When Facing Difficulties, The First Thing To Do Is Stay Calm

Realizing she had identified the wrong person, Jiang Yunshu hurriedly set Ran Jiuyi down, bowing repeatedly in apology. “I am so sorry! I am so, so sorry! I mistook you for someone else!”

Standing beside her, Bai He’an finally caught on and joined the apology spree. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! It’s all my fault! I attacked before confirming who you were!”

“Waaaaah… hic… waaaaah…”

Unfortunately, their soothing words seemed to have no effect. Ran Jiuyi continued to wail. She took pride in her top-tier acting; fooling three young girls was child’s play for her.

Yi Ziling, the only one who hadn’t joined the attack, rushed to Meng Shan’s side in a panic, using her Healing Gel to treat his wounds.

Even as they apologized, Jiang Yunshu and Bai He’an kept casting anxious glances toward the heavily injured and unconscious Meng Shan. Their internal turmoil was beyond words.

After a long while, Ran Jiuyi’s crying gradually subsided. “Are… are you sure you’re not going to kill me?”

“We really won’t! We promise!”

“Yes, exactly! What happened just now was entirely our mistake, truly!”

After a barrage of explanations, Ran Jiuyi finally stopped crying.

“Now, don’t move. Let us check if our attack injured you just now.”

“O… okay.”

Despite her words, Ran Jiuyi instinctively took a few steps back as the two approached, reflexively raising her hands to wipe away her tears.

That single movement pulled directly on her fractured left arm. The sudden, searing pain caused Ran Jiuyi to scream, her right hand instinctively clutching her left arm.

“AAAH! EE-YAAAAAH!”

The sudden scream sent Jiang Yunshu and Bai He’an into a tailspin. As mere students, they could tell her left arm was injured—likely a fracture—but they had no idea how to handle it.

Already frazzled by the day’s events, a frantic Bai He’an grabbed Ran Jiuyi’s left arm and yanked it up to her eye level. “Don’t panic! Let me see what’s wrong!”

Setting aside the basic medical common sense that one should never move a fractured limb, Bai He’an had clearly forgotten one thing: in her transformed state, her strength far exceeded that of a normal human.

CRACK.

With a sickening snap, Ran Jiuyi’s left arm was completely broken. Sharp bone fragments pierced through her delicate skin, exposing themselves to the air amidst a spray of fresh blood.

……

“Ah… good heavens.” Meng Shan sighed, covering his face with his other hand as well.

“I think when you hit me with the car, I only had a cracked radius, because only the inside of my wrist hurt,” Ran Jiuyi remarked. “But after Bai He’an’s ‘help,’ it became a full-blown compound fracture of both the radius and ulna.”

Meng Shan was speechless. If he remembered correctly, he had personally taught them the basics of wound management many times, specifically fearing they wouldn’t know what to do in a crisis.

Now it seemed the “Little Three” had tossed his lessons into the wind. They had forgotten even the most basic common sense.

“This is my fault too,” Meng Shan muttered. “I should have drilled them on first aid more often. I shouldn’t have stopped after only one or two lessons.”

Ran Jiuyi remained nonchalant. “It’s fine. Like I said, it’s normal to make mistakes under high pressure. Besides, they healed me afterward, so don’t be too hard on them.”

“To be accurate, it wasn’t ‘them.’ It was Marshmallow (Yi Ziling) who healed you, right?”

As the most well-behaved and gentle of the three, Yi Ziling surely wouldn’t do anything foolish. But after the consecutive blunders of the other two, Meng Shan was losing his confidence.

“She… didn’t do anything crazy, did she?”

“Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m just getting to her part.”

“Huh?”

……

The fact that Bai He’an had accidentally worsened Ran Jiuyi’s injury left both her and Jiang Yunshu at a total loss. Neither was a healer-type Magical Girl, and they had no clue how to handle the gruesome wound. They could only yell for Yi Ziling.

“Marshmallow! Quick, help us! I accidentally snapped this lady’s arm! The bone is sticking out!”

However, Yi Ziling was pinned down. Meng Shan’s injuries were more severe than she had imagined; even with her full power, his condition showed no significant improvement.

Hearing the trouble her teammates had caused, the occupied Yi Ziling could only conjure a glob of Healing Gel and hurl it toward them.

“Sorry! I’m still treating Brother Dashan! Use this gel to help her for now!”

The answer filled Jiang Yunshu and Bai He’an with dread. If Yi Ziling was still struggling after all this time, it meant Meng Shan was in critical condition.

But as for “handling” Ran Jiuyi’s fracture… how were they supposed to do that?

Damn it, they thought. If they had known it would come to this, they would have actually reviewed the first aid lessons Meng Shan taught them.

