Fu Shibao gleefully declared her satisfaction.
If not for the inappropriate timing, she would've recited a poem on the spot.
And believe it or not, she'd already thought of one:
The Crimson Plume returns to the mortal world,
Immortal grace blurs the scorn of heroes.
…What's that? You're asking about the next lines?
Too hard to rhyme! Composing poetry is a nightmare!
Miss Shi expressed that reciting just two lines was already her limit—no need to demand too much.
"Shi." Fu Hua looked over at Fu Shibao, who had just slammed the table.
"What?" Fu Shibao countered. "Don't you think it was really satisfying to watch Fu Hua beat up Otto like that? If you ask me, it should've happened ages ago! Back in like…"
"Mmm… many, many chapters ago, we should've just thrashed Otto already!"
Fu Shibao clenched her little fists and swung them through the air with great force.
Fu Hua hesitated to respond to that.
But viewers in the livestream responded enthusiastically:
[Exactly! Shi is right! That mongrel Otto should've been smacked down long ago!]
[Shi speaks my mind!]
"….."
"What Shi? Call me Big Sis Shi! Or Miss Shi works too!"
Hearing the audience refer to her so casually, Fu Shibao felt her authority being challenged and promptly corrected them.
The viewers weren't going to argue with the ever-spirited Fu Shibao.
Instead, they got even more excited and began cheering her on:
[Big Sis Shi is absolutely right!]
[Glorious Miss Shi, please forgive my earlier insolence.]
[Big Sis Shi is now officially the queen of miHoYo livestreams!]
[miHoYo can't exist without Big Sis Shi, just like the West can't exist without Jerusalem!]
"Hmph, now that sounds right."
Fu Shibao hummed contentedly.
Fu Hua glanced at the chat, then turned to look at Hokuto. Seeing his gaze signaling her to continue, she remembered the second line he had told her to memorize:
"Boss said, a character voiced by Himeko is going to appear soon."
And with that familiar "Boss said" from Fu Hua—
[???]
[???]
…
A flood of question marks instantly swept across the screen.
No one was in the mood to goof around with Miss Shi anymore.
[Wait, are painful memories coming back to haunt me again?]
[Let me think... whenever Himeko appears, it's never… uplifting.]
[I'm getting nervous.]
The players believed they knew miHoYo's narrative tactics all too well.
So even though they hadn't seen anything yet, they were already anxious.
What's going on?
Don't tell me there's going to be a tragic twist again?
Who's going to be hurt this time? Fu Hua?
Hmm… not impossible.
Don't be fooled by how satisfied Fu Hua looks right now—Honkai Impact 3rd stories are always sugar before the blade.
The more joyful it is at first, the more dangerous it might be later.
Regardless of what the audience was thinking, Fu Hua advanced the main story.
The next stage transitioned to Theresa's perspective.
Theresa explained all the intel she had received and the events happening within Schicksal to Bronya and the others.
Otto's status was unknown, Durandal had taken temporary control of Schicksal, and a third S-rank Valkyrie besides Durandal and Rita had also been dispatched…
The winds of war were clearly gathering.
Still, with so many things happening recently, they decided to focus on the tasks most urgently requiring their attention.
Kiana and Bronya arrived at Mt. Taixu—Fu Hua's former sect.
Their goal: to find something Fu Hua had left behind—Taixu Sword Qi, a technique capable of controlling Herrscher energy.
The next day, the two reached Mt. Taixu.
This place, once Fu Hua's training ground, was shrouded in mist and cloud, surrounded by verdant pine trees and ancient cypresses—a world far removed from mortal dust.
But for all its beauty, there wasn't a single trace of human life. The desolation was palpable.
Bronya voiced her doubts:
"Are you sure what you're looking for is really here? Searching for a martial arts manual in a mountain... sounds like something out of a video game."
"Besides, class monitor hasn't lived here in a long time, right? Even if she left something behind, it might've already been taken."
"Hmm."
Kiana replied thoughtfully, "You might be right, but the treasures class monitor left behind… some of them aren't things ordinary people can see."
Their conversation was calm and rational—
After all, Kiana wasn't the same as she used to be.
No more silly antics with Bronya.
Bronya no longer teased her by calling her a "dummy Kiana."
And Kiana wouldn't retaliate by calling Bronya a "little squirt."
[Feels like Kiana and Bronya's conversations have become so reserved.]
[But I can still feel how much they care for each other. It's just... not like before.]
[I feel a faint sense of sorrow.]
Watching the story unfold, everyone felt a strange mix of comfort… and gentle sadness.
...
Back in the narrative—
After some frustrated pondering, Bronya and Kiana had a simultaneous epiphany.
"That's it! Yu Duchen!"
