The Troubles of Hua

The guest room Fu Hua mentioned must have been unoccupied for a while; the curtains were drawn shut, making the room dim, and a single bed and a wardrobe were among the few pieces of furniture there.

The sheets looked like they had been secretly changed by the girl; there was clearly some dust on the floor.

But when the boy lay in bed and covered himself with the blanket, he smelled the fresh scent of lavender, and the warm temperature covering his body felt like he had just been in the sun.

Is she really that good at taking care of people at such a young age?

With a slight smile playing on her lips, Su Qing'an drifted into a dream, her mind filled with strange thoughts.

With his level of martial arts prowess, he could actually control himself to enter a state of highly focused sleep, thus preventing dreams from occurring.

But for some reason, Su Qing'an did not choose to do so. He allowed himself to indulge in those endless, trivial thoughts, letting his emotions be controlled by his rampant Inner Demon, shaping past memories.

The more one indulges in it, the more vulnerable one becomes to harm.

In his dream, the boy stood beneath the ever-present twilight, the sea breeze blowing from St. Freya embracing his body, the ocean currents, knee-deep, seemed to be dragging him to a distant horizon.

The sea of clouds reflected on the water made him feel as if he were standing between heaven and earth, and the golden sunlight painted his silhouette, like the last stroke of a painting.

There were many, many pairs of eyes watching him from behind.

It was a blessing, and also a remembrance.

[Keep moving forward, Su Qing'an.]

Some said so, so he turned his back on those gazes and walked toward the boundless ocean, until those gazes could no longer see him, until those holy blue eyes held a sigh.

As the tide receded and dusk fell, there was no road ahead, but he had to keep going.

The Inner Demon whispered again, wondering just how many things Su Qing'an had lost along the way.

You've forgotten so many things, like how much marshmallow Bronya likes to add to her coffee, what Kiana's game save progress is, what dishes you and Fu Hua cooked together on the day you set off for your first mission, and many, many more.

Su Qing'an understood these facts. He looked at the dark future and whispered his response.

[I will retrieve it, the moment Kenshin is fully restored.]

After going through the toughest initial ordeal, he's become a little different.

The sensation of the sea breeze caressing my cheeks, the release of lingering memories, the embrace of light and sea—as long as these fragmented emotions and insights remain in my heart, my heart will never shatter again.

The biggest hurdle to restarting has been overcome; the boy shattered his dream and fell into a long slumber.

Mind Lake.

The pitch-black colors have completely vanished, and the faint gray haze is slowly dissipating...

Dragging its crimson tail feathers, it swam playfully within the ice of the heart, wandering back and forth between the boy's soul and the Mind Lake, as if knowing that Su Qing'an was asleep and unaware of it.

After meeting its future owner, it seemed to become more lively than before.

However, Udu-dust, who had experienced the restart along with Su Qing'an, had in a sense been completely bound to the boy's soul and had become his possession.

So it only instinctively and quietly granted Fu Hua a little bit of the ability to see through [hidden] things, rather than happily jumping back into the girl's head.

Su Qing'an, whose mental state had been consistently poor, remained unaware that a seemingly harmless feather was forcibly drawing an invisible thread between him and Fu Hua, indirectly leading to the current situation.

Or rather, Su Qing'an still hasn't discovered that Fu Hua left him an Udu-dust in the previous timeline.

Some answers were actually foreshadowed from the very beginning.

Fu Hua hung the clothes that had been spun dry in the washing machine on the balcony. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing her slender, snow-white wrists. However, no one knew that the owner of these hands already possessed the strength to pin an adult man to the ground with one hand.

Although her father was somewhat strict and demanding towards the students at the martial arts school, he was lenient towards Fu Hua herself.

This was not out of love for his daughter or excessive tolerance, but simply out of confidence and admiration for her martial arts talent.

Fu Hua has exceptional martial arts talent, so much so that she has already reached the level of Mind's Eye's Eye at a young age. This talent can be seen from the fact that she later created the Void Sword Qi on her own.

