Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

He simply described what he saw honestly, without any additional embellishments or descriptions, and without being arrogant enough to assume that he had taken all of it.

……

"Agreed..."

"Jiang Chengjun, please accept my gift."

Do not……

Can't get excited.

Opening champagne at halftime is absolutely out of the question.

This is just the first gift we've given; there are many more steps to come. Today's date is just the beginning of the first day.

It's time to move on to the next step.

Prepare your explanation if the boy discovers the photos.

She almost trembled as she spoke the distorted, barely audible characters, but when the girl instinctively tried to take the next step, she found that her lips couldn't move at all, and her whole body was stiff.

for……

why?

What's wrong with me? !

……

It's incomprehensible, and no one can offer a response.

Unable to even move her pupils, she could only stare at the boy in front of her, watching him smile, watching him joyfully pick up his gift, watching the best outcome unfold as she had predicted, unable to make any response, any move, or any preparation for the next step.

What happened to me?

Why can't I move my body?

Move!

Even though I have struggled with all my might in my heart, I am trapped in a cage made of countless grains of sand. I cannot even reach out, and even breathing feels like an ordeal after being forbidden by layer upon layer.

Something was sticking to my back, my hands, and every part of my body, as if the blood flowing in my veins had suddenly frozen, turning from a flowing liquid into a solid, hard substance like reinforced concrete.

Hands, feet, neck, including spine and neck, are all unable to perform any operations. The body that once belonged to oneself was stripped of control at this moment, frozen in place as if frozen by time.

Perhaps it was because the things they were about to encounter were simply too violent.

Perhaps it's because the things we need to learn are just too stimulating.

Perhaps it's because the amount of information to be understood is simply too much.

So much so that only when this doubt settled in her heart did the truth finally and belatedly flood into the girl's mind.

The gift has been accepted.

My brain is twitching, my thoughts are stagnating, and in the endless repetition, chaos seems to be descending. A massive flood is pouring down from the sky, carrying unimaginable and incomprehensible violence and madness, violently impacting my delicate self.

Reason is unable to process what is happening in the first instant, as if too much information has been added to the brain in an instant.

A poorly designed calculator cannot start or run top-tier games; even if it manages to run them, it will endlessly teeter on the brink of explosion and emitting smoke.

The processor was getting incredibly hot, the graphics card was so hot you could cook instant noodles in it, and the fans were practically screaming incessantly.

Although this may seem like a simple response, a simple act of acknowledging and accepting the gift, it is a shock that transcends everything for the girl.

Even Raiden Mei didn't realize the impact she was experiencing—an impact she had never imagined during the design process, one that could instantly shut down her thinking.

Because it has been too long.

I've been in the dark for too long.

They've been hanging on the edge of the cliff for too long.

It's like trying to uproot a towering tree that has been rooted in the soil from the very beginning. Even if you have the power, the moment you pull it up, you will destroy the soil.

Because all architecture is built on a foundation that has never been recognized by others, even the act of making improvements can have a drastic impact on the entire building.

Even her father was too cold and lacked too much in her life. She lost her mother at a young age, and her father was completely absorbed in his work. The gentle girl could not become willful, capricious, cruel, perverted, or bloodthirsty because of the emptiness in her heart. The lack of a foundation will only force more load-bearing pillars to bear more pressure.

Until it cracks completely, until even the seemingly tough steel is bent, until one day you have to make a choice between self-destruction or madness.

Hurting others.

To hurt yourself.

If one's personality cannot be twisted outwards to form sharp thorns, then it can only grow inwards to hurt one's own soul—kind people always have to bear more of the price, even if it is someone else's fault, they still have to bear it themselves.

In a sense, even without the earth-shattering changes she has experienced, the girl who lacked love was simply moving step by step toward her death.

Because Ryoma Raiden, who believes he is protecting his daughter, will never tell her who he really is or what he is doing.

……

192. What Raiden Mei lacks is peace of mind.

Because the disaster known as Honkai was too terrifying, and because what Mei had experienced was too cruel, she worried that this past might harm her daughter, so she chose to hide and suppress it.

Awkward tenderness.

Awkward love.

As a result, this directness that dared not be given, this love that could only be hidden in the dark and could not be known to the girl herself, instead gave rise to distortion.

Love is something that must be shown to the people you love. If you can't show it to them, if even the people you love don't know about it, then most of the time it can't change anything except for comforting yourself.

The inevitable result is that Raiden Ryoma, in an attempt to make up for his daughter's lack of affection, devotes all his energy to his career, hoping to one day take revenge and provide Raiden Mei with a better life. However, he is emotionally deprived to the extreme, offering almost no tangible support whatsoever.

He wanted to protect Raiden Mei, but because he kept moving forward, he forgot to stand still and wait for his daughter.

So what if there's a Houmu Sword Saint?

He couldn't face his daughter honestly.

They even have to wear a mask of hypocrisy to dare to help.

Clinging to so-called shadows or identities, without putting them into practice openly, is ultimately a drop in the ocean.

