In a trance, Li Wu recalled what Raiden Mei had told him not long ago: Kiana had almost no selfish motives. In Raiden Mei's memory, she had never done anything beyond her status, not even once.
Then why did she do something so unnecessary in the morning, making me listen to music to soothe my mood?
Did she do it before and I didn't notice? Or was that really the first time?
Li Wu felt his brain had never been so dizzy, like he had spent the whole night on a speeding roller coaster. He couldn't figure anything out; he couldn't understand anything.
And after the intense dizziness, it was as if he had picked something up.
Looking down, he realized that there were still a few drops of dried blood on his palm, still bright red and very conspicuous.
In an instant, he felt as if he had returned to the school rooftop, acting as a bystander... watching himself backhand Kiana fiercely on her tender face, the entire process without any pause.
Before the slap landed, Kiana had just bitten her lip, completely disbelieving that he would actually hit her.
But the truth was, he didn't hold back and slapped her hard. Under the violent impact, Kiana's teeth bit through her lip, seeping out a few drops of blood that landed in his palm.
What the fuck did I do?!
I slapped the person who came to help me?
Li Wu realized this after the fact, and his heartbeat began to accelerate.
It was clearly something that happened just a few minutes ago, yet it felt as if countless years had passed.
Li Wu held his forehead. It felt like a centipede had bitten through his cochlea and crawled into his brain, its dense legs trampling on his nerves.
Noticing the change in Li Wu's expression, Raiden Mei immediately turned around and asked with concern, "Li Wu, what's wrong? Does your head hurt a lot?"
When the Herrscher personality and the host personality fight for control of the body, there are symptoms of dizziness and headaches. Raiden Mei had experienced this herself, so she knew it very well.
"That's not important." Li Wu shook his head, lowered his hand from his forehead, and pulled a forced, stiff smile onto his face. "I seem to have done a lot of things wrong, very wrong. But it's fine now. Mei, go back to the classroom first. I want to be alone for a while."
Raiden Mei took two steps back, but her gaze didn't leave him.
"Is it really okay? I'm still worried. Let me stay with you a bit longer!"
"It's really fine now. I've thought it through. I did indeed do some things wrong, and I need to figure out a way to make up for them... You go back. I'll buy you another portion of takoyaki after school. Actually, you like spicy food, right? I remember you staring at the chili powder for a long time back then."
Li Wu wore a smile on his face, just like before.
Only this time, the smile seemed more approachable. It was no longer the lofty, solitary moon hanging high in the sky, but the ordinary sunlight seen everywhere on the road.
Raiden Mei was stunned at first, standing frozen in place for a long time without reacting.
His original personality... is back?
A surge of heat welled up in her eyes. She quickly covered her mouth to stop herself from crying out, looking at Li Wu with teary eyes, and responded forcefully: "Mhm! I'll wait for you!"
After speaking, she turned and left, looking back every three steps. It took a long time before she disappeared into the crowd.
After Raiden Mei left, Li Wu found a secluded corner and began to sort out what had happened earlier.
The more he recalled, the more his head hurt.
There was a surreal feeling. It was clearly what he had personally seen and heard, yet it felt frighteningly unfamiliar. It was as if his personality had detached from his body, transcending the world, viewing everything he experienced from a higher, more rational posture.
"Depersonalization?"
Li Wu remembered a term Kiana had casually mentioned. He hadn't paid attention to it at the time, but this mental detachment made him associate it with the word.
Hesitating for a moment, Li Wu took out his phone and did a quick search.
Depersonalization, also known as Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder, is a rare and complex psychiatric disorder.
The specific symptoms matched his exactly: loss of control over one's own mind or body, feeling like a robot.
A more precise summary was a loss of identity, becoming a bystander to oneself.
"System, aren't you going to come out and explain?"
[Explain what.]
"I don't remember adding this kind of setting in the comic. Shouldn't the protagonist possess superhuman willpower and be able to endure it no matter how many times he dies? Why did I develop symptoms of depersonalization after only dying four digits of times?"
