The netizens' suggestions were quite practical—essentially teaching entrepreneurship from scratch.
Hibiscus even took special notes for future use. While getting rich from "online tutorials" was impossible, the intelligence was invaluable. For instance, just knowing that the Storm Gang could obtain Disaster Beast remains was worth its weight in gold. She didn't need to follow the textbook exactly—the key was using the process to make her cash clean and usable.
Just as she was concentrating, she heard a clanging commotion from downstairs. Looking down, she saw many fishermen with their families arguing and causing conflicts.
Every disaster left chaos in its wake.
The girl watched helplessly as verbal disputes escalated to physical fights. Even those showing signs of infection symptoms continued brawling. Right or wrong didn't matter—the unavoidable contradiction was that coastal disaster victims, forced to migrate inland, would inevitably create conflicts.
Without guessing, she knew the next few days would probably be filled with noise affecting her sleep, and worse yet, theft, fights, and looting.
More terrifyingly, strained medical resources could cause infection spread, possibly inducing new infected entities.
Unbearable.
Hibiscus followed the "out of sight, out of mind" principle, tightly closing doors and windows and drawing curtains—social experience from years of living alone. The authorities would step in to handle resettlement anyway, so she just needed to endure.
She continued consulting netizens about money-making plans. Somehow the topic circled back to "recruiting talent," with everyone agreeing that no amount of tutorials could compare to an external brain.
For instance, she actually already possessed real startup capital.
【Don't look at Jin Ruochu's unlucky performance—though she never really attended school, she's always had private tutoring at home. Piano, chess, calligraphy, painting—she excels at everything, business management included. After all, Jin Changfeng himself came from a low-education background, climbing up through trial and error. He emphasizes practice over theory in educating his descendants. When the mood strikes, he'll toss her a company to practice with. That foolish young miss has managed publicly traded companies worth tens of millions before coming of age】
【This is from the background setting. Though the original storyline doesn't require Jin Ruochu to display these skills, her character stats include everything they should】
【For management talent shown extensively in the plot, that's undoubtedly Nan Zhiyi】
【Nan Zhiyi faction rise up】
While they were discussing, someone posted pictures:
The image showed a side-ponytailed girl sitting upright in a wheelchair, hands protecting her knees, wearing white loose home clothes with a sweater draped over her shoulders. Her temperament was serene, face bearing a gentle smile. Behind her, pushing the wheelchair, was Hibiscus. In the second image, she bent down to lift a strand of Nan Zhiyi's long hair and kiss it—the composition was quite beautiful and captivating.
The two walked along garden paths with butterflies dancing and petals falling. The girls seemed deep in animated conversation, pouring their hearts out to each other. The scene was full of charm and left much to the imagination.
Much better than her previous picture of tackling Jin Ruochu, Hibiscus thought.
Nan Zhiyi should be with her family right now. Given her personality, she'd probably come to formally express thanks after handling everything—just thinking about it felt stressful. How should she explain then? Simply recruit her into the team? What kind of team?
Hibiscus shook her head to dismiss the distracting thoughts. Anyway, she'd just give her childhood friend some basic magical girl safety tips. The rest could be discussed later.
"Fellow netizens, will there be officially organized magical girl organizations in the future? How would that be? Maybe I could join early and become a founding member—making money shouldn't be too difficult."
【You're thinking too narrowly】
【I advise you not to have any expectations for those idiots】
【Drop your fantasies about the state machine Leviathan. If it were really strong enough, it wouldn't get beaten up by Disaster Beasts. It's essentially a ragtag team that gets all controlling when it first encounters supernatural power. You'll lose freedom and be monitored everywhere, under military management, only used as Anti-Disaster Beast shock troops. That's what magical girls are like in the early stages】
【At least from the original work's perspective, the authorities basically go missing or serve as background, occasionally coming out to clean up messes. Useless, a bunch of waste】
【Why do you all have such strong distrust? You should ally with the authorities】
【Should organize civilian magical girl autonomous bodies and disband the authorities】
【Anarchist detected】
【You're discussing meaningless things. As Disaster Beasts become frequent, the state machine born from stable order grows weaker, naturally evolving into magical girl society】
【Didn't they cooperate with fairies later?】
【Fairies can't be trusted. Besides, at crucial moments they often side with magical girls—poor background characters. Maybe it's because their accumulated resentment runs too deep that they pull those persecution stunts against magical girls. After all, Magical Girl of Light is too serious, directly portraying magical girls as superhumans, resulting in unsolvable racial conflicts. Anyone would have a headache—war can't be avoided】
【Looking at the final outcome, the Time Priest's "universal magical girl" plan wasn't wrong. I like that world of intimate magical power reproduction】
【Still early days—nobody knows which route is the answer】
...The netizens discussed heatedly but never reached a conclusion. However, it was clear that official management of magical girls was rather poor.
Hibiscus rubbed her forehead and sighed. She had hoped to find backing—at worst doing some manual labor for money. However, there was too much internal power struggle, and as a rookie newbie, she'd probably be picked clean in minutes, adding unnecessary troubles and distracting from her focus.
She ultimately returned to personal planning. According to intelligence, over 30% of magical girls died in attrition warfare against Disaster Beasts, their sacrifices piling up to produce key intelligence.
The cost was too heavy.
This time, no sacrifice was needed. She was already standing on giants' shoulders—much intelligence that required thousands of corpses to obtain could be gained with a simple question. After hearing the netizens' intelligence briefing, Hibiscus still felt that relying on others was inferior to self-reliance. She should indeed focus on building good relationships with Nan Zhiyi and Jin Ruochu—after all, many hands make light work.
Besides that, making money—Hibiscus had her approach figured out. If successful, she could also curb coastal refugees' inland migration and infection spread. Killing multiple birds with one stone.
The girl glanced at the discussion page. Once she stopped guiding the topic, it drifted off course with absurd suggestions like "get cozy with Jin Ruochu and marry into wealth," "kick out Jin's father-in-law and take over Changfeng conglomerate to save 30 years of struggle," "why not time-stop and rob banks."
But the system would always filter out useful items, like registering companies, running clinics, being an electronics middleman, developing chat software—these sounded decent enough.
They corresponded to small rewards, basically cash, potions, and the bizarre "financial luck" reward.
System rewards followed no discernible pattern—conceptual items actually existed.
Hibiscus thought to herself that someone once said the strongest causal magic belonged to Jin Ruochu—namely miracles of misfortune and fortune. No wonder the young miss was constantly unlucky yet never to the point of life-threatening danger. If used for business, wouldn't buying any stock guarantee profits? But the cost should be significant—just a thought.
She collected her thoughts and took out the Universal Identity Card to begin setup.
Name: Mu Feng.
Occupation: Doctor.
Experience...
As Hibiscus continued filling in the resume, the identity card automatically completed the logic. At first glance it was seamless and could withstand scrutiny. The biggest flaw was in personal relationships, but she only needed a cover identity. Usable enough—first she'd go to the bank to open an account and deposit money, then take things slowly from there.