That evening, after a busy day of work, Himeko dragged her exhausted body back to her apartment.
Looking at the somewhat messy room, Himeko shook her head with a bitter smile. "Teaching and educating people really is such a troublesome job~"
Whenever she thought of Kiana, the student who had given her such a headache that day, Himeko felt like her head was about to split in two.
"She's clearly the Kaslana Family's second daughter, so why is she so different from her sister? Cecilia was such an outstanding person..."
At that moment, the image of a frivolous-looking white-haired man suddenly flashed through Himeko's mind, and she understood.
"Sure enough, Kiana turning out like this must be Siegfried's fault!!!"
After tidying up the room a little, Himeko took off Senba Academy's somewhat tight teacher's uniform and changed into loose pajamas.
Though they were supposed to be loose pajamas, they still could not contain Himeko's generous bosom.
After finishing all that, Himeko opened the refrigerator, took out several cans of beer, and began enjoying one of her few moments of leisure.
"Gulp gulp gulp~ Ah~ So refreshing!"
After quickly downing a can of beer, Himeko first opened the work group chat to make sure she had not missed any work.
Then, Himeko opened the class group chat, found the profile named "Mei Is the Cutest," and tapped it.
"Student Kiana, aside from making up all your homework tomorrow morning, don't forget the 3,000-word self-criticism your teacher assigned today."
The moment Himeko sent the message, she saw the ID "Mei Is the Cutest" change to "Typing..."
Then it changed back from "Typing..." to "Mei Is the Cutest."
After repeating this several times, the other side finally replied, "Okay..."
After a while, once she had explained everything she needed to tell her students, Himeko put down her phone and opened another can of beer.
Holding the beer, Himeko looked at the pitch-black night sky outside the window.
She seemed to be deeply drawn in by that profound canopy of stars, yet also seemed lost in endless darkness, frozen into a contemplative silhouette.
"Ding-dong~"
A crisp notification sound interrupted Himeko's thoughts. When she picked up her phone, she saw that it was a recommendation from P-site.
The title of the recommendation was—
Do you have too many doubts about the world? If so, this video will tell you the truth.
Normally, Himeko would have ignored such an obvious clickbait video, but today, for some reason, she clicked on it as if possessed.
"Honkai Impact 3rd? What kind of name is that?" Himeko asked doubtfully. "Does that mean there were Honkai 2 and Honkai 1 before it?"
With those questions in mind, Himeko opened the video, and then she saw something she would never forget for the rest of her life.
"Kiana? Mei? And Bronya?! Since when did my students go off to make movies?"
"No, this isn't a movie! Because it doesn't just have the three of them. My voice actually appears in this video too, but as far as I remember, I definitely never went to Canghai City to film some special-effects movie!"
"And who exactly is the white-haired boy in the video? Why does he feel strangely familiar?"
"Could it be... this video really is, as it said at the beginning, a story from a parallel world?"
Thinking of that, Himeko laughed and shook her head, finding her own idea absurd.
After all, things like parallel worlds probably only existed in novels.
As the alcohol took effect, Himeko's consciousness gradually blurred. In the end, she collapsed onto the table and drifted into sleep.
Meanwhile, just as Himeko fell asleep, Chongchong, the person involved, was still furiously writing her self-criticism.
In her room, Kiana scratched her head with her pen while tilting her head and complaining, "Himeko is way too strict! Why do I have to write a self-criticism of more than 3,000 words?!"
Just as Kiana was at her wits' end, someone suddenly knocked on her door.
"Kiana, are you asleep? It's Mei..."
"Mei! I'm not asleep, I'm not asleep! The door isn't locked, so just come in... Forget it, I'll come open it for you..."
With that, Kiana launched herself straight out of her seat, ready to sprint toward the door.
However, Kiana failed to realize that she was not the agile Valkyrie from the video right now, but an ordinary high school girl.
Splat~ Thud!
The result was that she sprawled flat on the floor.
"Ow!"
"Kiana! Are you okay?" Raiden Mei hurriedly helped Kiana up from the floor and asked with concern.
"Hehe~ I'm fine~" Feeling Raiden Mei's body warmth, Kiana said with a blissful expression, "By the way, Mei, why did you come to see me so late~"
"It's nothing. I saw Teacher Himeko call you to the office, and you hadn't come back for a long time, so I was a little worried."
"Hehe, it's nothing~ It's just because I... Ah! Right, Mei, Mei, did you browse P-site today?"
Raiden Mei shook her head in confusion. "No. What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"You didn't see it?!"
Thinking of that, Kiana grinned mischievously and said in the tone of a big bad wolf tempting Little Red Riding Hood, "Mei, I've got something good here. Wanna take a look?"
And so, under Kiana's urging, the two of them began watching short videos in their dorm room.
When Raiden Mei saw herself appear in the video, she was equally stunned.
As far as she remembered, she had never been to Canghai City, much less filmed a movie like this.
Could it really be as the beginning of the video said—that this video showed events from a parallel world?
And what concerned Raiden Mei most was who exactly that white-haired man named Ye Li was.
Why was it that the instant she saw him, a purple figure deep in her mind kept cursing the man?
At the end of the video, when she saw Bronya betray them for some unknown reason, Mei felt a little worried.
But then she suddenly came to her senses.
"It's obviously just a video, so why do I care so much about it?"
Discussion about Honkai Impact 3rd continued online.
As time passed, the video's popularity not only failed to decline, but grew even more intense.
Of course, aside from the video's own quality, its explosive popularity also had a great deal to do with the underdeveloped entertainment industry in this world.
After watching such incredible content, many film and television enthusiasts called for future productions to follow this video's example.
With all that back and forth, the video broke out of its niche entirely. Many film and television content creators even began explaining and analyzing Honkai Impact 3rd's opening chapter.
UP creator Mr. Rek was one of them.
As a film and television content creator, Mr. Rek had always been known for high-quality videos.
That also meant that every video required him to spend far more time and effort than most people, yet the returns he received were completely disproportionate to his effort.
Even so, Mr. Rek never tired of it.
Because, to put it simply: this was what he loved.
But then again, people needed more than poetry and distant horizons; they also had to think about bread and milk.
Now, Mr. Rek faced precisely this dilemma of having to choose between the two.
"Could it be... could there really be content that's both high-quality and loved by people?!!!"
Looking at the new demands sent over by the client, Mr. Rek wildly ruffled his hair.
At that moment, an electronic notification suddenly sounded from Mr. Rek's phone.
When he picked it up, he found that it was a recommendation from P-site.
"The perfect combination of content and traffic truly exists! Believe it or not!"
This was obviously clickbait.
But what if it really was as the title said...
However, after opening it, Mr. Rek discovered that he had opened more than just a popular video on P-site...
He had also opened the door to a new world!
Before you continue