Chương 32: The Zhang Family

In front of the temporary cordon outside the mall, Lin Che, who had just deactivated his transformation, looked at the missed calls on his phone screen with a gentle smile in his eyes. As soon as he pressed the call-back button, the call was answered instantly.

"Ache! Where are you now?" Su Yuqing's voice was filled with rapid breathing, and the crisp sound of her heels hitting the ground as she ran could be heard in the background.

"We're queuing for security." He looked at the winding queue ahead, the temporary security tape from the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs standing out prominently in the sunlight.

"Next to the fountain at the west exit."

The sound of clothes rustling came from the other end of the phone, as if she were adjusting her direction while running: "Wait for me for five minutes! No, three minutes! Don't move!"

"Lin Chen's father said they would drive over to pick us up soon, and they should be here soon."

"Slow down, I can't run..."

The call abruptly ended. Lin Che looked at his phone, shook his head helplessly, and chuckled. The image of Yin Xue's disheveled state before flashed before his eyes. She was clearly unsteady on her feet, but the first thing she did after reverting to her original form was to come find him.

Turning our gaze forward, we saw staff from the Bureau of Extraordinary Events scanning each departing citizen with a detector. The instrument glowed blue as it swept over a person—it was checking if anyone was hoarding a Void Beast energy core.

He subconsciously touched his pocket, but his fingertips only touched the cold key. The energy core that he had put in his pocket before transforming had mysteriously disappeared after he turned back, and he had no clue about it.

"Ah Che!"

A familiar voice came from outside the cordon. Su Yuqing stood on tiptoe and waved to him. The hem of her light green dress was stained with fresh mud, and the scrape on her right knee was still bleeding. However, she was tightly clutching a plastic bag full of medicine in her arms.

"Don't rush!" Lin Che felt heartbroken when he saw the wounds on her body and quickly stopped the girl who wanted to crawl through the cordon.

"I'll be out right away."

As the scanner swept over his body, the machine suddenly emitted a sharp alarm.

"Please wait." The staff member frowned and looked at the display screen.

"The system indicates that you have a beast energy reaction on your body."

"Let's try again. It might be a false alarm." Lin Che calmly opened his arms.

"There's no way I could have that kind of thing on me."

The staff nodded and scanned Lin Che's entire body again with the detector. This time, the machine emitted a crisp pass notification sound.

"The anomaly has been resolved; it was indeed a system false alarm." The staff member looked somewhat confused.

"You can go now."

As soon as she stepped out of the cordon, Su Yuqing jogged and stopped a step away from him, her fingers nervously gripping the edge of the plastic bag: "Are you... are you hurt?" She looked up at him, her eyes scanning him up and down.

"A magical girl saved me, and I've been hiding in the storage room ever since, until I just heard the announcement that the infiltration of the Void Realm had ended."

Lin Che casually brushed aside the life-or-death moment, reaching out to take the bag from her arms.

"But you, falling like that, still dared to run so fast?"

Su Yuqing's ears turned red, and she subconsciously tried to cover the injury on her knee: "I was in too much of a rush after I finished shopping..." Her voice grew softer and softer, but her eyes couldn't help but dart into his shirt collar, as if trying to check if the wound on his back had left any marks.

Lin Che sighed, then suddenly squatted down, took out a band-aid from the plastic bag, and unpacked it.

When the dressing was gently applied to Su Yuqing's knee, the girl gasped, not because of pain—the sensation of his fingertips through the thin tape made her heart race.

"You're so clumsy." He lowered his head and blew on his wound, his disdainful tone contrasting sharply with his gentle movements.

"If Xiaoye saw this, she would definitely laugh at you for not being able to walk properly."

"I didn't...!"

Suddenly suspended in mid-air, Lin Che reached out and lifted the girl onto a bench by the roadside.

"Sit down and don't move. Your wound might reopen. We'll wait here for Dad and the others."

Su Yuqing bit her lower lip, wanting to say that compared to the injury on his back, this scratch was nothing, but she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Similar to when she was inside the void bubble, as Yin Xue she couldn't express much concern, but now as Su Yuqing she could only pretend to be unaware. This contradiction made her chest feel tight.

"Give me your hand." Lin Che suddenly unscrewed the cap of a mineral water bottle beside him.

"Your elbow is scraped too."

"Huh?" Su Yuqing then noticed that her elbow was also throbbing slightly. She waved her hand, "It's just a small scratch..."

"Extend your hand."

Su Yuqing reluctantly reached out her hand, and Lin Che carefully rinsed the wound with mineral water and then applied a band-aid.

"Hiding in the storage room..." She tightened her grip on her skirt.

