Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Time passed, second by second.
At midnight, exactly 00:00, Mo Xie suddenly opened his eyes.
All at once, he felt that something about him had changed, as though some hidden seal within his body had been lifted.
Could it be...?
Thinking of a possibility, Mo Xie opened the system panel.
[Host: Mo Xie]
[Talents:
1. Mind Over Matter(Thought reshapes matter; will distorts reality. Young man, as a creature of pure idealism, go forth and throw yourself at it!)
2. Fated(You are more likely to achieve your goals, though the result may differ slightly from what you originally had in mind.)
]
[Begin simulation?]
[Yes or No]
So it really was true. His talents had finally finished unlocking.
Thank goodness. This time, he had only waited twenty-four hours. He had not actually been made to wait another eighteen years.
Still... what exactly did these two talents mean?
Mo Xie knew that the Honkai world was one where the power of will and belief could produce very real effects, but these talents were not even trying to be subtle. They were basically telling him outright: You are now an idealist protagonist. Go on, then.
His heart stirred with excitement for a moment.
Then it quickly calmed again.
Because the more he mulled over the notes in parentheses, the more wrong they felt. Both talents seemed suspiciously trap-laden.
Could it really be a case of "try it once and die for real"?
As for the second talent, he set it aside for the moment. He first tried testing the first one.
The result left him wearing the mental equivalent of an old man staring at a phone on the subway.
He could not even nudge a sheet of paper by the slightest amount with his will.
And this counted as distorting reality with willpower?
Forget it.
Since these were his talents, then they should work inside the simulator as well.
Mo Xie refused to believe that after decades inside the simulator, the two talents would fail to manifest even once.
With that thought, there was only one choice left.
"Simulation, begin."
"..."
"Yes, all right?"
[Simulation Start]
[Selecting Scenario...]
The next second, Mo Xie's vision went black.
[Age 0: You are born. You do not cry. Instead, you smile, because you see everyone around you smiling, so you smile too.]
[Your behavior is rather strange and liable to frighten people, but the nurse holding you is an old hand. Her grip does not slip, and she does not accidentally drop you. Instead, she calmly pats your backside.]
[You do not understand what is happening. You only feel a burst of pain. At last, unable to bear it any longer, you cry out.]
[Hearing your cries, the doctors, nurses, and your mother all breathe a sigh of relief.]
[Age 1: At your first-birthday choosing ceremony, you take nothing at all. You merely wrap both arms around yourself and hug your own body.]
[Age 2: At some point, you begin dreaming of a stranger. But every time you wake up, you forget the dream. Even so, your mind somehow contains much more knowledge, as if you had always possessed it.]
[Age 3: Even now, you have still never spoken a word. If you had not cried when you were born, your parents would have started to think you were mute.]
[So your parents take you to see a doctor. After a round of examinations, they discover that your body is perfectly normal—if anything, almost too healthy. That eases some of their anxiety.]
[Age 4: The stranger in your dreams has disappeared, and you no longer wake up with new knowledge in your head. But after the last time you dream of that person, a thought takes root in your heart: survive.]
[You do not understand why this idea of "surviving" has suddenly appeared in your heart. After all, is your life not already quite good?]
[So, for the first time, you speak to your father.]
"Hey, son! Say 'Dad!'"
Mo Xie looked at the slightly childish man in front of him, who was pulling faces and trying to coax him into speaking. In what should have been an innocent, toddler-like gaze, there was instead something strangely profound.
"Dad," Mo Xie asked, "what is the meaning of living?"
It was the first time he had spoken. His childish voice entered his father's ears.
His father froze for a moment, then reacted at once.
"Son, was that you just now? Come on, say 'Dad' again."
Mo Xie did not understand why his father was so happy, but seeing how excited and delighted he was, he sighed inwardly.
Fine. I'll indulge him.
"Dad," Mo Xie said again.
"Yes!" his father answered, beaming.
After waiting a while and still getting no answer to his actual question, Mo Xie said with some dissatisfaction, "Dad, you still haven't answered me. What is the meaning of living?"
This time, his father finally noticed that something was unusual about him.
This child seemed to think far beyond his age.
His father rested a hand on Mo Xie's head and said, "I don't know the answer to that either. Everyone has a different one. It's something you'll have to search for yourself when you grow up. But there is one thing I do know: when a person dies, everything is gone."
Then he shook his head with a smile, as if trying to dismiss the whole conversation as childish nonsense.
"Honestly, why am I saying all this to a little kid?"
He reached out, intending to pick Mo Xie up and lift him into the air, returning things to the ordinary rhythm of a father playing with his son.
"When you die, everything is gone," Mo Xie repeated in his soft, childish voice, as though turning the words over in his mind. "So... is being alive itself the meaning? Just to... have?"
His father's hand stopped halfway in the air.
The smile on his face slowly faded, replaced by seriousness.
He crouched down to meet Mo Xie at eye level and tried to explain it in a way a child might understand.
"No, son. 'Being alive' and 'living meaningfully' aren't the same thing. It's like..." He paused, thinking. "It's like Daddy going to work every day. I don't do it just so I won't starve. I do it so you and your mother can live better lives, so I can protect this family. To me, that's part of what gives life meaning."
He looked at Mo Xie's small face, which still seemed deep in thought, and his tone softened further.
"You're still too young. The world is still very, very big in your eyes. You'll need a long time to experience things, to feel things, before you can find your own answer."
"Maybe you'll find it by helping others. Maybe you'll find it while chasing a dream. Or maybe..." He smiled faintly. "Maybe it'll be in something as simple as enjoying a good meal or seeing a beautiful starry sky and thinking, It's good to be alive."
"The important thing," his father said, lightly tapping Mo Xie on the chest, "is this. You have to keep searching. Keep feeling. As long as you're still searching, life remains alive."
Mo Xie lowered his head and looked at his tiny little hands, as if trying to digest his father's words.
To live...
To feel...
To search...
-------
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