Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

So cold.

[At least until now, even if you vaguely sense that you've approached a limit, surpassing ordinary Herrschers, and that taking just one more step would seem like transforming into a butterfly and reaching a new height, it's still completely unattainable, and you see no possibility of resurrecting life.]

[There was no room for maneuver, no possibility of overcoming any obstacle; even how to climb upwards was something that was not allowed to be known.]

This world has always been black and white, leaving no room for gray areas; the artificially created boundaries can only deceive oneself.

Just like imperfections—the imperfections of petals, leaves, or even branches—are insignificant. Time and life will mend them all. These so-called imperfections and wounds are essentially nothing more than superficial injuries.

What if the injured part is the root?

What if the missing part is the stem?

Even the most resilient trees, flowers, and grass can only embrace their imperfections and continue living.

[Perhaps it can continue to live, perhaps it can live like ordinary flowers, grass, and trees. The imperfection has long existed in its roots. Those who do not know or understand may continue to point at them, sighing and praising them, publishing one self-righteous description after another, just as they would praise their kind who have no pain.]

But to those who truly know the situation, this disability is laid bare; they can see through the soil's constraints to reveal the deep-seated deficiency buried beneath.

[This is an act of deception.]

It can only ever be built between people who don't understand each other.

Just as you can clearly see the sadness hidden beneath Alicia's outward joy.

Perhaps for her, this journey was half-hearted from the start, lacking the vibrancy and grandeur of the past—half-baked scenery, half-baked flowers, half-baked sunsets, and the most half-baked you.

The roads were destroyed and eroded, burned to ashes by the Herrschers, leaving only dust everywhere. Even the mountains had shrunk by tens of meters. All the flowers had turned to ash, and all the lakes, cliffs, and waterfalls had become craters.

There is no sunset, no sunrise; you have to tear through the clouds to bring a ray of light. Even you, my most important companion, are crippled.

[You really can't find a normal version anywhere; it's a completely and utterly incomplete version. This journey has been flawed from beginning to end.]

[It was your untimely and undesirable request in the first place, driven by your own selfish desires to save the girl. If you can't even make Alicia happy, then whether this should continue is questionable.]

Option 1: You should continue to work hard at playing yourself. With more practice, one day Alicia won't recognize you.

[Option Two: You decide to avoid this issue. For someone who doesn't even have complete emotions, isn't it excessive to ask them to think about important matters and make crucial decisions that they only have one chance to make?]

[Option 3: It's already become too bloated. It shouldn't exist in the first place. If it can't even bring happiness to Alicia, continuing to stay will only make the mess worse.]

……

"Having come to this point, having already died once myself, and having the truth exposed once, is there really any choice left?"

"Of course, a person without feelings can avoid making choices, but I am not without feelings."

"—Option Three."

Jiang Cheng's answer was given in the very first instant, lightly tapping the air, without any superfluous words, without any unnecessary thought, and without needing to do anything further. It was a tedious matter, essentially meaningless.

I am already dead. What I am now is just a rut that has been dragging behind me for years. How much longer can I rely on this inertia to prolong my life?

The bubbles can refract a rainbow of colors under the midday sun, and even when they disappear, they leave behind bubbly water that reflects light. Those are colors that belong only to the rainbow, and if you lick it, you can even taste a hint of candy sweetness.

But this fleeting sweetness is poisonous, and the price is everything that follows. Ultimately, it will evaporate like a rainbow under the scorching sun.

Continuing to persist like this, even Jiang Cheng felt a suffocating exhaustion.

It's too long.

It is countless times longer than the life of an ordinary person.

This simulation has become both brutal and lengthy.

Cut after cut, the body was reduced to nothing but bones, leaving only the marrow hidden within.

……

At least you've reached your own destiny through your own will.

“My dearest Alicia…”

"Excuse me..."

"Could you throw me another birthday party?"

On the desolate hillside where a touch of the fingertip would leave it scorched with black dust, in the gradually darkening, somewhat murky, ambiguous, and indistinct twilight, Alicia gently bit her pearly teeth, her teeth clashing, hiding all her sorrow with the small, tormenting gesture of her lips.

The black-haired boy smiled broadly and extended his finger toward the fairy who was so close, issuing a breathtaking invitation.

At first glance, Alicia couldn't understand.

At this moment, time seemed to stand still, as if the boy had just created a massive black hole, making everything in the world incredibly slow.

A constant buzzing sound filled my ears, everything seemed to be rewinding, suddenly receding into the distance. Even the light of the setting sun became blurred, excessively blurred, leaving only a hazy blur, making it impossible to find a focal point in my vision.

silence.

silence

There is only silence.

Until the mind finally has nowhere to hide, nowhere to avoid, and is about to be found by the light in the darkest crevice, and pulled out of the darkness without any trace.

