The witch approaches them. Slides right under them. They go on eating oats and do not gouge out each other's eyes or anything.

Fuck. 

She tries playing harder, putting more force behind the command. 

The witch dispatches a familiar out of its barrier, a spider-thing wrapped in layers of its own web like a mummy, and it emerges among the chicks and tries to stab them with needlepoint feet. It is able to stab them, they do die, but it isn't clear if the witch gets sustenance from this process.

She recalls the familiar and puts her flute down, breathing heavily and pouring her disappointment into the grief seeds she's carrying. 

"It's not working," she says quietly. "Kill it." 

Lan Zhan is going to HUG WEI YING. Rhonda can kill it. 

Rhonda gives the two of them a sympathetic look and steps inside the witch. 

It's a spiderweb. Big for a spiderweb, but small for a witch, she can get to the giant spider in the middle pretty quick.

She slashes it apart. 

The witch ceases to be. She's standing in a pile of bloody chicks, most still alive.

Poor little things. 

Wei Ying gets the ten-minute ding on her phone and texts Shi Qingxuan. 

experiment over. everything went safely for us humans but it didn't work

Oh no, I'm sorry.

people are just gonna keep dying and I don't know how to stop it

there has to be a way to stop it

I guess we could try to reduce the witch population and the court could accept fewer magical girls and eventually we'd all find some way to die and potentials with guns could mop up the rest??

then no one ever gets a wish again

yeah. and I don't think...I think probably the Empress wouldn't go for it anyway. if it needs the Empress to cooperate and she probably wouldn't then that doesn't work either

Yeah. People are dying but - this way some of them can come back, sometimes

yeah...I wonder why you never hear about people from a long time ago coming back. you'd think someone would have wished for jesus or mohammed or siddharta guatama or kong fuzi or somebody.

I guess that's a good question. Maybe most people just don't actually feel strongly in the right way about those people? or if they're that religious they think they're where they ought to be. like imagine if you wished jesus back and he was like "no thanks, I was supposed to be in heaven"

I'm not surprised that MOST people don't I'm just surprised that no one has, like, there's a LOT of people in the world and a whole bunch of them become magical girls. maybe they deny all the applications that say I wanna bring back a religious figure...I guess it'd have to be more than religious figures or else someone would have wished for, like, ghandi

Maybe, I dunno.

it's not the most productive line of inquiry

I don't blame you for wanting a distraction. If you get Rhonda to drop you off here I'll take you out for sushi!

can I bring Lan Zhan

sure!

thanks

Rhonda drops the two of them off at the door to Shi Qingxuan's hotel room shortly thereafter.