Chapter Fifteen: Your Name

On the school bus after classes, Fu Linxing and Zhong Zihao sat quietly in the last row, discussing in hushed tones. They had been holding back all day since they couldn’t talk openly at school for fear of drawing attention.

Zhong Zihao lowered his voice and said, “Your guess about her age has to be wrong. Usually, their active period is between twelve and sixteen years old. Your dad was already in his twenties in 2009, right? You were born the next year. By that calculation, your dad would be pretty sketchy…”

Fu Linxing replied, “Not everyone draws her as soon as she debuts. Maybe she started being active before 2006, but it took a few years for artists to discover her.”

“Then maybe she retired by 2009, which would make the timeline about right. The lack of official series could be because she retired before that promotional period.”

Zhong Zihao shook his head silently. “Retired and then suddenly popular? That seems unlikely... You listed quite a few works. If she had a resurgence later on, there should have been at least one or two works about her before, right? But what I found, and what the responses to your help requests say, is that most works are concentrated between 2009 and 2011.”

Fu Linxing said, “What if people who saw her long ago kept it a secret? Then during those three years, with a relaxed environment and passionate discussions, that atmosphere inspired someone to draw her, which then sparked enthusiasm in others, leading to more fanworks?”

Zhong Zihao thought seriously. “Hmm, that’s possible. It fits many character development trajectories. But that would make the timeline even harder to pin down…”

They were halfway through their conversation when the girl in the seat ahead suddenly climbed up: “A Xing, what are you guys talking about? It sounds interesting. Can I listen in?”

Zhong Zihao jumped, muttering quietly, “We… we’re talking about anime…”

“We’re talking about explicit anime,” Fu Linxing pronounced clearly.

The girl looked confused, then after a few seconds pointed at them and exclaimed, “You guys, how perverted! Shameless!”

The other students around turned to look. Blushing, she slid back down and whispered accusations to the girl next to her.

Zhong Zihao looked gloomy. “Great, now she won’t listen. Our reputation’s shot.”

Fu Linxing shrugged. “Doesn’t make much difference to you.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“No worries, you’re a true hero among the boys.”

But after that, the two remained silent. Luckily, Fu Linxing’s home wasn’t far, so Zhong Zihao could get off soon and escape the awkwardness.

Once inside, the cleaning lady was busy in the kitchen. Seeing the two boys return, she greeted them warmly.

“Master just got home from school. Dinner’s ready, and I made an extra portion for this young guest as you requested.”

Zhong Zihao exclaimed, “Ah?” then struggled to suppress his laughter.

Fu Linxing nearly froze with embarrassment. “Aunt Yang, is it because my mom told you to call me that weird way?”

“Yes, Mrs. He specifically instructed me.”

“I knew it!” Fu Linxing clasped his hands together pleadingly. “Please don’t call me that anymore! Just call me Fu Linxing, okay? Please!”

After Aunt Yang left, Zhong Zihao finally burst out laughing. Fu Linxing said coldly, “Laugh again and I’ll throw you out the door. Don’t expect to see any more drawings.”

“Bro, I’m sorry, I won’t laugh anymore. I won’t say a word if you kick me out.”

“Service industry nowadays will accept any request…” Of course, the most ridiculous was still his own mom.

Fu Linxing despairingly grabbed his hair and turned serious. “My mom usually comes home late. If something happens and she comes back early, just tell her we’re doing group homework.”

“Got it. You’ve said that three times already.”

“Then let’s set up the cover story quickly.”

They arranged the “homework” scene in the living room before slipping into the bedroom. Fu Linxing pulled out an old box of textbooks from under the bed and flipped through them until he found that drawing.

Zhong Zihao eagerly leaned in, took the artwork with both hands, and studied it devoutly.

“Truly authentic…” Even though he’d seen the distorted photos on Fu Linxing’s phone, seeing the real drawing still thrilled him.

For a fan like him, this was a miracle. His hands trembled as he held the piece.

The difference wasn’t just in the completed head details but also the real brushstrokes the phone couldn’t capture. Like Fu Linxing, he immediately recognized it as a magical artifact. The mysterious flow against the pitch-black background was utterly captivating.

