Late night.
Xia Qi sat on the bed in Raiden Mei's room — this was where she would rest tonight.
Himeko hadn't returned yet, and Raiden Mei was already preparing to sleep.
"Bronya, are you feeling okay? If you get hungry and want a late-night snack, remember to tell me, okay?" Raiden Mei looked at Xia Qi, her gaze incredibly gentle.
"Okay!"
Xia Qi nodded, then slowly lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.
Raiden Mei knew that Bronya usually fell asleep very quickly, but she wasn't sure if the future Bronya was the same.
Even so, watching Xia Qi settle onto the bed, she turned off the light, returned to her own bed, and slowly closed her eyes — carrying with her a quiet sense of worry and unease about the future.
Xia Qi waited patiently for time to pass.
When Raiden Mei's breathing had steadily evened out and half an hour had gone by, Xia Qi opened her eyes, turned her head slightly to look at Mei's sleeping figure, and got up.
Himeko hadn't come back tonight...
She glanced at Himeko's bed. She had thought that if Himeko were here, she would curl up in her arms, feel the warmth of her embrace, and get a proper night's sleep.
Because of Bronya's memories, Xia Qi felt a deep reluctance to part with Himeko — and a lingering sadness she couldn't yet let go of.
Time to go find Welt.
Xia Qi rose into the air, drifting silently to the window without making a sound. She gently pushed it open, slipped outside, and closed it again behind her.
She took one last look at the still-sleeping Raiden Mei, let her pajamas shift back into her usual attire, and flew off toward the male staff dormitory.
After she left.
Raiden Mei, lying in bed, sat up and looked out the window. In the pitch-black darkness of the room, her eyes shimmered with a violet light.
...
At that moment, Welt was sitting at his desk, setting down the phone, his expression calm.
Theresa had just been negotiating with him about the experiment to activate the Sea of Quanta.
Welt was surprised. How did they know about the Sea of Quanta? The city of Qiong Yu, where the Sea of Quanta was located, lay at the bottom of the ocean and had never been discovered by Schicksal.
But now Theresa knew — and she had taken the initiative to contact him, wanting to collaborate on a preliminary activation experiment.
During the day, he had also felt an inexplicable, intense discomfort. From somewhere within the academy, a familiar fluctuation of Honkai energy had reached him — one extremely similar to his own power...
And so Welt had already formed a judgment.
"Hello, Welt Yang — Overseer of Anti-Entropy, Bronya's predecessor. It's a pleasure to meet you — the you of this timeline."
Xia Qi stood behind Welt, speaking to him expressionlessly.
"..."
Welt rose from his chair, turned around, and looked at Xia Qi, a complex expression in his eyes.
"Bronya. I didn't expect you to be the next Herrscher of Reason."
"Bronya didn't expect it either, back then — but that's how it is." Xia Qi looked at him, replying calmly.
"What happened to Anti-Entropy in the future?"
Welt looked at Xia Qi, his tone filled with concern.
"It survived. Otto never managed to destroy Anti-Entropy — or rather, he never truly intended to destroy it outright. Until the Honkai ended, everyone in Anti-Entropy was still there."
"..."
Hearing Xia Qi mention the end of the Honkai, Welt's pupils constricted. He stared intently at her, trying to read from her expression whether she was lying.
But Xia Qi's expression never changed.
"Then why, after the Honkai ended, did you all come to this world? And how similar is this world to yours?"
"Completely identical." Xia Qi answered his second question first. When she came to the first, she paused, and a flicker of confusion passed through her eyes before she replied:
"As for why we came here — Bronya doesn't know. In Bronya's memory, everyone survived the Honkai... but then an unexpected accident occurred. One none of us had foreseen."
"What kind of accident?"
"I don't know."
Xia Qi shook her head, her expression still calm, though her gaze grew distant.
"Everything seemed to dissolve like a bubble. Our existence felt like a story created for someone else's entertainment. After we overcame the Honkai, it was as though everything had reached its conclusion — and then the world simply disappeared."
"The world... disappeared?"
Welt frowned deeply.
"Yes."
Xia Qi nodded, looking at Welt, her expression gradually settling back into its usual calm.
"I need more information and data." Welt looked at Xia Qi, his gaze steadying. He couldn't take her at her word based on just a few sentences.
"Of course. Bronya can provide you with Cocolia's quantization technology, as well as the technological achievements Anti-Entropy will develop over the next few years. But all of that depends on the activation experiment of the Sea of Quanta."
Xia Qi looked at Welt, calmly laying out her terms.
"Why do you want to activate the Sea of Quanta?"
Welt held her gaze, his tone inquisitive.
"Because Seele is inside."
Xia Qi met his eyes and replied calmly. Then, after a brief pause, she added:
"And... to find the original world of Bronya and everyone else."
"Seele?"
Welt naturally knew that Cocolia had once used the children from the orphanage for experiments — among them a girl named Seele, the younger sister of the Bronya standing before him. He also knew about the accident that had followed.
"How do you plan to find your world?"
"Through my own existence, and the power of everyone."
Xia Qi spoke softly. As the Herrscher of Reason born in that world, her core had naturally recorded the world's coordinates within the Quantum Sea.
She wanted to determine whether she herself was real.
Xia Qi's memories, Bronya's memories, all the memories lost when Bronya had transformed she did not believe they were false. So while searching for Seele, she would also seek the answer to everything.
"After you find your world, will you leave ours?" The question left Welt more tense than he let on.
Because standing before him was someone who had already lived through the end of the Honkai. He wanted to ask for her help and even if she couldn't help, he wanted to understand how the Herrscher of Reason and her companions had managed to overcome it.
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