HCB Chapter 609 is a happy ending.
Chapter 609 is a happy ending.
"Rongcheng Radio, bringing you live coverage from the front lines."
"Due to the rampage and destruction caused by the astral behemoth, many public facilities in Rongcheng have been paralyzed, and countless buildings have been destroyed. The Hero Association is working hard to repair them."
"The association's affiliated disaster relief fund has intervened in the compensation process. Residents whose homes were damaged can immediately receive a temporary resettlement fund. The association's engineering and logistics departments will be fully operational in the near future to strive to complete the reconstruction of all buildings on their original sites within 30 days."
Fenrir took off the headphones hanging on his ears, his wolf ears twitched a few times to relieve the fatigue from wearing headphones for so long, and glanced at the old-fashioned radio in his hand.
Then he turned to Alice and Jack, who were curiously observing the semiconductor in his hand.
"...What is this?" Alice asked curiously as Fenrir finally took off his headphones.
Little Jack stared at it with a blank expression, his arm covered in bandages and plasters, just like the bandages on Alice's body.
"Oh, this is a transistor radio. I listened to this every day when I was a child in the orphanage. It's been like this for many years," Fenrir replied.
This radio, which could be considered an electronic antique, is about the size of a brick and is incredibly heavy. Its sound quality is far from the top-notch of today's electronic devices, but its main features are its durability, sturdiness, and high compatibility. You can simply plug in wired headphones to tune to the radio. In the event of a power outage or disaster, it is one of the best tools for collecting news information.
At this time, Chengdu was just the place where this antique radio could put its limited uses to good use.
Fenrir handed the radio to Alice and Jack, glanced at the girls who were curiously playing with it, and looked up at the catgirl talking to the doctor in the white coat not far away.
"Doctor, how is Foxy's condition?" Hellcat asked anxiously, eager to know the answer.
The young doctor, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, adjusted his glasses and nodded gently to the catgirl in front of him.
"Her vital signs are stable, and her injuries have mostly healed. She probably didn't wake up because she was too tired. Let her rest for a while."
Moira's explanation relieved Hellcat. His anxious and tense expression suddenly collapsed, and a sense of relief and exhaustion instantly appeared in his eyes.
"That's good...that's wonderful...thank you, doctor..."
Muttering to herself, the catgirl propped herself up on the railing and thanked Moira.
Her swaying movements startled Moy, who reached out to support her, fearing she might fall headfirst into the bed, which would be quite unfortunate if a cat and a fox ended up sitting side-by-side in the hospital.
"You must be exhausted. I suggest you find a room and get some sleep. I'll keep an eye on Xin Yuehu."
"I'm fine, I'm fine. I've been here with her until she woke up..." Hellcat shook his head, his determination unwavering.
Seeing her so determined to stay and guard Moira, there was nothing else they could do but look towards Fenrir, hoping their companions could go up and persuade her.
"So we've all ended up here guarding this place," Cheshire Rabbit quipped.
She sat on the other side of the ward door, flanked by Hellcat like two guardian deities. No one dared to approach them. Even Iris, who had just passed by and was peeking in to visit the patient, was frightened away by their aura and left in a hurry.
"Don't look at me like that. Although I do like to nitpick at Iris, do you think I'm that menacing right now?" Cheshire Rabbit quickly waved his hand, denying that Iris was scared away by him.
Fenrir gave the pink-haired bunny girl a deep look. He wanted to nod and say, "I think so," but the atmosphere didn't seem suitable for such a joke, so he didn't dare to say anything.
"...Sorry, I might have been a little serious unconsciously just now."
Hearing Cheshire Rabbit's conversation, Nan Jiayu sighed helplessly, leaned back in the aisle chair, and apologized listlessly.
Her current tired appearance was a stark contrast to her previous aura of unapproachability, like having Hyacinth wield the magic cannon of the Wheat Squad. The contrast was so striking that even Fenrir felt a little uncomfortable.
"Why are you apologizing? Everyone knows you're worried, and we're worried about her safety too," Fenrir said, shrugging.
Although Cheshire Rabbit didn't know what to say for a moment, he nodded deeply in agreement with Fenrir's statement.
"That's right, I just heard Tian Nanxing say that they are also very worried about Hu Hu's safety," Alice added.
Hearing her companions say this, Nan Jiayu smiled, glanced back at the ward door, closed her eyes helplessly, and sighed softly.
"Yes... as long as she's alright..."
"What the doctor said earlier was right. You look exhausted too. Today, you and Hyacinth were the fastest and fought the hardest. Hey, I heard Hyacinth was even more ferocious than Starry Night today. What were Red Rose and the others saying it was called again?"
"【Shining Star】, it's said that Inari is still trying to research it." Black Jack said, "From the information we have so far, it's said to be a one-time use item. After it's used up, the guardian star will shatter, just like the Starry Shadow of the cat and rabbit."
"I see... So it seems it has something in common with our Starry Night Shadow? What do you think, Kitty, your Starry Night Shadow—"
Fenrir hadn't finished speaking when he looked at Hellcat and swallowed the rest of his sentence back down his throat.
The catgirl had already fallen into a deep sleep, leaning against the chair in the aisle, her ears drooping on her head, her breathing even and deep.
Everyone tacitly remained silent. The gray wolf girl quietly stepped forward, gently picked up the petite cat girl, and carried her into the ward. She placed her on the empty bed next to Xin Yuehu and thoughtfully covered her with a blanket.
"She's really exhausted... After all this commotion, there's not a single sign that she's waking up..." Cheshire Rabbit whispered at the door.
