Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

The girl knew.

Everyone knows it.

Raised as the perfect Yamato Nadeshiko, her gentle and kind nature, which had always been ingrained in her upbringing in an ivory tower, was already established.

The harm known as bullying is not immediately directed at others with extreme emotions, but rather suppressed within oneself, accumulated in one's heart, allowing the blade and external attacks to hurt oneself together.

Even in the future, until the moment when he can no longer suppress his desire for revenge, he will still feel guilty for causing innocent casualties, because he is a Herrscher, and at one point even wanted to seek death as a way out.

Even if it means venturing into darkness, just so that the one you love can stand in the light, you will still go to save innocent people in distress.

How could such a kind-hearted girl possibly be dissatisfied?

How could someone be so ungrateful as to repay kindness with enmity?

This is fundamentally the opposite of being heartless and cruel.

There are kind and good people in the world who are willing to treat others with gentleness and repay any help with great generosity. At least the girl named Raiden Mei is a real, normal person.

—This is extremely important.

Something called security is so important.

It is precisely because one has been caught in the rain that one fears it. There is no such thing as overcoming hardship; one can only become numb and endure it. This kind of numbness is ultimately a form of self-oppression. Once someone offers you an umbrella, no one will want to return to the cold and stormy weather.

No matter how much you know you shouldn't do it, no matter how much you tell yourself you're not worthy to do it, emotions still inevitably arise. Just as a dam that holds back floods is repeatedly battered by the water without being repaired, its eventual demise is almost unnoticed.

Even bystanders watching the repeated onslaught could clearly foresee their impending fate, let alone the girl who was personally facing this tidal wave of emotions and trying her best to suppress it again and again.

The extreme consequences stemmed from the contrast between each instance of the boy's indifference, neglect, and absent-mindedness, and each time he felt warmth and was hurt or bullied on his way home at night.

Simple beauty is something that can only be encountered by chance, like paradise. If there is only darkness, it is not impossible to become numb and endure it. Even an ostrich with its head in the ground can live.

What can truly make everything unbearable, like a mudslide that destroys the heart, is the superposition of beauty and despair, the experience of seeing the light yet still being in darkness, the constant back and forth between happiness and suffering, and the repeated feeling of this intense conflict within the heart.

Just a second ago, he was happily playing with Jiang Cheng, and his presence hadn't even faded away, but the next second, he was being called away by those people again.

The harsh reality will descend once again before you step out of the amusement park, as if to emphasize that all that beauty was just a fleeting dream.

This happiness is like a wind that appears suddenly and may also leave suddenly, blowing across lakes and sands, leaving only traces.

Pain and suffering are eternal, appearing suddenly from a very early time, arriving at every moment, with no end in sight.

An ordinary person's heart, without any training, cannot withstand even a 100-meter rapid descent; screaming and yelling will cause them to faint. But for this girl, the fall from heaven to hell was far more than just 100 meters.

Even professional pilots cannot experience or bear this contradiction and disparity every single day and night.

If that blissful time can truly be so sweet that it makes your bones feel tingly and numb, then it will last forever, until the end of the world.

So even if it means enduring a whole day and waiting a day to exchange for just a few hours of happiness, isn't that wonderful enough?

In pursuit of a fleeting moment of sweetness, everything else is negligible. The only problem is that, in Jiang Cheng's eyes, it seems...

—I'm not one of them.

……

'Ah……'

'coward.'

……

163. Mei: At least... I can be considered a friend, right?

"Alright, alright, let's end this pointless chatter. We can't waste all our precious time talking. We've finally escaped campus and come to this street that feels like it's from the last century. If we can't properly experience the atmosphere here, I'll be very disappointed, okay?"

Jiang Cheng withdrew his playful hand, releasing the sunlight that seemed to have been blocked and held back. He raised his fingertips and placed them in front of him, his star-like deep blue eyes gazing at the girl. The slight curve of his lips was enough to make a certain insecure genius drop everything in an instant and rush over like a loyal dog seeing its master, panting and desperately.