Otherwise, the man wouldn't have had the idea of letting Fu Hua the martial arts school.

Traditional martial arts schools even have a custom of passing down knowledge only to men. Even if male-dominated martial arts schools do not have such a constraint, the consideration of successors will still tend to favor men.

So...

She brought him home purely out of kindness, no different from picking up a stray cat!

The opponent couldn't harm him; his strange, seemingly insignificant abilities were also inexplicably useless to him.

There's nothing wrong with bringing it home, right?

Anyway, she wouldn't let him stay long. Letting a stranger stay without her father's permission was really not something a girl would do.

Completely ignoring the possibility of cohabitation, she nodded her chin contentedly and muttered to herself:

"Go find the landlord. Even if this strange guy named Su Qing'an doesn't have any money, if I beg him properly, the landlord will probably agree to let him stay for a while."

There aren't many people renting apartments here.

As if swept up by the redevelopment plan, more and more people are choosing to hand over their land directly to government agencies.

The landlord, an elderly man, is nostalgic and not short of money, so Fu Hua doesn't have to worry about suddenly becoming homeless. However, this also means that there are fewer tenants than before.

Many more people will find themselves unable to adapt to the redevelopment plan and seek out a less developed area to escape the changes brought about by this wave. Ultimately, this is a failure of the government's compensation measures.

After a city is redeveloped, the associated taxes and fees for public facilities will increase significantly. For residents who do not own land, moving to a new place as soon as they hear the news and adapting to the new environment is a better option.

In short, many rooms in the apartments here are vacant, which makes Fu Hua's idea feasible.

A little while later, as the girl mustered her courage to knock on the landlord's door, she suddenly realized a very important problem.

Su Qing'an didn't look like someone who had an ID card.

... Could it really be that there isn't one?

Moreover, it seems that this person's background is unclear.

Even if the landlord is a nice person and you know them well, there's a high chance they won't take in someone of unknown origin who might cause you trouble.

Even more surprisingly, it wouldn't be surprising if some people chose to call the police directly.

Realizing this possibility, she withdrew her small hand from the doorbell.

They've already brought him home... We can't just have him arrested and interrogated right away.

Although judging by appearance is very superficial, Fu Hua had to admit that Su Qing'an didn't look like a bad person. Coupled with that inexplicable fondness, she instinctively abhorred the possibility that the boy was being threatened by the authorities.

So she temporarily abandoned the idea and went home.

Throughout the journey, the girl pondered how an unemployed person with no identity, no home, and no relatives could live a legal and sensible life.

The conclusion is... she couldn't think of any effective methods at all.

Fu Hua felt somewhat troubled by this, but halfway back, she suddenly realized that something was wrong with her attitude.

Why do I always feel like I owe him something?

Helping a stranger, no matter how kind-hearted you are, is probably the limit.

In fact, this shouldn't have happened at all.

The girl clenched her small fists, as if making a firm decision, she thought to herself.

I've decided. I'll let him leave once he wakes up.

Even with the lingering emotional [Ashes] from the two reboots, Su Qing'an is now a complete stranger to Fu Hua.

After the initial emotional outburst, the remaining goodwill was no longer enough to cause Fu Hua to deviate from reason.

Although I still subconsciously refuse to hurt the other person, the urge to help is not as strong as it was at the beginning, and has become a more stable attitude.

At my doorstep.

Fu Hua's expression changed as she looked at the door, which was partially open.

Didn't she close the door?

Or has he already left?

She suddenly felt a little anxious. Clearly, Su Qing'an leaving would be the easiest choice for her, but...

"Magnificent."

Recalling the other person's strange reaction upon seeing me and the name they blurted out inevitably triggers anxiety, which then intensifies.

The girl suppressed her emotions and walked step by step to the guest room door. Looking at the tightly closed door, she hesitated. Had she left or not?

If Su Qing'an didn't leave but is sleeping inside, wouldn't it seem strange for me to go in?

