Regarding the question of whether one thousand lives are enough to beat Honkai Impact 3rd.

Mei walked silently into the incubation chamber, embraced the frail girl, and smiled slightly.

My own battle has only just begun.

89. Fu Hua's transformation, Carol's despair.

7 month 12 day.

Fu Xiuran lay quietly on the hospital bed, his face gaunt, purple lines now covering his once tall body.

His once clear blue eyes were now veiled in a gray mist, as if he could no longer see the world clearly. The focus in his pupils only became clear when he looked at the girl's face.

Why were they able to endure four months of time?

Honkai energy gnaws and wriggles across the nerves and bone marrow of the entire body like maggots, causing flesh to gradually shrink as if it would dissolve into black dust at any moment.

The warrior's unwavering will has kept men from ever speaking of these hardships, but that doesn't mean these despairs don't exist.

The combination of various factors—the emergency intravenous injections in the dead of night, the periodic hibernation in a dormant chamber filled with Honkai energy-inhibiting fluid, and the gradually increasing proportion of drugs in her food—was barely enough to keep Fu Xiuran's life hanging by a thread.

But this is merely prolonging a lifeline that should have ended abruptly, and at such a grueling cost.

Even if we live, we will see no hope.

If all that is to be alive is to experience despair and sorrow.

If the meaning of life has long been like a kite with a broken string, held together only by a single thread.

Continuing to persist might have long since become a long and silent torment.

Fu Hua, who could never truly face the truth, had come to understand the reality that her father would eventually die.

The man gazed slowly at Fu Hua's face, his pace of contemplation seemingly slowing down as his body grew increasingly frail.

Honkai energy's corrosive power is all-pervasive.

I once thought that by witnessing the martial arts beyond the mountains, I might be able to escape this ridiculous fate a little.

However, due to time and skill limitations, Fu Xiuran was still unable to make any further progress.

Perhaps stopping here is a good thing.

Only after a man takes things a step further will he realize that the ethereal concept of martial arts is powerless against the demon residing within his body.

Behind every despair lies more despair.

At the end of the sea of ​​no light, the sea remains still pitch black and deep.

Collapse, collapse.

Even for Su Qing'an, how many hopeless journeys back home would she have to endure before she could escape this so-called selection process?

No one knows the answer.

The man recalled how frequently Fu Hua had visited him recently, and thought of it.

During this time, my daughter seems to have changed a lot, like the silent rise and fall of ocean currents hidden beneath the surface of the sea, and I, confined to my hospital bed, am powerless to do anything about it.

She must have suffered a lot without his knowledge as her father.

Fu Xiuran tried to say something, but realized that making his daughter understand his worries was itself a silent pressure, so he said softly:

"Xiao Su... that child hasn't come back yet."

The girl pursed her lips. She had already understood from Xi'er that there was no need to continue hiding Su Qing'an's condition, but perhaps continuing to maintain this lie would be a good thing for her father.

Fu Hua had vaguely realized what the source of this willpower that had sustained this emaciated man until now was.

It's Su Qing'an.

It was Su Qing'an, the one who could take Fu Xiuran's place and continue to take care of him, the one a father trusted and was willing to entrust his daughter to.

I can't truly feel at ease until I see that person.

There is no way to choose death without receiving that person's final promise.

Therefore, Fu Hua cannot reveal a number that would utterly shatter a man's hope.

There are still four months until the time when the boy is most likely to truly wake up.

However, according to the doctor, even with the most optimistic estimate, my father has less than two months left.

In fact, if a man is contemplating suicide, this number may already be negative.

Fu Xiuran was destined not to live to see Su Qing'an wake up. This was not the limit of his will, but the limit of his body.

She could only continue to carefully protect her father's inner expectations, choosing to package her fragile lies with an cloying sweetness.

The girl gazed at the man's graying temples, meeting his slowly focusing pupils. Her lips naturally curved upwards, the curve gentle yet warm.

She smiled and said:

"It's okay, he'll be fine, Dad."

