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

"Su Qing'an, do you know what? Today at school, I heard Yuna say that the delivery guy from the shop next door is working three jobs to surprise his girlfriend. Don't you think that's strange?"

"What kind of relationship is this? If his girlfriend likes him, she wouldn't want to see him working so hard."

After finishing the game, Kiana pulled the tab on her Coke and gulped down a big mouthful, then complained to Su Qing'an.

The girl stared at the pink, cute design on the Coke can, lost in thought.

"Who knows? Maybe their relationship is really good, and the man would rather see his girlfriend's surprised smile than suffer himself," Su Qing'an gave a fair assessment.

"Outsiders have no need to comment on such matters. Kiana, when did you become so gossipy? Did you learn bad habits from that chatterbox Sato?" he joked.

"No way!" Kiana exclaimed, her eyes wide with disapproval.

Time passed by in ordinary conversations and playful banter.

the next day.

"Sigh, you're asking me why Yuno hasn't been coming in for coffee lately? Hahaha, manager, you're not feeling lonely because you can't see her, are you?"

Kiana took off her apron, folded it neatly, and placed it in the cupboard, teasingly laughing as she did so.

"No, I was just a little curious." Su Qing'an was washing coffee cups behind the bar, her expression unchanged, clearly unmoved.

"Yuno said that Asagami-sensei has been making her tutor a lot lately, saying that if she doesn't study math properly, she'll fail. So she probably won't have time to come these days," the girl said with a smile, a look of schadenfreude on her face.

"If Yuno fails her course, Kiana, you're even less likely to pass, right?" Su Qing'an said helplessly.

"No way! I...I've been studying hard with Mei lately, how could I possibly fail math!" Although Kiana wanted to sound confident, she still failed to reveal her lack of conviction.

As expected, even Mei couldn't cure her lack of interest in studying.

He's clearly a smart child, so why does he act so silly in this kind of situation?

Go back and say hello to Raiden Mei, and ask her to be a little stricter.

"Does Kiana want to play games?" Su Qing'an asked, thinking to herself.

"???" After a moment of surprise, the girl's fighting spirit was instantly ignited, and she said, "Okay, I'm going to beat you today!"

This scene truly resembles a distant yet real dream that a young person yearns for.

53. The Illusion (Part 2)

Day three.

Changkong City remains peaceful as always.

Su Qing'an put on a black baseball cap, took a bag from the cabinet, and prepared to go to the supermarket.

The food and drinks in the freezer were almost gone, so he planned to replenish his stock.

Looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the continuous drizzle and gloomy sky, Su Qing'an grabbed a long black umbrella and stepped out the door.

The scenery along the way was the same as always.

The drizzle fell on the umbrella, the tiny drops reaching his ears, and the boy saw the myriad aspects of the world through his eyes.

The woman, carrying a bag and holding an umbrella, squatted down to comfort the crying child. The child seemed to have fallen, scraping his knee and drawing blood.

A man carrying a briefcase hurried past, his face numb and tired.

A man dressed as a mascot handed out flyers in front of a bubble tea shop. Rain pattered on the mascot's unchanging eyes, and no one knew what expression the person inside had.

Several high school students wearing raincoats and rain boots were playfully fighting and laughing during their conversation.

The boy walked through the crowd, brushing past the man delivering takeout.

Department stores and supermarkets.

After refusing several girls who asked for her email address, Su Qing'an pulled her baseball cap down further.

Her shopping cart was full of products co-branded with Houmu. Although the taste of the cola didn't change because of the pattern on the can, Su Qing'an, who was very observant, started buying these kinds of packaging more often after discovering that most girls liked this style.

After selecting her ingredients and paying, Su Qing'an, carrying heavy bags, stopped under the eaves of the supermarket to shelter from the rain.

He took out a can of Coke and pulled the tab.

Amidst the gradually diminishing sound of rain outside, the bubbling liquid emitted a melodious sound of breaking and being reborn—the countless births and deaths of the bubbles in an instant. Su Qing'an actually saw a unique and lonely beauty in this scene.

He looked at the date on the Coca-Cola packaging; it expired on December 26, 2013.

What's the date today? Suddenly, the icy coldness of the metal in my palm seeped into my heart.

A sense of emptiness instantly overwhelmed my entire body.

"Mommy, look, the rain has stopped!" the child exclaimed happily, pointing to the sky.

The sunlight pierced through the thick clouds like the breaking of dawn.

But an even more beautiful sight appeared.

It's a rainbow.

Around the rainbow, a semicircle gradually appears, a semicircle larger than the rainbow, seemingly hazy. It was indeed a most beautiful sight.