It had become second nature to her, as if she had personally participated in that simulation. She had long since mastered the skill of stirring up the feelings of a girl who was depressed, prone to self-pity, and easily fell into inferiority.

Accepting that invitation was not simply about taking on a life's burdens easily; it was always a journey in which both sides had to change themselves.

One-sided self-destructive yandere is a terrifying thing, but if both parties like each other, then yandere is a match made in heaven.

To be around someone with low self-esteem, you need to be constantly aware of their emotions and make sure your own behavior doesn't become a weapon that harms yourself.

We should cherish it as if it were a precious treasure, but we shouldn't be aloof for fear of hurting it—the ultimate goal is to achieve the perfect distance, the perfect presence, and the perfect comfort.

Although she couldn't fully focus due to her mood and goals, and thus couldn't achieve her best results, it was still an excessive amount for Raiden Mei, who was less introverted and withdrawn.

Regardless of the fact that this ability, which could essentially be called instinct, was unknown to its master, there was only one thing Raiden Mei could do in response to the boy's invitation—she nodded without hesitation, her lips uttering a joyful acceptance.

"Okay."

……

I set out on the street in a proper manner, while whiling away a lot of time chatting. After traversing quiet and deserted remote areas, I finally arrived at the heart of the street, which has a distinctly last-century feel.

Perhaps because the changes on the streets were already obvious enough, and we had begun to accept them during our conversations, the impact of suddenly stepping into something from the previous era was not as great as the dazzling neon lights that came into view.

Various food stalls began to bustle into business, their vendors calling out their wares. The aromas wafting from the izakayas, seemingly transported from the golden age of the Far East in the last century, stirred the cravings in one's stomach and made one's mouth water.

Neon lights, which have been gradually phased out due to their overly vibrant colors, excessive interference with viewing angles, and high pollution levels, no longer fit the standards of high-tech, advanced metropolises. Yet, they retain their last vestiges of glory here, dazzling even during the day, leaving no doubt that they are even brighter at night than during the day.

The customers who usually come here to reminisce and are stuck in the past are mostly middle-aged or even elderly men and women. The frequency of white hair here is almost like at a Tokyo anime convention.

The two students standing here seemed out of place, making their average age of at least forty appear several numbers lower.

"This place looks like something out of a documentary, even the clothes are all glittering and jewel-encrusted. Is this some kind of Roaring Twenties?"

Jiang Cheng still remembers that before he transmigrated, he was still playing a game from Xiaomi called Honkai Impact: Star Railway, which was the latest map. Pinocchio used this decadent golden age as its background, even though the real inspiration for that dreamland was the American Roaring Twenties.

However, in practice, setting aside cultural differences, the core of it all is the same: absolute madness and absolute fanaticism.

Just like that incredibly catchy theme song that became a viral sensation online shortly after its release.

—A sleepless night.

Alcohol, coffee, stimulants... Don't waste your precious time sleeping. Keep singing, keep indulging in luxury, and spend your money like it's worthless, turning it into extravagant pleasures and decadent indulgence.

In a sense, it could even be called madness, absolute rebellion, absolute defiance, absolute extravagance, absolute luxury, causing the hormones in the brain to swell and swell again and again, as if a person who was extremely tired had been given an injection of stimulant and then continued to join the party at the ball.

Thinking has become less effective, and wisdom has been exhausted by alcohol, leaving only simple pleasure and frenzy. People indulge in this every day until a cool breeze blows and awakens them on the open-air stage.

After the excessive frenzy, all that remained was exhaustion. The physical fatigue was too much to bear, and in the end, all that was left was a mess of chicken feathers and wreckage everywhere.

This dreamlike existence is ultimately fleeting; it may last for an entire era, or it may influence an entire generation of people.

Even though time has passed, even though the dream has ended, even though the stimulants and alcohol have worn off, I will still miss the passion I once had.

It's hard for people in later generations to imagine the madness of that time. Only the most perfect social dividends, an era where you could make money just by lying down, could create such pure madness and fanaticism that required no extra thought.

