From the Simulator to the Millennium [Chinese Dreamcore]

[Completed and entered VIP status on October 22]

The same week she lost her job, broke up with her partner, and had her lease terminated, Xu Jia returned to her long-abandoned hometown. There, she found a box of cassette tapes labeled "Wish List for the Year 2000."

When she woke up again, she was five years old. The millennium had just begun, spring had come late, and the classroom walls were covered with red slogans welcoming the new era. Her mother was still up late sewing her school uniform, and the world had not yet taught her to keep quiet.

This time, she didn't want to change her life or defy fate. She just wanted to sit on a little stool from her childhood, listen again to the wishes of the little girl on the tape, and gently tell her, "I'm here. I'll always be by your side."

The cassette tape is an interface for an emotion simulator.

[System Prompt]

Simulator entry mechanism: Playing a childhood recording awakens an unfulfilled wish.

Simulator exit mechanism: Once a wish is fulfilled, the user takes away an object that represents emotional relief.

Simulator definition: A non-Earth technological device from the Extraterrestrial Human Observation Foundation, designed to prevent adults from completely losing themselves when their emotions collapse.

Reading Guide:

A fantasy, emotionally healing novel that isn't realistic.

1. Told in episodic chapters, much like Natsume's Book of Friends or Doraemon. The opening of each chapter will usually have little to do with the previous chapter's ending, though there are a few exceptions. The focus is on recognizing one's own emotions, healing and understanding oneself, and accepting that the past cannot be changed.

Extra: Once enough emotional fragments have been collected from each story, people who share those fragments will enter an emotional world together and change the past. (Think of it like a movie version?) (That's probably one way to understand it...)

2. The simulator's setup is a little complicated at the moment. I may change a few things when revising the story later, but probably not much~

Theme: Self-care