[A “Perfect” Survival Report by a Cowardly Soul]
What would happen if you transmigrated as Lu Mingfei, but arrived without even a shred of courage to fight fate?
This is not a story about awakening or turning the tables.
It is about the possibility of “making it to the end without changing a single tragedy.”
Lu Mingfei is a soul even more cowardly than his original counterpart. He knows scattered fragments of the future: “the Maybach on the overpass on a rainy night,” “Herzog,” and “the girl named Erii will die.” But this knowledge only deepens his fear.
His highest principles are: Don’t be seen. Don’t be needed. Don’t make choices.
So he moves silently through every plot point: He gets into Chu Zihang’s father’s car on a rainy night, but keeps his eyes tightly shut; Nono drags him into Kassel like a piece of luggage, and he buries his momentary spark of attraction as a secret forever; he cowers from the gunfire on Free Day; when Constantine roars, he tremblingly lets go of the trigger he could have pulled; he even brushes past the girl in the red-and-white shrine maiden outfit in Tokyo’s torrential rain, feeling a despicable sense of relief afterward...
The world continues to burn, the heroes continue their charge, and tragedy unfolds right on schedule.
And he remains the silent discarded pawn at the edge of the board,
turning away at every moment when he might have changed his fate.
When the smoke clears and the tears dry,
he sits in a corner of the world, unscathed and with nothing at all.
“Look, I survived,” he tells himself.
This is his unwavering, and only, victory.
(This is not meant to disparage the character, only to explore another possibility.)
