This is zero percent a surprise. 

Wei Ying brings up the possibility of applying to be a magical girl with Lan Zhan later on. 

Lan Zhan frowns. "It sounds dangerous." 

"Leaving the monster situation alone sounds dangerous." 

"You have been speaking to magical girls. They could do it." 

"They can't make novel wishes! And they don't know enough without wishing to know things." 

"I could make the wish." 

"Do you want to know badly enough?"

She WANTS Wei Ying to be SAFE. 

Wei Ying pats her arm. "It'll be fine!" 

"If you apply, I will apply." There is NO WAY she is going to let Wei Ying fight monsters on her own. 

"What'll you wish for?" 

"If I tell, it will not come true." 

Wei Ying laughs and slaps Lan Zhan's arm. "Lan Zhan! That's not how magic wishes work!" 

Nonetheless. 

Wei Ying looks at the application thoughtfully. She still doesn't know exactly what's up with Jun Wu, but if she's managed to get as much information as she has just by talking to a handful of magical girls, even though a couple of them were pretty old, Jun Wu must know more things than that. And she isn't telling people. Wei Ying doesn't trust that. 

So she doesn't want to say that she's wishing for information about monsters and magical girls. She's going to have to think for a while about what she should write down for her wish. 

(Good.)

Rhonda graduates to solo jaunts. She still hangs out with Shi Qingxuan when it's convenient for both of them, but she goes all over the place hunting monsters. 

She likes having spare seeds to hand out to girls who need 'em. Which isn't to say she never sells extras, because it really is a good income stream, but most new magical girls aren't nearly as fast a study at monster-hunting as her, and some of them are a lot younger, too. She does not want them pressured to head out before they're ready. 

She tries to keep track of where isn't anybody's territory, but if it comes down to a confrontation with another magical girl, she can always leave. She finishes off a stained-glass-themed witch in rural Iowa and teleports to the Bay Area; an internet acquaintance recommended a poke bowl place in the area. She goes in and has a lunch as lovely as her friend suggested, then walks out, takes in a deep breath and lets the sun warm her skin, and baubles her soul gem and dowses. 

There's one that way! It's up hills; up to her if she wants to climb or 'port.

She's very physically fit and can always use a little more exercise, and most monsters aren't generally in the middle of murdering someone such that killing them five minutes sooner will do anyone any good. She walks. She'd twirl her saber if that wouldn't come off as unnecessarily menacing to the civilians. 

Some people take pictures of her.

The witch is tucked in the back of an Indian grocery store. The proprietor appears to have been tied up and there is a drinking glass spilled on the floor that smells like bleach.

...Huh. 

At first glance, the proprietor being tied up looks like a very bad sign. But the bleach glass looks like he was going to drink it, which suggests him being tied up might be for his own good...?

Hm. 

She ducks inside the witch, summoning her sabers, her situational awareness going on high alert. 

It's a garden monster; there are lemon wedges and zucchini slices and one still-ambulatory horse-sized tomato to get past on the way in, and soft dirt compresses under Rhonda's feet, but there's not even fake sunlight; it's dim inside.

There's already somebody in here. She's wearing civvies - it's a white hanfu, but she's also wearing sneakers. She's got a sword, but isn't using tactics that suggest she could produce another one at any time.

And she's fighting back to back with another girl, whose outfit is of the magical girl varietal, and whose sword is too.

They're both really good at this.

Huh. Surprisingly sexy. Something to think about. 

"Why is this woman wearing hanfu if it's not a magical girl outfit" wars with "why is she not in a magical girl outfit" in her head, before the both of them are swiped aside as a familiar approaches close enough for her combat reflexes to take over; she stays the hell out of the pair's way, but she does obliterate the familiar and any others she can catch closer to her than to them. 

"Thank you!" calls the one in white while she disassembles an evil asparagus spear.