“So, have you seen this before?” Fu Linxing asked.

Zhong Zihao calmed himself and focused on the clothing details, trying to recall.

After a few minutes, he opened his phone, deleted some works from the list they’d compiled, added a few more, and pondered over them again. He also browsed the website, adding others based on similar recommendations.

“These comics and a few animations should all be based on her,” he showed Fu Linxing part of the compiled results. “Look at the costume designs. About half are black and white, the others blue and black, with some red and white or platinum versions, varying in exposure, but they all share one common feature: they wear arm sleeves.”

Fu Linxing looked closely and confirmed it.

The girl in the drawing wore a sleeveless princess dress with translucent gauze arm sleeves held by delicate starry arm rings.

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Though the arm sleeves were deliberately altered into various styles in these works, they were always worn — even back then.

As for the clothes and accessories, since the pencil drawing was black and white, direct comparison with fanworks was impossible. These fanworks featured an array of styles but generally built on the sleeveless princess dress, with ornate corsets or belts around the waist.

Then Fu Linxing found another commonality: “Her earrings are all star-shaped.”

Zhong Zihao nodded. “Exactly. Some are four-pointed stars, others five-pointed, or irregular starbursts. No matter the hairstyle, she always wears a crown.”

“That’s true. But why doesn’t the original drawing show it?” Fu Linxing wondered.

Zhong Zihao couldn’t figure it out either.

Still, they were nearly certain the magical girl in the drawing existed in real life. And counting only works other than single illustrations, there were as many as thirty-three fanworks based on her!

“So who exactly is she?” Fu Linxing looked at Zhong Zihao. “Thirty-three is just from the same author and website recommendations. Not as popular as other magical girls from the same period, but still a considerable number. You must have heard of her, right?”

Zhong Zihao nodded. “When I looked for works by the same author, I remembered a top-notch artist who exploded with a batch of comics and illustrations in those years, all of very high quality.”

“He drew magical girls who weren’t famous in real life. Back then, almost no one knew the original model and thought they were original characters. Later, some information was dug up, and related creations began.”

“Unfortunately, this big shot quit after two years, and these characters faded. Few people discussed them afterward.”

He opened one of the thirty-three works and pointed to the author’s ID: “It’s this one. His name is just these two symbols.”

Fu Linxing followed his finger. Only “,” a very unusual name.

He examined the author’s books. Among the works they found, this author accounted for twenty-four. The characters he drew showed some variations in design and style, but on closer inspection, they clearly belonged to the same lineage.

The quality was indeed much higher than the others.

Scattered separately, it wasn’t obvious, but placed together with the original art as reference, it became clear this author had drawn so many books about the magical girl in the drawing.

According to Zhong Zihao, this accounted for about two-thirds of all his comics. Including illustrations, even more.

“That’s a lot of love. Wait… could it be your dad who drew them?” Zhong Zihao boldly guessed. “He has that original portrait, maybe even the only copy! At least I’ve never seen a photo of that drawing online.”

Fu Linxing shook his head firmly. “Impossible, absolutely impossible. I’ve seen my dad’s drawings. When I was little, my mom taught me to draw and often pulled him along; his drawings looked awful. Besides, he probably can’t do magic… right?”

Hearing that, Zhong Zihao gave up the idea.

“When the big shot quit, all his accounts were deleted. These works were organized and re-uploaded by others,” Zhong Zihao opened an anonymous magical girl fan forum. “I didn’t pay attention to this original’s name, but once you know the author, it’s easy to find mentions.”

Fu Linxing’s hope was rekindled, and he joined Zhong Zihao in searching the site.

“Whoa!” Soon, Zhong Zihao shouted, thrusting his phone toward Fu Linxing, nearly hitting his nose. “Look at this video!”

Fu Linxing leaned back and focused on the video. The discussion thread’s title read: “[Supplement 2] Latest Monkey Wine Battle Footage, Bloody Warning! (4,000+ Online Decompression)”.