"He made a great contribution in another branch a few days ago, so he can't stay there to continue guarding the city. But it's okay, it'll be over soon."

"The local war there will end soon, and then Su Qing'an will be able to be transferred back to Australia."

Fu Xiuran sighed softly:

"It's been a long war."

Fu Hua's hands grasped the man's increasingly withered flesh, revealing his clearly defined bones.

She repeated softly in a low, murmuring tone:

"Yes, it has been a very long war."

Long, defeated, hopeless, and bleak, it was also accompanied by countless deaths.

How should we accept this kind of world?

What attitude should we adopt when facing this reality?

Go with the flow? Give up on yourself? Indulge in pleasure? Turn a blind eye?

Fu Hua has been away from the recruit camp for three months. During this time, she has experienced war, faced life and death, felt the fragility of life, and understood the value of fighting.

So the answers to those questions, or rather, the choice of which path to take, had long been bubbling in the girl's chest and settling gently into her heart.

Su Qing'an's existence caused Fu Hua to encounter things that were completely different from the fixed timeline in the past.

This led Fu Hua, who should have chosen to go with the flow, to actively step into this endless hell of carnage in this rebooted timeline, based on her own will and unwavering belief.

Sunlight poured into the room like a flowing river, and the hazy light and shadow reflected in her gray, misty eyes the girl's serene expression as her lips parted slightly, moving gently.

She looked at Fu Xiuran and said earnestly and firmly:

"But it will end, Dad."

"One day, humanity will triumph."

"And until then, I will not stop fighting."

"From that moment on, I never wanted to lose again."

"It's not about simply relying on others, not about purely expecting things from them, not about praying for changes in your own reality, but about actively fighting with the thought that you absolutely don't want to lose."

"Only in this way... only in this way will I not be left behind by Su Qing'an."

The man stared at Fu Hua in a daze for a moment.

Perhaps that's just how children are; they always grow up quietly without adults noticing.

Xiao Hua, who used to secretly tug at her sleeve and blink her eyes because of a hair tie, has finally reached the point where she can take care of herself.

Fu Xiuran always felt that she was not old enough to take care of herself. He also subconsciously believed that his daughter could not survive in this world without Su Qing'an's help, and even thought that Fu Hua should be content with her current protection.

But the truth is quite the opposite; her holy blue eyes are like the frozen Lake Baikal, its winding shoreline encircling everything, with only the lingering tectonic activity capable of creating subtle ripples.

Four months passed in the blink of an eye, and the girl's slender body now contained things she could not understand.

Perhaps this is something to be happy about.

But what exactly did she go through, experience, and understand to become so quickly someone she herself is somewhat amazed by?

As a parent, Fu Xiuran, while gratified by the seemingly good outcome, was more concerned about the hardships she had endured during the process.

Unfortunately, I won't get a definite answer.

As he gazed at his daughter's smile, he seemed to see, in a daze, the image of his wife holding her and looking at him.

The man closed his eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips. It really was... so similar.

After a long while, he opened his eyes, smiled, and said softly:

"it is good."

"Dad will wait, wait... until the day Xiaohua ends the war."

As Fu Hua gazed at his face, the myriad emotions that had accumulated over this period silently piled up like a mountain.

The ice between the lakes of the heart slowly melts, and the white lines that intertwine to form cracks disappear without a trace, like the white mist dissipating as the sun rises.

There's no need to silently recite the Sword Heart Mantra at this time anymore.

The girl felt the warmth of her father's palm, and her intact heart was reshaped, freezing in her sea of ​​consciousness into a clear Lake Baikal.

Kenshin has advanced to the Mirror Realm.

She will not admit defeat again.

He was already very close to that person's back, and he could become even stronger before the person woke up.

So strong that... there's no need to regret anything anymore.

……

……

Why join the Fire Moth?

After several brushes with death, Carol would often ask herself these questions.

This is a question that often arises in the middle of the night, prompting me to question myself.

The reason is simple.