Miss Witch, even if we're poor, we can't sell ourselves!

Back in the ward, Mi Ye barely slept a wink all night.

Let's get down to business first.

She used her communicator to search through the MikuFans knowledge area and then browsed into the Tsukimori internal academic database.

Meredith's letter of recommendation came with temporary access to an academic database, which came in handy, and the information she found gave her a completely new understanding of the two abilities she had awakened yesterday.

A regular "flash" is the moment when a branch of the magic system breaks through.

Bie Chenye taught her that inspiration triggers enlightenment, enlightenment triggers a flash of insight, and after the flash of insight, one will master new magical skills.

This is a moment that every witch will experience on her path to growth; the only difference lies in the number of times and the quality of those moments.

Meredith triggered multiple flashes of light with her talent [Analysis], resulting in seventeen spells that were included in textbooks, which is already considered genius-level.

Yesterday, Mi Ye triggered two flashes of light in one go. One was [Giant Devour], which came from the main branch of flesh magic.

Another time was the [Blood Fairy], the reflection from the depths of her consciousness that inexplicably dragged her into the black pool.

She searched for the phrase "God's Flash," but the search results were extremely scarce.

The Moon Forest's database contains only a few encrypted records, most of which are marked as insufficient permissions.

However, a publicly available academic review mentions this concept. The author is Meredith himself, and it was published in a conference paper seven years ago with the title "A Preliminary Exploration of the Multidimensional Classification and Anomalous Variations of Flashes".

It took Miya almost an hour to finish reading this paper.

Meredith's writing style is as rigorous as ever, almost to the point of being grating, but the conclusion is very clear.

The Flash of God is an extreme variant of the Flash.

If a normal flash of light is a breakthrough within a branch of the magic system, then a divine flash is an epiphany that can make even the gods take notice.

The difference between the two is not just in strength, but also in their properties.

A normal flash means "you understand," while a divine flash means "you have touched a higher level of existence and received a response."

This response brings an additional blessing, a power beyond the scope of normal magical systems, often bearing the characteristics of divine remnants.

Miya put down the communicator and stared at the thin crack in the hospital room ceiling illuminated by the moonlight. Suddenly, she felt a chill on the back of her neck.

The reflection in her mind, the person who looked exactly like her but was beyond her control, the thing that reached out from the black pool of water and pulled her down...

Mi Ye re-examined the description of [Blood Fairy] on the panel.

The scarlet flower that blooms when a powerful life form dies, nourished by its remaining will and vitality. The deeper the fear and pain endured before death, the more grotesque and twisted the flower becomes.

Tentacles, swarms of insects, empty lice, heirs of the queen.

This blessing exudes an eerie beauty from beginning to end.

No wonder Bie Chenye said that flesh magic is an unpopular and marginalized branch of magic, as this kind of power itself is on the edge of ethics.

Miya turned her hand over, looked at the small black star symbol, and gently pressed her fingertips on it.

Beneath her skin was normal body temperature, and there was nothing unusual to feel it, but her intuition told her that what was sealed within this star mark was far deeper than she had imagined.

She remembered a question.

Meredith's paper mentions that there have only been eleven recorded instances of divine flashes across the continent in the past five hundred years, and without exception, the triggerers of these flashes later became the most outstanding beings of their respective eras.

And Bie Chenye might be one of them. Perhaps her "Death Annihilation" is the Flash of God, which was then whitewashed by the academic community and written into textbooks. After all, the board of directors knows how much panic would be caused if the statement "the true source of a legendary witch's power is divine blessing" were to be made.

Mi Ye lay flat, fastened the communicator to her chest, and began to process the information.

Ordinary flashes of insight come from sudden enlightenment; divine flashes of insight come from the gaze of the gods.

Something new appeared in her mind, something she didn't know, but that thing thought highly of her. She didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Forget it, let's not think about these things for now.

She decided to do something else.

For example, try that one, hehe.

Miya rolled over and lay face down on the bed, focusing her attention on her back, specifically a few inches above her tailbone.

With his eyes closed, he gently pushed forward, following the subtle guidance accompanying the skill description of [Touch of Drowning] in his mind.

I felt a slight itch under the skin near my tailbone, as if something had turned over inside the bone.

Immediately afterwards, a sensation like silk gliding over the skin spread from my lower back.

She turned around and looked.

A tentacle was extending from near her tailbone, hovering in mid-air, its end slightly curled, as if curiously observing the world.

It was pure white, almost exactly the same color as her quilt, with a smooth but non-reflective surface and a soft luster like that of a pearl.

The base of the tentacle was about as thick as her wrist, tapering towards the tip and finally converging into a rounded point.

The inner side of the tip has two rows of tiny suckers, smaller than a grain of rice, arranged neatly, and lighter in color than the tentacles themselves, with a light pinkish hue.

It was very small, only about the length of her forearm, and it swayed gently in the air, as if searching for direction.

Miya held her breath and poked it with her index finger.

The surface of the tentacles wasn't the sticky, damp, and cold feeling she had imagined; instead, it had a slight elasticity characteristic of skin.

The spot she poked dented slightly, then quickly bounced back. The entire tentacle recoiled half an inch as if startled, its suction cups at the end opening and closing as if expressing its dissatisfaction with "Why did you poke me?"

Then the tentacle tentatively wrapped around her index finger.

The moment the suction cup touched her skin, Miya almost screamed.

She could feel it, like she had an extra finger all along.

The force with which the tentacles wrapped around her index finger, the pressure of the suction cups adhering to her skin, and the temperature changes on every inch of the surface all flooded into her brain as extremely clear signals.

She tried to make the tentacle loosen its index finger, and the tentacle loosened its grip.

Try letting it wrap around her wrist, and it will meander up her arm as lightly as a feather.