With a clear goal, their search kicked into high gear.
But...
Surprisingly, even in this place where the legendary Crimson Plume once lived, Honkai Beasts appeared. And the Honkai energy levels were unusually high.
This confusion didn't last long.
Kiana sharply sensed the aura of a "Feather."
They hurried toward the source, arriving at a cliff.
A crimson Feather was embedded in the ground, glowing like fire.
"Found it!"
Kiana's eyes lit up. She quickly picked it up and tried using it as Fu Hua had taught her—but found she couldn't.
Instead, the Feather's power attracted a horde of Honkai Beasts.
Just as the two prepared for battle, a blast of sword qi descended from above, wiping out the enemies.
A mysterious woman floated down before them, sword in hand.
"Are you two alright?"
"Ah… y-yeah…"
Kiana was momentarily speechless.
The mysterious woman's technique had stunned her.
Though it was only a simple strike, its aura perfectly overlapped with the class monitor in her memory.
Once she regained her senses, Kiana asked,
"May I ask who you are?"
"I'm Lin Zhaoyu, something of a caretaker of Mt. Taixu."
"This place is saturated with qi. Beasts often appear, so the immortal set up a barrier to prevent others from wandering in."
"What brings you two here?"
Players stared at the ethereal Lin Zhaoyu, listening to her speak of qi, beasts, and immortals.
Combined with her flowery speech—
It felt like the game's art style had shifted.
Was Kiana… about to start cultivating immortality?
...
Kiana and Bronya followed Lin Zhaoyu up the mountain.
Along the way, Kiana learned about the Taixu Sword Sect that Fu Hua founded 500 years ago.
And Lin Zhaoyu learned of Kiana and Fu Hua's connection.
After a round of conversation and basic understanding of each other, Kiana expressed her desire to learn Taixu Sword Qi.
But Lin Zhaoyu said that to resolve Kiana's problem, she needed to understand "Sword Heart"—
And unfortunately, it wasn't something Lin could teach.
So, she proposed a compromise:
She could break the curse on the Feather, allowing Kiana to enter Fu Hua's memories.
Perhaps there, Kiana would learn how to cultivate Sword Heart.
Lin Zhaoyu dispelled the seal on the Feather and handed it to Kiana.
A bright light burst forth.
When Kiana and Bronya came to, they realized they were Fu Hua.
From a first-person perspective, they watched Fu Hua get up early, go jogging, and practice her inherited martial arts.
As they continued watching, they found that this Fu Hua was nothing like the one they knew.
This Fu Hua was "Hua."
She had a family. A father.
She was a normal teenage girl.
Her worries weren't about the future of humanity or fighting Honkai—
She was just scared of transferring schools to a strange city.
Afraid of leaving home.
Afraid that her withdrawn, introverted personality wouldn't let her make friends.
Simple. Ordinary.
Nothing grand—but precisely because of that, it resonated.
It also made players question:
What was going on in this story?
Why was memory Fu Hua so drastically different from the one they remembered?
It wasn't until Kiana and Bronya's conversation that they realized—
This was the class monitor's memory.
The class monitor from a long, long time ago.
From a player's omniscient perspective, it was clear:
This was pre-Fusion Warrior Fu Hua.
Everything in this memory made sense.
After viewing the memory, Kiana and Bronya could feel the presence of the class monitor in the Feather.
It seemed to be trying to convey something.
To uncover the truth, they began searching the mountain for more Feathers.
And the story that followed—
Not only reintroduced Fu Hua to the two girls…
But reintroduced her to the players.
A new memory—Hua's school life.
But pre-civilization Hua couldn't blend in.
She was timid, withdrawn, and closed-off…
Even when something sparked her interest, she hesitated to speak.
Even when she finally gathered courage to approach someone—
She was ignored, or worse, dismissed as a weirdo.
She stayed on the outside. Always alone…
Players were shocked by this version of Hua.
They understood that the class monitor wasn't always the calm and dependable immortal.
But still—
They had subconsciously assumed she was always that composed.
Only now did they realize—
That was wishful thinking.
These memories made Fu Hua's character far more three-dimensional.
She was an immortal. A class monitor. A warrior who protected humanity.
But also—
A lonely girl.
The barrage of comments began to thin.
No one knew what to say.
"Hey hey hey!"
Fu Shibao couldn't hold back:
"Someone talks smack about you like that, and you're not gonna show them what you're made of!?"
"Where's your family martial arts!?"
"Fist of Heaven-Splitting Inch Force! Open their foreheads with righteous fury! Let's see them talk trash again!"
Fu Hua: "..."
Fu Hua blinked innocently, then replied to Shi:
"Because Boss didn't add an attack button for this cutscene."