Ran Jiuyi’s Past

“Wait, so I thought that girl Suzuki Tetsuya was being a Good Samaritan, but she was actually just press-ganging recruits? And why did she name you ‘Ran Jiu’yi’? Why on earth did you agree to it?”

Responding to Meng Shan’s critique, Ran Jiu’yi said, “Because the day I met her was September 1st (9/1), so she named me ‘Jiu’yi’ (9-1). She registered it before even telling me. Otherwise, do you really think I’d choose a name that sounds like it’s on the same level as ‘Fu Yanjie’?”

“I changed it to ‘Ran Qi’ as soon as I found out. As for why I changed it back to Ran Jiu’yi… that’s a story for later.”

“And as for why Tetsuya was headhunting… fine, I’ll give you the details. Have you heard of the Suzuki family?”

Meng Shan thought for a moment. “It rings a bell. A big foreign clan, right? There were rumors they were blessed by a Fox Immortal. I heard the family was wiped out a few years ago.”

“That’s right,” Ran Jiu’yi said. “The Suzukis are an ancient lineage. Apparently, centuries ago, their ancestor struck a pact with a powerful Fox Demon, which left the descendants with varying degrees of fox blood.”

“Relying on that bloodline, many members of each generation became superhumans. That’s how the family stayed standing for hundreds of years. But in recent decades, they noticed the average blood concentration was dropping. At that rate, the fox blood would have vanished entirely within a century.”

“So, they came up with a solution: consanguineous marriage.”

“Incestuous marriage?” Meng Shan grimaced. “Like those old nobles obsessed with ‘purity’? Doesn’t that just produce deformed kids? That’s a wretched idea. Who thought of that?”

“The current head of the family—Tetsuya’s grandfather, Suzuki Ritsu. Believe me, he’s a stubborn old fossil obsessed with bloodlines.”

Ran Jiu’yi let out a disdainful tch. “That old bastard actually tried to raise the family’s average purity by treating his descendants like livestock for breeding. Brothers and sisters today, mothers and sons tomorrow, fathers and daughters the day after—just cross-breeding them until a ‘satisfactory’ heir was born. His operations would have made Mendel have a stroke.”

“Then Suzuki Tetsuya…?” Meng Shan didn’t finish the sentence, but Ran Jiu’yi knew exactly what he meant.

“No. She ran away before it actually happened. In fact, most of the Suzukis were vehemently against Ritsu’s methods—it’s a total violation of human ethics. Tetsuya’s parents were among the dissenters. They used some tricks to smuggle her out.”

A thought occurred to Meng Shan. “So, did she form the Nine-Tailed Fox Squad to fight back against her family?”

“Half and half,” Ran Jiu’yi replied. “Forming the squad was her parents’ idea. If a child leaves home, they need a proper excuse and a legitimate job. The other half of the reason? Exactly what you thought. They wanted to build a powerful team loyal to Tetsuya. If the family ever moved against her, they’d have to weigh the costs.”

Meng Shan nodded in understanding. “So she sought you out because you were a fresh superhuman with no background or faction—the perfect candidate to groom.”

Ran Jiu’yi laughed. “You’ve got a point, but the truth isn’t that deep. She chose me because to register a squad, she had to list a second member within a week of the application. The strong superhumans were too proud to join her; they had better options. The weak ones heard about her background and were too scared to cross the Suzuki family.”

“Then there were the guys who only wanted Tetsuya because she’s beautiful or because they wanted a chance to pass on fox blood to their kids. Those types usually got kicked out before they even crossed the threshold.”

“After a week of witnessing the ‘diversity of the species,’ she finally remembered me—the girl she’d sent to jail on her last day.”

Meng Shan chuckled. “I see. Your first meeting was quite the event. What happened after that?”

“Don’t be in such a hurry. Let me tell it at my own pace.”

What’s the first thing you do when joining a new team? Get to know the environment? Learn the workflow? For Ran Jiu’yi, the most crucial task was picking a code name.

For someone as terrible at naming things as she was, it was torture. Every name she thought of was either too tacky or already taken. Finally, Suzuki Tetsuya suggested, “Why don’t you pick one based on your abilities?”

Ran Jiu’yi thought that made sense. During her two weeks in jail, she’d gained a basic grasp of her powers. She could create a certain amount of Eclipse Needles, though she couldn’t control them as precisely as she does now. After staring at the obsidian-colored needles for an entire night, she finally settled on the name ‘Bian’.

