Tokyo Soft Rice King.

"Do you still want a ring? Can't we exchange it for a token of our love? The main problem is... I can't wear an engagement ring right now."

Because the engagement ring is worn on the left middle finger, which happens to be one of the two fingers that was cut off by the sister.

One line for engagement, one for marriage, as if severing any possibility between the brother and her...

But the result was that it led to their marriage.

It can be said that fate played a cruel trick on them.

"You can have Hikaru treat you first, and then have Kikuhime help remove the scar. It must be very inconvenient to be missing two fingers in your life."

"It's not that inconvenient..."

In fact, the occasions in which Lan Yi uses her left middle finger and left ring finger the most in Tsukimi are, of course, things she can't say out loud.

But if I have a man, I probably won't need to use my fingers anymore... No way! I won't have his child for nothing!

This is just repaying a debt of gratitude... just a transaction... that's not very convincing!

Ugh! Kikuri, you old fogey! Why do you have to set these conditions? Don't you know there are many young people who are single these days?!

Moreover, even if they get married, it's very common for them to be childless and not have children!

Engagement, marriage, having a baby—life has gone by so fast! It feels like I already have one foot in the grave!

"Alright, Xiao Guang, let's put Yi Yi's finger back in first."

"it is good……"

Amane Hikaru approached Tsukimi Rii and, with a look of guilt, reattached her finger while apologizing once again.

"Um, I'm sorry... really, I'm already reflecting on my actions... I know that even if I put your finger back, it won't be enough to make up for my mistake, so please feel free to use me if you ever need my help in the future!"

A wise person knows when to yield, and the younger sister, with her millennia of wisdom, was quite shrewd. She knew she had to please her future sister-in-law.

I hope that after you become your brother's wife, you will be magnanimous and not deliberately make things difficult for your sister-in-law.

Tsukimi Ryou sighed and said.

“You don’t have to do this… Although it did hurt a lot at the time, I don’t feel anything now. And since it can be reattached without any side effects, it’s just a little bleeding. Besides, you told me some very important information, so let’s consider this a draw.”

"Really? You're willing to forgive me?"

"Yes, I forgive you."

"Thank you! Sister-in-law! You are so generous! My brother made the right decision to marry you!"

"..."

It's so pretentious; you can tell it's an act.

But I have to admit, it was really quite fun.

Is this what it feels like to be a slave who has turned the tables and become the master?

Especially the thought of those women on the ground waking up and finding out that their man is getting engaged to another woman, the very woman they once looked down on the most... what kind of expressions would they make?

It makes me feel physically and mentally happy.

It has a satisfying feeling of an ordinary person turning into the heroine and achieving a triumphant comeback.

Indeed, I am still more suited to playing the female lead.

Chapter 461 The True Meaning of Fate

"Wow...it connected so easily..."

The process of healing the finger is very simple: after recutting the healed cut, reattach the severed finger, and then pour alcohol over it, and you're done.

It feels like alcohol in Tianyu Guang's hands is like a healing potion, and it even has the effect of a hypnotic drug. It might even be used as an aphrodisiac... Alcohol really is quite versatile.

The instant she reconnected, Tsukimi Ayane felt a sharp pain, followed by a return of sensation to her fingers—a tingling, numb feeling, as if they had been numb from being pressed down by a heavy object. This was actually the sensation of blood flowing back into circulation.

After the numbness subsided, Tsukimi Riran tried moving her left middle and ring fingers again. Not only did she not feel any discomfort, but she even felt that they were more flexible than before.

Most people's ring fingers are not flexible enough. If you don't believe it, try raising your ring finger alone. It's usually difficult to straighten it, and it always pulls on your middle and little fingers. But now she can move her middle and ring fingers freely on their own, just like a magician's hand.

However, the scar at the joint is indeed very obvious, and can be seen even from a distance, as if he is wearing both an engagement ring and a wedding ring at the same time.

"Looking at it this way, the gods are really amazing. They didn't use too much faith to reattach my severed finger, right?"

"That's because my technique is very good. When I cut it, I didn't damage the bone, and the cut was very smooth with no missing parts, so it was easy to reattach it... But if it's 'regeneration,' which means you can grow two more fingers, the amount of faith required will increase exponentially. Even if I use up all the faith I've saved, I can only get you to regenerate half a finger."

"Can it even regenerate?!"

"If you have enough faith, it's possible, but I don't have enough faith. If the regeneration process is stopped halfway, after the wound heals, your body will return to its natural state, and the second half of your finger won't grow back... Anyway, repairing a damaged body is a very faith-intensive and thankless task, and even gods who can do it generally won't do it."

"I see……"

"Therefore, even the corresponding deity will not usually grant the wish to heal injuries and illnesses unless the faith is devout enough for the deity to be willing to sacrifice faith to heal the believer. Moreover, it takes the faith of the masses to heal the health of one person. So although the faith of the god of medicine is very abundant, he is extremely busy and spends a lot of faith, and he can't even squeeze out the faith of the god in the present world."

Praying for health and peace is the most common wish people make, after wealth, love, and academic success. It may even be more common than the other three combined. However, the corresponding deities are extremely busy, even busier than Inari, making them the ultimate corporate slave deities.

Kuroba Akira was also curious about this, so he continued to ask.

"So, are those beliefs that pray for health being used to heal people with more serious injuries and illnesses?"

