Tokyo Soft Rice King.

This is a fantasy that everyone has had: if only another version of yourself could go to work and solve all your problems, then you could relax and enjoy yourself.

The problem arose because after learning about her experiences, I felt sorry for her and was moved by compassion.

Tashiro Kurenai bought a pair of high heels for her other self and gave her body to her, allowing her time to move freely.

At first, there were no problems, but as she gradually got along better with her colleagues, built good relationships with her family members, and was even invited by Kuroba Akira to switch jobs, she couldn't help but realize...

She is 'the better version of herself'.

With red, swollen eyes, Tashiro Hongxiang hugged her aching knees, curled up, and lamented to herself.

"I... am just a coward..."

“I’m no good… I can’t do anything… I can only hide in a corner… and push all the trouble onto her…”

"But she... she considers me, she thinks about me... she feels this is my life... but she is clearly the better one..."

Listening to her innermost thoughts, Kuroba Akira roughly understood where the problem lay.

It's actually dissociative disorder.

Self-identity becomes confused, a sense of reality is lost, and one sees oneself as an 'other,' meaning that I am no longer myself...

This symptom was particularly pronounced in her because there really was another version of herself living inside her.

In fact, everyone has moments of self-loathing, more often than not, when they feel regret and think they were incredibly stupid before.

Looking back, Kuroba Akira only felt that his past self was immature. If he could go back in time, he would definitely punch himself twice to wake himself up.

Because Tashiro Kurenai had a counterpart from another world to compare herself to, she felt her own 'foolishness' even more directly.

However, her claim that she wanted to disappear was just a desperate act of self-destruction, an attempt to escape reality. Her talk of doing it for another version of herself was nothing but an excuse.

So now he has to ruthlessly expose this hypocritical lie.

Stop being so dramatic!

"Stop talking nonsense, Miss Hongxiang, you also want to live a better life, right?"

"What are you saying... I've already...!"

"The evidence is that you only ran away when I came home to look for you. If you really wanted to disappear a long time ago, there was no need to wait for me to come and take action. As long as you didn't tell anyone, no one would know where you would hang yourself, right?"

"Well……!"

"So in my opinion, that was a distress signal you sent to me."

"I'm not...I didn't!"

"To put it bluntly, Tashiro Kurenai, you're just jealous of another version of yourself."

"No...! I never thought about that kind of thing!"

Kuroba Akira continued to say things that stung her heart.

"Really not? Isn't it because you feel you're clearly inferior to her that you want to disappear?"

"Waaah...!"

Tears welled up in her eyes once again.

She felt extremely wronged.

Because... there's simply no way to refute it.

What he said was actually correct. I shouldn't have thought that way, but I couldn't help thinking it anyway.

My life... was stolen by her.

The moment this idea came to her was also the moment when Tashiro Kurenai hated herself the most in her life.

I feel disgusted and want to vomit at my own weakness and despicable state.

This is the conflict between Tashiro Kyouka and 'herself'.

Kuroba Akira didn't say those words to cripple her; the key to this series of attacks was what followed.

“But Miss Hongxiang, you’ve forgotten something. The other you isn’t a 24-year-old young man, but a 39-year-old old fox.”

In this world, Tashiro Kurenai is a real twenty-four-year-old woman, in the prime of her life.

He was even younger than Kuroba Akira in his previous life, and was just a fresh graduate from university.

The body may be mature, but the mind is not yet mature.

Those who haven't experienced great trials and tribulations have much weaker psychological resilience.

"……Why?"

"She has experienced far more than you, so she will inevitably be more mature and better at dealing with people than you, because she is not just another version of you, but also the 'future you'."

"My future self..."

"Yes, no one becomes mature from the start. Have you really had a proper talk with your other self?"

"Of course we talked! I know she's also very pitiful; she lost her sight in an accident right after starting her job... but she still managed to pull through!"

"Yes, she tried her best, so why can't you do it? You have to understand that back then, she didn't have another version of herself to help her share the burden of life."

"what……"

Akira Kuroba can only play a guiding role.

Only she herself can save her.

She was unfortunate because, compared to her other self, she became even more insignificant.

But she was also lucky, because she had another version of herself to avoid various crises and prevent her from stepping on the same landmines she had stepped on before.

“Miss Hongxiang, did you hear that? Why don’t you tell her how you grew up?”

Tashiro Kurenai closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her aura had drastically changed; it was the mature and sophisticated Kurenai personality that had come out.

