Should I attend the parent-teacher conference?

Ran Jiuyi was blissfully unaware of the major trouble brewing on the horizon. At this moment, she was focusing all her energy on filling out forms. The mountain of paperwork stacked beside her was proof that she had been at this for quite some time.

After finishing the current sheet, she tossed it aside and complained, “One after another… is there no end to this?”

Meng Shan, who was busy drafting a report, offered some comfort. “It’s fine. Just finish that stack to your left and help me write a few mission reports, and we’re done for the day. Besides, there’s no rush. These just need to be in by the end of the week. If you’re tired, take a break.”

“That’s more like it. After working this hard, a break is exactly what I need.”

Ran Jiuyi let out a satisfied yawn and stretched her limbs. Picking up her tea, she wandered over to Meng Shan’s side.

Meng Shan’s computer screen was filled with incomprehensible “officialese.” Just looking at it gave Ran Jiuyi a headache. She turned her back to the screen and hopped onto the edge of Meng Shan’s desk, swinging her legs.

Today, Ran Jiuyi had specifically changed into an office lady outfit. Her shapely legs were encased in black hosiery, and the tight fit accentuated her lithe curves. Unfortunately, the only other person in the room merely spared her a single glance before returning to his work.

Ran Jiuyi pouted in dissatisfaction. “You’re not even going to look at me? I dressed up like this on purpose today.”

“Forget it,” Meng Shan replied without looking up. “I’m practicing the ‘Indestructible Golden Boy’ technique. You can save your succubus charms for someone else. Besides, I know how you work. If I look, you’ll think I’m a pervert; if I don’t, you’ll think you’ve lost your charm. My strategy is simple: one glance to acknowledge you, then back to work.”

Seeing that Meng Shan had seen right through her, Ran Jiuyi quickly changed the subject. “I mean, why do you spend so much time writing this useless junk? Doesn’t it give you a migraine?”

“Of course it does. I hate writing it, but these documents are useful.”

“Useful? In what way?”

“They’re for bullshitting the superiors who audit our records,” Meng Shan explained. “I write them so that when they check, they can’t find any procedural errors, yet they walk away with absolutely zero useful information.”

It was true. Meng Shan’s reports were masterpieces of fluff and bureaucratic jargon. He would take a single event, flip the sentence structure, and repeat it four or five times in different sections, adding bizarre adjectives to pad the length. It was the pinnacle of “faking it.”

Forget Ran Jiuyi—who hated paperwork to begin with—even a professional auditor would find it nearly impossible to extract a shred of truth from Meng Shan’s mountains of text.

“But can you really get away with writing like this?”

Meng Shan chuckled. “I always do. My reports pass on the first try, every single time. I’ve never had to do a rewrite.”

“How?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Meng Shan countered. “The higher-ups don’t actually care what happens here, as long as it isn’t something big enough to drag them down. I made it clear to them long ago: I handle everything here. They get a slice of the credit when things go well, and I take 100% of the blame when they don’t.”

Ran Jiuyi began to understand. “So that’s why they just leave you to your own devices?”

“Exactly. Since any disaster can be pinned on me, why would they bother intervening? This job isn’t exactly a ‘plum’ position; they have no reason to get their hands dirty. As long as I follow the official procedures and give them enough paperwork to file away, everyone’s happy.”

“Uh…” Ran Jiuyi suddenly remembered something. “Wait, so that request for Magical Girl reinforcements you submitted earlier… was that just for show too?”

Half a day ago, the first task Ran Jiuyi had assisted with was filing a formal request for reinforcements. At the time, she had stared at Meng Shan in silence for several minutes—until he grew so uncomfortable he turned away—before she finally let it go.

“Not at all,” Meng Shan denied quite openly. “I genuinely hope they send reinforcements. I have a feeling the battles ahead will be too much for the three girls currently assigned here. I want some high-tier Magical Girls to come in so I can rotate our girls out of active duty.”

Ran Jiuyi was clearly unsatisfied with that answer. Is he kidding? That request was obviously meant to bring in muscle to deal with her. Replacing the local girls? Only a fool would believe that excuse.

Meng Shan continued, “But I’m not counting on it actually happening. Based on experience, it’ll take months for my application just to reach the desk of whoever handles these things. By the time they have meetings, research the request, approve it, and issue orders… well, it’ll be a miracle if it happens in this lifetime. By then, the situation will have long since resolved itself. We won’t need them.”

It sounded like a blatant lie, but Meng Shan’s earnest expression—and Ran Jiuyi’s own intuition—told her he was being truthful.

“Then why bother applying at all?”

“Many reasons,” Meng Shan explained. “First, the fact that a fight broke out between Bian and the local Magical Girls can’t be hidden forever. You cleaned up the scene perfectly, and there were no cameras, which keeps the higher-ups in the dark about who the enemy actually was—but they will know a battle occurred.