The responsibilities of being called a father cannot be replaced by a mere costume; only a true family member or savior has the power to rewrite all of this.

The person who saves you can be of the same sex, the opposite sex, an elder, a junior, or even someone who isn't human—anyone with intelligence is acceptable, but definitely not someone hiding behind a mask.

Because of the minimum conditions and requirements for this salvation.

—It gives me peace of mind.

The root of the problem is that the foundation is not solid and the love of family members is not experienced. If this cannot be filled, then no matter which way you push, it will only be a meaningless procrastination. It's like a person hanging on the edge of a cliff with only a straw to grasp at. No matter how much strength you replenish, it's meaningless if you can't climb up.

A single steel bar cannot support the building itself. The bending caused by the unbearable weight makes it pointless to push it in the normal direction. It may even cause metal fatigue, forcing the already utterly desperate heart to hold up a faint and tiny hope again and again.

Perhaps compared to this torment and struggle, choosing to wallow in depravity might allow one to endure it for longer, and perhaps hiding in the shadows might even bring more comfort.

After all, if you keep bending in one direction, at most you will be crushed and broken, but if you fall into metal fatigue, your very essence and foundation will rot away.

This calamity and disaster did not come on the first day; on the contrary, it was precisely because of the long-term torment that when this disaster struck, it was the capable young girls who were so cruelly destroyed.

While exceptional physical strength may not be very useful in maintaining basic social order, it is still necessary to adhere to laws and rules. At least this can ensure that not many people dare to resort to violence to resolve issues privately.

This place is still nominally under the jurisdiction of the Far East branch of Destiny, even though Theresa's control over it is less than that of a beggar over his own street.

Even though the Raiden family has declined, as the daughter of the family head and the only heir, she wouldn't have been so devastated if she had just stood up a little.

Even though Raiden Ryoma did not reveal his true identity or the truth of the world to his daughter, he was bound to inherit the future of the family business, making it impossible for Raiden Mei to be completely ignorant of the company she owned.

Even if the conservatives encounter one thing after another, and are easily defeated in this regard due to the sneak attack, as long as Raiden Mei, as an important party involved, has the will to resist, even if it is a foolish act of making the news bigger, she can find a possibility of being rescued.

No matter what, it can make me feel a little better.

We won't be bullied by those ridiculous trash.

Cocolia's demands for Raiden Mei's torment are actually not high. The current situation is more of a chain reaction after Raiden Ryoma was sent to prison, a kind of inherent evil in human nature, a desire to kick someone when they're down.

In fact, Herrschers can be forcibly created. The requirements are not high. A large amount of Honkai energy can be used to forcibly create a Herrscher from a base body.

It is precisely because of this simple act that it took an outsider to step in and resolve the issue until now. In fact, if it weren't for the boy, he would have had to wait even longer, until the car was completely broken before Kiana saved him.

Now it's finally a little too late. Without even the girl herself knowing, what was originally intended as a move against Jiang Cheng, a plan mixed with personal motives, was essentially to completely win over the boy. Instead, it inadvertently gave her the opportunity to fill the gaps in her foundation.

With a renewed sense of security.

They relied on the self-degradation that they gained.

We are closer to, and more able to reach that figure that should be so far away.

Jiang Cheng, like a shooting star, suddenly burst into the darkness, radiating his own light. Even now, he still expresses his emotions through his face, his undisguised joy as he gazes at the stunned girl.

"—What's wrong? I don't seem like the kind of person who would refuse a gift from a friend."

"Do I look so despicable, so vile, so shameless that you can tell from my face that I'm a beast who likes to toy with young girls' feelings?"

……

The complaints of dissatisfaction are closer to the banter between friends. The smile that radiates outwards does not contain any trace of dissatisfaction. Rather, it is as if things are just too good to pass up, so good that one cannot feel at ease if one does not do so.

For someone who responds better to gentleness than force, the most painful thing is receiving gifts from others without being able to reciprocate.

A fright deserves a full 'feedback,' a surprise deserves a full 'feedback,' bad things deserve a 'return,' and good things naturally deserve a 'return.'

Although Jiang Cheng doesn't feel at ease taking anything from anyone, quite the opposite, he considers it perfectly natural for bad people to take his things. If he can't get them or steal them, he feels frustrated instead.

At least with friends, you should naturally reciprocate a gift you receive for no reason, so that you can calm down the turmoil in your heart.

For an individual, and a fairly self-aware, ordinary person, the only thing they can do is to make themselves feel at peace.

"Such silence... Hmm, it can't be that the gift was actually very expensive, and you regretted giving it to me, your friend, and now you want to take it back?"

"But now it's too late for you to regret it. You've already got the gift, and even if you want it back, I absolutely won't let go~"

……

The act of completing the foundation has caused a tremor throughout the body, giving rise to countless branches of thought, with ideas running wild in the mind—at this moment, the brain does not need to process the overloaded garbage information, but only needs to capture the one thing that truly needs to be remembered.