My brother couldn't be a corrupted magical girl.

Chapter 2 Nursing Home

"So tired..."

As Bai Yuze walked out of the school gate, he said he was tired, but instead of going straight home, he took a bus to the Akihabara Nursing Home, which was located across most of Yeqiu City.

I'm preparing to volunteer at a nursing home in Akihabara.

Most of the people in the nursing home were victims of the third wave of the Hellstorm; their relatives, children, and friends all died in that disaster.

As soon as I entered the nursing home, the elderly people looked at me, and a smile appeared on their wrinkled, expressionless faces.

It seems that the arrival of the young people has improved their mood considerably.

"Xiaoze's here! What funny stories about mischievous students are you going to tell us today?"

"Thank you for your hard work, Xiaoze. You come over every day to help us old folks with this and that."

Bai Yuzhe greeted the elderly people in a friendly manner and then entered the courtyard.

"Brother Ze, you're here."

In the courtyard stood a burly young man.

He was about 1.8 meters tall, wearing a light blue shirt and black shorts, dressed very simply and casually.

He was quick at work, and soon he had finished collecting the sheets drying in the courtyard. Hearing footsteps, he saw Bai Yuze coming in and greeted him with a smile.

The young man's name was Peng Liang. He was not old and looked to be around twenty years old.

The two met by chance. When Peng Liang was eighteen, his parents and younger brother all died in the Black Tide.

When he was left alone and about to commit suicide by jumping into the river by the bridge, he was discovered and rescued by Bai Yuze, who had just entered society. Bai Yuze introduced him to a nursing home in Akihabara, and under Bai Yuze's influence, he eventually became a volunteer there.

Having lost loved ones, Peng Liang treated these elderly people as if they were his own, and the elderly people naturally regarded him as their own child.

Most of these people are destitute and have no one to rely on. Even though the government has introduced a lot of welfare policies, the smiles on their faces will never return.

Like kites drifting in the sky, the string that held them together had broken.

Bai Yuze and Peng Liang's job is to try their best to tie these kites down so that they can find new anchor points and live happily.

Not long after Peng Liang arrived, he received a recruitment notice for the Special Operations Department. He hated the Disaster Beast to the bone and signed up without hesitation.

Over there, he seemed to have rediscovered the will to live, and soon after starting work, he recovered from his trauma.

He seems to be doing a pretty good job, often boasting about how awesome he is, showing a trend of being promoted to team leader in one year and bureau chief in two years.

In the courtyard, Bai Yuzhe and Peng Liang were busy working.

The elderly people gathered together, reminiscing.

"Xiao Ze is handsome, caring, and a teacher. I wonder which girl will be lucky enough to marry him. It's a pity my granddaughter was killed by that damned monster, otherwise..."

"Sigh, it's all in the past."

"Bai Yuzhe and Peng Liang are really good kids. Bai is a teacher at Qiuyuan No.1 Middle School. Although Qiuyuan Middle School wasn't that great before, after the Black Tide crisis, the school resources from other cities were merged with No.1 Middle School, and now Qiuyuan No.1 Middle School is the best school in the urban area near Yeqiu City..."

"Xiao Peng is not bad either; I heard he's from the Special Operations Department..."

"The pay is good, but they're often away from home, and it's quite dangerous. Overall, though, they're both promising candidates, and both are in government-affiliated positions!"

Just then, an old man suddenly emerged and whispered.

"You guys say it's better to benefit our own family than to let others benefit. What do you think of my daughter, Xiao Huan?"

"No, your daughter has never come to see you once since she graduated from high school and went to university abroad. She doesn't even care about her own mother. Don't let her ruin this promising talent."

"She hasn't come to see me all these years, but she sends me money every month, and quite a lot of it. She's still very filial."

The elderly woman with white hair, standing leisurely under the big tree, did not want to give up, but she also understood that if she wanted Xiaobai to go on a blind date with her daughter, she would at least need the consent of her companions.

"No, absolutely not. What we old folks lack isn't money, it's care. What if your daughter leads them astray? Who will take care of us lonely old folks then?"

...

Inside the courtyard, Bai Yuzhe and the other man chatted idly.

"Xiao Peng, I heard you're having a victory celebration over there, all gathered together, eating and drinking like mad. What brings you out here?"

