I feel ashamed before my daughter

“Hello, Chief Kim Erise, I’d like to—ah, I’m sorry to disturb your rest.”

The red-haired girl, woken by the holographic video request in her earpiece, reluctantly reached out her arm from the warm covers in bed.

After fumbling around on the bedside table for a while, she finally grabbed the earpiece and, lying on her back, agreed to the connection request.

Then, a middle-aged man with a full head of hair smiled and appeared in the pop-up holographic window, waving at her.

However, upon realizing that the other person was disheveled, sleepy-eyed, and even naked on the bed, he quickly changed his initial greetings to apologies: “I’ll call you again later.”

“There’s no need. Just say whatever it is now, An Dingzhou,” Kim Erise, waving her hand, got out of bed and casually put on a thin sleepwear, and picked up a comic book from the cabinet and fanned herself.

“It’s already afternoon anyway. It’s time to get up—also, didn’t I say, there’s no need to call me Chief.”

This summer, there were not only heavy rainstorms but also extreme heat.

Even worse, the power went out in the morning, so the air conditioner couldn’t be used, which made her remove all her clothes in a half-dream, half-awake state.

The electricity hadn’t been restored yet, and she hadn’t bought a fan to deal with these kinds of sudden situations, so she had to use a book as a temporary substitute to deal with the scorching sun outside the window.

“For a magical girl like you who dares to stand up and change the world, it is no exaggeration to respectfully call you Chief.

Actually, I just wanted to check on the situation of my daughter, Anjete, to see if she caused any trouble at your house yesterday.”

“Hahaha, how could that be a trouble?” Grinning, Kim Erise took a lollipop from the bedside and put it in her mouth, and waved her hand in satisfaction, no longer dwelling on the title.

“Last night, the four of us played games together, and we didn’t go to sleep until dawn.

We were all very happy! I guess they’re still sound asleep now?”

“Really?” The light in An Dingzhou’s eyes brightened, and his voice became a bit louder. “You mean, Xiaote is very happy?”

“Yes, she was the craziest one playing,” The red-haired girl sped up the fanning with the comic book, making a rustling sound.

“She was also the one who laughed the most.”

Ugh, it’s so hot. I hope the power supply will be restored soon.

Oh right, quickly check the remaining energy of the soul gem, and don’t make it as embarrassing as yesterday.

“Ah… happy is good, happy is good, happy is good, happy is good…”

The old man muttered to himself for a moment and then returned to normal: “Chief, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you for a favor.”

“Just say it, what’s there to mind? Just put forward any needs, and don’t be polite.”

She took out the soul gem from the small white ball and began to charge the former with Obsidian Seeds.

Mmm, it’s still fine. It had only lost half of its light.

Although the consumption rate was still fast, it at least proved that her body was gradually recovering—many of the scars had faded a lot, and she estimated that she could fully recover in two or three days.

“Then, may I ask the Chief to become Xiaote’s first friend?”

“Ha, I thought it was something that needed my help, it turned out to be this,”

The red-haired girl, chewing on the lollipop, burst out laughing and opened the small freezer in the bedroom, cleaned out the ice cream that had melted due to the power outage, and took a piece of sushi and put it in her mouth.

“She’s already a very important companion to me, and with my two cute sisters, Meng Zhaoyu and Mo, they can all become her good friends, so don’t worry.”

“Thank you very much, thank you very much.”

An Dingzhou’s tone relaxed a lot, and he sounded happy in the call.

“But, judging from your tone, Anjete seemed very lonely in the past,” The red-haired girl, whose mind was starting to work quickly, had already deduced some things and started asking,

“Of course, this is your private matter.

I won’t ask too much if it’s inconvenient, but if I can learn about her past, it will also help me to help her better.”

“There’s nothing inconvenient about this. In other words, it’s also good to find someone to talk to—actually, not to hide it from you, Chief, Xiaote hasn’t laughed for a very long time, and all of this is my responsibility.”

The old man’s voice sounded a little hoarse.

“For the past thirty years, I have been going out early and coming back late every day, either analyzing the genes of new varieties of wheat and rice in the lab, or checking their growth with my colleagues in the fields, so as to find a more optimized cultivation method.

When Xiaote was born, her biological mother died in childbirth. I was busy with work, and I spent most of my time at the unit, so I entrusted her to the nanny.

Before the war broke out, I might not have spent a month with her, and Xiaote either ignored me or simply ran back to her room to hide, regarding me as a stranger.

The nanny said that she often stayed in the room all day, only going out when it was time to eat, and when she went to kindergarten, she would also silently hide in the corner to play with toys, completely ignoring the other children.

My colleagues praised me as an excellent agricultural scientist, my superiors praised me as a diligent great national hero, my students praised me as a responsible teacher.

After winning the World Food Prize, the media praised me by saying that the Nobel Prize owed me an agricultural award.

Only I knew that I was a unqualified father, and I was sorry to my daughter.”

“Lacking a family’s company in childhood will indeed be very lonely, and it will also indirectly affect her personality,” Kim Erise nodded thoughtfully, not knowing whether she was commenting or sighing.

“But from my point of view, I will still deeply respect all the contributions and sacrifices you have made; and it is indeed very difficult to balance work and family, and I understand.”

“After the war broke out, the family members were safely transferred. I was called by the country to go to the rear to solve the most important food problem for people’s livelihood.

I was even busier than before, and I had even less chance to see Anjete.”

The man’s voice became more and more low, and even a sob could be vaguely felt.

“I originally planned to take some time to see my daughter properly and make up for the regrets of those many years in the past, but instead, I received the biggest piece of bad news in my life:

The safe place where Xiaote was located was destroyed, and more than a hundred people in it were killed, except for her.

Because Xiaote was the magical girl who destroyed the safe place, she killed everyone who had lived with her, and then left. Therefore, she was put on the B-level enemy list.

My colleagues later told me that I looked ten years older the moment I heard the news. I knelt on the ground and kept hitting my head against the concrete floor, crying out my daughter’s name loudly.

Several soldiers and students barely managed to restrain me.

After more than a dozen people persuaded me for half a day, I fainted due to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, and I was rescued in the hospital for a whole day before I escaped the danger to my life.

Until the moment I woke up, I knew that my beloved daughter had become a magical girl long ago, and had unknowingly stood on the opposite side of humanity.

What an unqualified father I am…”