Off Work, Then I Become a Magical Girl
Chapter 24: Lin Xiaolu's Memories

That night, the gray-black sky was like ink spilled across the heavens, the moon’s glow hazy, the starlight dim.

Lin Xiaolu lay curled up by the window, gazing quietly into the boundless night.

At some point, Moko had already fallen asleep on the bed’s headboard, its crystalline wings draped over its shoulders, the soft pink fur trembling slightly without making a sound.

From the floor beside the bed, faint rustling of fabric could be heard now and then, a clear sign that someone was tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

“Xiaolu, are you still awake?”

Suddenly, Xia Liang’s voice broke through the darkness of the room.

There was no response. Lin Xiaolu remained silent, pretending not to hear.

“I’m telling you, this outfit is way too tight. It’s uncomfortable to sleep in.”

But Xia Liang had never been one to care about such things. Since no one answered, she simply kept talking to herself. “So… can I sleep naked?”

Any lingering melancholy of the night was thoroughly disrupted by that comment. Lin Xiaolu’s eyelids drooped as she flatly rejected Xia Liang’s request.

At first, she refused without much thought. Then, after a moment, she realized what Xia Liang meant by “tight clothing” and felt even more irritated. “You’re wearing my clothes, sleeping in my room—where do you get all these demands? Do you want me to kick you out to the living room to sleep on the couch?”

“Naked?” Xia Liang blinked, her cheeks reddening.

“Of course with clothes on!” Lin Xiaolu gritted her teeth.

“I was just joking. Besides, what if your family saw me like that?”

“Oh, so you do remember this is my house?”

Halfway through the banter, the room fell silent again.

After a while, Xia Liang pulled her blanket a little tighter around herself, closed her eyes, and spoke softly:

“Hey, Xiaolu.”

“What now?” Since she had already spoken up, she couldn’t keep pretending to be asleep. Lin Xiaolu responded with obvious irritation.

“Do you… not get along with your dad?”

Xia Liang’s question made Lin Xiaolu’s expression freeze.

Still facing away from her, Lin Xiaolu buried her face deeper into the pillow, her voice lowering. “You could tell?”

“Yeah, I got the feeling.”

“I see. But that has nothing to do with you, does it?”

Lin Xiaolu’s voice turned hoarse as she spoke on the topic. “Or are you about to lecture me too?”

“No.”

Xia Liang’s voice was quiet in the night. “I was just a little curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“Your dad cares about you. He actually treats you pretty well.”

“…And how did you come to that conclusion? Just because you two exchanged a few words?”

“It’s not about the words. It’s about his attitude, his expressions.”

There was a rare seriousness in Xia Liang’s voice as she continued, “You can tell whether parents truly care about their children from these small details.”

Silence followed once again.

Lin Xiaolu didn’t respond, seemingly lost in thought, and Xia Liang, for once, didn’t press further.

After a long pause, as if making a decision, Lin Xiaolu finally spoke. “Does he really seem that way now?”

Xia Liang was puzzled. “Now? Was he different before?”

“Of course.”

In the darkness, Lin Xiaolu’s expression was unreadable, but her voice sounded like it was being forced through gritted teeth, carrying a deep, unexplainable frustration.

“You wouldn’t understand unless you saw it yourself—how truly unreasonable he used to be. That cold, indifferent face of his, it was chilling.”

“Since I was a kid, it was always the same—work, work, work. If he wasn’t working overtime, he was attending business dinners. When he was home, he always wore this grim expression, as if nothing in life could make him happy, as if nothing mattered to him. Not even me. All he ever did was sign me up for cram schools, buy me stacks of exercise books, and tell me to study hard.”

“My mom would always tell me to understand him, to forgive him. Even when she prepared a whole feast for the holidays and he called last-minute to say he wouldn’t be home, she never complained.”

“And then one day, she died.”

“She was fine the day before, and then the next day, he suddenly told me she was gone. From then on, it was just him and me. No explanation. No answers. I begged him to let me see her one last time—guess what he said?”

Caught off guard by the sudden question, Xia Liang took a second to react. “Um… he refused?”

“He said, ‘Forget about her.’”

Lin Xiaolu let out a cold laugh, but there wasn’t a trace of amusement in her eyes. “He casually packed up her things, casually called a few people over, casually held a funeral—like it was all just something to get over with.”

“Then, halfway through the memorial, he disappeared—only to be found later, holding some young woman in his arms.”

“Was he really working late all those nights? Did he ever actually think about Mom? I don’t know. But I worried. And I was scared. When I asked him why, he dodged the question. Even when I cried in front of him, he didn’t react. He just kept saying some bullshit about how he was hurting too.”

“So I fought with him. I don’t even remember what we said to each other anymore—I just know I poured all my anger and confusion out at him. And then he slapped me.”

“What was it he said? ‘Who do you think I’m doing all this for?’ Something like that?”

“For who? It sure as hell wasn’t for me. And it sure as hell wasn’t for Mom. Otherwise, why was he holding another woman in his arms just a few days later?”

“They looked so in love before. But the moment she was gone, he turned into someone else. Is that what Mom meant by ‘understanding’ him?”

“So I ran away from home.”

Xia Liang’s eyes widened slightly.

As if suddenly realizing something, she turned to look at Lin Xiaolu’s silhouette. But in the pitch-black room, Lin Xiaolu still had her back to her.

“That’s why I’m not going to ask you why you ran away,” Xia Liang murmured. “Because I know the kind of circumstances that would make someone do that.”

Her voice was muffled, the earlier anger fading into something deeper—though whether it had truly disappeared or simply buried itself further down, it was hard to tell.

“I stayed at a classmate’s house for days. Didn’t go to school, just hid away.”

She continued recounting her past. “Then, at some point, my classmate’s parents must’ve contacted the school. The school told my dad where I was, and he came looking for me.”

“That was probably the first time I ever saw him looking so wretched. Dark circles under his eyes like a ghost, unshaven, unkempt, not even wearing his usual stiff business attire—just an old, shabby jacket.”

“He said, ‘Come home.’ And I thought, after everything, what reason did I have to go back with him?”

“But when I saw him like that, I don’t know why, but I hesitated. Was it pity? Was it resentment? By the time I realized it, I had already, almost involuntarily, taken his hand.”

“Since then, things have been the way they are now. I barely talk to him, and he… he acts like he’s trying to make up for something, playing the role of a ‘good father.’ But that’s all there is to it.”

She let out a long breath, as if finally releasing something, and her words slowed.

“That’s it. That’s the whole story.”

Lin Xiaolu closed her eyes. “Was that boring little story satisfying enough for you?”

Xia Liang didn’t answer immediately. At some point, she had loosened her grip on her blanket, her expression distant, as if lost in thought.

After a while, she lowered her gaze and softly replied, “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Lin Xiaolu pulled the blanket up, covering half her face. “I’m going to sleep.”

The room fell into silence. Soon, steady breathing came from Lin Xiaolu’s bed—only Xia Liang remained awake on the floor mattress.

She no longer cared about the tightness of her clothes, nor the poorly made bedding she and Lin Xiaolu had set up together.

She murmured something—too soft for anyone else to hear.

And finally, in the dim midnight stillness, Xia Liang drifted into sleep.