The Strange Adventures of Hearn the Believer

She was praised by those around her, but no one took the initiative to approach her, which is why she remained alone.

It turns out she was already trapped in a cage of things she had accepted, unable to move.

It turns out that she had no other choice but to accept the suffering, and she was too weak to give up.

The reason he was in so much pain was simply because he wanted to give her a hug and tell her, "Don't be afraid, I'm here for you."

……

After sorting everything out, he lay back in his chair and burst into laughter.

What an irony.

He sought a heart of unwavering resolve and revenge, yet what he obtained was a heart so fragile.

That's more than just weakness!

That's a perfect example of someone with a sharp tongue but a soft heart!

He wanted to return the goods, but it was too late.

He had become a demon who was as self-centered, as rational, as powerful, and as weak as she was.

Driven by a desire for revenge, he decided to seek an antidote.

Driven by a desire for revenge, he decides to "love" someone.

……

"Love" is not romantic love; it seems more appropriate to understand it as simply "goodness".

If he, such a self-centered demon, such a demon walking the path of revenge, were to let himself go and love himself, and let himself accept all the beautiful things his heart longed for, then his heart, which was as hard as iron, would one day turn into a soft, inferior product like pudding.

He eventually found a way out, a way that would allow him to maintain his mental fortitude without being driven mad by the pain.

He wants to choose a suitable partner, give her all the good things, and keep the bad things for himself.

Those who are selfless love others far more than themselves.

A self-centered person loves themselves far more than they love others.

How would a self-centered demon choose the person he wants to love?

The answer is obvious.

Of course, it's about loving someone who is exactly like him. That way, when he's carving his own heart and swallowing the bitter fruit of "badness," seeing someone like himself being embraced by "goodness" will make him feel a little better.

He was unable to enjoy the valuable and beautiful things he had, yet he couldn't bear to part with them. Therefore, he gave them to someone who was always with him, a doll that was like his reflection, so as not to waste the beauty of the world.

As a boy, Hearn began to bestow all the good things he had gained in his life upon the doll girl beside him who, like him, had just ended her childhood and entered adolescence.

At the same time, he also struggled to maintain his unwavering heart of revenge through every stroke of his engraving.

In the constant process of letting go and suppressing himself, he carefully experienced the pain originating from the "painting heart," savoring the bitter wine brewed from emotions he did not yet understand, such as guilt, longing, affection, and sympathy. Only in this way could he avoid one day losing his mind and letting go of the girl he met by the sea.

The more pain he felt from letting go, the more he missed that girl.

The more one suffers from repression, the more one loves the doll beside them.

This demon, who should have been extremely self-centered and self-loving, almost returned to egolessness under this bizarre and distorted emotional model, becoming capable of loving others.

From then on, he no longer regarded the doll as a doll, but as a blood relative like his own sister.

He dressed her in her finest clothes, and he painted her face with makeup.

He drew her portrait, he taught her music;

He sheltered her from the wind and rain, and accompanied her through all four seasons;

He often confided in her, and he even listened to her silence.

Time flies, years pass...

Seven years later, in early spring, he visited the celestial realm above the underworld while on official business, and took the opportunity to kill a group of celestial beings who had fallen into the seven emotions.

His Shi Hai quietly unlocked a new posture due to the new flavor of food—the things created by Shi Hai regained their sanity.

When he came to his senses, he was tackled by the doll girl who had been by his side for seven years in a submerged forest where cherry blossoms were scattered.

That knife pierced straight into his heart.

Then, it seemed as if a yellow bird was softly chirping.

"Firstly, I helped you kill a stray mine. You're welcome."

"Secondly, you are not allowed to use my body casually anymore. I am not a puppet."

"Thirdly, you are not allowed to put on makeup for me anymore. I am used to going makeup-free."

"Fourth, you are not allowed to change my clothes at will anymore. I will take care of it myself."

"..."

"Fifth, you must stop torturing yourself like this, you hedgehog..."

"...Run?"

"And most importantly, my name is Ryougi Shiki, not Reizei Jun. Remember that, you bastard!"

Chapter 148 Painting the Heart (Part 2)

Seventeen is a turbulent time for most primates living in the human world.

Because this year is the last year of my precious student life.

Whether it's a romantic relationship, an opportunity, or the culmination of long-term efforts finally nearing its fruition...

In any case, everything seems to be coming to a temporary end with a national civil service exam of similar nature, after which everyone will hurriedly pack their bags and go their separate ways.

For a non-primate demon living in that hidden land, his seventeenth year was also a windy season.

Frequent winds mean the arrival of storms.

The reason it didn't rain was probably because he had prepared enough umbrellas over the past twelve years.

Although the process of "letting go" was extremely painful, when he looked back and evaluated the outcome after the storm had truly arrived, he was still grateful to the person he had been for the past twelve years, who had endured hardship and persevered despite the pain.

It is the countless acts of "letting go" over the past twelve years that have brought him his current composure.

If what arrives is a storm, then it is the eruption of a volcano that has been dormant for many years.

If what falls is torrential rain, then it is like lava erupting from the earth's crust.

He treated those monsters, who were equally ignorant of human nature, with utmost care and dedication, appearing as a bloodless, tearless, heartless, and ruthless monster. He was gratified to realize that he had gone much further and seen much more than they had on the path of monsters.