I never expected that a typical technological metropolis like Changkong City would have such antiques, similar to the courtyard houses and hutongs in Beijing.

"what……"

"As long as you like it."

It wasn't until she saw this scene that Raiden Mei dared to raise her voice slightly, which was filled with unease and selfishness, in order to describe this scene from the last century as meticulously and thoroughly as possible.

"Isn't the style here very different from the streets?"

"This is the last piece of land that has been preserved in Changkong City as a place for nostalgia."

……

As a product that preserves the glory of the golden age, the neighborhoods that were not demolished in this new technological era have been preserved because of the nostalgia of some old people. Those who remain here can find some familiar places, as if they have returned to their own world, that era of extravagance and hedonism where all that mattered was pleasure and money was like trash scattered everywhere.

As an old thing that has been discarded and can't keep up with the times, the only thing left to do is return to where you are, choose to be a coward, and immerse yourself in a sleepless dream until you die one day.

This is also the only place that Raiden Mei, who was suddenly rejected and hated by the whole world, can go.

what……

Nostalgia and such...

It was the biggest lie from the very beginning.

The reason they come here is simply that these elderly people usually don't pay attention to the latest news and won't be belittled as the descendants of sinners.

The claim that Jiangcheng was taken to see Changkong City and that this particular place was chosen to introduce places that are not usually seen was a complete lie, and was full of selfish motives from the very beginning.

The flashing neon lights, the crowds of people who deliberately avoid women when drunk, and the dazzling colors that allow her to forget for a moment the fact that her father was sent to prison for financial fraud, that she was hated and despised by everyone, and the bullying and hurt she suffered.

In most cases, no one will blame her, no one will insult her, and no one will even recognize her—it is a very sad thing that no one cares, meaning that even if she disappears, no one will mention her, no one will look for her, and she will not even cause a ripple in other people's lives.

If you can't find your own kind, you can only stay alone, hiding in a dark corner by yourself. But if you have to compare it with being hated by everyone, being ignored might be a good thing.

These scenes from a previous era, everything the girl had never experienced since birth, could give her the feeling of being in another world, as if she could temporarily escape the pursuit of those people by sneaking into this place.

Whether it's a turtle hiding its head or an ostrich, it can only hide temporarily; it's enough to simply bury its head in the soil like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.

There's no need to think about your identity, your past, or your future; forget everything, discard everything.

Even one's father can be temporarily ignored; one can wholeheartedly hide in a dark corner or find a place to work, a place where one will not be discriminated against by others.

The only thing that might be less than perfect is that when others are reveling in their glory, while you can only stay in a dark corner watching others embrace each other warmly and enjoy chatting with your companions and friends, you might feel a sense of unwarranted loneliness.

It's as if, when night falls, you lie on the lawn and look at the moon in the sky, intoxicated by the beauty of that bright, round moon, so close yet so pure, so far yet so sacred. You might subconsciously reach out your palm, mistakenly believing that you too can touch that beauty, that you too can have a moon that belongs to you.

However, it was nighttime, and a cold wind would always blow by, making one shiver with cold and causing one's thoughts to retract any inappropriate desires.

The world is indeed magical and ever-changing; even things that once made you shiver in the cold wind can one day become yours.

Loneliness has been a thing of the past for more than half a month now.

already……

It won't be so cold anymore.

Raiden Mei cautiously peered at the boy beside her through the edge of her eye. A gentle breeze ruffled her hair, creating a dashing arc. Even though her face was bathed in the dazzling neon lights, she seemed to be walking among flowers without a single petal touching her. Her aura of indifference, loneliness, yet passion was not of this place. Her gentle demeanor was instead highlighted by the luxurious light, making her appear somewhat aloof.

At least there are still people who don't reject this place.

At least there are still people willing to come here with her.

Although the blue eyes that shimmered like a starry night sky did not reflect her own image, and even the dazzling golden light could not obscure it in the slightest, the unknown figure appeared again and again in her pupils, surrounded by the reflected stars at the highest point, as if it were a superior substitute, completely enveloping and covering the humble girl.

……