“Now, imagine you’re a superior. You know a fight happened, but you don’t know against whom or what the outcome was. Then you see my request for help. What would you think?”

Ran Jiuyi put herself in their shoes for a moment. “That you’re trying to pull a fast one? Scrambling for more resources?”

Meng Shan snapped his fingers. “Bingo. They’ll think I’m just trying to milk the system for more funding or staff. That suspicion actually keeps them from looking too deeply into what’s really going on. Plus, if another ‘hard-to-explain’ battle happens soon, the higher-ups won’t push for an investigation. In fact, they might even block other departments from sniffing around to protect themselves. After all, I’ve already warned them in writing that we need reinforcements. If something goes wrong now, it’s on them for not sending help.”

Ran Jiuyi nodded, her understanding growing. It seemed she had completely misread Meng Shan. “So that’s how it is… You’re actually pretty amazing.”

It wouldn’t be hard to verify his claims, and the fact that Meng Shan was so transparent about it suggested he wasn’t afraid of her checking.

Meng Shan gave her a thumb’s up. “Of course. I haven’t been in this game for years for nothing. If you want to hold your ground in a place like this, you have to learn the ropes. I just wish…”

Ran Jiuyi murmured something under her breath, so softly that Meng Shan couldn’t catch it. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” She quickly changed the subject. “Once we finish this paperwork, is that it for the day?”

“Just some routine daily reports. With your help, we should be done in less than half a day.” Suddenly remembering something, Meng Shan asked, “Wait, what’s the date today?”

“July 5th. Why?”

Meng Shan slapped his forehead. “I totally forgot! Tomorrow is the day for Jiang Yunshu and the others’ parent-teacher conference.”

“What does that have to do with us? Don’t they have parents? Oh… right. I forgot they’re Magical Girls.”

According to official statistics, for some unknown reason, Magical Girls with intact, healthy families were in the minority. It had become so common that online slang sometimes used “Magical Girl” as a synonym for “orphan.”

Meng Shan continued, “We don’t need to worry about Yi Ziling; her parents are around. It’s Jiang Yunshu and Bai He’an we need to handle. Last time, so I wouldn’t hurt their feelings, I attended the first half of Jiang’s meeting and the second half of Bai’s. Honestly, it was incredibly awkward.”

Ran Jiuyi imagined the scene: a burly, rugged man in his late twenties acting as a parent for two high school girls. It was a miracle people weren’t gossiping behind his back.

“Fortunately, this time I have you as a helper, so it won’t be a repeat of last year. So… will you come with me to the parent-teacher meeting?”

“The way you word that is so strange,” Ran Jiuyi sighed, knowing she couldn’t escape. “So, whose ‘parent’ am I supposed to be?”

“Bai He’an’s,” Meng Shan said after a moment’s thought. “She’s more mature and quiet, plus she’s an honor student. It’ll be easier for you to handle her meeting.”

“What about Jiang Yunshu? Is she a failing student?”

“Not quite. Her grades are average, but she’s way too energetic. She’s always stirring up some kind of trouble, so the teachers don’t have the best impression of her.”

The classic image of the mid-tier troublemaker. Ran Jiuyi remembered having classmates like that back in her school days.

“As for Yi Ziling, she’s an honor student like Bai He’an. If you run into her parents, remember to act like you don’t know her. She hasn’t told them she’s a Magical Girl yet.”

“Why?” Ran Jiuyi asked, puzzled. “Being a Magical Girl isn’t something to be ashamed of, is it? If I recall, the government treatment for them is quite generous.”

“Because being a Magical Girl is dangerous. I think you understand that better than anyone.”

Meng Shan’s brief sentence left Ran Jiuyi speechless.

It was true. Having been a “Magical Girl” for so many years, she understood perfectly. No matter how pretty the propaganda was, as long as you fought monsters, danger was your constant shadow. Even against “trash” monsters, who could guarantee a victory every time?

“As a parent,” Meng Shan continued, “the hardest thing to witness is having to bury your own child. I didn’t want Ziling to become a Magical Girl at first. Wouldn’t it be better to just be an ordinary girl? But her family isn’t well-off. She saw the salary and wanted to use that money to ease the burden on her home.”

Meng Shan sighed. “She’s a good kid, isn’t she? Later, I got in touch with her parents’ employer. Using Ziling’s earnings and… a little bit of ‘persuasion,’ I managed to get her parents a raise. Of course, I didn’t give them all of her money. I’ve saved the bulk of it in an account; I’ll give it to Ziling when she turns eighteen.”

Every family has its own cross to bear. Ran Jiuyi nodded. “I understand. I’ll do as you say.”