Gensokyo Population Revitalization Plan

"Hmm... If it were anyone else, I definitely wouldn't agree, but for you, kind brother, no problem! What do you need me to do?"

Seeing Cirno so obedient and well-behaved, the great fairy looked at Mu Huai with envy. If she had the same ability to make naughty fairies behave, she wouldn't have to worry about them causing trouble for others.

"You can make ice cubes anytime, right?"

“That’s right! Lady Cirno is very powerful; she can make a whole bunch of ice blocks with ease.”

With that, Cirno confidently showed off her skills.

She gently waved her small hand, and a square block of ice, about half a meter in diameter, landed at his feet. The ice was so pure that it would have been almost transparent if not for the sunlight.

"Not bad!" Mu Huai was very satisfied. He casually put the ice into his four-dimensional backpack, intending to take it back to tease his wives. "But I don't need such a big block of ice. Let's go into the milk tea shop first. You'll know what to do after working here for a day."

But I want to play with you...

"Next time. If you and the fairy help out at the milk tea shop today, I'll have Xingcai make something delicious for you."

Upon hearing about the delicious food, Cirno, who had been somewhat resistant, immediately changed her mind: "No problem! I love working!"

"Cirno, your attitude has changed so much. Watch your integrity."

"As for integrity, just eat it up," Reimu said.

"But Mr. Ke Muhuai said she was a shameless witch, how could you imitate her?"

"Shh! Shh!!" Mu Huai quickly covered the big fairy's mouth with two fingers. "Don't go around saying things like this. If Lingmeng hears you, she might capture you and make you work as laborers, not feeding you all day and making you work all night."

"Ah~"

They shrank back in fear, hiding under Mu Huai's armpits, too afraid to utter another sound.

"jingle--"

"Welcome... Ah, Mr. Wood! What brings you here?"

Upon seeing who it was, Banami Anzu's professional smile instantly transformed into a sweet, sugary one, and she immediately walked from behind the counter to stand in front of Mu Huai.

Ignoring the other customers in the store, she wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe, and gave him a sweet kiss, the kind of kiss a girlfriend would give.

"ah!"

The great fairy gasped in embarrassment and immediately flew behind Cirno to cover her eyes.

"You big demon, what are you doing?!"

"We're too young to watch this."

"Idiot, Lady Cirno is the strongest in Gensokyo, she can see anything!"

After a brief kiss, Anna ran back to the counter with her rosy, alluring face: "What would you three like to drink?"

Mu Huai sat down at the counter with the two fairies: "Two bubble teas and one matcha milk tea, regular ice, regular sugar."

"I understand, please wait a moment."

While she was making milk tea, Mu Huai pulled Cirno aside, who was still discussing her age with the great fairy, and pointed to the ice cubes being poured into the plastic cup, saying, "See? I only need ice cubes that size."

"That's very simple!"

She pointed at the empty glass that hadn't been filled with ice yet, and instantly a large amount of ice fell from the top of the glass, filling it up in less than a second.

Seeing Anzu witness this magical scene firsthand, Banami exclaimed in amazement before turning to Muhuai and asking, "How amazing! But can we really eat this kind of ice?"

“Of course you can eat it.” Cirno simply rolled out a piece of ice, took a large bite out with her pearly white teeth, puffed out her cheeks, and made a teeth-grinding chewing sound. “Look… you can… eat it…”

"Then let's pour matcha milk green tea, I'll take a sip and try it."

"Okay, if you feel unwell, just tell me right away, and I'll take you to Dr. Yonglin for treatment."

Mu Huai's lips twitched twice: "Are you planning to murder your husband?"

"Huh?" Bana asked Anna in confusion, "Why? Tornado said that Dr. Eirin is very famous for his medical skills in Gensokyo."

He shook his thumb at the two fairies beside him speechlessly: "Why don't you ask them what kind of doctor Yonglin is?"

"I...I heard that Eirin's pills have all sorts of strange side effects. Once, a monster went to her for treatment because he kept sneezing. After taking the pills, he stopped sneezing, but started farting non-stop."

The Great Fairy's words made Anna Hanami realize the danger posed by the other party, so she stopped mentioning it and instead asked about Mu Huai's next plan: "You hired Cirno for the Dream Cup in a week, right? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I came here to discuss this matter with you."

"Tell me, I'll do my best to help you with anything, your matcha milk green tea."

"Thank you."

Mu Huai inserted a straw and took a small sip of milk tea. The taste was not changed by the ice cubes that Cirno condensed with her ability. In fact, there was a slight coolness that flowed slowly through his body.

