Clearly, this wasn’t the first time Hongyu had encountered one of these bizarre letters.
When the first letter arrived, he had written a reply simply for the fun of it, then placed it inside the mailbox that had appeared out of nowhere.
However, the instant he closed the mailbox, the reply he had just deposited vanished without a trace.
Then, in the blink of an eye, Hongyu found himself sixteen years in the past.
And there, he encountered a much younger Ch’en Hui-chieh.
Originally, he had assumed that everything he experienced was nothing more than an elusive dream, or perhaps some kind of elaborate illusion.
That was…
Until two days ago.
After casually dealing with a group of thugs who had attempted to ambush and rob him in the Lungmen slums, Hongyu had visited the Lungmen Guard Department to give his statement.
It was there that he unexpectedly ran into Ch’en Hui-chieh.
Or rather, she should now be addressed as Officer Ch’en.
“Hello there, Officer Ch’en.”
He greeted her with his usual easygoing smile, as though they were already familiar with each other.
Ch’en turned toward him.
For a moment, she simply stared, seemingly frozen in place.
Then, with a strange expression on her face, she asked him a question.
“Do you happen to know a police officer named Yu?”
At that very moment, Hongyu froze.
Yu.
That was the false name he had used during what he had believed to be an illusion.
Who could have imagined that a name he had casually come up with on a whim would somehow appear in the real world?
And that it would give him such an enormous shock?
Yet the smile on his face remained completely unchanged from beginning to end.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, for a very long time, he had been utterly incapable of experiencing any emotions whatsoever.
Yes.
For a very long time…
But now, a faint trace of astonishment appeared in his eyes.
It was so subtle that it was almost impossible to notice.
An ordinary person might never have detected such a tiny emotional fluctuation.
But for Hongyu, who had been deprived of his emotions for so long, that almost imperceptible feeling was overwhelmingly obvious.
‘Could it be…’
‘Was it because of that letter…?’
‘No.
Was it because of everything I experienced while traveling through time and space?’
‘Could those experiences actually be helping me recover my human emotions, little by little?’
‘And more importantly…’
‘Was all of it real?’
‘Was everything I did back then…
really real?’
Come to think of it, despite having lived in Lungmen for so long, Hongyu had never actually met Officer Ch’en until today.
But back in that illusion…
No, back in the past…
He had failed to fulfill his promise to little Ch’en Hui-chieh.
He had promised to save her older sister, yet not only had he failed, but when he was about to die right before the little girl’s eyes, he had chosen to erase her memories of him to spare her the trauma…
‘But wait, did she say police officer?’
‘What police officer?’
‘I never appeared before her as a police officer.
If…
if everything that happened was real, then perhaps sometime in the near future, I’ll enter Ch’en’s life once again, this time as a police officer.’
“No, Officer Ch’en, I don’t know anyone named Yu…
Why are you suddenly asking me that?”
Despite his thoughts, Hongyu instinctively denied knowing the person she was talking about.
After all, it was merely his own speculation.
Nobody could say for certain what had actually happened.
And even if it was true, even if he really would return to Ch’en Hui-chieh’s side someday…
“It’s just…
you look a lot like someone I used to know.
I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”
Ch’en turned her head away, avoiding Hongyu’s eyes.
‘That’s hardly the sort of expression someone in such a high-ranking position should be making, Miss Ch’en.’
Hongyu smiled and waved off her apology.
‘Ah, that’s right.
So what if I’m no longer around?’
‘Ch’en is still alive.
She’s even become a senior superintendent.
And considering the current state of the world, Wei Yenwu might even…
No, he’s almost certainly grooming her to become the next governor of Lungmen.’
‘Isn’t that a pretty good outcome?’
‘It’s hard to believe…
That little girl who once clung to my clothes and cried her heart out has grown into someone like this.’
‘As long as you’re doing well now, that should be enough.’
‘Although…
I still don’t know whether erasing those memories of yours was the right decision.’
‘It’s true.
I broke my promise.
I told you I’d bring your sister back, but I failed.
And when I was facing death, I chose to erase your childhood memories of me…’
‘Did I do that because I didn’t want you to grieve over my death?’
“I’m sorry, Officer Ch’en.
I really don’t know that person.”