"Yes, for those who are 'temporarily healthy' and pray for blessings, the gods will usually grant them protection from illness and disaster... although it only lasts for a period of time."

"I see. It's the same theory as modern medicine: prioritize treating critically ill patients, and then prevention is better than cure."

Or is it more like life insurance?

The money from those who bought insurance will be used to compensate those unlucky individuals whose insurance policies have been implemented.

"But not every injury or illness can be cured. For diseases that humans cannot cure, even gods can only prolong life, not cure it... Moreover, prolonging life requires a great deal of faith, and the price of a miracle is very high."

"That's really realistic..."

Just like a patient clinging to life in the ICU, every second is costly. For families that are not well-off, prolonging a person's life is simply too expensive.

However, at least in this world, praying to gods and Buddhas to cure diseases and ward off disasters is no longer considered superstition. As long as one's faith is sincere enough, there is a real chance of receiving treatment.

The premise is that you don't worship the wrong deity.

"Moreover, gods can only heal 'unnatural injuries and illnesses,' but they cannot heal congenital disabilities. For example, the 'aging' process that all humans go through is irreversible and cannot be interfered with."

Kuroba Akira didn't find this strange. After all, if it were possible to make people young again, his sister wouldn't have come up with the idea of ​​killing her brother first and then giving birth to him.

After all, even many gods cannot escape the decay of time, so it is normal that they cannot interfere with the natural aging of humans.

Even celestial beings experience the five signs of decay, let alone mortals?

"Anyway, I've never heard of any god who can grant the wish of 'rejuvenation' unless one gives up their human identity... just like me."

Join the glorious evolution!

It's not a mechanical ascension, but an ascension of faith, just like Grandpa Kobayashi and the girl in front of me.

But is immortality really a good thing?

If only the body is immortal, but the spirit doesn't keep up, then immortality will mostly just be eternal loneliness and suffering.

It is precisely because the younger sister cannot bear to live alone that she wants to take her older brother with her on his journey. This is proof that the younger sister has not yet "awakened" to the world.

Akira Kuroba felt that it was too early for humanity to reach the stage of immortality.

It seems that we must first experience the process of human lifespan continuously increasing, and then, in this process, our spirit will be continuously elevated, so that we can finally adapt to new forms of existence and find new meaning in our existence.

The meaning of human existence has always been something that humans themselves have given to it.

Sooner or later, when human biomedicine is highly advanced and we can freely replace internal organs, life expectancy will certainly be extended to three digits, or even four digits.

Then human senses will also change. Now a year may seem like a long time, but in the era of interstellar travel, spending one or two years traveling from one planet to another in a spaceship will be as common as taking a plane to the other side of the Earth in one or two days now.

However, in this world, because of the existence of gods, humanity might have developed another way of evolution...

I really don't know what the future holds.

This curiosity is also a driving force for survival.

After that, we helped everyone who was lying on the ground put on clothes, then laid out blankets and laid everyone flat on the blankets.

"call……"

After finishing these tasks, Kuroba Akira rested for a while, then put on his coat and prepared to go out.

When Yuejianli Lanyi saw him about to leave, she asked him.

"Where are you going? Aren't you going to stay and look after them?"

“There are probably some people outside who have fainted from being caught in the rain. I’ll go and bring them indoors. Sleeping outdoors in this season will cause hypothermia and lead to death.”

"Oh, right, and those unfortunate passersby... I'd completely forgotten about them."

It was only then that Tsukimi Ranyi realized that they weren't the only ones who had collapsed; there were also some innocent passersby outside who had been affected.

This man is quite thoughtful...

And before, he made a decision immediately and arrived within three minutes... When it comes to crucial moments, this man is still reliable.

Because they hadn't known each other for long, and because of her preconceived notion of him being a scumbag, Tsukimi Ryoui thought Kuroba Akira was a useless gigolo, but now her opinion has changed somewhat.

Goodwill is actually accumulated little by little through these small changes, and then it will turn into 'liking' when it reaches a certain point.

Although it doesn't really matter whether I like him or not now, since he's the man I'm going to marry, I still hope he's an outstanding man.

In that case, having a child for him or something... isn't something I can't rule out...

Thinking of this, Tsukimi Ryou felt a little shy, but her acting skills allowed her to hide her emotions, and she made the suggestion without changing her expression.

"Let me help you. How long are you going to move by yourself?"

"I don't think there will be many people... Xiao Guang, how big was the area affected by the rainfall just now?"

Amane Hikaru answered by pointing to her index finger like a child who had made a mistake.

"It's not very big, about a hundred meters in radius from the hotel... I'm just thinking that as long as no one can hear me and then bother me, it'll be fine..."

Human voices can only travel about fifty meters, which is why Tianyu Light covered an area of ​​one hundred meters in radius. Even if people outside noticed something was wrong, they would prioritize checking on the unconscious people and wouldn't hear her calling out to her brother from the hotel window.

"That's good. Those people we just saw should be all of them. Of course, just in case, we should still explore the surrounding area thoroughly."

The surrounding area is full of hot spring hotels. This is a hot spring town next to a ski resort. There is only one main street, and the total number of people should not exceed one hundred.

"By the way, Xiaoguang, can't we lift the hypnosis earlier? It would save us a lot of trouble if we could wake them up sooner."

“Forcibly waking you up is possible, but as I just said, it will feel extremely uncomfortable, like having a hangover…”