This unexpected discovery delighted him, and it might even reduce his workload later.

"The taste is fine. Now let's get down to business. I estimate that in addition to the players, there will be hundreds of spectators at this Dream Cup."

"Gensokyo is currently in summer, so I'd like you and Cirno to set up a small milk tea stall at the arena to provide free iced drinks to everyone. I'll ask other fairies to help with the manpower, so you don't need to worry."

"It doesn't sound too difficult. I'll do it."

"Well, I believe you."

"However, I have conditions!"

Mu Huai was not surprised at all. He sipped his milk tea and gestured to Banami Anja to state her request.

"Ahem... Well, after this competition, could you make my image into a game character and add it to 'Gensokyo Rumble'?"

“Even if you don’t say it, I will do it sooner or later, and so will everyone else.”

"Huh?" Realizing that she had wasted an opportunity to make a request, Banai saw Anna's distressed face. "You should have said so earlier. I shouldn't have made this request."

Mu Huai smiled indulgently: "Then let's suggest another one."

"Let's go to the beach sometime!"

"Sure, just the two of us?"

Anna shook her head: "Of course not, there's also Yume, Rikka, Akane..."

"Wow, are you planning to form a beach JK (high school girl) team?"

"So, do you like it or not?"

Mu Huai didn't answer, but silently gave a thumbs up.

Just kidding, how could he possibly refuse the unbeatable combination of JK uniform, beachwear, and swimsuit?

After finishing his milk tea, Mu Huai also discovered that the ice cubes made by Cirno melted much slower than those made by an ice maker, which would greatly reduce the workload of the milk tea stall.

From now on, let's treat her as the official ice maker of Pelican Town.

"I still need to talk to Yukari Yakumo about the venue. Cirno and Daiyousei, remember to help Anzu at the shop after you finish your milk tea."

"Understood!" x2

Volume 4, "Anything Can Happen in Gensokyo": Chapter 22 You Started It First

"The final score has reached the most tense and exciting 2:2! The pay-to-win team has chosen the blue side, it seems they want to take down Yuuka's signature hero, Kazami Yuuka, first!"

As Aya Shameimaru's passionate commentary reached his ears, Mu Huai stood bewildered under the bamboo awning, surrounded by enthusiastically cheering yokai.

Judging from the familiar stadium architecture and lively atmosphere, this was definitely the venue for the Dream Cup, but he clearly remembered that there was still a week before the start of the competition.

"What's going on? Did I skip a few episodes?"

Completely bewildered, he began to recall what he had been doing: "I remember after leaving the tavern, I went to Yakumo Mansion to discuss the venue's layout and location with Yukari, and then... um? And then what happened?"

His memory was strangely interrupted after he entered the Yakumo Mansion, as if the Crimson King had forcibly deleted the time in between, directly bringing Mu Huai to the final day.

There are very few youkai in Gensokyo who can do this, and Yukari Yakumo is his first suspect.

"Did Zi-mei secretly conduct some kind of human experiment on me?"

Mu Huai stood up and bounced around a couple of times to make sure he was neither missing nor missing any parts before leaving his seat and heading towards the long queue of milk tea stalls.

Just ask Anzu Hanami, who's there, and you'll know what he's been up to this past week. After all, he'd explain to his girlfriends if he didn't go home to sleep, let alone not going home for a week.

Now that she's here setting up her stall with a perfectly normal expression, showing no sign of anxiety about her missing boyfriend, it means he must have told the girls something beforehand.

The long queue finally reached Mu Huai. He raised his hand to greet Banami Anja, who was directing the fairies to prepare milk tea: "Anja, are you still managing?"

"Well, with the help of the fairies, I basically don't need to do anything myself."

"Then give me an iced Coke, and by the way, what did I say to you guys last week?"

Seeing Anzu give him a questioning look, Bana took a bottle of chilled cola from the freezer and handed it to her: "You said you were going to take care of some things at Yukari Yakumo's place and might not be back for a while. Why do you look like you've lost your memory?"

"Uh... I really don't remember what happened in the past week." Mu Huai scratched his head awkwardly.

"You wouldn't have been... by Yakumo Yukari..." She made a meaningful gesture with her left hand making a circle and extending her right index finger, "...wouldn't that make you stupid?"

“I’m not kidding you, I really don’t remember what happened.”

"I can't be of much help with this. You know I've been busy running the tavern lately."

"Do you know who I told before I left that I wouldn't come back?"

