I didn’t remember her name, but I remembered the wind in her eyes. That wind was not the light spring breeze, not the heat wave of summer, not the residual smoke of autumn nights, nor the fog of winter, but a whisper that penetrated the cracks in the railway and echoed from the distant star core – it said: Go find me in memory.
She came. Some people say her name is Feng Jin, the color of the wind is violet, and purple is the source of sadness. She did not come suddenly, she was summoned, and was gently awakened at the end of the crack and in the shadow of data. Her footsteps were very light, like a sleepwalker, walking between consciousness and fragments, leaving behind not footprints, but a list of materials.
Have you ever regarded materials as real names? A fragment called “Fear Tramples Flesh and Blood”, you have to hold it in your hand, like holding your childhood nightmare; “Courage Tears the Chest”, that is the day when you grit your teeth and never cry when you grow up; “Glory Baptizes the Body”, you think it is light, but it is actually a knife.
She needs these. You prepare these for her. You think you are upgrading her, but you are actually helping her mend a torn self.
Count them, she wants:
56 pieces of flesh crushed by fear
71 chests torn by courage
73 bodies baptized by glory
65 drunken times
18 seeds of thought
69 sprouts of manas
139 fragments of Alaya
12 echoes of last wishes
8 footprints on the trajectory of fate
21 short stays in the journey
8 records left by adventurers
287 pages of guides written in roaming
and the conversion of 3,888,100 credit points
But these are not the point.
The point is that you will forget that you are playing a game.
You brush the dungeon, you click to synthesize, you fall again and again in the cracks of the “Pinocone Grand Theater”, and get up again and again. You think you are busy for combat effectiveness, but when you look at her silhouette emerging in the light cone at four o’clock in the morning, you will suddenly remember that year when you were alone on the last bus, looking out the window, the window was dark, you were so lonely and determined.
Her light cone is called “May the rainbow light stay in the sky forever”, you think it is a prayer, a blessing, and a beautiful thing. But in her dream, the rainbow light is just an illusion that is destined to fade. You have to collect for her:
20 pieces of flesh and blood
20 pieces of chest
14 pieces of body
4 seeds
12 sprouts
15 Alaya
and 385,000 credits
Each number is like a knife, carving out her shape, and you, are you the carver? Who are you?
You even have to help her break through herself – breakthrough is a strange word. It means denying the present, pushing down the boundaries, and burning the past like garbage.
You must prepare for her:
15 fears
15 courages
15 honors
65 cups of drunkenness
and compensation of 308,000 credits
You know where these materials come from, but you don’t know where they go. You “put” them in, just like putting memories into a huge machine, hoping that the machine can give you a “stronger” her. But she was never strong. She was just more like you, more like the you who once searched for yourself in the wind.
Her traces are the map of another dream.
You collect for her:
41 pieces of flesh and blood
56 chests
58 bodies
18 seeds
69 sprouts
139 Alayas
12 sounds of remnants
8 footprints of destiny
and the transaction price of three million credits
Is all this worth it?
You don’t know. But you keep doing it.
You no longer ask who she is, nor who you are. You just keep repeating, as if you are caught in some kind of cycle. You walk into “Ruins of Strife”, walk out, walk in, and walk out again. You hear the chorus of “God’s Day”, you don’t understand the lyrics, but you know that it is the deepest voice in your subconscious that is shouting.
You don’t play this game for her.
You are looking for an exit in this game – leading to the part of yourself that you have long lost.
When you finally raise her to the maximum level, she dances like the wind on the battlefield. Feng Jin, an unreal name, carries the most real emotions in your heart: loneliness, persistence, silence, glimmer, dream, fragments, connection.
She is not a character, she is the wind.
She is not a girl, she is the dream you have forgotten.
She is not on the screen, she is in your heart.