Clearly, this was not the first time Hong Yu had experienced such strange letter incidents. The first time he received that letter, he wrote a reply with a playful attitude and placed it in the inexplicably appearing mailbox. But the moment the mailbox closed, the reply Hong Yu had put in vanished.
Immediately, in the next blink of an eye, he arrived sixteen years in the past and met the young Ch'en Hui-chieh of sixteen years ago.
He had thought that what he experienced was nothing more than an ethereal dream or perhaps an illusion...
Until... two days ago.
After casually dealing with some punks in the Lungmen slums who tried to ambush him for his money, he went to the L.G.D. to give a statement and happened to run into Ch'en Hui-chieh... no, he should call her Ch'en Sir now.
"Hello there, Ch'en Sir," he greeted her with a familiar smile.
She looked over, stunned for a moment, then asked him with a strange expression if he knew a police officer named "Yu"...
In that instant, Hong Yu froze.
Yu was the alias he had used in that world he had thought was an illusion. But who would have thought that a name he had come up with on a whim would actually appear in reality and give him such a huge scare.
The smile on his face had never changed from beginning to end, or rather, he had never possessed the ability to perceive emotions.
Right, had...
A tiny, almost imperceptible hint of astonishment appeared in his eyes. Perhaps a normal person would never be able to sense that minuscule emotional change, but for Hong Yu, who had long since lost his emotions, it was all too obvious.
Could it be... because of that one letter... no, because his own experiences had traveled through time and space, was he slowly recovering his emotions as a human being?
And... was it all real?
Was everything I did... real?
Come to think of it, he had been in Lungmen for so long without ever seeing Ch'en Sir. Today was the first time.
However, in that illusion... no, in the past.
I failed to keep my promise to the young Ch'en Hui-chieh to save her sister. Instead, at the last moment before dying in front of her, in order not to leave a shadow on this little girl, I chose to erase her memories of me...
But, she said police officer?
What police officer?
I didn't appear as a police officer. If, if all of this is real, then perhaps in the near future, I will once again appear in Ch'en's life, in the form of a police officer.
"No, Ch'en Sir, I don't know anyone named Yu... Why do you suddenly ask me this question?"
Though he thought this in his heart, Hong Yu couldn't help but deny it. After all, this was just his own speculation. As for the truth, no one could be sure.
Even if it was the truth, and he really had come to Ch'en Hui-chieh's side again...
"It's just... you look a lot like someone I know. I'm sorry if I offended you," Ch'en turned her head to the side, not looking directly into Hong Yu's eyes.
That's not an expression someone in a high position should have, Miss Ch'en.
Hong Yu smiled, indicating he didn't mind.
Ah, right. So what if I'm gone?
Ch'en is still alive. She even became a Senior Superintendent. Given the current state of the world, she is even, no, she is definitely being groomed by Wei Yenwu as the successor to the Lungmen city lord.
That's... not too bad, is it?
I can't believe it... the little girl who used to grab my clothes and cry her heart out, has she grown up to be like this now?
You're doing well now, that should be enough.
I don't know if choosing to erase your memories was the right thing to do...
Indeed, I was wrong. I promised to bring back your sister, but after failing to do so and facing death, I chose to erase your childhood memories of me... Did I do that at the time because I didn't want you to be sad for me?
"Sorry, Ch'en Sir, I don't know that person." He couldn't quite remember. Hong Yu felt as if he had regained some emotion after that time travel, but not much, just a little. At least now, when he saw Ch'en Sir, he actually felt something similar to guilt for a "promise not kept."
"You don't know him...? No, it's nothing."
"Mm, okay. Goodbye."
...
Rubbing the rough edge of the letter, Hong Yu still put it back in the drawer.
Immediately, he took out the paper that looked like a flyer that he hadn't read. On it was written...
"The Son of Heaven summons all capable and righteous people of the world to gather in Yan to vanquish a god..." Hong Yu muttered the more important information on it to himself.
Vanquish a god?
I remember that Yan's God-Slaying War ended thousands of years ago, didn't it?
Normally, Hong Yu would just think this was someone's prank, laugh it off, and be done with it. However, this paper had appeared in that strange mailbox, which made Hong Yu have to take it seriously.
"If it's really possible to travel back to a time that long ago... that's a bit too ridiculous, isn't it?"
As he thought this, Hong Yu once again recalled the newspaper he had just seen about the People's Republic of Ursus. Although this name full of democracy was a bit out of place for a country with a thousand-year feudal system like the Ursus Empire, it still made Hong Yu scrutinize the letter in his hand from the pre-republic Talulah.
In his memory as a transmigrator, the land of Terra never seemed to lack suffering, but the world he had transmigrated to... was surprisingly beautiful?
Ursus had become a republic, Kazimierz's capitalism was not so rampant, Siracusa's families no longer defied the law, Kazdel was founded and developing prosperously...
The deep-sea nation of Aegir had also recently established contact with the land. The Seaborn swam around like animals cleaning up filth, and even their appearance had improved by several levels...
Even the threat of Oripathy had been declared conquered thanks to the efforts of Rhodes Island, a medical company under Kazdel.
These things were not supposed to happen...
Hong Yu should have been completely baffled, until he finally thought of these papers that appeared in that mailbox, and his own strange time travel.
Perhaps, all of this was caused by me?
Then, if I write another reply, can I change some predetermined tragedies again?
Hong Yu was a little tempted.
But he was a bit tired. Although he didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to start writing so soon either.
He pushed up the black, round-framed blind man's glasses on the bridge of his nose, making sure not to reveal his lifeless or rather, emotionless eyes, and then he smiled again.
With that false expression, Hong Yu walked out of the back door of the general store.
He was going to buy two sticks of tanghulu to eat.
Although the refrigerator was full of tanghulu, more is always better, right?
Tanghulu was a good thing. The sweetness could make him stop smiling, and the sourness could clear his mind.
Anyway, it was just one refrigerator's worth. He could finish it all in one day.
On the way, Hong Yu smiled and greeted his neighbors one by one. As a general store owner with a decent reputation in this area, he would occasionally help the people around him with things he could.
"Instead of calling it a general store, maybe call it a Yorozuya."
The little purple-haired rabbit who occasionally came to his store to "restock" had joked with him before.
And thinking about the time-traveling mailbox behind his shop...
Hong Yu's limited transmigrator knowledge made him couldn't help but complain, "What kind of modified version of the Miracles of the Namiya General Store is this?"