[It seems you've died too much and become stupid.]
[If you lock an immortal person in an iron cage and sink them into the ocean, what do you think will happen to that person?]
"They'll go mad."
[Yes. Your short-term, high-frequency Returns by Death are quite similar to the example above.]
[At first, there will only be psychological trauma. Later comes somatization. Your physical state is constantly reset, but your consciousness is continuous. The pain you endured during the last death remains in your consciousness and feeds back into your body after returning in an increasingly magnified proportion.]
[If you ignore this pain, the moment your consciousness can no longer bear it, your brain will activate a self-protection mechanism, blocking the emotional modules used for perception and output to prevent your consciousness from collapsing. At this time, you will enter a state of "transcendence," acting according to common sense in your memory. For example, if you are hit, you must fight back; a student must act like a student, etc.]
[To eliminate the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps, you died exactly 2,019 times. During this process, you did not rest midway. Your mind was overwhelmed long ago.]
"Then how did I regain my feelings? I need to understand the method so I don't step into the same trap twice. When I encounter a situation where I have to return continuously in the future, I can use this method to get my feelings back."
[It can only be encountered by chance, not sought.]
"What does that mean?"
The system's sudden crypticism troubled Li Wu. It was perfectly fine a moment ago, and now it suddenly started speaking abstractly.
[Intense emotional fluctuations. Only when you encounter an event that should trigger intense emotions, and those emotions must be recognized by your subconscious as "special emotions" unrelated to physical pain, is it possible to lift the block on the emotional module and rescue you from this detached state bit by bit.]
"Special... emotions?"
Li Wu muttered the term softly.
[Yes. Based on the peak neural signals collected during this incident, two samples of "special emotions" were identified.]
[Sample 1: Anger.]
[When Kiana Kaslana accused your methods of being "self-destructive" and demanded you stop murdering your classmates, your anger reached a critical point. You felt "misunderstood," believing your efforts were denied and the rationality of your existence was questioned. This accounted for 39% of lifting the block.]
[Sample 2: Surprise.]
[When you reflexively slapped Kiana Kaslana back and saw with your own eyes her swollen cheek and the blood at the corner of her mouth, you generated immense self-doubt. This accounted for 17% of lifting the block.]
Li Wu thought as he listened to the system's analysis.
"What about the remaining 44%? Unidentifiable?"
[Yes. Because the emotion was too complex to be accurately identified.]
[The moment Kiana Kaslana ignored you and her retreating figure completely disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, you generated extremely complex emotions, accounting for 43% of lifting the block. Although you didn't clearly cognize it at the time, your subconscious completely accepted it. This was a brand-new emotion you had never experienced before. The other 1% falls under miscellaneous, which is a conservative estimate.]
[Furthermore, it is not recommended that you rely on luck. As the number of deaths increases, the emotional stimulation required will multiply exponentially. And as your emotional module is repeatedly blocked and awakened, even if the number of deaths remains constant, the required emotional stimulation for awakening will still increase.]
[Until one day, the emotional module is completely blocked, and you will exist in this world as a "Transcendent."]
"A Transcendent. Sounds cool, but it doesn't feel like a good ending... Isn't this just another name for an immortal drowning in the sea? Walking the world as a living corpse."
[You can understand it that way. Therefore, please make your choices carefully.]
Make choices carefully?
Li Wu smiled wryly. Didn't this just mean that save points would only refresh at certain critical nodes? Standing at this node, it seemed like he could take any path, but when truly faced with a choice, there weren't actually many options available.
Just like the crisis event of eliminating the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps. The save point refreshed the moment he left the house after making the bet with Raven.
That is to say, the paths laid out before him...
Other than wiping out the Blood Wolf Mercenary Corps, the only other option was to abandon Raiden Mei, default to her death, and keep running away forever.
It was just that, relying on the trait of not dying, he had chosen the former.