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owls in Heavenly Wish
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Her plan was always "cope with her family's bullshit until she could go off to college." She would need scholarships for that, but she's smart, and more importantly, determined. And that's still the plan, sort of. But it's come to her attention more and more, lately, that potential maybe scholarships in the future are unhatched eggs, and that one shouldn't count the chickens in them. 

And her parents are getting less and less bearable to deal with as she gets older. Her brother's...fine. Mostly. Except that he doesn't want to cut ties with their parents, which limits the extent to which she can keep ties with him, in the long run. She can probably hang on until she turns eighteen; even if she doesn't manage to get into college, she can still leave. 

But she doesn't want to if she doesn't have to. 

She looks into the ways to emancipate herself as a fifteen-year old. 

One way is to get married, which--ugh, her mother might actually approve of that one, but even if there's any overlap between the kind of husband Rhonda would be willing to have and the kind her mother would want for her, he hasn't presented himself to her yet. One way is with mutual consent from her parents, which, haha, no. One way is to join the armed forces, which, extra, special, no. 

One way is to become a magical girl. 

Probably her odds aren't great. But it would be a good thing for a variety of other reasons besides just getting her out of here three years early, so she might as well check out what the application looks like. 

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They will pause whenever she is particularly intrigued by something or has a question, and then show her even slower!

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Lan Zhan tries very hard to use her still fairly limited judgment to pick out which things will be most practical for her in particular and inquire about those. 

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They have suggestions, too - mostly Xie Lian has suggestions, though San Niang is a very supportive teaching assistant in the sense that she supports Xie Lian and does not really care that Lan Zhan is there.

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This is extremely valid of San Niang. Lan Zhan can relate to that kind of single-target focus. Lan Zhan is probably going to have to report this to Wei Ying when she gets back; Wei Ying has started to get invested in the Xie Lian and San Niang situation. If Lan Zhan recalls correctly, the term is "shipper on deck." 

Lan Zhan is an extremely diligent student, drilling everything Xie Lian shows her and asking questions whenever she has them. 

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Then when it's getting on about dinnertime and San Niang reveals that she found a gift card for Burmese food on the ground somewhere she will have plenty of custom-tailored homework assigned her.

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She writes down all the homework, just to be safe, and is already working on one of the hand-based exercise sets when Rhonda whisks her off home. 

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Xie Lian and San Niang go to the Burmese place and discover the card has almost a hundred dollars on it, amazing, they can stuff themselves.

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Meanwhile, factory farms aren't biting. They are:

- concerned the scheme violates OSHA
- concerned the scheme will violate the terms of their insurance
- concerned that Wei Ying's family will sue them if she dies trying this
- concerned it will mess up the meat

Would she like to buy a lot of male chicks to run experiments on herself? She can have them for the price of shipping. Or she can take the hints this one guy is dropping that he doesn't want to commit to a digital trail of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud but he wouldn't exactly mourn a specific pig farm.

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Wei Ying blinks at this last one. 

"Hey, Lan Zhan, aiding and abetting insurance fraud is bad, right?"

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"Yes." She peers over Wei Ying's shoulder to see what prompted this. 

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Wei Ying leans out of the way. "I'm kinda leaning towards the male chicks option...if the witches I test can feed on animals, they can make them attack each other or something...I'm a little concerned about what to do with them if it doesn't work, though."

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Lan Zhan nods. 

"We will think of something." 

She's not thrilled about the potential cruelty to animals, but she knows Wei Ying isn't either, and they really do need a solution to the monster problem. 

"We should test it outside the city." 

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"Mhm. You think Rhonda will want to help?"

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"Probably." 

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Wei Ying orders the male chicks and texts Rhonda about the project. 

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Her order of 5,000 live male chicks will be there in two days!

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She really hopes this isn't a terrible idea.

At least whatever she does will almost certainly be better than what would happen to them otherwise...

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has anyone told you this is slightly fucked up

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I am aware but like, all the alternatives are WAY MORE fucked up. like, both in terms of witches eating people and in terms of factory farming, like, existing

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can't say you're wrong! I will be there with spare seeds. do you have a site picked out

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not SPECIFICALLY. do you have any thoughts for a place super far away from everyone?

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I don't wanna try teleporting witches so no, we're gonna do this outside the city but still sorta close

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yeah that is fair

She finds a spot where probably nobody will notice them and sets a few things up. 

...then, because she is not an idiot, she texts her mentor explaining what's going on. 

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FIVE THOUSAND?

I want to pet them

But then I'll be attached

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I am very sure that no matter how things turn out I do not need all five thousand for mad science if you want any

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