How did Xin Yu manage to bring the dead back to life? No, that wasn't actually a dead person, but the young girl from a month ago.
Xin Yu had brought someone from the past, still alive, into the present. Concurrently, he had made everyone witness a fabricated scene of the girl being killed, ensuring they all firmly believed she had died.
The collective perception of the people remained unchanged, and the world's history had not been altered in any way.
Consequently, the consumption was minuscule.
Perhaps it was because the girl's identity was insignificant, perhaps because the girl herself was too weak, or perhaps the aforementioned plan was simply perfect. This time, Xin Yu's act of saving someone, this operation of permanently bringing a person from the past into the future, only deducted ten years from his lifespan.
Xin Yu had come up with this plan by rummaging through the corners of his memory, searching for records related to time, where he found an operation called "Deceiving the World."
Evidently, this act of Deceiving the World was a great success. The girl had indeed died—that is, the girl in everyone's perception had died—while the real girl had arrived in the future.
Xin Yu returned to the shrine. Yae Rin had already awoken from her slumber. She found her body much lighter, no longer feeling the weakness and powerlessness from when she was tormented by illness. She could now hop and skip like a normal child her age.
"Lord God!"
Yae Rin saw Xin Yu walk in from outside and happily ran up to him. The girl naturally knew that the reason she was still alive, the reason she could now run and jump like any ordinary person, perhaps even stronger than an ordinary person, was all due to the blessing of the god before her.
She was grateful to this god and felt she should become a miko of the god, like her older sister, dedicating her entire life to serving him.
"Is your body all better now?"
Xin Yu knelt to be at eye level with the girl. He smiled gently, patting the child's head. This is good.
An innocent child who would have originally died had been saved by him. Now she could laugh and play happily like a normal child, no longer needing to lie in a sickbed miserably awaiting death, no longer needing to become a sacrificial offering to some inexplicable god.
The girl would have a more beautiful and vast future, with many more wonderful memories awaiting her.
Your troubled past is over. From now on, you face a brand-new future, a better future.
Xin Yu looked at the vibrant girl, genuinely happy for her. The emptiness in his heart also found a measure of satisfaction. This was what he wanted to see; this was what he wanted to witness—the happy smiles on people's faces after he had saved them.
Just seeing such smiles made his heart feel warm, made him feel that it was truly good to be alive in this world.
Yae Sakura watched helplessly as her younger sister snatched the cleaning rag from her hand and began wiping the shrine floor.
"Rin, your body has just recovered. Don't do these chores; sister can handle them."
"No! My body has been healed by Lord God! I don't need to lie in bed unable to do anything like before! Now I can help sister too!"
Yae Rin shook her head stubbornly and continued to help her sister clean the shrine, which, while not large, was by no means small.
Although Yae Sakura's expression was somewhat troubled, the smile at the corner of her lips couldn't hide the happiness in her heart.
The young woman stood up and went to her father's room, where she saw him carving a small wooden figurine with a knife.
"Father."
"Sakura, what happened before was father's mistake."
"Mm."
The girl's simple reply made the atmosphere stiff and silent once more. The Yae Shrine Head opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say more, but fearing he would say the wrong thing, he could only silently continue carving the wooden figure in his hand.
Although still young, Yae Sakura knew why her father was apologizing to her. It was because she was now the miko of a god, a god who had truly descended and demonstrated divine powers to summon wind and rain, and bring the dead back to life.
The fundamental reason her father apologized was because of the god, not because he genuinely felt he was wrong.
But Yae Sakura wouldn't blame her father too much. Under the circumstances at the time, perhaps, as her father had said, there was no other choice.
However, she was truly fortunate to have met Lord God. He had saved everything for her, healed her sister's illness, and even brought back the person she had metaphorically "killed" with her despair from the underworld.
This debt of gratitude, she feared, could never be repaid in this lifetime... But it didn't matter. As the miko of the god, Yae Sakura would continue to serve by his side even after death, until the end of time.
Yae Sakura took an already carved wooden figure from a nearby room. It was strikingly in the likeness of Xin Yu.
The miko looked at the wooden statue in her hand, slowly tracing the god's face with her thumb. She couldn't help but recall the scene of the god descending from the sky to save her and her sister, couldn't help but recall the god standing before her, declaring her not guilty.
"This is the sole faith of my life; this is the sole love of my life."
In the Far East, a miko who dedicates her life to serving a god is also regarded as the god's wife in the mortal realm.
Yae Sakura carefully put away the wooden carving. Then, she took out the rice balls she had made earlier from the kitchen, placed them on a tray, and carefully carried it towards where Xin Yu was.
Xin Yu was standing at the shrine's prayer spot. He looked at the offering box before him and the thick rope above it, and for some reason, the concept of "fate" or "destiny" came to mind. If he were to pray to a god with his particular destiny, would a god, if one truly existed, be able to respond to his wish?
Since he was idle anyway, Xin Yu thought for a moment, then fumbled on the ground and produced gold worth approximately one hundred thousand yen, stuffing it into the offering box.
As for why one hundred thousand yen? Was it because there was always a red-and-white miko in his mind, and why was this miko equated with one hundred thousand yen?
Following the tradition he understood, Xin Yu put the money into the offering box, shook the thick rope above, then clapped his hands, closed his eyes, and began to make a wish.
"I wish that I will one day be able to defeat the source of the Honkai, and that all those who have died due to the Honkai throughout history can achieve a better ending than their original one."
The moment Xin Yu finished stating his wish, he suddenly found that the offering box before him had cracked wide open, and all the gold he had just put in spilled out. At the same time, the large bell tied to the thick rope above also detached, and the entire rope seemed to have snapped at its base, falling to the ground.
Xin Yu looked at this scene, somewhat stunned, then looked up at the sky.
"No way... There really is a god! Even if you're refusing, you don't have to be so thorough about it! Leaving me on read would have been fine, you know."
Xin Yu shook his head, reached out to help this poor god repair the offering spot, and stuffed the spilled gold back in. Hmm, this time he paid special attention to reinforcing the offering box.
After repeating the process and making his wish, no accident occurred this time.
Xin Yu hadn't expected a god to truly be able to help him, nor did he expect his wish to necessarily come true.
As he had thought before, he had merely set a goal for himself, something to strive and fight for. As for whether he would fall on the road to death?
Wouldn't that be just perfect? To die on the path of a charge, that too was a kind of romance.