Something's wrong with how I'm watching anime.

"Or rather, it will choose a girl who has some kind of wish."

Kerberos thought for a moment, then shook his head:

"I do not know."

"but...."

Crubelos then said:

"The first girl chosen by this incubator couldn't possibly have wished for something as simple as a piece of cake or a pretty dress."

"Yes."

Kazama nodded slightly.

"The first magical girl, the first wish—this is very important."

"Looking at the entire magical girl raising and energy extraction system constructed by the incubators in Madoka Magica, its brilliance lies in the fact that the entire system is already in an infinite loop."

"That is, the so-called magical girl's desperate cycle."

"After signing the contract, the magical girl's use of her abilities will consume the purity of the gem. When the gem is completely impure, it will shatter and form a Lament Seed."

"In order to keep the gems pure, the magical girls must hunt down witches and steal the Seed of Lamentation to purify the gems."

"In the process of hunting witches, fighting will consume magic power, thus creating a continuous cycle."

"One day, the magical girls will encounter a witch they cannot defeat, and will be transformed into a new witch because their magic power is exhausted."

"Of course, magical girls also have ways to avoid this situation as much as possible."

"For example, use your abilities as little as possible and hunt down weaker witches. This way you can survive for a long time, just like Sakura Kyoko in the original work."

"But this model cannot be popularized because there are only a limited number of relatively weak witches. If there are too many magical girls with this idea, the competition will inevitably lead to the depletion of magical energy."

"Besides, most magical girls are idealists. They fight against witches to protect their families, cities, and humanity.

"And then transform into a new witch..."

"In order to defeat the new witch, magical girls will continue to be born to fight."

"At this point, all the incubators need to do is select girls with good aptitude to form contracts with, wait for the girls to inevitably become witches, and then harvest their energy."

"If Madoka Kaname hadn't appeared in the original work, this cycle of despair, where enemies and foes share the same origin, would probably have continued until the complete extinction of the human race."

“However, there is one exception in this chain of despair,” Kazama said slowly.

"You mean... the first magical girl?" Cerberus understood what Kazama meant.

"Because the original magical girls did not need to fight witches, theoretically, as long as they did not use magic power recklessly and consume magic power, they could survive for a long time."

“Yes,” Kazama said.

"Although this girl will eventually become a witch, from the perspective of the incubator, an excessively long energy conversion cycle is undoubtedly an extremely inefficient thing."

"Therefore, in the initial selection of magical girls, the incubators definitely tend to choose girls whose wishes have a greater causal relationship."

"At the same time, after the girl's wish is fulfilled and she gains power, she will frequently use this power."

"Knowing the girl's wish will allow us to roughly predict what she will do with her power. Finding this wayward girl will be much easier."

"Of course, in other words..."

"If this girl frequently uses the power she obtains by distorting the common sense of the world, it will surely manifest itself in the present world through abnormal phenomena."

“Reverse engineering based on these anomalies is also a viable approach.”

Kazama muttered to himself.

The only problem is that I'm afraid this magical girl might go too far.

The human civilization in the present world is different from the human society in the story that was built up by the incubator civilization.

When a magical girl behaves abnormally, the incubator can easily clean up the mess.

But reality is different. If one truly uses their abilities to influence reality, the anomalies can be detected and traced back to their source.

.............

After leaving the hospital, Li Bingruo first went home to change out of her sportswear and put on her uniform before returning to the police station.

The major case that happened the day before yesterday still leaves the team with a lot of work to do, and it's not appropriate to take leave for personal reasons. Although her supervisor, Zhang Zhihai, granted her a day off, Li Bingruo rushed back immediately after visiting Chen Nan.

Because it was close to noon, her team had just finished their morning visits and were all in the main office.

When Li Bingruo returned, it was lunchtime, so everyone went to the company cafeteria together.

"Captain Li, did you go to visit your relatives in Xinghai this morning?"

Mealtime is during break time, so we can chat about topics outside of work.

Everyone in the team knew that Li Bingruo was not a local of Xinghai, but was assigned here three years ago.

"No, I went to visit the daughter of a senior colleague."

"Which senior are you? Do we know each other?"

"You don't know... but Leng Bie should."

"Chen Lijun, Officer Chen."

"When I first arrived here four years ago, Officer Chen was the one who took me under his wing."

"I haven't heard of that before. Was Officer Chen transferred?"

Leng Bie, who had been silently eating all along, suddenly spoke up:

"Officer Chen sacrificed his life three years ago while fighting to save people and against criminals."

"He was a very righteous and selfless good police officer."

The dinner table fell silent.

After a long pause, the quick-witted person changed the subject: "Speaking of which, the guys in the third department have it pretty tough..."

The man looked toward the food serving window, where a young man in uniform was having a cafeteria lady pack up a bunch of boxed meals.

"What happened?" Li Bingruo asked.

"It seems a bunch of people came over there to turn themselves in this morning," someone who knew the general situation said.

"Confessed? A bunch of them?"

"Well, it can be roughly considered a criminal gang. The leader has a criminal record for assault, and the rest are unemployed vagrants and petty thugs."

Li Bingruo frowned.

The day before yesterday, the bureau specifically mentioned at a meeting that they were preparing to launch a city-wide campaign to crack down on organized crime.

The operation hadn't even started before a gang had already surrendered themselves?

Chapter 51 Be a Good Person

"Everyone, I've brought the food..."

Carrying two large bags of boxed lunches from the cafeteria, Liu Kai walked into the office of the Public Security Section.

Upon seeing Liu Kai enter, a middle-aged policeman put down the file box he was carrying and called out to everyone in the office, "Put down what you're doing and finish your meal before you get back to work."

Then, the man nodded kindly to Liu Kai.

"Thank you for making this trip, Xiao Kai."

"It's nothing, it's nothing."

Liu Kai responded with a smile as he distributed the boxed lunches from the bag to his colleagues.

A moment later, only one boxed meal remained in the large bag.

Liu Kai looked around the large office, seemingly searching for someone, but he couldn't find them.

Finally, he looked at the man in front of him who had already opened his lunchbox and was about to pick up his chopsticks, and asked:

"Uncle Tang, where is my master?"

"Are they still in the interrogation room?"

"Ah."

The middle-aged policeman, referred to as Uncle Tang, nodded:

"Old Wang is still dealing with the ringleader of that group over there."

"But it should be soon."

"Xiao Kai, you don't need to wait for your master anymore, let's eat first."

..............

Inside the interrogation room, Wang Yuan was feeling a sudden headache.

This headache came from the man sitting in the restrained chair opposite him.

He was a bald man with muscles all over his body and a face full of fat.

The man's right arm appeared to be injured, with a cast on and slinged with gauze.

At this moment, the man was crying so hard that tears streamed down his face. It was rather unsightly and ridiculous for a grown man to act like this, which made the young girl next to Wang Yuan, who was in charge of taking notes, unable to help but curl the corners of her mouth.

"Officer, I really know I was wrong," the man said, choking back tears.

"I repent, I sincerely repent."

"Now, when I think about all the terrible things I did in the past, it breaks my heart..."

"Why did I do such a bastard thing before?"

"Alright," Wang Yuan coughed and said.

"Although the attitude of admitting the mistake is good, punishment is necessary as long as a mistake is made."

"You have a criminal record, and you even served several months in jail. There's no reason you shouldn't understand this..."

"I know." The burly man nodded quickly, like a chicken pecking at rice.

"I am willing to accept any punishment, and while accepting the punishment, I will also engage in deeper self-reflection."