I slept soundly.
Liya opened her eyes.
The blinding light streamed in from beyond the imperfectly drawn curtains, drawing a golden line across her vision.
“Is it… morning already?”
Just like every morning since she returned here, she lay on the bed, watching the sunlight outside, and her first thought was to wonder what kind of dream she had.
She was eager to remember what she had dreamt the night before, and even more eager to remember what she had been thinking the night before.
But she couldn’t recall anything.
It was simple…
She knew she hadn’t dreamt at all. She hadn’t dreamt of returning to the past with him, nor had she dreamt of a future where he was still alive.
“As expected… today is still…”
She touched her chest, clenching the fabric of her clothes tighter and tighter.
Her heart was beating, blood was flowing through her veins, and the witch’s magic circuit should have circulated throughout her body with this blood, but—
Every day she woke, she only felt the deathly silence of her magic circuit.
Each morning she woke from her dreams, she could feel it growing quieter than before. Liya had experienced a similar feeling; even Blood Mint Essential Oil couldn’t stimulate the surge of blood…
The last time she saw Will’s photo in the newspaper, she remembered what Will had called this physical reaction.
Withdrawal.
The severing of something she had always relied on, and at the moment of its loss, her body felt like a source had been cut off.
But…
Today it was particularly severe, more severe than any other day, so much so that even though she had already sat up in bed, she still felt like doing nothing.
She wanted to curl back into the quilt, holding her own cold feet.
“It’s okay, it’s okay… just like the last few days… as long as… as long as I look at what he left me…”
Liya’s right fingers rubbed the two rings stacked on her ring finger. One ring was a little wider than her ring finger and fit loosely, so she always wore it on the outside.
She quickly put on her clothes to feel less cold, because Meilin would be here soon – she had never been late, so she couldn’t just wear a blanket like before.
Once you have experienced the “blood boiling” within your heart, felt the magic circuit surging, felt…
The feeling of a heartbeat.
You can no longer accept a self that is sensorily dull, indifferent, and gradually numb to everything.
You just keep…
Liya hurriedly opened her bedroom door.
Keep…
“Mission… mission… mission…”
She muttered, her steps still a bit unsteady after waking up, as she walked towards the slightly messy experiment table where her notes were kept.
Keep…
Next, she looked at the mirror – not at her own exhausted appearance reflected in one side of the mirror, but staring intently at the piece of paper taped to the other side.
As if drawing enough energy, enough blood, and enough memories from it, she reached out and took down the paper.
Continuously searching for the few things left that could reignite her passion, revitalize her soul, and wake her up again.
“…Today… today, what ‘mission’ should we… should we complete? Will…”
Her eyes regained their sparkle, her voice carried a pathological yet loving tone, and the corners of her lips curled into a smile as she quickly read the words on the paper—
[Mission 505: Teacher Liya attempts to assemble wax blocks and wicks. Considering this is work that the witches have never attempted before, new challenges may arise, such as the secondary processing of wax blocks. Proceed to mission 506]
[Mission 506: For secondary processing of wax blocks, to be able to cut and hollow them out, does it require magic like Brilliant Light, Silent Sound? Or even stronger magic?]
Thump thump thump thump.
Liya could hear her heart beating again, could feel the blood rushing madly through her veins.
The calm narration before her, yet with a warm temperature of care in the text.
It was no longer “predicting the future,” but “guessing the future,” offering countless possibilities to describe the problems she was facing and her potential state.
Just by reading these few lines, Liya felt as if…
As if she could imagine him actually by her side, giving her these suggestions, biting the end of a ballpoint pen, and thinking about the solutions and answers to the problems they encountered together.
As if he were standing beside her, his body already much taller than hers, leaning slightly forward, his arm inadvertently brushing past hers as he thought, writing down his thoughts on the paper.
Then he would pick it up and ask her if that was the best course of action.
Just by looking at the mission and this image flashing in her mind, Liya felt that her once-lost magic circuit had once again ignited her fingertips.
“Yes, that’s right. We can… we can do this, let’s together…”
She turned around.
Of course…
Will wouldn’t be in the laboratory. This was all just her beautiful imagination to make her magic circuit flow again.
