Chapter 18: Wednesday of Mercury Retrograde Samsara (6)
I walked down the morning street with Lanhua.
Autumn had arrived, but the weather was still quite hot, with the burning sun relentlessly radiating its residual warmth as if it had no end.
Intense white light flickered in the sky, which was clear and sunny today.
Lanhua took me to the places she had been staying at for the past few days. Most of them were parks, indicating she had genuinely been sleeping rough.
We investigated like this until noon, but we didn’t find any clues worth noting. However, it did make me realize how miserably Lanhua had been living these past few days. Seeing no progress and with noon already here, we had no choice but to go eat.
After casually choosing a restaurant and ordering, we sat on the same side and even held hands while eating, which was very inconvenient. Thus, I had to feed her at times with my right hand, which was still free, and then feed myself.
This earned us strange looks from the waitstaff and other customers. We were definitely misunderstood this time!
After a hasty lunch, we were back on the road.
The thread hadn’t changed much… It seemed the truly useful clues were with Lanhua, but she knew nothing.
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve taken a walk with Zi’ai like this…. After all, it’s been quite a while since you went missing…. Two whole years, right?”
“Huh? Two years?”
Wait, even counting from the start of summer vacation, only two months have passed. To say two….
Speaking of which, it was the same when we returned from the deserted island. We had spent three days on the island, but upon returning, everyone’s reaction was that only a short time had passed. This means that, at that time, it wasn’t me who went to Juncheng’s world, but Juncheng who transmigrated to my world.
So, is there a time flow difference between the two worlds?
Then why didn’t this discrepancy occur when I came to this world and returned before (on the day of the final exam)?
“Zi’ai?”
“It’s nothing. So, did anything happen during these two years?”
“Did anything happen….”
Lanhua looked up, thought for a moment, and then smiled shyly.
“Actually, the only thing worth mentioning after that is my debut as a singer.”
“Eh? You became a singer? That’s amazing. With you, your talent would surely make you a super popular star very quickly.”
“It’s not as exaggerated as you say.”
Being coy like that is kinda gross.
SF Light Novel
Although I had vaguely sensed it before, the girls who surrounded me seemed to have yuri tendencies.
Even though the Lanhua in this world was normal…. well, not exactly normal, but better than how she is now.
“And then I met Juncheng An. Ah, by the way, Juncheng has been looking for you all this time… He’s been asking for news about you, Zi’ai.”
…Huh? Zi’ai?
I stopped in my tracks.
Who did she… he, Lanhua, just mention?
Yeah… You don’t recognize Juncheng, do you? That’s strange, Juncheng has always said he wanted to find you….
“Juncheng is looking for me?”
I shook my head, hiding the urge to cry, and asked Lanhua seriously, “No, of course I know Juncheng. But why do you know Juncheng?”
The Lanhua from my world shouldn’t know Juncheng… The only person I told about Juncheng was Xinran.
“I met him by chance… I was feeling down that day and skipped my scheduled program to go out. When my manager chased after me, I rushed to escape and bumped into him…”
“Yes, that was the first time… But he even called me ‘Lan’ directly back then. If you’re a fan, isn’t that nickname a bit too intimate?”
It’s really Juncheng. T = T
The only person who would call Lanhua directly “Lan” is… not someone with the same name. Juncheng transmigrated to my world…
I covered my mouth with my right hand, but the tears I desperately held back still streamed down my cheeks.
Finally, finally, I heard news of Juncheng for the first time… Although I don’t know why he transmigrated to my world… I’m already dead and only a soul remains….
And didn’t Juncheng’s soul enter the Yata no Kagami? How did it get to my world?
A terrifying guess surfaced in my mind…
I suddenly felt dizzy, my face lost all color, and I clutched my forehead, but the nausea kept surging.
How….
Can’t…
The only lines I could think of were negations, but it was just disbelief leading me to deny it.
But if the reality was as I suspected, then everything would make sense.
The thread in my hand suddenly vibrated violently. I felt the weight of my backpack lighten. Even without looking, I knew the skein of thread had shrunk.
This means the thoughts I was having were a very important ‘clue’.
It’s the truth.
But if all of this is true…
Then why, why am I, existing here…
“That’s because… you need to ‘deceive’ everyone.”
Suddenly, time stopped.