Meng Shan felt something was off. “I’m trying to see the connection between ‘Bian’ (Stone Probe/Acupuncture) and the Eclipse Needles, but I’m drawing a blank.”

“Of course you are. I made it up,” Ran Jiu’yi said bluntly. “I was in a rush. If I hadn’t picked it, she was going to name me something like ‘Pitch-Black Demon King’ or ‘Queen of the Dark Night’—stuff that sounds like a middle-schooler’s edgelord phase. For the record, her own code name was ‘Hidden Moon Spirit Fox.’ Her ability is summoning a fox demon projection between 3 and 15 meters tall. A bit chuunibyou, sure, but a normal enough name.”

The early days of the Nine-Tailed Fox Squad were far from smooth. At the time, Ran Jiu’yi’s strength was roughly equal to current Yi Ziling at best; she definitely couldn’t have beaten Jiang Yunshu or Bai He’an. She was a complete rookie, bottom of the barrel.

And Tetsuya, the captain, while decent—roughly on par with Ken the Werewolf before he goes into burst mode—was only fifteen. Raised by servants in a noble household, she couldn’t even take care of her basic daily life, let alone lead a war.

How did Ran Jiu’yi find out?

As a person with a fresh identity, Ran Jiu’yi couldn’t return to her old rental, and renting a new place required a fortune. When she told Tetsuya about her troubles, Tetsuya enthusiastically suggested, “Why don’t you come live with me?”

Ran Jiu’yi agreed without a second thought, imagining a glamorous mansion or a beautifully decorated girl’s room.

Reality hit her like a sledgehammer. When the door opened, she didn’t see a cozy bedroom or a luxury villa. She saw a two-bedroom apartment buried under mountains of trash, with clothes and daily necessities strewn everywhere like a disaster zone.

Ran Jiu’yi silently closed the door, reopened it, closed it, and opened it again…

After several tries, she finally accepted the reality. Taking a deep breath of the fresh outside air, she stepped into the room and began to clean. Did she miss her tiny but tidy rental when she was using her needles to pin down her hundredth ‘mysterious long-legged crawling roommate’? Probably.

But years of living alone had paid off. It took her only half a day to clean Tetsuya’s pigsty of an apartment. Incidentally, that was when she discovered that Magical Girl outfits can be cleaned and repaired using mana. As for how she discovered that… it’s too disgusting to discuss. Don’t ask.

By evening, the apartment was transformed. Every corner sparkled with cleanliness, as if the filth and the ‘Guangdong Pixies’ from earlier were just a hallucination. The dining table—which had been buried since the day it was bought—was wiped clean and topped with a spread of delicious food.

In this dreamlike scene, Suzuki Tetsuya sat down with trembling legs, picked up her chopsticks, and cautiously took a bite. She froze instantly.

“Is this an illusion?” Tetsuya asked.

“No, it’s my hard work,” Ran Jiu’yi snapped, her cold face full of annoyance. “Just how long has it been since you cleaned this place? There were maggots in the fridge.”

“Two months…”

“Oh. Two months without cleaning. You’re too lazy for your own good. You’re going to rot.”

Tetsuya suddenly threw herself at Ran Jiu’yi’s feet: “It’s been two months since I’ve seen a home this cozy or eaten food this good! Please! Stay and live with me! I’ll do anything!”

“Since then,” Ran Jiu’yi said with a weary air of experience, “I lived with Tetsuya. It taught me a valuable lesson: a beautiful girl’s room isn’t always pink and cute; sometimes it’s a wildlife preserve.”

“But it turned out well. I had a good place to stay and didn’t have to worry about meals. I could sleep well and cook whatever I wanted. The price was just taking care of a high-society lady who had zero life skills and was a constant magnet for trouble.”

“I see. No wonder your cooking is so good—you had to satisfy a refined palate,” Meng Shan remarked. His gaze drifted toward the dining table, his mind replaying the flavors of tonight’s feast.

“Hey! Your focus is weird. Were you even listening to me?”

Snapped out of his reverie by her protest, Meng Shan quickly pulled himself back. “I’m listening, I’m listening! I was just curious how you developed those skills.”

“Nothing to be curious about. Before I became a Magical Girl, I worked at a high-end business hotel. There was a chef there who loved to slack off, so he taught me his secrets just so I could do his job for him.”

“A business hotel? They let you in?”

“I was cheap. 9-to-9, 2000 a month, no social security. Why wouldn’t they hire me?”

“That’s heartless.”

“Tell me about it.”