She touched the base of the tentacle with her finger, where it was connected to the skin near the coccyx, but there were no scars or creases, as if it had always been there, only previously hidden under an invisible membrane.

Miya suddenly remembered a question.

Her current stats panel shows her charm value at 100.

Is it possible that this charm value isn't just effective on myself, but also on others? Is it possible that my tentacles are effective on others as well?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the suction cup at the end of the tentacle gently sucked on the inside of her wrist.

Now, her mind was filled with images related to March Summer and tentacles.

No, no, no!

What am I even thinking?

Miya, Miya, you are a proper witch!

This is for fighting, for annihilating the enemy!

She shyly grabbed the middle of the tentacle with both hands and tucked it toward her tailbone.

The sensation of the tentacles traveled back from my palm—soft, warm, and with a slight pulsation, like holding a small animal that was dozing off.

Then the suction cups at the ends of the tentacles gently sucked on her tiger's mouth, as if expressing dissatisfaction, "Why did you put me back?" But in the end, she obediently curled up into a ball and melted into the skin near her tailbone, disappearing without a trace, leaving only a fleeting warmth in the place.

Miya buried her face in the pillow and let out a muffled groan.

That's it, she's beyond saving.

If she can get herself into this state with just one of her own tentacles, shouldn't she prepare an ice bath to calm herself down when she actually summons four or even a swarm of insects in the future?

The moonlight outside the window gradually faded.

The jacaranda trees slowly changed from silvery-blue back to purple, and the eastern horizon began to show the first very pale, fish-belly white.

Mi Ye's communicator screen was still lit, stuck on the last page of Meredith's paper.

Her consciousness drifted through a triple confusion of divine light, tentacles, and angels, eventually sinking into a light slumber like a sponge soaking in water.

When I opened my eyes again, the morning light had already filled the entire ward through the gaps in the blinds.

The pale golden light fell on the white sheets, on the empty thermos, and on Flores's long, black hair that was scattered on the pillow.

The store manager is still asleep; he must be exhausted these past few days.

Miya tiptoed off the bed, walked barefoot to the window, and adjusted the blinds to just the right angle to block the direct sunlight from Flores' eyes.

Then she put on her slippers, grabbed her wallet, left the ward, and went to the convenience store on the first floor.

She bought sandwiches, milk, two boiled eggs, and a small box of cut fruit.

When she returned to the ward, she unwrapped the sandwiches and placed them on the lid of the lunchbox, poured milk into a cup and placed it within easy reach on the bedside table, peeled and halved the boiled eggs, and opened the fruit box and placed it next to her.

Flores' eyelashes fluttered, and then she slowly opened her eyes.

She turned her head on the pillow, her gaze shifting from the ceiling to Miya, then to the neatly arranged breakfast on the bedside table, and remained silent for a moment.

"Did you do this?"

"Bought at a convenience store."

Mi Ye confessed honestly.

"But I peeled the eggs for you."

Flores propped herself up on the bed, her black hair slipping down her shoulders. She casually combed it with her fingers, picked up a sandwich, took a bite, and squinted her eyes slightly as she chewed, like a cat that had just woken up assessing the quality of its cat food.

Then she took a sip of milk and put the cup down.

"Okay, you can be discharged now. The paperwork was completed last night. You can leave as soon as you change your clothes."

Miya spent ten minutes packing her things.

She changed out of her hospital gown, folded it neatly, and placed it at the foot of the bed. Then she put on her own windbreaker and shorts.

The cuffs of her windbreaker still had dust left from crawling under the table in Yunxi Pavilion. She patted it off, but it didn't get clean, and she was too lazy to bother with it anymore.

While waiting for the elevator, Miya suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Manager, wait a moment, I want to go take a look next door."

The door to the next ward was closed, with a small red light shining above the door frame, and a laminated sign next to it that read, "Under treatment, please do not disturb."

The nurse on duty at the nurses' station had changed; she was a young, eccentric woman with a bun hairstyle, pouring instant coffee into a cup.

Miya walked over and asked the patient in the next room where he had gone. The nurse looked up at the room number and flipped through the logbook beside her.

"The one who came down from the sixth floor? She had surgery scheduled early this morning, and was taken in around 7 a.m. Were you the family member who came to see her yesterday?"

Miya shook her head, then nodded, and said thank you.

She walked back to Flores' side and remained silent for a moment.

"She's in surgery, so I can't see her."

Flores glanced at her, said nothing, and simply reached out to help her turn up the collar of her windbreaker.

"Let's go."

The sun was shining brightly as I walked out of the hospital.

The jacaranda tree still stands in the same spot. During the day, it is not draped in the silvery veil of moonlight like at night, but its purple clusters under the blue sky are still so beautiful that one wants to look at it a little longer.

The bench under the tree was empty, and the stone path was covered with fallen petals. The cleaner hadn't come to sweep them up yet. The purple petals were blown by the morning breeze into bunches, like bouquets that someone had arranged on purpose.

Miya stood under the tree for a moment, then looked down at her palm.

It's okay, she'll come again anyway.

It wasn't because she owed San Yuexia a favor and needed to repay her, nor was it because San Yuexia sang for her for three days and therefore she had to repay anything.

She just wanted to see her again, to talk to her, to ask her what songs she liked, to tell her that her singing voice was really beautiful, and to say that she felt like she had heard her voice somewhere before.

This feeling swelled in her chest, warm and bittersweet, as if her lungs were filled with the spring breeze.

She had never felt this way about anyone before, nor was it any emotion she could accurately name.

But she remembered the profile of her with her eyes closed when she smelled the flowers in March, the way the moonlight fell on her white eyelashes, and how her heart was beating so fast that her breathing became erratic.

It's a desire to see someone again.

It wasn't as a reward, but simply as Miya's lovely and innocent wish.