His seventeenth year still held something similar to the "national examination" for primates, but his "national examination" was more like a gamble with a slim chance of survival.

He calmly sat in his seat, calmly picked up the hand he had prepared over the years, which was not bad, calmly cheated, calmly corrupted, and calmly swept his opponents out of the game one by one, leaving them scattered and crushed into dust.

……

After he reconstructed the long-cherished wish and conspiracy buried within him for a thousand years through fragments of a foreign girl's memories, he was able to uncover part of the truth beneath the fog—his tragic birth originated from the revenge of a clown who was used and discarded against his former benefactor.

It was a farcical play performed by a clown, who got so caught up in the role that he was having nonsensical, delusional dreams.

When he realized that the so-called Demon King was nothing but a clown, and the clown was just a pathetic and despicable tool, he began to think about what to do after everything was over.

His suffering was orchestrated by the Joker, stemming from the Joker's resentment towards his former benefactor, though strictly speaking, it had no direct causal relationship with the former benefactor.

As a conclusion, he did not want to oppose the Joker's former benefactor, partly because it was really difficult to pin the blame on Him, and partly because His existence was too deeply involved.

The Joker's old benefactor is the planet itself. To truly challenge the planet's will would implicate countless beings unrelated to this feud.

Good people should be rewarded.

Innocent people are reluctantly categorized as good people.

His soul came from the moon; he was an alien species, and to the planet he was poisonous.

His power surpasses that of the underworld, which has long attracted the covetous eyes of the heavens and the netherworld.

He was already the deadly poison of that planet. If the barrier were to disappear with the clown's death, he would face the planet's will directly.

The clown originally wanted to start a war between him and his former benefactor. If we do it this way, wouldn't we be fulfilling the clown's wish?

Whether the clown was alive or dead, he didn't want it to have its way.

Ultimately, he chose a less-than-ideal solution and put it into practice.

He neither wanted to fight Gaia after killing the Joker, nor did he want to take over the Joker's position and continue to be trapped in that desolate place he had cursed countless times throughout his adolescence.

So he decided to give the Joker a dignified death—a slow death in a cage where no one could see him.

He made arrangements for the future of every old friend who was connected to him. He destroyed the clown's thousand-year cultivation and imprisoned it under that unprecedentedly strong barrier, turning that rural land into its final prison.

After doing all this, he packed his bags and flew away with the girl who had been with him through thick and thin for many years.

Her destination was her hometown, a place that existed in another world, named Kanbuko.

After twelve years of enduring hardship and biding his time, his tale of revenge seems poised to conclude with a rather peaceful ending.

Caught in the cracks of the world, he finally encountered, with his girl and his fox, the steam locomotive that seemed to have appeared in his dreams, under a sunset like an oil painting, in a train station that looked like it had appeared in a Victorian era.

In fact, the appearance of the world's cracks is also painted by the landscape of the traveler's mind.

The reason it looks like that...

Simply because he had thought countless times over the past twelve years about jumping on a train and flying away.

It was simply because of his eccentric personal tastes and his obsession with steampunk.

Simply because his girl didn't have as many strange and unusual thoughts as him.

His fox was in a very good mood after watching his enemy's downfall.

It was only because there was another visitor from afar in the cracks of that world, and she also happened to be fond of the scenery at the train station.

……

When that cyan figure that had appeared countless times in his dreams reappeared in his world like a dream, he once thought that revenge might not be a worthless path.

Twelve years later, amidst the cracks of the world, just as everything in the past was about to settle down, and when he was only one step away from freedom, he reunited with the woman who had initially given him the courage to walk into the thicket of thorns.

Stunned, suddenly realized, incredulous...

Joy, hesitation, and finally, guilt...

The peerless actor forgot his lines in an instant, lost his words, and didn't know what to do.

Fortunately, he was not the only one who had lost his voice.

The long silence that had lasted for so many years finally ended when the girl beside him softly called his name and asked if he knew the newcomer.

……

Twelve years have passed in the blink of an eye.

His changes were so great that they were difficult to describe in words.

Her changes were so subtle that time seemed to have left almost no trace on her.

In twelve years, he grew from a penniless child into a monster capable of silencing the planet.

In twelve years, she seemed to have changed, yet she also seemed to have remained the same.

She seemed much more mature, and her conversation lacked the youthful madness of her younger days, replaced by a calm acceptance of right and wrong.

But in his eyes, she seemed to have changed no at all; she had simply moved from a small cage to a larger one.

It was indeed a much larger cage, and even the sense of loneliness emanating from her was transformed into a transcendent "indifference."

indifferent……

Screw indifference!

Unbeknownst to him, how many sacrifices did this woman make? How many treasures did she relinquish? What responsibilities/missions/sufferings did she accept?

To suppress his anger, he could only remain silent.

But she seemed oblivious to his silence, and just affectionately pulled him around and fiddled with him, sometimes shouting and yelling.

"Wow, time is both amazing and terrifying! That tiny little kid from back then is now taller than me..."

"Let's go eat barbecue together after we get back, it's on me, of course..."

"Let the two forces come along too..."

Trivial topics like that.