Compared to sunrise and sunset, it is fleeting and uncertain, ephemeral like a night-blooming cereus, which is why it is all the more stunning.

He was enveloped by an unprecedented sense of security, like having the house key in his pocket after leaving the house, or his phone displaying 100% battery, but something even deeper and more intense.

Therefore, this sense of security dispelled the feeling of emptiness and masked everything that was abnormal.

Yes, everything is normal.

Upon hearing this, the boy remained silent and walked towards the coffee shop.

The black umbrella, as if abandoned by him, fell to the ground, leaning alone against the wall. A moment later, the scene, along with the rainbow, shattered into nothingness.

Both the child pointing to the sky and the mother stroking his head with a smile disappeared.

Is this actually a scene that once happened in Changkong City?

Unfortunately, no one will ever know.

Fourth day.

"Hey, Su Qing'an, the food you made today is delicious. Hmm, what's the name of this Chinese dish?"

"Twice-cooked pork is a very common home-style dish. If you want to learn how to make it, I can teach you."

"Ugh, this is too much trouble, I'd better give up." Kiana was clearly not interested in cooking; she just wanted to be a simple foodie.

"By the way, the manager is from China, right? Why would you deliberately run a coffee shop with hardly any business in Japan? You hadn't even hired any employees before me, had you?" Kiana put down her chopsticks, tilted her head, and suddenly thought of this question. She looked up at Su Qing'an and asked.

"Well, the coffee shop is a bit deserted because I'm a bit introverted and don't like interacting with people. Also, I'm not short of money, so I deliberately make it a bit quiet."

"My arrival in Japan and my stay at this coffee shop were both arranged by someone. Although I didn't really want to live in an unfamiliar place, I couldn't refuse such pure kindness."

"Looking back now, I, who usually prefer quiet, am actually glad that I met Sato and Kiana. I unexpectedly liked the noise you brought. Thank you."

The boy laughed happily as he said this; it was a genuinely joyful laugh.

Things buried under the frozen soil sprouted and spread.

This kind of life is really good, but unfortunately the real world is never gentle.

"Hey, hey, hey! Su Qing'an, what are you saying all of a sudden?"

Hearing the boy's abrupt words, Kiana was at a loss and also a little embarrassed, her face flushing a pretty red.

"So I'm going to Chiba Academy now. See you at St. Freya Academy later, Kiana."

With that, Su Qing'an ignored the stunned girl and walked out the door.

"What the hell are you talking about, shopkeeper?!" Kiana, who had just realized what was happening and ran outside, only saw the boy's figure on the motorcycle gradually disappear from sight.

The girl was completely baffled.

Shortly after Su Qing'an left the coffee shop, everything and everyone, including Kiana, shattered and disappeared into the boundary of nothingness.

After nearly four days.

Su Qing'an, whose soul essence is four times that of an ordinary person, noticed the abnormality from the beginning. Although it was initially suppressed by the inexplicable power, the strangeness and incongruity became more and more obvious as time went by.

Even before the conversation had taken place, he had already realized that this might be an incredibly realistic illusion.

Riding a Kawasaki H2R, which was also a product of the illusion, he ignored the rule that the vehicle could not be driven on the road and sped off towards Chiba Academy.

-----------

Senba Academy.

Yuno Sato continued to listen to the endless math class with utter boredom.

Although the flow of time was different from that of the illusion outside, her sense of time was greatly blurred. The sky outside the window was still clear and blue, and the girl was still trapped in the cage.

The formulas piled up on the notebook disappeared on their own the moment the last page was filled, and then the girl continued to copy the same formulas without noticing.

She complained about the long math class while trying hard to stay awake.

Everything is trapped in an unchanging cycle.

The strangeness of Kiana's disappearance had been drowned out by the sea of ​​mathematical formulas; for Yuno Sato now, this math class was just another part of her ordinary school life.

After class, she can go home and talk to her mother about her daily life at school, or go to Su Qing'an's coffee shop to ask Kiana why she skipped class, or go to a shopping store to buy some pretty and cute accessories.

The girl waited with anticipation and hope.

Time slipped away unnoticed by the girl.

Perhaps after a certain point in time, something irreversible will happen to the girl.

That must be a despair beyond the despair a girl felt after realizing she had lost everything.

The so-called "collapse" is wantonly toying with the girl's fate.

High above, looking down upon all living beings.

They were as arrogant as gods.

54. I haven't broken my promise yet.

Su Qing'an didn't know why he came to Qianyu Academy in the first place. Perhaps it was because the illusion didn't shatter and disappear just because he realized the truth, so he had to find another way.

The Thousand Feather Academy might hold clues that allow him to escape this strange illusion.