Hongyu couldn’t quite remember his reasons anymore.
He had a vague feeling that he’d recovered some of his emotions after that journey through time, though only a tiny fraction.
At the very least, seeing Officer Ch’en now had actually stirred something within him.
Something resembling guilt over a promise left unfulfilled.
“You don’t know him…?”
Ch’en hesitated.
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Alright, then.
Goodbye.”
…
Hongyu rubbed the rough edges of the letter between his fingers before finally returning it to the drawer.
He then took out the other piece of paper he had never bothered to read.
It resembled some sort of flyer.
Written across its surface were the words…
[The Son of Heaven summons all capable and righteous individuals throughout the realm to gather in Yan and join the campaign to slay a god…]
“A campaign to slay a god…?”
Hongyu quietly read aloud the most important part of the announcement.
‘Slay a god?’
‘If I remember correctly, didn’t Great Yan’s war against the gods end thousands of years ago?’
Under ordinary circumstances, Hongyu would have dismissed the paper as someone’s prank, laughed it off, and forgotten about it.
However, this particular sheet of paper had appeared inside that strange mailbox.
That alone was enough to make him take it seriously.
“If it’s really possible to travel that far back in time…
wouldn’t that be a little too ridiculous?”
As he considered this possibility, Hongyu once again recalled the newspaper article he had just read about the People’s Republic of Ursus.
Although attaching such a democratic-sounding name to Ursus, a nation that had maintained a feudal monarchy for thousands of years, was admittedly rather absurd, it nevertheless made Hongyu reconsider the letter from Talulah that he was holding.
After all, the Talulah who had written this letter came from a time before the republic had even been established.
From what he remembered as a transmigrator, suffering had always been an inseparable part of life on Terra.
Yet the world he had arrived in was…
Surprisingly wonderful?
Ursus had become a republic.
Capitalism in Kazimierz was no longer quite so rampant.
The mafia families of Siracusa no longer treated the law as something beneath them.
Kazdel had successfully established itself as a nation and was now flourishing.
Even Aegir, that mysterious civilization beneath the ocean, had recently established contact with the surface world.
The Seaborn now swam through the depths like creatures responsible for cleaning up impurities, and even their appearances had improved so dramatically that they were practically unrecognizable.
Most astonishing of all, even the threat of Oripathy had finally been overcome thanks to the efforts of Rhodes Island, a medical company operating under Kazdel.
None of these things should have happened…
Ordinarily, Hongyu would have been completely baffled by all these inexplicable changes.
That was, until he finally thought about the mysterious papers that kept appearing in his mailbox.
And his own strange experiences traveling through time.
‘Could it be that…
I’m responsible for all of this?’
‘Then, if I write another reply, does that mean I might be able to change even more tragedies that were originally destined to happen?’
Hongyu found himself rather tempted by the idea.
Unfortunately, he was feeling somewhat tired.
He didn’t particularly want to sleep, but neither did he feel like picking up a pen again so soon.
He adjusted the black, round-framed dark glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, making sure they completely concealed his lifeless—or rather, emotionless—eyes.
Then he smiled once more.
Wearing that familiar, artificial expression, Hongyu stepped out through the back door of his general store.
He was going to buy himself two skewers of tanghulu.
Sure, his refrigerator was already stuffed full of candied hawthorn skewers, but wasn’t it always better to have more of a good thing?
Tanghulu really was wonderful.
The sweetness allowed him to relax the smile he constantly forced himself to wear, while the sourness helped him empty his mind of unnecessary thoughts.
Besides, it was only one refrigerator’s worth.
He could easily finish the entire thing in a single day.
As he walked down the street, Hongyu smiled and greeted each of his neighbors.
As the owner of a general store with a fairly decent reputation in the neighborhood, he often helped the people around him with whatever small problems were within his ability to solve.
“Rather than calling this place a general store, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to call it an odd-jobs agency?”
That was what the little purple-haired rabbit who occasionally visited his shop to “stock up on merchandise” had once jokingly told him.
And when he thought about that mysterious mailbox behind his shop, capable of sending things across time…
The little knowledge Hongyu still retained from his previous life as a transmigrator made him want to complain.
“What the hell kind of alternate-universe version of The Miracles of the Namiya General Store is this supposed to be?”