She gave a wry smile, patted her chest, and said to her other self.

"I'm sorry, Hongxiang, it seems I went too far... I just didn't want you to suffer as much as I did, but I didn't expect it would make you feel unwanted..."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have stepped in to solve your problem directly, but rather taught you how to solve problems..."

"I didn't tell you about the setbacks I went through because I was too proud to talk to you... because I felt that you were different from me, and that you could become better than me."

She glanced at Kuroba Akira, her eyes revealing a resolute determination.

“Amin is right… I used to be just as afraid of humans as you are, because I also experienced ‘that incident’.”

For her, and for them, those were the most painful memories of the past, the source of their distorted personalities.

"Like you, I was once held hostage by a serial killer."

Chapter 145 Let's Believe in Money Together

"Twenty-five years ago... for me in this world, that should be ten years ago."

In other words, this happened when she was fourteen years old.

“That day was just an ordinary school day. On my way home from school, I was kidnapped by a woman. She was my neighbor who lived near my house. She would greet me with a smile every day, which made me lower my guard…”

"Being kidnapped by a woman...that's quite rare."

Generally speaking, it is more common for men to kidnap young girls, either for money or for sexual purposes.

Women are physically limited and find it difficult to carry out kidnapping alone, so they are not often directly involved in violent crimes, but many act as accomplices.

"That woman is crazy. She believes in some strange ritual and thinks that she can stay young forever by transfusing the blood of three young girls into herself."

"Uh……"

Meeting such a madman is truly the worst luck imaginable.

Just by listening to her description of the crazy woman, you can tell what happened to her next.

They must have had their blood drawn, right? They weren't killed instantly, but watched themselves slowly approach death...

“She had been planning this for a long time. She investigated three girls living nearby who had the same blood type as her, prepared the props in advance, tied the three of us up in her house, and prepared to draw enough blood for the ritual in one go.”

"Because that woman attacked in order of surname, and my surname starts with the letter T, which is the last of the three, so in the end I was the only one who survived..."

"However, the other two girls weren't as lucky as me. They were bled to death by that woman right in front of me..."

Having read the manga "Akagi," in which the latter half involves playing mahjong with blood drawn, Kuroba knew that a person's blood volume is usually 3500-4000cc, and that losing 1000cc of blood would cause them to faint due to excessive blood loss, while losing 1600cc of blood would result in death.

After a person dies, blood circulation stops, making it very difficult to draw blood.

That's why that crazy woman wanted to prepare enough blood for three girls, because the blood from three girls would be enough to replace all the blood in her body, even though it was pointless.

"When it was finally my turn, I thought I would die there too. But just as I was about to lose consciousness, I saw the police rush in and subdue the crazy woman. I was rushed to the hospital for a blood transfusion and ultimately survived."

After recounting her ordeal, the mature and elegant Hongxiang said with a bitter smile.

“After that, I became unable to trust anyone, and I was even afraid when facing my parents... because whenever people smiled at me, I would think of that woman and wonder what kind of twisted thoughts were hidden under their kind expressions.”

This is what is meant by "once bitten by a snake, twice shy."

Social anxiety disorder is mostly caused by one's family of origin or extreme experiences; she belongs to the latter category.

This experience remained deeply ingrained in her memory, causing her prolonged suffering.

"So when I was young, I was actually a coward just like you. I was very afraid of contacting people. But then, due to an accident, I became blind. That really made my life completely dark, but for me... it was actually a kind of relief."

“I became blind, so my fear of humans turned into a fear of the dark. I didn’t actually get out of it; I just replaced my original fear with another kind of fear.”

"However, it is precisely because I can't see anything that I have become able to communicate normally with people... But I am really glad that you are not blind, because as long as you can overcome your fear, you will definitely live a better life than me."

The mature and elegant Hongxiang spoke her true feelings to herself.

She is like those who are reborn and return to the past, simply wanting to make up for their regrets.

After saying these words, the mature and elegant Hongxiang closed her eyes and returned her body to her other self.

"..."

After a moment of silence with her head down, the socially awkward Hongxiang looked up at Kuroba Akira and asked.

"So... what should I do? How can I overcome my fear of people?"

The last sentence was spoken with a slightly raised tone, as if it were a question to himself, or perhaps a question to him.

Kuroba Akira was very pleased. After two rounds of persuasion, he finally managed to get her to give up her extreme ideas.