This thread had been pinned at the top of the timeline. He had seen it but didn’t open it, since he was looking for people, while Zhong Zihao was naturally interested in such bombshell news.

Fu Linxing watched the downloaded video first; it wasn’t long anyway.

The video was a recording of an outdoor streamer’s live broadcast, seemingly walking through a commercial street night market.

“Guys, send some more gifts! Once we hit that, we’ll start the fun! Hit the chat with ‘awesome’! The main package’s now… Whoa, what’s that? Whoa! (whispers) Whoa…”

Seeing something in the background, the chat exploded.

“Live broadcast, awesome!”

“Whoa, such a huge flying cockroach!”

“That’s a monster, a cockroach-mosquito hybrid.”

“Uh-oh, so many kids here, I can’t watch.”

“Streamer, zoom in! It’s so blurry!”

“Where’s Jing? Still no action?”

The streamer switched to the rear camera, zoomed in briefly, then turned the camera to his nose, lowering his voice: “Guys, this is terrifying, bro. It’s not that I’m scared, but if you were here, you’d be soft too…”

“Hurry, call the police! Don’t keep streaming this.”

“Stop filming yourself! Nobody wants to see your ugly face, film over there!”

“Help! So many kids around!”

“Screw the kids, more kids is better.”

“Put ‘protect’ in the chat.”

“Protect!”

“Protect!”

The screen shook violently along with the streamer’s screams. The camera refocused on the attack scene.

“Damn! Damn damn damn! Guys, look what I caught!”

The video flickered briefly, becoming unstable. A white flash with static swept past, tearing the image apart for a few frames.

“What was that?”

“Whoa, so fast!”

“Too shaky.”

“Can you zoom in?”

“Don’t zoom, it makes it worse. What crappy phone.”

Amid the shaky footage, a white shadow suddenly appeared on the square, quickly wiping out the cockroach-mosquitoes. The camera froze on a distorted body falling from above.

“What happened? That’s it?”

“Who’s that?”

“Magical girl!”

“Yeah, magical girl!”

“Whoa, magical girl!”

Amid the flood of shocked chat repeating “magical girl,” the video ended.

Like frequently mocked UFO sightings, due to zoom and shaking, the footage was horribly blurry. Combined with the magical girl’s natural resistance to being filmed, it was barely watchable.

Yet the discussion thread was even more frenzied than the live chat.

“After so many years, someone finally filmed a magical girl! And it’s the full battle footage! Amazing!” Zhong Zihao was moved to tears.

Fu Linxing couldn’t understand the appeal of such a blurry video, though he could somewhat sympathize with the fans’ feelings...

Just as he was about to return to the anonymous forum to continue searching, a thought struck him.

“Rewind the video, somewhere around here,” he told Zhong Zihao.

Zhong Zihao was thinking the same. At that moment, the magical girl had just smashed a cockroach-mosquito into bits and paused briefly before the next attack, revealing her front view.

Her figure was obscured by static interference, but you could barely make out a pure white princess dress adorned with many golden ornaments.

Also, her silver-gray long hair, slightly curled at the tips, flowing past her waist.

“Could it be her?”

“Would be an incredible coincidence.”

Fu Linxing and Zhong Zihao looked at each other, then carefully compared with the drawing.

Maybe it was psychological, but the resemblance grew stronger the more they looked. They only wished the video were clearer; aside from the color blocks of the dress and hair, almost nothing else was visible.

Zhong Zihao, a master of frame-by-frame analysis, scrutinized every frame but to no avail.

“This is pointless. There must be experts doing professional analysis. We’re wasting our time,” he said, slapping his thigh and browsing other discussion threads.

Sure enough, many analysis threads were already up, using AI frame interpolation and image restoration. Except for the face, they actually produced fairly clear screenshots.

Based on those restorations, seasoned experts wrote in-depth analyses and gave a definitive answer.

“Silver hair, platinum color scheme, silk arm sleeves, C-cup, hand-to-hand combat… I can be one hundred percent sure, she is—”

“Magical Girl Xuanxin Shi!”