Entertainment: You're asked to make a healing animation, but it will make the whole internet de

If time had a color, then Okazaki Tomoya's five years would surely be pure gray.

His heart had already died five years ago on that snowy night.

Now, he is nothing but a walking corpse, an empty shell whose soul has been ripped out.

Every day, I wake up in murky air filled with the smell of smoke and alcohol.

Then numb your nerves with the most strenuous physical labor.

After get off work, he went to a bar and drank himself into a stupor.

Back in that rented room, which contained nothing but a bed and a television.

Turn on the TV and tune to a channel that's always filled with static and no one watches it.

Then, I would stare blankly at that monotonous rustling sound all night long.

That sound was just like the heavy snow that happened five years ago.

He no longer goes to Furukawa Bakery.

She dared not even see that child.

The child who was brought about by Nagisa's life, Shio.

That name was a word more malevolent than any curse to him.

It constantly reminded him that it was he who had personally killed the person he loved most.

If it weren't for him, Nagisa wouldn't have gotten pregnant.

If it weren't for him, Nagisa wouldn't have died.

This thought gnawed at his already battered heart.

Therefore, he chose to escape.

They left that child, along with all the memories related to Nagisa, to Uncle Akio and Aunt Sanae.

He retreated into a cocoon built of alcohol and numbness.

......

Animation shots.

It calmly presents Tomoya's life over the past five years.

Compared to that small home that was filled with laughter five years ago.

This creates the most brutal contrast.

This cruelty gradually numbed the hearts of all the viewers.

The global outrage following Nagisa's death has long since subsided.

Now it's a deeper sense of powerlessness and despair.

The bullet comments became sparser than ever before.

There were only a few scattered sighs, like soliloquy.

He's finished.

Five years—how many five-year periods in a lifetime can be wasted like this?

I can no longer feel sadness, I just feel so tired.

[You old bastard Su, you win. This is torturing Tomoya, and it's torturing us too.]

The audience's hearts have been broken.

They are no longer angry, because anger requires strength.

They were just keeping Tomoya company.

We succumb together, become numb together, and fall together into this dark abyss called life.

……

Healing Animation Company.

Shen Qingyue looked at the plummeting audience interaction data backstage.

For the first time, I began to doubt the myth created by Su Bai.

"It seems like all the audience members have left."

Her voice trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly.

"There's hardly anyone discussing Clannad online anymore. While the last episode didn't get a lot of negative reviews, it also got almost zero positive ones. It seems like everyone's given up."

"Have we gone too far?"

She looked at Su Bai uneasily.

The man, however, remained completely calm and composed.

He leaned back in his chair, looking calmly at the dejected Tomoya on the screen.

No, you're wrong.

Su Bai spoke slowly, his voice not loud, but carrying an undeniable power.

"They didn't run away; they were just like Tomoya—tired and numb."

"Which do you find more terrifying: a raging fire of anger, or a silent iceberg?"

Shen Qingyue was taken aback and couldn't understand the meaning behind his words.

Su Bai turned around, looked at her, and a devilish smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Anger is just a momentary outburst; once it's burned out, nothing is left."

"But numbness and despair are accumulating energy."

"It took me so long to gradually drain and squeeze out all the emotions from the audience, from anger to sadness, and now to numbness."

"They are like completely emptied containers now. Like Tomoya, they have lost all hope for this world."

"This is what I want."

"Because only in the deepest darkness, even the smallest glimmer of light will appear particularly dazzling."

"And what I need to do next is to ignite that light."

"That beam of light was enough to ignite all the coldness and darkness that had accumulated over the past five years in an instant."

Hearing Su Bai's almost insane remarks, Shen Qingyue felt a chill run down her spine.

Looking at the man before her, she realized for the first time that she might never have truly understood him.

In his eyes, there was neither the fanaticism of an artist nor the greed of a businessman.

Only absolute calmness and confidence.

……

In the animation.

A phone call disrupted Tomoya's monotonous, gray life.

It's Aunt Sanae.

On the other end of the phone, her voice was as gentle as ever, but with a hint of cautious probing.

"Tomoya, are you free this weekend?"

"I'm busy."

Without even thinking, Peng was about to hang up the phone.

"etc!"

Sanae's voice suddenly became urgent.

"It's about Shio."

"This weekend is her school's parent-child sports day, and the teacher requires both parents to participate."

"I'm going to a very far place next week for a baker training course, and Qiusheng is so clumsy, so..."

Tomoya fell silent.

His hand gripped the phone so tightly that it made a cracking sound.

On the other end of the phone, Aunt Sanae's voice even carried a hint of pleading.

"Just one day, Tomoya, just one day with her, okay?"

"If you don't come, she'll just have to watch the other kids play with their parents all by herself."

A person.

This word stung Tomoya's already numb heart.

He thought of himself.

I recalled my countless lonely childhoods, when I could only sit alone in a corner, watching other children being picked up by their parents.

As if by some strange twist of fate, he heard himself answer in a voice that even he himself found unfamiliar.

"understood."

After hanging up the phone, Peng also slumped to the ground in despair.

He didn't know why he agreed.

Perhaps, it's just that I don't want that child to become a second version of myself.

That's it.

He closed his eyes, but a small, blurry figure uncontrollably appeared in his mind.

It was also a figure he had never dared to look directly at.

five years.

It was his first time seeing her.