Bai Yuze asked casually. Over time, he had some guesses about Peng Liang's identity, and the other party had never tried to hide it from him.

"You want me to call you?"

"If Captain Peng sincerely invites us, it's not impossible."

"Okay, you can join the Abyss Security Bureau, and I'll take you there."

"Forget it. You know me too well. I'm just a lazy bum who lives off others. I'm not the kind of person who'd ever be selfless. If you recruit me, I might just throw myself into the abyss one day... Then you'll get a good reputation for sacrificing family for the greater good, and I'll be at a huge loss."

Bai Yuze waved his hand and refused without even thinking.

This wasn't the first time Peng Liang had extended an olive branch to Bai Yuze, but the other party had rejected it each time.

He could understand, after all, he had a younger sister in high school who depended entirely on him for support.

As for the last sentence, he took it as a joke. Judging from Bai Yuze's care for the elderly in the nursing home over the past few years, the other party couldn't possibly be that kind of person.

"Fine, if they don't come, they don't come. The Special Operations Department's doors are always open for you. This third wave of the Black Tide is finally over. The spacetime rift has been closed, and we finally don't have to live those nerve-wracking days anymore. I just wonder when the fourth Black Tide will come. Damn Abyss Gate, damn Disaster Beasts..."

"Stop complaining. Who knows, those remnants of the calamity beasts might be hiding in some dark corner, planning to cause trouble while you're off guard. And... never mind."

Bai Yuzhe leaned against the wall, skillfully taking out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. But when he looked up and saw a few familiar old men, he silently put the pack away.

There were some things he didn't say, and couldn't say them.

Every time he tries to say something, he experiences a sharp, stabbing pain in his brain, as if someone is stabbing his brain with needles, causing him to lose his ability to speak.

It often takes quite a while to recover.

"Don't worry, we'll take into account what you, an ordinary citizen, can think of. We have several A-level adjudicator teams on standby in each city. As long as those vermin dare to show their faces, we won't hesitate to wipe them out."

Seeing Bai Yuzhe's hesitant expression as he tried to smoke, Peng Liang took out two cigarettes from his pocket.

He handed one to Bai Yuze and put the other in his mouth.

"Clatter"

The flame died down, Peng Liang took a deep breath, and smiled as he pointed to the smoking sign on the wall:

"Brother Ze, go ahead and smoke if you want. This is a designated smoking area, it's fine. But if you ask me, Brother Ze, you should quit smoking. As a teacher, what if you corrupt the future of our country?"

"Pah, you little brat, you have the nerve to talk back to me. Every time I ask you out for a late-night snack, you're always puffing away on cigarettes. You go through two or three packs of cigarettes in one night. I bet by then, you'll be dead from lung cancer before the monster even kills you."

"You don't know anything. It's all about worry. Sigh, you have no idea how cunning those monsters are... Forget it, what's the point of talking to an ordinary person like you?"

Upon hearing this, Peng Liang immediately retorted, but stopped halfway through his sentence.

He shook his head, revealing a desolate look on his face, as if he had borne too much pressure but disdained to explain it to ordinary people like them.

"Hmph!" Bai Yuze snorted irritably, coldly revealing the other party's dark history: "Yes, yes, I wonder who was acting like they were dying back then in the Mi River."

"After you took that cigarette last time, you said you weren't allowed to bring up the past again," Peng Liang said fiercely, his face instantly darkening.

Bai Yuze didn't say anything, but lit the cigarette he had in his mouth and smiled.

First Kuroshio Crisis

One month after Japan, with America's support, insisted on discharging nuclear wastewater,

In Kyoto Ward, Toyo City, a spatial rift suddenly appeared, from which emerged a monster called the Disaster Beast. These monsters were thick-skinned, enormous, and fed exclusively on humans, and were inherently cruel.

And the more they eat, the faster they evolve.

What makes it even more desperate for humans is that ordinary firearms cannot do any harm to them.

In the end, it was only when the Xia Kingdom brought out its super weapon—the Space Orbit Particle Beam—that the problem was solved.

In the tense countdown, a blinding pale blue light, like a solemn yet terrifying divine punishment, descended from the sky. With a burst of light, the red dot on the radar disappeared, and amidst cheers from countless people, the calamity beast was annihilated.

Just one year later, the second Kuroshio crisis broke out.