Looking at the two girls holding a blob of gel, looking worried but paralyzed by indecision, Ran Jiuyi sighed inwardly. She had to do it herself; if she let these two keep “helping,” there was no telling what other disasters would occur.

Then, before their shocked eyes, Ran Jiuyi calmly used her right hand to snap the broken bone back into place and flexed her muscles to hold it steady.

“Ugh… hnnng…”

Gritting her teeth, Ran Jiuyi spoke to the two girls, who were now staring with dead eyes. “Alright… I’ve put the bone back. Can you help me stabilize it?”

The two finally snapped out of their trance and frantically smeared the Healing Gel all over her left arm.

“No! Why are you just rubbing it on? I need you to find some wooden sticks or rope to splint my arm!”

After a chaotic flurry of activity, Ran Jiuyi eventually found two sticks and some twine herself. She temporarily splinted her arm before applying the gel for actual healing.

With that settled, they finally turned their full attention back to the unconscious Meng Shan.

Yi Ziling was pouring everything she had into him, creating massive amounts of Healing Gel that encased Meng Shan’s body like a cocoon.

The gel wasn’t just stopping the bleeding and closing surface wounds; it was actively drawing out the shrapnel embedded in his body from the blast.

But despite the comprehensive treatment, Meng Shan’s face remained ghostly pale. There wasn’t the slightest sign of him waking up.

The slow progress made Yi Ziling frantic. She didn’t understand why her usually effective gel wasn’t working on him.

Watching from the side, Ran Jiuyi already knew what the problem was.

Yi Ziling was being too hasty. Perhaps because she had never treated someone on the brink of death, her gel was focusing its mana on “repairing tissue” rather than “restoring vitality.”

For Magical Girls with overflowing life force, this was the fastest way to recover. But for Meng Shan—whose life force was currently a dry well—this method was inefficient.

The life force Ran Jiuyi had previously funneled into him was already spent. Without a core “recharge,” the repairs wouldn’t take hold.

However, Yi Ziling was seeing red from anxiety. She wanted him awake now.

Feeling her healing was failing, Yi Ziling cried out, “Yunshu! Sister An! Hurry, call an ambulance! I’ve been treating him forever and Brother Dashan still won’t wake up!”

In her desperation, Yi Ziling completely forgot Ran Jiuyi was standing right there. She blurted out her teammates’ real names without a second thought.

The sudden “self-doxxing” left the other three stunned. They stared at each other in silence for a few heartbeats, as if trying to confirm they had actually heard what they just heard.

Seeing no response from her friends, Yi Ziling hurriedly fumbled through Meng Shan’s pockets for his phone.

Just as she was about to dial, a thought struck her. She deactivated her transformation on the spot, murmuring, “Wait… to keep our identities secret, shouldn’t we de-transform before calling for help?”

……

Hearing this, Meng Shan completely broke. He slumped back onto the bed with a look of utter despair.

“I just… what was Yi Ziling thinking? She just leaked everyone’s secret identity that easily? Was she even using her brain?”

“Err, I think she was just too worried about you,” Ran Jiuyi offered. “You hadn’t woken up for a long time, after all.”

“Stop making excuses for them,” Meng Shan said, his voice a mix of helplessness and “tough love” frustration. “Are these the kind of mistakes you can just blame on being ‘anxious’? These are errors you can avoid by just thinking for two seconds! One after another! Truly…”

He trailed off, taking a moment to steady his breathing. He paused, then softened his tone. “Sigh… I can’t blame them for everything. They’re just kids, after all. Asking them to handle a life-and-death crisis like this was asking too much.”

“And my training wasn’t enough. I didn’t teach the basics well enough. As soon as an emergency hit, everyone lost their heads. I share the responsibility for this.”

Ran Jiuyi comforted him. “You’ve done well enough—at least you didn’t raise three villains. Now, keep listening; the story isn’t over yet.”

……

After Yi Ziling had inexplicably exposed their identities, she glanced at the others standing there in a daze. It was only then that the weight of what she’d done hit her.

“U-uh… You didn’t see anything! You saw nothing! And you heard nothing!”

In a fit of self-deception, Yi Ziling transformed back into her Magical Girl form, though she now had one more thing to be anxious about.

Just then, the emergency call she’d placed went through. A voice came from the other end: “Emergency Dispatch, what is your emergency?”

Before Yi Ziling could respond, Ran Jiuyi stepped forward, made a “shushing” gesture, and snatched the phone away.

The “Little Three” had caused quite enough chaos for one day. Ran Jiuyi wasn’t about to give them another chance to mess things up.

It looked like the rest of this mess was going to have to be handled by her.