Thanks for the invitation! I am in Honkai, still connected Chapter 38 38 - Miss Mei Decides to Extend a Helping Hand

"Zihan, are you lonely?"

The girl, who saw a faint reflection of herself in the young man beside her, lifted her head and spoke softly.

"Lonely?"

The young man, who hadn't expected Raiden i to broach such a topic with him, looked montarily stunned.

Weren't they just discussing the Herrscher of Erosion? How had the conversation shifted to such a philosophically dense subject as loneliness?

Li Zihan looked at i, and i looked back at Li Zihan, their gazes eting.

In those athyst-like eyes, the emotion that surfaced was... pity?

Li Zihan suddenly felt a little lost.

What did she an, looking at him like that?

It seems he really is very lonely, i thought.

Has he reached a point where he's no longer even aware of his own loneliness?

If it's all stemming from an inner loneliness, then Zihan's constant stirring up of trouble and taking on so much work… that makes sense.

That's his way of warding off solitude.

Raiden i sighed inwardly.

With these thoughts, her image of Li Zihan began to change.

This fellow… perhaps he wasn't as inscrutable as she'd imagined.

After all, causing mischief as a way to pass the ti because of loneliness… no matter how you looked at it, that sounded like sothing an unruly child would do.

Wait.

An unruly child.

Like a flash of inspiration, Miss i suddenly had a thought.

Her gaze swiftly swept over the young man's face, which lacked sharp angles, then moved down to his neck.

His chin was smooth, his features soft—not those of a grown man. Though he possessed an Adam's apple, it wasn't very prominent, clearly indicating he hadn't fully matured.

People often instinctively associated those who possessed vast amounts of information with greater age; after all, amassing significant knowledge typically required ti.

Although modern technology had sowhat altered this perception, a great deal of information still necessitated continuous, ti-consuming accumulation.

Influenced by this conventional way of thinking, Miss i hadn't really questioned Li Zihan's age before.

However, having noticed these details, and reconsidering the age issue, Li Zihan's self-proclaid age now felt a little off.

After all, this person was suspected of having the ability to read information directly from his surroundings; knowledge that was difficult for ordinary people to obtain, he could acquire with ease.

Therefore, his actual age was definitely much lower than the impression he gave.

"Zihan, be honest. How old are you really?"

Miss i, who had previously heard Li Zihan claim to be thirty-three and nineteen, suddenly found her gaze sharpening.

She suspected both numbers were false.

"Thirty-three."

Li Zihan stated the sum of his ages across two lives without batting an eye.

He had been nineteen when he died in his previous life, and was fourteen in this one, a total that coincidentally matched the age at which a certain notorious character made his debut.

As for notions like an overly young physique affecting one's psyche, or reliving childhood causing a regression in ntal age… well, it was best to pretend such things didn't exist.

"Please, tell the truth."

Miss i continued to scrutinize the young man's appearance, becoming increasingly certain of her deduction.

Unless he, like Kiana's maternal aunt, suffered from a condition that stunted his growth, this fellow couldn't be older than sixteen.

Miss i, herself sixteen and a half and soon to be seventeen, found her expression changing slightly as she looked at him.

"Even if you ask, I can't really give you a definitive answer," the young man, whose age was indeed complicated to calculate, sighed, then asked, "Have you ever heard of rebirth?"

Miss i, not particularly familiar with the concept often found in web novels, paused for a mont, then voiced the Taoist understanding of rebirth.

"To erge from a desperate situation, reborn through great suffering and sublimation, starting anew with a more perfect form?"

"Not the Taoist kind of rebirth."

The young man, who had been unceremoniously transported to the Moon World by a natural gas explosion at the age of nineteen, pursed his lips.

"Just understand it as having lived two lives."

???

Miss i looked slightly bewildered.

Lived two lives? What on earth did that an?

"Perhaps when I was being reincarnated, ng Po, trying to cut costs, added a bit too much water to my soup. I have mories of my past life."

"And then, in this life, I've lived for another fourteen years."

Li Zihan, who was never quite sure how to calculate his own age, sighed.

"In short, my age can basically be considered a Schrödinger's cat, constantly oscillating between 14, 19, and 33."

This situation was certainly unique.

Miss i couldn't help but acknowledge inwardly that Li Zihan's circumstances were indeed very strange.

However, it was precisely this peculiarity that likely made him feel out of step with his "peers," thus leading to his loneliness.

The girl, who had been pulled from the abyss of loneliness by Kiana just a few months prior, looked at the young man. He, lacking such intervention, seed to be treading a different path, and a pang of sadness touched her heart.

The loneliness he bore… it was far greater than what she had experienced.

So much so that he had adapted to it.

How much ti did it take to beco accustod to loneliness?

She didn't know the answer, because just as she was on the verge of succumbing to it, soone had pulled her out.

Kiana, if you encountered this situation, what would you do?

The girl, who had been helped out of her own dark place by the one nad Kiana, pressed a hand to her heart, asking herself.

"Of course, I'd lend a hand!"

In a fleeting daze, a familiar, vibrant voice seed to echo in her ear, an auditory hallucination.

That's indeed an answer in your style.

A smile touched the lips of the girl who had found her answer.

"By the way, Zihan, can you tell … your story?"

With almost no hesitation, the girl who had once received a helping hand now moved closer to the young man, her words a complete departure from their previous conversation.

"My story?"

The young man, feeling that Miss i was acting very strangely today, frowned slightly.

The Raiden i in his impression was a blend of Yamato Nadeshiko and Rice Cooker; she wasn't one to pry with endless questions.

Yet today, she had first asked if he was lonely, then abruptly questioned his age, and now, out of nowhere, was asking for his story…

Honestly, Li Zihan half-suspected the Rice Cooker beside him had been swapped out, replaced by a Paracium.

"Why are you asking these things?"

The young man, who didn't particularly mind sharing his story, looked at Miss i's delicate side profile. He couldn't discern anything unusual, so he simply asked.

"I just… want to understand you a little better, that's all."

The girl who had once been saved by Kiana smiled faintly, then t the young man's eyes with her own moist, purple gaze.

"Are you unwilling?"

"It's not that."

The young man, who truly didn't mind recounting his tale, thought back to his life in the Spirit Tomb and sighed inwardly.

Hopefully, my story won't scare anyone too much.