"Yes. How about we find somewhere else to continue our conversation? We won't disturb them." "I agree."
The girls tiptoed out of the ward.
A small fox head peeked out from around the corner of the corridor not far away. After confirming that no one was in front of the door, it waved behind it, directing the girls, who were also moving very quietly, to walk to the door.
Three heads crowded to the glass window of the ward, all looking at the cat and fox sleeping side by side inside.
"Waaah... Fox is so badly injured..." Nightingale was full of worry, wishing she could rush in immediately to give Heart Moon Fox some more healing magic.
But this impulse was stopped by the calm Iris. The pure white magical girl looked at the golden fox girl sleeping peacefully on the bed, and she also looked very worried.
"Xin Yuehu doesn't seem to be as wicked as Hyacinth usually thinks... To protect Sasha, she and Dandelion formed a human wall to block Sasha. Fortunately, she held off the fully-formed Garuda in the real world, which gave us the opportunity to break through the mental world to support her."
Yue Tianxin sat on Nightingale's shoulder and whispered to the two people beside her.
Although this might sound like I'm praising myself... it's an absolutely objective evaluation from Red Rose! It's definitely not something I made up on the spot!
"Yes... but Xin Yuehu doesn't actually act as much as Fengxinzi described... um... how should I put it..."
Iris tried to say, "Actually, I think Kokoro is a good person," but she couldn't get the words out for a long time. She felt it was a bit strange for a heroine certified by the Hero Association to praise Kokoro, who claimed to be a villain...
"Because Fox isn't a bad person! I think Hellcat is worse than her! And that Fenrir, he's like a monster!"
Nightingale couldn't help but make a couple of sarcastic remarks. The catgirl on the hospital bed suddenly sneezed a little in her sleep, unconsciously tucked the blanket in, and showed no signs of waking up.
Fenrir's loud sneeze echoed from the depths of the distant corridor, and one could even hear her muttering something like, "I wonder if someone is talking about me..."
The nightingale was speechless for a moment, and obediently stopped complaining, instead just cuddling the fox from afar with the iris beside her.
"...Speaking of which, what about Arisaema?"
Suddenly, Yue Tianxin remembered something and asked the two of them after they left through the window of the fox spirit.
The iris shook its head, and the nightingale, after thinking for a moment, also shook its head, but then revealed what it knew:
"She was with Alice in the mental world. The mental world she was in charge of guarding seemed to be some kind of Monopoly game, except that in that mental world, what kind of 'chips' were bought with money... I don't quite understand either."
Fox Fairy and Iris Flower exchanged a glance, as if they finally understood what Tian Nanxing meant by "I took 6 steps in 5 rounds, I am a shrimp-headed katana".
Besides visiting Xin Yuehu, Iris Flower also has another ward to visit.
Following Dr. Moira's routine ward rounds, the two people and the fox entered a slightly crowded ward.
Inside the door were several beds, and a number of winged children sat there chattering away—some big, some small. The older ones looked about the size of a seven or eight-year-old human child, while the younger ones were probably only four or five years old. They were all tiny and very cute.
Compared to the eagle owl girl standing at the door, who was about the same height as the nightingale, the chattering and noisy children on the hospital bed were simply a bunch of tiny little ones.
"Ah, Sasha, you're here too?" Iris was stunned by the noisy winged creature's nest as soon as she stepped inside, and quickly said to Sasha beside her.
Seeing the two magical girls enter, the ward became even more lively:
"It's a magical girl iris!" "The iris is so pretty—" "Can I touch it?"
Just as the children were about to jump off the bed and gather around, they saw the eagle owl girl spread her wings, forming a thick wall of feathers that blocked everyone behind them.
"Whoa!" "It's completely blocked! We can't see the irises at all!" "You're bullying us! You're bullying us!"
"Hmm...it seems you're quite popular, Iris," Nightingale remarked.
"Haha..." Iris smiled bitterly.
Just as she was about to say something, the bathroom door on the ward balcony suddenly opened, and the children practically jumped back onto the bed, lay down one by one, closed their eyes, and pretended to be sleeping soundly.
The people at the door immediately looked at the winged figure walking in from the balcony—
Wearing a hospital gown, she walked helplessly to the bedside, covered the children with the blankets, and then strolled over to the eagle owl girl with her wings folded. She looked up at her, and then at the two magical girls at the door who seemed to be doing something.
Then, out of curiosity, I asked:
"Oh, Sasha, are these two your friends?"
"Yes, the friends I met in Chengdu, they are all... good people."
After struggling for a while, Sasha finally managed to squeeze out a "good person card." Her face flushed red, and she quickly turned around to introduce the two people behind her, her eyes brimming with undisguised joy:
"Um, let me introduce the irises and the nightingales!"
"This is, yes, yes, this is my mom!"
The girls in the ward exclaimed in unison, "Really?!"
In the distance, deep in the corridor, a young man in the Hero Association's black uniform lit a cigarette in the darkness. The faint light from the cigarette butt illuminated his deep eyes, which were burning with blue flames...
And his name tag, with its black background, blue lettering, and gold trim, was prominently displayed on his chest bag. The four characters "Barbarossa" were clearly visible on it.
"Hiss—whoosh..."
He took a deep drag of his cigarette, slowly exhaled, glanced at the noisy ward, and said softly:
"A happy ending, isn't it?"
He seemed to be talking to someone, or perhaps he was talking to himself.
He calmly turned around, cigarette in his mouth, and disappeared into the abyss-like darkness.