A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

On the night of July 2, 2026, Leijing Square was the most crowded and bustling area in the entire city.

Along the brightly lit street, people heard a sudden commotion in the sky and looked up.

Following the noise, they witnessed an unimaginable scene:

—A ghastly white corpse was impaled on the spire of the Leijing Iron Tower!

They stood frozen in a daze, until an ear-piercing scream shattered the square’s silence.

”No, no, no... How can I die here? I haven’t even been to Rain Crow’s fan meet-and-greet yet...” Theater Puppet spat a mouthful of blood, kicking its legs wildly in the air as it shouted.

But the more it struggled, the deeper the spire pierced into its body.

Seeing everyone’s eyes focused on it, White Jack stopped struggling.

It pointed at Magical Girl Ember in the distant sky and spoke in the tone of someone telling a dry joke:

”That’s right, Miss Ember... I’m about to die, and you’ve brutally murdered someone in public once again. Don’t you feel guilty?”

Ember stared back, her eyes filled with indignation and confusion.

She had seen it clearly: White Jack had adjusted its trajectory mid-fall, deliberately aiming for the iron tower so the spire would impale its body. Why would it commit suicide?

This was a blatant setup. She could already imagine tomorrow’s news headlines—”Magical Girl Ember Relapses, Brutally Murders Criminal in Public Again, Suspected of Challenging the Public’s Bottom Line.”

Once public outrage boiled over again, she would truly be finished... No matter how the Magical Girl Company shelved her or spun the PR, they would never suppress the masses’ anger. She could forget about ever appearing in the public eye as a sanctioned magical girl again.

Ember fell silent and looked down.

Screams rippled across the square as people fled in panic. A child fell to the ground and wailed. At the same time, scarlet blood poured like a waterfall from White Jack’s pierced chest, dyeing the iron tower’s spire red.

This scene, compared to a certain image Ember had seen before...

...was exactly the same.

The sight she had witnessed that day came roaring back like a train, crashing headlong into her mind: the high-rise dyed red with blood, the stares of the crowd, their terrified and astonished faces, and the camera flashes that never stopped for a second.

The ringing in her ears grew deafening, making Magical Girl Ember want to cover them.

She didn’t know what to do. Her hands and feet were icy cold, and her body trembled. She opened her mouth but remained speechless, the terrified gazes once again drowning her like a tidal wave.

But at that moment, White Jack threw its hands up, tilting its head to look at the bustling crowd in the square:

”Please don’t cyberbully our pitiful and cute Miss Ember, alright? I, White Jack, testify here and now! I died by her hands completely voluntarily! This is absolutely not a one-sided slaughter!”

As it spoke, White Jack raised a hand to its forehead in a military salute.

It maintained its eerie, impaled posture on the spire and swept a solemn glance over the crowd below.

But no one in the crowd cared about its words; they simply continued screaming and fleeing.

So it lowered its head, sighed, and then strained its voice to shout with near-lunatic frenzy:

”If she hadn’t killed me, I was going to snap the Leijing Iron Tower in half and smash all you idiots into meat paste! Then I’d dig out your intestines to use as garnish for roast crow!”

It paused. ”Oh... you’re asking what kind of crow? Rain Crow, of course.”

Magical Girl Ember listened in stunned disbelief, slowly looking up at it.

Her mind was completely blank. She had no idea what this lunatic was doing. First it deliberately set her up to frame her, and now it was suddenly speaking in her defense. It was completely incomprehensible.

White Jack raised its nonexistent eyebrows and muttered in a rambling tone:

”Oh no... why does this sound like some clumsy PR stunt? Am I a shill hired by the Magical Girl Company to whitewash her?”

With that, it hurled its cane down into the square with all its might.

In an instant, the cane ignited with ghostly blue flames.

Like a bewitchingly colored torch, it plummeted straight toward a child in the center of the square. A direct hit would smash the child’s head to pulp and boil his brains! But White Jack could command the cane to fly back to its hand at any moment.

If Ember shot the cane, it would be knocked away, and the child in the square would be unharmed. If she didn’t shoot in time, the cane would automatically fly back into White Jack’s palm, and the child would still be unharmed.

”It’s a top-tier battle of wits, like elementary schoolers playing rock-paper-scissors.” White Jack marveled at its own world-shocking intellect, covering its mouth.

An instant later, Magical Girl Ember jerked up her umbrella and fired at the plummeting cane.

”Bang—!”

The bullet tore through the night, knocking the cane away in a flash.

The cane crashed into the square’s fountain, its ghostly blue flames doused by the gushing water. The five-year-old child burst into loud tears. Just then, a woman rushed out from the crowd and pulled him into her arms.

”Xiaolei, are you alright? Are you okay?” the woman cried, clutching the child’s head.

She looked up, her eyes trembling as she stared at the gothic-skirted magical girl in the sky. Almost speechless, she cried out, ”Thank you for saving my child... Thank you!”

White Jack wore a look of deep regret, like a fan watching the national football team miss the final goal that would send them to the World Cup. It shouted hysterically:

”Damn it! Fucking damn it! Why couldn’t I take one more person down with me before I die?! You bunch of worthless trash—!”

The people in the square stared blankly up at White Jack impaled on the spire, then turned toward Magical Girl Ember, who had just stepped forward to save them.

But Ember was equally stunned, the tip of her umbrella still pointed at the ground.

She stared unblinkingly up at the doll acting out on the spire.

’Was it doing that on purpose just now?’ Ember thought blankly. ’Did it know I would definitely shoot, so it deliberately threw its cane at that child?’

White Jack was practically doing sit-ups on the spire, acting alive one second and dead the next. It repeatedly adjusted its posture, as if trying to find a more photogenic way to die. Finally, in a haunting tone, it recited the most famous line from a certain sheep-and-wolf children’s cartoon:

”I will definitely be back...”

With those words, it breathed its last, turning into a cloud of white mist and dissipating.

Magical Girl Ember stared at the spire in bewilderment.

”Who... exactly are you?” She hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask White Jack this question before it vanished without a trace.

Her mind was still completely shrouded in confusion. White Jack had called out her true identity, then directed and starred in this entire play in front of the crowd just to bail her out. She couldn’t understand any of it.

The girl’s thoughts were like a ball of yarn rolling off a table, its endless threads unraveling in every direction.

’Not only did it know my true identity, but it also spoke up for me like that... Could it be...’ At that thought, Ember paused.

She looked up, murmuring unconsciously:

”...Brother?”

For some reason, at that moment, Ke Mingqing’s face surfaced in her mind.