What if I wake him up?

In the end, Fu Hua suppressed these ulterior motives.

You won't get any results by just standing outside and guessing.

She quietly grasped the handle and pressed it down, then took off her slippers and walked barefoot to the bedside, making as little noise as possible.

Looking at the boy's peaceful sleeping posture, she breathed a sigh of relief. Was it really because she hadn't paid attention when she closed the door?

She sat cross-legged on the ground, gazing silently at the other person's hazy profile in the dim light, her thoughts racing.

Why does this person know my name? And why do they look at me with such a knowing gaze?

Is it just a homonym or a coincidence?

Although this is the best and most reasonable explanation, Fu Hua felt that the answer was not so simple.

Today's encounter was truly fantastical, as if a completely different person had poured all their emotions into them, urging her to lend them a helping hand.

So she obediently did as she was told, and relied on that inexplicable intuition to barely follow the elusive boy for over an hour, seemingly undaunted by any difficulties or dangers.

But on what grounds?

The girl suddenly felt a subtle unease, a kind of youthful rebellion-like awkwardness. She felt as if she were picking up someone else's things, that those feelings belonged to someone else, and that Su Qing'an's initial look, which conveyed the feeling that they were very familiar, was also directed at someone else.

In Fu Hua's own logic, they had only just met, so what past could they possibly have?

So even from a metaphysical perspective, she subconsciously felt that none of these things belonged to her. The Hua that Su Qing'an spoke of was another Hua that she did not know, and those emotions that were suddenly and forcefully stuffed into her chest were all strange accidents.

As time goes by, these things will disappear on their own. Just like when she first started practicing martial arts, she thought she would never be able to leave this path for the rest of her life, but recently her father's words have gradually pulled Fu Hua far away from this path.

You see, this shows that nothing is predetermined.

Just as she never thought she would study in a city as big as Canghai City, life is constantly changing.

So even if today's experience is miraculous, it may not be as important in the future.

The Fu Hua of the past wouldn't have thought about these things; she was used to drifting along and living without her own opinions or dreams.

Even after what happened today, nothing will change, but for the first time, Fu Hua is struggling with the future. What will happen next?

This usually quiet girl was a little irritable at the moment. She had never felt such complicated emotions before, nor had she ever felt such affection for a member of the opposite sex.

Fu Hua was already quite young, had no idea how to deal with this situation. Looking at the sleeping Su Qing'an, she suddenly felt even more frustrated.

In the end, all she could do was secretly think bitterly to herself.

I'll kick you out as soon as you wake up!

However, compared to her subsequent efforts to keep her footsteps down, this made her seem like a flailing, bluffing kitten, utterly intimidating to onlookers.

She's kind of cute.

When Su Qing'an woke up, the weather outside had changed from morning to dusk, approaching night.

Golden light, partially obscured by the curtains, lingered in a corner of the room, while dust motes, stirred by a gentle breeze, rose and fell.

The boy threw back the covers and stepped barefoot onto the ground.

The air was slightly cool, yet warmed by the sunlight.

Is it spring or summer?

He drew back the curtains, and light tore through the darkness, flooding his pupils.

The area in this direction seemed to be blocked by buildings. The boy looked at the sky peeking through the narrow gaps between the buildings; it was a vibrant red, as if flames were burning in the clouds.

Looking down, you can see many children playing and running around in the streets and parks.

Some elderly people were taking a walk together, while some housewives were carrying grocery baskets and chatting as they walked home.

It was an ordinary and mundane scene; the Previous Civilization didn't seem as different from my own past as I had imagined.

However...

In the not-too-distant future, these images will all become dust of the times, the past of history.

The white color, representing death, will sweep across this land, and peace and tranquility will be completely destroyed.

Since the outbreak of the Honkai is inevitable, all I can do right now is protect that girl.

Suddenly, Su Qing'an spotted a familiar figure. She watched as a girl carrying two bags of groceries slowly walked home.

He slightly parted his lips and opened the window.