Liya took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and calmed down slightly. Her tone and her eyes returned to their usual appearance.
“It’s really laughable. In this world where he… where he is no longer… I am… I’m using the missions left by my students to… to support myself moving forward.”
She seemed to understand.
Why her physical condition was best, most like her old self, during the previous few days, especially after completing the mission to create wax blocks, and why, as she moved towards the next mission, this tide of excitement and surging magic circuit quieted down again.
And why, every morning when she woke up, it was always the coldest and most desolate time for her, and why she needed to look at the mission before her every day to ignite her inner self.
“I… I am relying on the thrill of completing each mission you left behind… to… to find the feeling of you being by my side, to avoid the withdrawal reaction from before?”
—Just like how she had previously thought of tricking Will into coming to her side, tying him up, and injecting him with witch’s blood.
—But now she couldn’t tie up a real person.
—So she could only move forward step by step, clinging to the heaviest and most profound thoughts he had left behind.
Having reached this conclusion, Liya could find no reason to deny it.
Damn it.
Today, she had such a strong reaction again, all because Meilin had asked her yesterday… asked her if she had ever had a student.
She had been thinking about it since she lay down in bed last night.
She had even thought she would have a beautiful dream like that—but she hadn’t!
If… if she hadn’t mentioned it, at least… at least she had already moved on from living in a state of constant illusion.
“As expected, these missions were written by someone who could make Liya’s magic circuit move again?”
Suddenly, a voice emerged from behind her, the voice of the person who had led her into this state.
And she even used very ambiguous and strange descriptions to describe it.
“You… why are you suddenly…”
“Mm. Because Liya, you never lock the laboratory door from the beginning. I noticed it on your first day here. As a witch, not locking the laboratory isn’t a good habit.”
Meilin pointed to the door obediently.
Liya’s laboratory door had indeed never been locked, as she lived inside, and Lis also lived nearby. Even witches from the witch’s lair wouldn’t be so foolish as to mess with them.
Of course, more importantly… when she was at school, she was always the last one to leave the laboratory, and there was no one else there when she left.
And someone would always lock the door for her after she left, even if she forgot.
Meilin, standing before her, had not called… had not called her “teacher” just now?
She hadn’t felt Meilin enter at all.
Even though she had been so… so “immersed” in the “mission” before her, she absolutely should not have failed to notice a “normal student” entering.
“Meilin, you…”
“Is this also the reason why your magic circuit’s highest energy point… has dropped so low?”
—Unless she wasn’t a “student.”
—Unless she wasn’t a “student” from the beginning.
Liya nervously placed her hand on the Staff of Ancient Flames beside her. The metal staff clanged against the cabinet next to it as it moved.
“No need to be nervous. I was brought by Lis. You should trust your mother.”
She seemed to have stopped “acting” now. Whether she called Lis’s name or Liya’s name, she used no honorifics, addressing them directly.
“You… Who exactly are you?”
Liya felt she should have realized it sooner.
Witches couldn’t tell their age from their appearance, and it was easy to hide the total amount of their magic power. But Meilin’s red hair was there. Compared to hers and her mother’s gradually reddening hair tips, one could have guessed long ago that her experience and strength were above theirs.
So…
Her mother sent someone like this for…
Meilin walked around the laboratory a bit, then precisely crouched down and pulled out an entire box from under an experiment table…
Blood Mint Essential Oil.
To be precise, it was the “remaining” Blood Mint Essential Oil.
“This thing is very useful as a catalyst for our magic circuit. Although the side effects are quite unpleasant. However, I noticed it before. If you were to use it, why… were more than ten bottles used up on the same day, and then… half of them were left?”
Meilin, standing before Liya, spoke in the same tone as when she was “playing” the student, but her words were analyzing Liya.
“…”
Liya bit her lip.
“Well… let’s not talk about that for now. Your problem is actually very serious.”
Meilin picked up a raw wax block they had previously refined from the experiment table. It had not yet undergone secondary processing and was twisted in shape.
“To process this, as you said, let’s first try to use flame magic that can process it.”
