She was being hunted down, so she became a magical girl.

Xu Ting's hacking talent cannot be described as innate; rather, he is completely clueless.

The orphanage where she grew up was located on the outskirts of Hezhi City, where even accessing the internet was difficult, so it was impossible for her to develop a good foundation in computers.

Knowing some hacking techniques and understanding a little code is already the result of Xu Ting's desperate efforts to catch up on his studies.

However, Xu Ting could understand the code in front of him.

The reason is simple: every piece of code has a comment.

Following the instructions in the annotations, Xu Ting opened the data file corresponding to the fourth hack, which should be what Shao Hua wanted to write in her epitaph.

however--

"The file does not exist?"

Xu Ting looked at the prompt on the screen and said in confusion.

"Could it be that the fourth hacking attempt was just a scrapped case involving Shaohua? Did she ultimately not include the epitaph corresponding to the fourth hacking attempt, which is why the hacking failed?"

"No," someone countered, "Miss Shaohua prepared an epitaph, but it was deleted."

Xu Ting suddenly jumped back a big step.

"Who's speaking?" She warily enveloped her entire body in a magical shield to prevent a sneak attack from the mysterious person.

"It's me, the laptop in your hand." The voice came from the laptop in Xu Ting's hand.

"Hello, I am the spirit of Miss Shaohua's notebook. You can call me Xiaoling."

The laptop's...spirit?

"Are you artificial intelligence?" Xu Ting asked calmly. "Did Senior Shaohua hack into the cemetery system through you?"

The girl's voice came from the laptop's speakers:

"The answer to the first question is no. I am not artificial intelligence; I am a spirit."

"The technological level in the wilderness does not support the development of artificial intelligence technology, and Miss Shaohua cannot understand code at all. I was born thanks to Miss Shaohua's innate magic, [Spirit Enchantment]."

"I sensed traces of the use of the [Wooden Stick] on you, so you should have some understanding of Miss Shaohua's abilities."

"She can attach her magic to objects, giving them unique enhancements, and even giving them sentience like I do."

"However, I am not as mediocre as Mutsuki. Other magical girls can also do that with more effort and magic."

"I am a unique being, imbued with the most magic by Miss Shaohua; I am the super-all-powerful spirit of a laptop!"

He said so much just to prove that he was different from others, and even revealed his master's innate magic.

This spirit is quite similar to a crow in personality...

"That one and only spirit lady..." Xu Ting decided to use the same tactic as with the crow, stroking its fur in the same way.

"You and Senior Shaohua are so close, you must know a lot about her, right?"

"Of course!" The computer screensaver suddenly changed to a pixelated smiley face with a rather smug expression.

"Miss Yunyi, please ask away. I promise I'll answer everything I know!"

As expected, just like Shaohua who left a suicide note, this spirit believed that Xu Ting was Jiang Chenglian.

Shao Hua must have told the artifact spirit what would happen after her death. As long as Xu Ting lies and claims to be Jiang Chenglian, he can easily get the artifact spirit's assistance.

but......

If Xu Ting were to reveal that he was not Jiang Chenglian in the future, his relationship with the artifact spirit would plummet, making it impossible for him to obtain the artifact spirit's assistance.

An artificial...spirit capable of hacking into the cemetery system, if one could obtain her help, would be extremely beneficial for the future.

Therefore, Xu Ting decided to tell the truth:

"I'm sorry, I'm not Yunyi, but her partner."

"Yunyi was severely injured by the magical girls from Tianyi Group and was unable to come here, so she entrusted the token to me and asked me to come here to seek help from Senior Shaohua."

"I never imagined that Senior Shaohua had passed away so soon..."

The computer beeped, then spoke:

"Are you really Yunyi's partner, and not someone from Tianyi Group?"

"Then you must know the organization's name, right? Answer immediately, or I'll activate the self-destruct protocol!"

She gave Xu Ting no time to think and immediately started the timer:

"Three, two, one!"

"I'm a local magical girl, and I haven't joined the egalitarian magical girls' organization yet, so I don't know!" Xu Ting couldn't fabricate information out of thin air, so this was the only answer she could give.

Meanwhile, she secretly reinforced the magic shield around the computer to prevent it from exploding and hitting her.

Xiaoling's reaction to Xu Ting's answer was—

"That's great, you really are Yunyi's partner."

"Miss Shaohua did not formally recruit Miss Yunyi into the organization, so you cannot get the organization's name from Miss Yunyi."

"But if you're from the Tianyi Group, finding out the organization's name isn't difficult."

I somehow managed to pass the test.

However, this was an inevitable result. Xu Ting was indeed not a member of Tianyi Group, so passing the test was not unexpected.

Having passed the test of the artifact spirit, Xu Ting was able to begin asking questions.

She went through the motions, respectfully placing the laptop on the table, and asked:

"Miss Spirit, may I ask what caused Senior Shaohua's death?"

"Did she encounter one of the magical girls from the Tianyi Group?"

"I don't know," Xiaoling replied matter-of-factly.

"Miss Shaohua couldn't possibly fight with my fragile laptop. All I know is that she was injured, but she didn't tell me who did it."

Having not received the answer he wanted to his first question, Xu Ting could only ask a second one:

"Miss Spirit, what is the epitaph that Senior Shaohua prepared for the fourth hack?"

"I still don't know," Xiaoling replied confidently.

"If I remembered this, I would have recovered the file content myself long ago."

Xu Ting took a deep breath and then asked the third question:

"Miss Spirit, what was the reason for Senior Shaohua's eventual self-destruction? What did she discover that led her to claim she knew the truth of the world?"

"I have even less reason to know that," Xiaoling replied even more confidently.

"I'm just a computer, I don't have mind-reading abilities. During the time when Miss Shaohua was depressed, she didn't say a word all day long, so of course I don't know what the truth is."

"How come you don't know anything? You can't answer even one of these three questions?"

Xu Ting clutched her hair in a state of near collapse.

Indeed, crows are the best companions.

At least it knows a lot, and even if it can't give an answer, it will help analyze it instead of directly and confidently saying "I don't know"!

"Miss Magical Girl, I only promised to 'speak frankly,' not that I 'know everything,'" Xiaoling defended herself.

"You can't call me a useless spirit just because of this."

Xu Ting: "...I didn't call you a useless spirit."

"I'm sorry, because Miss Shaohua likes to scold me like that, I just subconsciously thought you scolded me like that too," Xiaoling said apologetically.

So your owner also thinks you're useless?

Xu Ting sighed and said, "I can only sigh in exasperation."

"Then start with what you know."

"Okay, Miss Shaohua was born in a small village in the wilderness. Her father was killed by an evil beast before she was born. Later, the village suffered a famine, and her mother had no choice but to—"

"Excuse me, I didn't ask you to start from such an early point." Xu Ting lowered his hand from his forehead.

"Tell me about what happened after Senior Shaohua entered Hezhi City, Miss Spirit."