The echo from the boy's voice finally reached the deepest part of the abyss, the deep sea where even breathing was impossible, enveloped by endless water.

It was as if a thunderclap had exploded above the girl's head. She stood there blankly like half a piece of wood, a trace of confusion and helplessness appearing in her beautiful cherry-pink eyes, and her breath was trembling.

Jiangcheng is coming to me...

—An invitation to a birthday party was sent out.

……

"what……"

"what……"

"what……"

"Birthday party..."

She couldn't even breathe properly; her throat felt as if it were sealed with layers of gags. The girl's lips gently uttered those few words that were both the most familiar and the most unfamiliar. Her delicate voice seemed to have forgotten even the characters.

It is clearly something that is most common in daily life, something that is clearly worth celebrating and given a beautiful name, yet even the pronunciation of it is unusually unfamiliar.

Because this is the root of all evil.

Because this is the beginning of all tragedy.

Because this is the greatest and most wrong evil created by a person named Alicia.

Even mentioning those words fills him with dread; even when he suffers from amnesia and knows nothing, he dares not hold any birthday parties.

If she still has amnesia and knows nothing, then at most the girl will think it's just the boy's sudden whim, and she will instinctively feel a bit of fear, using sweet words to cover up her escapism.

Now, even after knowing everything about the past, Jiang Cheng still chooses to reach out, extending an invitation to himself in the afterglow of the setting sun.

This does not represent any ignorance or stupidity, nor does it mean that one can act blindly and bravely because of a lack of understanding of the truth.

It can represent, and can also represent, only one meaning.

— Atonement.

……

A look of shock and bewilderment spread across her face, all the way to the roots of her long, straight pink hair, which was still fluttering freely in the breeze. Her dreamy, cherry blossom-like eyes flickered with an uncontrollable fear and inexplicable confusion.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to vent, she wanted to kneel down, she wanted to jump off the mountain, she even wanted to fly to the moon in one breath.

However, she couldn't do any of these things.

In the end, all she could do was raise her head and look up at the boy's outstretched fingertips, her delicate body trembling slightly, and shock welling up in her eyes.

"real……"

"really?"

"Is it really possible for someone like me to throw you a birthday party?"

"I've made so many mistakes, and our initial separation was due to my stupidity. Do I really deserve this now?"

The girl's voice echoed with shock, a sense of incomprehension and bewilderment, even the lingering notes of her voice trembled.

Alicia couldn't believe that she had been given a chance to atone so easily, and she couldn't believe that the boy who already knew everything was still willing to give her another chance, to actively tear open her wounds to have the possibility of healing.

It's not just a verbal acknowledgment, not just words of forgiveness, not just the gentle, flowing tenderness hidden in a slight upturn of the lips.

It is through concrete actions that one repents.

We must truly make up for past mistakes with facts and existing evidence.

The flawless pink became somewhat blurred, with a few crystalline reflections mirroring the last glimmer of light on the horizon, adding a touch of clarity and transparency to the eyes.

In every dark night, regret would arrive in the young heart before anything else. Before being covered in wounds and still able to cry, washing the blanket that had been used to secretly cry the night before was an essential task.

Even now, this dampness, which is far more persistent than any disease in the world, cannot be dried by the false, photographic sun.

Instead, holding the thin photograph and reliving it countless times will bring forth bitter tears once again, soaking the already damp blankets even more thoroughly.

nature……

There's no need to worry about that.

There is nothing to fear.

The girl knew that her mistakes would be forgiven, that the passage of time could erase most of the world's emotions and memories, and that the boy, who had lost much of his sense of self, was a toy that belonged entirely to her.

But I will never forget that the fairy, whose emotions will never be blurred by time, still shed tears for a mistake that she could never change.

—An unrecoverable error is so callous it's despairing.

That despair seeped into her bones, that despair repeatedly seeped into her skin, that despair even choked her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe, tearing all her flesh apart, raging in her heart, destroying every nerve and blood vessel. That despair was like an animal that had finally survived the long winter of hibernation, collapsing on the night before spring arrived.

Fairies are always beings with delicate emotions. It is precisely because they are more able to appreciate the beauty around them and the love and feelings of others that they appear kind.

The Herrscher's memory is almost eternal; important things will not disappear until the day they die, and scars will never be blurred.

In a sense, this is the most desperate curse in the world: losing humanity's most important ability to protect itself, the ability to forget.

Jiang Cheng, who became a Herrscher, was the same. He lost his emotions, but retained almost all the parts related to girls. The sorrow of the banquet was naturally there, and he never mentioned the hidden dangers of the past during this journey.

Choosing unconditional forgiveness means that the best way is to never mention the past mistakes again. The girl almost unconsciously acquiesced to and accepted all of this, accepting that she had no possibility of redemption.

however……