closer to the entrance, then rubbed her eyes, as if worried she was seeing things. Once she confirmed what she was looking at, she stood frozen.

Then her eyes widened—

And her mouth slowly dropped open.