“Everyone was there at the time, but I don’t think you would get any useful answers if you went to other people, because you disappeared after that day and only reappeared now.”

"Mengmeng has started complaining that she's going to die of loneliness because she can't see you."

"Okay... I'll go home to see her right after today's match."

Since he couldn't get an answer from his girlfriend, Mu Huai could only turn his attention to Yakumo Yukari, who was sitting in the commentary booth.

She rested her cheek on her left hand and idly twirled a strand of her golden hair with her right, completely neglecting her commentary duties. The atmosphere of the match was maintained entirely by Aya Shameimaru's eloquent cherry-like mouth.

It was obviously impossible for Mu Huai to run to the commentary booth to ask her for answers now, so he could only obediently return to his seat and watch the game.

"My goodness, I never expected Yuuka to have such a unique understanding of Youmu Konpaku. She's so skilled at the recently popular ground-fire support playstyle. Could it be... could it be that she's the original developer of this style!?"

The game screen, about five meters in diameter, was playing in the arena. The game character "Konpaku Youmu," controlled by Kazami Yuuka, walked straight towards "Kirisame Marisa," who was clearing minions in the middle lane, after activating her invisibility shoes.

In the split second before the invisibility effect disappeared, the azure-blue sword aura unique to the Life Dual Sword Style instantly enveloped "Miriam Marisa," fixing her in place. Immediately afterwards, a magma-colored circle lit up on the ground.

After the ultimate skill of "Konpaku Youmu" ends, there is a 0.75-second delay before the enemy's active equipment, Ground Fire Roar, tears through the ground and knocks "Kirisame Marisa" high into the air.

Before she even landed, a golden flash suddenly appeared, and "Reimu Hakurei" emerged from the river grass, her red torii gate phantom control array striking "Marisa Kirisame's" feet.

"Dream Sealed!!"

The multicolored orbs of light and pink paper talismans poured violently down on "Marisa Kirisame," instantly emptying her health bar.

Meanwhile, the real Reimu was controlling "Yuuka Kazami" to clear minions in the top lane. When she saw her teammate being killed by the enemy using her, she was so angry that she almost twisted her nose out of shape.

"Marisa, I told you not to be greedy for such dangerous lines. How are we going to compete with them later?"

"Oh no, Komeiji Satori used up her Flash. I'll wait for her to respawn, and before we fight the dragon, we'll go and kill her together."

Knowing that the enemy would invade her jungle after her mid laner died, Ibuki Suika quickly cleared the jungle monsters in the upper half of the map and sent several signals to the red buff: "Alice, Sanae, they should be coming to steal the buff, keep an eye on it for me."

"Alice, go first. I'll come after I finish clearing this wave of minions."

The game situation wasn't good for them. Kazami Yuuka's "Konpaku Youmu" was too agile, turning a top lane warrior into a roaming assassin.

Reimu's ability to clear waves with "Kazami Yuuka" (who uses a steal instead of N) is not strong, at least not in the early game, and is far inferior to "Konpaku Youmu" (who can clear waves with just two skills, Q and E).

The only way to alert teammates is after the opponent disappears from sight; they can only warn that she might have gone to roam.

"As expected of the top laner who is most familiar with heavy armor warriors at this stage, Yuuka completely saw through our draft." Alice was a little annoyed. She was used to multitasking and positioned herself as a support and commander.

With the team currently at a disadvantage, her "Cirno," who serves as an initiator and support, clearly lacks the ability to turn the tide.

"Yuuka's 'Konpaku Youmu' has been coordinating with her teammates to gain a huge economic advantage... Wait a minute!?"

Aya Shameimaru, who was sitting upright in the commentary booth, suddenly wiped her eyes, leaned forward, and stretched her neck to look at the players' seats.

"Isn't that...you know, the faint glow on Yuuka's body...you mean demonic power!?"

“Paparazzi Wen, you’re only noticing now…” Yakumo Yukari yawned boredly, “Yuuka has been using her demonic power to enhance her reaction ability since the start of this match.”

"Isn't this... cheating?"

"If it's not prohibited in the competition rules, then it's not considered cheating."

Reimu and the others couldn't hear the narration, but as time went on, the two current priestesses still sensed a faint demonic energy wafting from fifty meters away.

Reimu's eyelid twitched, and she typed in the game's public chat: "You started it first, so don't blame us!"

"Whoa! The players on the pay-to-win team are also starting to enhance their reaction speed with their own abilities!!!"

Volume 4, "Anything Can Happen in Gensokyo": Chapter 23 - Those Who Truly Want to Win Don't Smile