My body couldn’t move, but my consciousness was clear.
The entire world seemed to have sunk to the bottom of the sea, becoming blurry and indistinct.
Then, another Zi’ai appeared before me…
“Hoo hoo…”
“Finally found a chance….”
Is that Lanhua?
No, that’s not Lanhua…
She was wearing a strange purple formal dress, floating upside down, with a faint smile on her face.
Her appearance was identical to Lanhua’s, but I instinctively distinguished her from Lanhua.
‘She’ wasn’t Lanhua.
At least Lanhua wouldn’t have the ability to stop time, nor would she be so… unfathomably deep!
“Ah, An Zi’ai, you’ve made me wait quite a bit… I’ve been waiting for this moment… for you to ‘know everything’.”
She joyfully curved her lips, her eyes crinkling, her delight evident.
Waiting for me to know everything?
Does she mean what I just thought?
SF Light Novel
My brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but I didn’t stop thinking.
“Although I succeeded in sending the Lanhua here… unexpectedly, the ‘replica’ was swapped and occupied this ’empty’ body… It’s quite troublesome. This must be an emergency response from ‘you over there.’ She might have already discovered ‘my’ existence… That’s why there’s a ‘fuse’ like you.”
Her smile sent a chill down my spine, and an unprecedented sense of panic and crisis welled up within me.
“However, I still succeeded. Under my guidance, you’ve deduced the ‘truth,’ and that’s enough… Hoo…”
Her laughter filled this frozen, silent world. Only she could move, only she could speak, as if she had become the master of the world.
“With your knowledge, I can use the ability to ‘choose again’.”
Choose again?
Is it… to start over?
“Alright then, let’s go back to the ‘choice point’ where today began~ Hoo… Mercury retrograde samsara.”
As those spell-like words left her mouth, this frozen world began to change.
The surrounding world flowed, moving in reverse. The world hadn’t sunk into the water, but ‘time’ had become visible.
And as the water flowed backward, it meant time was reversing!
The sunset, which had already dipped below the horizon, reappeared high in the sky, and the twilight sky brightened.
Even my feet moved involuntarily, retracing my steps exactly as I had walked, as if pulled by an invisible force.
The perfect ‘reverse step’ was not a trick used by prey to evade a predator, but an indication of me becoming a puppet in a puppet show.
Everything that happened today was undone and became an unrealized fact, as if a computer had been restored to its previous state with a single click, the world was ‘restored’ with a single click.
Finally, when time stopped reversing and returned to stillness, I was back at the starting point.
I recognized the surrounding scenery. This was the place where Lanhua and I had just come out of the store. The surroundings were unchanged, and even the people at that time were still there.
The only change was the appearance of…
A ‘her’ who looked exactly like Lanhua slowly walked towards me, cast a contemptuous glance, and then walked past me.
She wasn’t targeting me… Could it be…?
As this thought surfaced, I heard a crisp snap of fingers, signaling a new resumption of normal time flow.
I quickly took out my phone to check the time.
6:01 AM.
6 AM….
It was right after we came out of the convenience store, the time when we first set out.
I had actually returned to this morning!
I unconsciously looked back, my eyes wide, and through Lanhua’s pupils, I saw my own astonished expression.
Lanhua, however, stood still with vacant eyes, like a disconnected online game character.
Just as I was about to shake Lanhua’s shoulder to rouse her, I heard the little shop owner from not far away shout loudly, “You! What are you! How can such an existence be! Not attached to a body, nor to a soul, existing purely as spirit… How is this possible!!!”
Who was he talking about? No soul, no body? Only spirit… No…
The ‘Lanhua’ in front of me suddenly moved, her pupils flashing. She curved her lips into a smile and said,
“Hoo… Why is this impossible? With an incomparably strong longing, my spirit can coalesce and traverse countless times, eventually returning me to the ‘present’.”
Scary…
So scary…
She wasn’t a woman driven mad, but a being made entirely of madness.
“Hoo hoo hoo, should I introduce myself? You can call me Lanhua too… But to distinguish myself from ‘myself of this era,’ call me Zihua.”
The ‘Lanhua’ in front of me, no, Zihua said.
And I could no longer stop myself from trembling….
Things might be heading in the direction I hate the most…
Yet, I am powerless to do anything about it.
I can only watch helplessly…
The tide has turned.
