Chapter 126: Chapter 125 Mirai at the Crossroads of the Future
When Fang Zheng opened his eyes again, it was already dusk.
“That was a terrible dream.”
Pressing his forehead, Fang Zheng sighed. He had just had a dream in which everyone was arguing, and then Keiichi decided to explore the Irie Clinic alone and was stopped by Rena and Shion along the way. And then… freaking hell, they started killing each other out of nowhere.
Truthfully, Fang Zheng was quite calm about the first half of the dream, but the developnt that followed left him dumbstruck.
Rena and Shion had actually “transferred their affections” and both fallen for him?!
How is that possible?
Honestly, Fang Zheng found this developnt utterly incredible.
It was strange, considering that “When the Cicadas Cry” was a work with a standard harem setting featuring one male and multiple females, the story involved very little on the romantic front. Perhaps it was because the setting was in the eighties, where expressions of love, whether by males or females, were quite conservative. Of course, there were so harassnt plots and risqué attire, but compared to the modern harem ani, those elents were more in the vein of “pranks.”
And as the only male protagonist, Maehara Keiichi had not established a romantic relationship with any of the female protagonists. Unlike later harem series where the relationships between males and females were ambiguous, with every female character tacitly in love but the male protagonist failing to make a clear commitnt, in “When the Cicadas Cry,” both male and female characters were in the very early stages of love, with only Sonozaki Mion and Sonozaki Shion having anything resembling a sense of romantic feelings, but even that was limited to naive, unrequited love.
One could say that compared to many of the female protagonists in later ani who were eager to get into the male lead’s bed to express their feelings, the protagonists in “When the Cicadas Cry” were excessively innocent.
This was why Fang Zheng hadn’t thought about it at all initially. Indeed, Rena always brought lunch for him, but Fang Zheng knew that was just her style. As for Shion… honestly, although he often discussed “that matter” with her, perhaps because the story depicted Shion’s feelings for Satoshi so deeply, it never crossed Fang Zheng’s mind that he could actually be putting a green hat on that poor, unfortunate guy.
This has to be a joke, right? We’re in Hinamizawa, not Sakanoue Academy, and I’m not Makoto, nor have I been fickle in love, so how did it suddenly co to a bloody end?
Isn’t this just mocking ?
Recalling the scene in the dream where Rena and Shion fought fiercely, and then Rena chopped Shion to death with a hatchet and smashed Keiichi’s head into a pulp, Fang Zheng shivered involuntarily.
Well, it must have been a dream… it must have been…
“Knock, knock.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door, and upon hearing it, Fang Zheng imdiately gathered his thoughts.
“Co in.”
Following Fang Zheng’s response, the door creaked open, and then he saw Furutega Rika walk in. She managed a forced smile at Fang Zheng before she began to speak.
“Excuse the interruption, Teacher, do you have a mont now?”
“Of course, I do, but… how co it’s just you? Where are the others?”
“They’ve already dispersed and left.”
“Uh…”
Upon hearing Rika’s answer, Fang Zheng’s expression changed slightly. It reminded him of the dream he just had. If the dream was accurate, Rena should be following Keiichi right now… wait, could it be that it wasn’t just a dream?
With that thought, Fang Zheng suddenly felt a pang of unease. If it was indeed as the dream had proclaid, he should leave imdiately and go stop the fight between the two. But just as Fang Zheng began to entertain this notion, he felt that indescribable yet omnipresent “premonition” again.
It was the premonition that if he really did so, things might reach an irreversible point.
What’s going on?
Fang Zheng stood there, dumbfounded. Logically, if that dream was more than just a dream, then he must stop it. After all, if Rena were to kill Shion and then Keiichi, it would an Fang Zheng’s mission has utterly failed. Furude Rika would never accept such a world. She had been reincarnating for over a hundred years to find an ending where she and all her friends could be happy. If that world could not be found here, she would definitely leave and seek another world.
Therefore, both emotionally and rationally, Fang Zheng needed to stop this imdiately. However, his intuition was stopping him, wait… Thinking of this, Fang Zheng’s face instantly turned sour.
He had finally discovered where the pitfall this world had set for him was!!
Ever since arriving in this world, Fang Zheng had been full of confidence. He thought he was on solid ground and couldn’t possibly fail. His reason was simple, he knew who the orchestrator was, and he understood the nature and cause of “Hinamizawa Syndro.” He believed that as long as things progressed like the storyline, he could surely “clear” the challenge.
But now, Fang Zheng had finally realized that he, too, had long been afflicted with “Hinamizawa Syndro,” and it might have even progressed to the fourth stage!
Because he now found himself unable to make up his mind or make any judgnt!
Should he trust his dream? His intuition? Or his instincts?
Fang Zheng felt like he was trapped in a maelstrom at this mont. He used to believe that he knew everything about “When the Cicadas Cry,” and never worried about any unexpected developnts. But now, he realized that it might have been better if he’d known nothing at all.
If Fang Zheng hadn’t known the storyline of “When the Cicadas Cry,” he might have just regarded that dream as a re dream and trusted his gut more. After all, there was a deep friendship and bond among these children, and he trusted them…but that was impossible!
Because in the story of “When the Cicadas Cry,” it was these seemingly “loving and affectionate” friends who, one by one, darkened and went berserk due to various reasons, and then raised their butcher knives towards their friends. The crazed Keiichi nearly destroyed everything; even with Mion and Rena’s resolve to face death, and despite Rena raising her hands with a smile, asking Keiichi to trust her while he held a raised baseball bat, he still killed her without hesitation.
Shion was the sa; she killed the Ghost Granny, imprisoned her own sister, and cruelly murdered Satoko, whom she should have protected… As for Rena, it goes without saying, she even thought about having the whole school accompany her into death because she couldn’t achieve her goal…
And it was precisely because of these “loving yet murdering” plots that Fang Zheng was utterly uncertain about their friendship. If one of them fell ill, the consequences would be unimaginable!
And now, Fang Zheng had finally realized that he, too, without realizing it, had fallen into it!
He didn’t dare trust the dream, nor his intuition, nor his spells, and could find corresponding explanations for each doubt within his mind.
Only now did Fang Zheng rember what Rex had told him when teaching him the prophetic magic.
“For a Prophet Mage, the future is just a choice, but a choice doesn’t necessarily lead to the result you need. Even if you see the future, that future will change because of it. As a Prophet Mage, you must confirm how far you can accept the future. Rember, a Prophet Mage is not a deity; even deities themselves cannot escape the grasp of fate. Never forget, when you are full of confidence trying to change fate, the choice you make is an inseparable part of fate itself.”
And now, Fang Zheng had finally understood the aning of Rex’s words.
In a sense, he had been doing sothing quite similar to a Prophet Mage in the past because he was “familiar with the storyline,” allowing him to create chaos in those world instances. Only in the Black Soul world, which Fang Zheng wasn’t very familiar with, was he lucky because that world was a linear one. There, what he needed to do more was to refine his combat skills, and the decisions he made were unlikely to affect much—after all, there weren’t many living people left in that world.
And now, Fang Zheng had finally discovered the hidden dangers and traps within it.
He knew too much, so much so that he couldn’t make any judgnts or decisions.
Go? It was just a dream, and his intuition told him that doing so could bring unpredictable consequences.
Not go? But what if it wasn’t just a dream? Would he have to see two corpses the next day… oh, no, that’s wrong. Rena would take care of the bodies, then claim they were feeling unwell and couldn’t attend the eting!
Only then did Fang Zheng finally detect the malice this world had for him.
It seed no matter what choice he made, it was going to be a BAD END!
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