RBCT Chapter 102 This "Little Matter"
Chapter 102 This "Little Matter"
"Ughhhh, why do I have to hear all this?! Is this really something I should be listening to?!"
Inside the private room of the coffee shop, Noah and Shui Li had already left because they had other business to attend to, leaving only Li Mengling and Fu Ping behind.
Li Mengling held her head in frustration. She was currently wearing glasses and had returned to her former state as a college student.
Fu Ping calmly took a sip of juice—she's a child now and doesn't like the taste of coffee, so she ordered a small pitcher of orange juice.
"It's really not a big deal, you just need to keep it a secret."
"I was just passing by! It feels like you four kings are trying to carry a bronze player like me!" Li Mengling looked at the empty coffee cup in front of her and sighed. "Look at the expression on Senior Noah's face when she left. She was clearly saying, 'If you dare to tell anyone, you're dead.'"
"I never imagined that Senior Fennel had this kind of personality before," Floating Duckweed joked.
"I don't have as much experience as the other 'me,' she has 10 more years of personnel experience than me!"
"Well, you're at least 19 years old. The memories I'm currently acquiring only show me as a 16-year-old. Even by today's standards, I'm much younger than you."
"...Waaah." Li Mengling seemed to be hurt and lowered her head, no longer speaking.
"Hey... forget it, you should just back down. Can you let the other Li Mengling speak up?" Fu Ping looked at the other person speechlessly.
Li Mengling nodded and then took off her glasses.
The next instant, her aura changed; besides a sharp glint in her eyes, her expression also carried a hint of helplessness—
"...What is the other me anyway? You're making a big fuss over such a small thing."
The contrast between before and after almost made the duckweed burst out laughing.
"I know you two have very different personalities... but... you call this a 'minor matter'?"
"Yes." Li Mengling leaned back on the sofa behind her. "I'm different from all of you. At least I deduced part of the inside story, so I'm not that surprised."
Reasoning? Can this kind of thing be reasoned out?
"Then tell me, how did you discover it?" Floating Duckweed became a little interested.
"It's mainly because I joined the team early, plus my 'rebirth' method." Li Mengling picked up the coffee pot on the table and poured herself a fresh cup of hot coffee.
"After my rebirth, the cloned body with the imported memories sometimes showed discrepancies between its human form and its magical girl form. This is because my cloned body was only created a year ago, but its appearance was artificially accelerated to look like that of a 15 or 16-year-old."
"The true age of a magical girl is based on her soul, so a cloned human body with a 1-year-old soul cannot awaken on its own and can only be awakened artificially."
"If a magical girl's appearance age after transformation is below 10, her appearance will be forcibly changed to 10 years old. So my state after transformation is rather strange—before transforming, I am 15 or 16 years old, and after transforming, I become 10 years old. This is basically the same as the captain's situation."
"In addition, I joined the team early, so I witnessed the captain grow from around 12 years old to 18 years old."
"The core of this matter is that the age of a magical girl's appearance, as long as it is not less than ten years old or more than eighteen years old, will definitely reflect her true soul age."
"In other words, Lingbo is indeed only 10 years old. And the fact that the captain was able to awaken herself at the age of 23 is probably because her soul was actually only a little over 10 years old."
"Furthermore, my method of 'resurrection' is through the implantation of memories. There is currently no way to modify 'memories.' Even the strongest known mental connection, the magical girl's compassionate connection, can only change personality, not memories."
"However, the source of memories may not be one's own actual experiences."
"It's like my memories are actually the experiences of the 'previous' Li Mengling, even though I myself never experienced them, I still see them as things I did."
“Indeed,” Fu Ping scratched her head, “it’s no wonder you could deduce that… because the captain’s situation is somewhat similar to yours. But in comparison… the captain’s situation is different from ‘memory implantation,’ even more outrageous.”
Li Mengling picked up her cup and took a sip of coffee. "Actually, what surprised me most wasn't the captain's situation. What I'm more concerned about is the methods of brainwashing and corruption..."
"I was also surprised by this... The so-called corruption and brainwashing... is actually the manifestation of the magical girl's loving heart." Fu Ping rested her chin on her hands. "After all, in the eyes of the outside world, Ci Ai has been dead for 10 years. Who would have thought that this kind of thing could still involve her?"
"It's all about 'changing personality,' it's just that no one considered that possibility at the time."
Li Mengling finished her coffee and then refilled it.
"The solution to this whole thing lies with the person who created it—if Captain Noah hadn't reacted so strongly to Senior Ji Xia back then, none of this would have happened, would it?"
"That sounds nice, but if it were you, could you be so calm?" Fu Ping seemed to understand Noah a little better.
"I might be a bit more pragmatic. After all, in the time I've known Ji Xia, she has never done anything bad and has always stood by Noah's side... You could say that apart from Yi Luoxin, she is the best person to Noah."
"That's probably why Captain Noah hates her so much," Fu Ping sighed. "If it weren't for the deep bond they'd built up over so long, she probably wouldn't have that kind of attitude. That's why Noah is so determined not to let Ji Xia join the team in this era. If her past self had built such a deep bond with Ji Xia again, the outcome would probably have been the same."
"Then let's just tell Lingbo directly," Li Mengling decided, ready to take the plunge. "Anyway, she and Ji Xia are just ordinary family now, right?"
"...If you dare to do that, the captain will chop you up." Fu Ping rolled her eyes at her. "Isn't the captain's meaning obvious? The best outcome is, of course, to keep Ling Bo completely in the dark about this! If it's really impossible to hide it, we need to control her and Ji Xia's feelings for each other so that they don't end up hating each other to death."
"Well... anyway, I still feel quite sorry for Senior Ji Xia." Li Mengling brushed her bangs aside. "As for Yi Luoxin... well, there's nothing to sympathize with."
"It seems we have completely opposite views." Fu Ping downed her glass of juice in one gulp. "I think Senior Ji Xia deserved it, but Senior Noah also has to take responsibility for Yi Luoxin's matter."
"Please, in that situation, who could have imagined that Yi Luoxin would do such a thing? I think Senior Noah's actions were perfectly reasonable."
Then, the two sides began a relatively harmonious discussion on this issue.
They didn't leave until all the drinks in the coffee pot and juice jug were gone.