"Aren't you really scared?"

Lin Che paused, recalling Yin Xue's furious shouts when she killed the illusory beast, and her trembling fingertips and suppressed tears as she treated the wound on her back.

She knew he had been hurt and wanted to care for him, but due to her disguise, she could only use clumsy questions to pretend to probe unintentionally. This realization softened his heart.

"That magical girl named Ginyuki said she would protect me." He smiled gently.

"So I'm not afraid at all."

"I see." Su Yuqing saw that Lin Che's expression was normal, and was sure that he had not been affected by his experiences in the Void Realm bubble, so she was completely relieved.

She suddenly rested her forehead on his shoulder.

"Then tell me, who's prettier, me or that magical girl named Yin Xue?"

"..." Lin Che was speechless. He didn't expect that the other party, who had just been concerned about him, would ask such a strange question in the next moment. The topic changed so suddenly that he was caught off guard.

It's clearly the same person, so how should he answer this question?

"You actually hesitated!" Su Yuqing suddenly looked up, her voice sounding accusatory, but her eyes were full of barely concealed amusement.

"Are you captivated by that magical girl?"

"... You're beautiful." He gently flicked her smooth forehead with a sigh.

"Hmph, such a reluctant answer~" she complained, but like a satisfied cat, she quietly snuggled closer to him. When their arms touched, she hugged him tightly as if she had finally found someone to lean on.

"But since you chose me, I'll forgive you!"

Lin Che chuckled softly, "So easily fooled, be careful you don't get tricked."

"That depends on who's doing the coaxing," she muttered softly, burying her face in his shoulder.

A gentle breeze, carrying the warmth unique to late summer, lifted her long, loose hair. Neither of them moved, and they simply nestled together quietly, as if time itself had stood still.

"Feed." After a while, Lin Che suddenly looked down at the koala clinging to his arm.

"How long are you going to keep hugging it?"

"Until the world is destroyed." The girl beside him didn't look up; her voice was muffled, and her warm breath scalded his skin through her clothes.

When she transformed into Starfrost that time, the other party said the same line, but the meaning behind it was completely different.

Lin Che didn't say anything more, just let her hug him. Through the thin fabric, he could feel the girl's heartbeat, which gradually became calmer from the beginning.

Time ticked by, and suddenly the sound of a car braking came from afar. Before a familiar SUV had even come to a complete stop, Lin Chen shoved the driver's side door open.

"Xiao Che! Yu Qing! Are you alright?" His voice trembled slightly with anxiety, and he tried to rush out of the car but was held back by the seatbelt.

Su Yuqing jerked away as if electrocuted, but almost slipped off the bench because of her sudden movement. Lin Che quickly grabbed her waist and braced himself against the back of the bench with his other hand. The two were so close that their breaths mingled.

"Dad, we're alright." Lin Che helped her to her feet and waved to her father.

"It was just a false alarm."

Before she could finish speaking, Su Wanyi rushed over with Xiaoye in her arms. The usually elegant and composed stepmother had disheveled hair and red eyes.

"Are you hurt? Should we go to the hospital?" Her trembling hand touched Lin Che's cheek, then checked Su Yuqing's knee, and tears finally streamed down her face.

"I really just found a place to hide for a while, and I didn't encounter any danger." Lin Che turned around helplessly.

"Look, I didn't even lose a single hair."

"That's good... that's good..." Su Wanyi turned her back, tears already welling up in her eyes. Su Xiaoye, whom she was holding, seemed not to understand the situation yet, and just reached out her little hand in a daze to gently wipe away her mother's tears.

Lin Chen strode forward and pulled his son into his arms. This usually gentle but somewhat unreliable man was now trembling, holding Lin Che so tightly that it hurt.

Lin Che paused for a moment, then hugged his father tightly, burying his face in his shoulder to hide his eyes, which were already brimming with tears.

"Let's go home." Lin Chen's voice was hoarse, his rough hands patting his son's back repeatedly.

"Let's go home."

The SUV was unusually quiet on the return trip; even Xiaoye, who is usually lively and active, was nestled obediently in her sister's arms.

As Lin Che gazed at the rapidly receding street scene outside the window, he suddenly felt his right hand being gently grasped. Su Yuqing pretended to look at the scenery, but her fingertips secretly slipped into his palm.

Lin Che didn't expose her, but took advantage of the bumps in the car to completely wrap her slightly cool hand. The girl's ears turned red again, but she didn't pull her hand away. Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder.

"That's good." He sighed inwardly.

"Being able to return home safely with my family like this is more important than anything else."

May this peace last forever.