Spacetime rifts have reappeared, but this time they're not just in Dongying City; they've appeared in various parts of the world, all in highly developed cities, such as New York, Washington D.C., and London...

Faced with this situation, humanity is somewhat desperate; they can't very well drop mushroom eggs on their own cities!

At this time, magical spirits similar to Pokémon appeared. They could make magical contracts with human girls, thus giving the humans the ability to destroy the monsters.

Soon, the second Black Tide crisis ended, and humanity finally found hope for resistance.

In the same month, humanity began to establish the Earth Abyss Security Bureau, and magical girls who signed magical contracts were officially called Arbitrators, a title accepted by most middle-aged and elderly people.

However, many young people prefer the term "magical girl," and the anime and manga community is a prime example. They even create various fan clubs for their favorite magical girls and cheer them on.

Often, during their battles, one can spot the figures of anime/manga characters amidst the ruins.

This was once explicitly prohibited by official regulations, but it still couldn't stop their madness.

As judges, they secretly like to call themselves magical girls. This term is full of girlish charm and youthful energy. Who doesn't have a girlish heart?

Over time, apart from official documents and announcements, most people prefer to call them magical girls.

Furthermore, during these successive Black Tide crises, humanity ranked the Abyssal Beasts according to their destructive power over human society and the difficulty of magical girls' resistance, creating a corresponding hierarchy among the Abyssal Beasts.

Meteor, Lunar Eclipse, Falling Sun, Asura, Crystal Wall

The Third Kuroshio Crisis

During this Black Tide, humanity believed that with the power of magical girls, they could easily defend against the abyss's attack.

They became somewhat complacent in the confrontation, but the abyss soon roused humanity, forcing them to pay an extremely heavy price.

The calamity beasts emerging from the spacetime rifts have become significantly stronger. Most of the calamity beasts that appeared in the first two Black Tides were around the level of [Meteorite] to [Eclipse Moon].

Starting from the third time, the overall strength of the Disaster Beasts began to increase. Even the lowest-level Disaster Beast had the strength of [Eclipse Moon]. [Falling Sun] and [Shura] served as the backbone of the force. The top-tier forces included the three Demonesses with the strength of [Crystal Wall], and finally, the Lord of the Abyss, a super Disaster Beast whose size was comparable to Godzilla, was summoned by the three Demonesses.

They paid a heavy price.

In the end, humanity won, but the victory was hard-won. The human population dropped from a peak of 74 billion to 40 billion. On the magical girl side, two-thirds of the fighting power was reduced. Of the twenty-four human defensive fortresses, fourteen were breached, and countless prosperous cities were reduced to ruins overnight.

Peng Liang's family members also perished in this Black Tide.

"Let's not talk about those old times. When can I finally meet my sister-in-law? Those grandpas and grandmas outside are getting really anxious. If you really can't find anyone, I can introduce you to a few."

Peng Liang looked at Bai Yuze with a mischievous grin and teased him.

"Tsk tsk, I'm not in a hurry. I'm more curious about what you plan to do with your two beautiful girlfriends. I don't want to end up mourning your headless corpse one day."

Bai Yuze glanced at his good brother in front of him. He was 1.85 meters tall and looked like a big, clumsy guy.

Then look at yourself in the glass next to you.

He was about 1.78 meters tall, with short, black hair and sharply defined, sculpted features. He had a somewhat androgynous, handsome face, and his eyes shone with a certain light. His regularly trained physique, while not exactly tall and imposing, certainly made him look more handsome than the other person...

How did this situation come about, with some areas suffering from drought while others are flooded?

"You laugh at Cheng for leaving early, Cheng laughs at you for not having enough time. Don't worry, they are all my wings, I know what I'm doing. It's getting dark, you siscon, hurry back and prepare some food, otherwise you'll have to stay at my place again, which will affect my girlfriend's happiness."

When talking about happiness, Peng Liang even emphasized the interjections.

"Just kidding, I'm not afraid of my sister, I'm just giving in to her."

While speaking, Bai Yuze's eyes honestly glanced at the sky.

Before we knew it, the bright moon had risen and the sky had gradually darkened; it was indeed time to go home.

"Damn it, you womanizer who neglects your friends, you talk as if I like going to your house."

"Fine, fine, you think you're so great, so high and mighty. Next time your sister kicks you out of the house, don't come back to my place to freeload."

Bai Yuzhe: "..."