In an Alternate Universe
The release of Honkai: Star Rail has invited a lot of new players in China to enjoy. From each of the social media reviews, people praise the game for its animation, character designs, storylines, and so on.
Of course, no game is perfect, as it also gained a lot of criticism, specifically the storytelling aspects, among other things.
But one thing that divided the fans is the unexpected addition of a new character group, Lin Zhi Jiang.
People had a lot of mixed opinions about his sudden addition. There was no promotion from the game company, no patch notes mentioning him, and the leakers were unable to find him in the game files.
He just appears out of nowhere.
Some people didn't mind the change as it made the gameplay feel interesting, especially when they were doing his flashback mission on saving people in Space Stations. Lore-players tend to avoid enemies and desire to know more about the story, so this part forced them to slow down a bit.
Some had...a very strong opinion on him, specifically that one cutscene involving him with March. To everyone, it was completely 'unnecessary,' but it was adorable in its own way; some dislike him as they start to speculate that Zhi Jiang is the result of one of Mihoyo's employees self-inserting himself into the story, adding him into the story just for the sake of being with March.
Some openly hate him, claiming he had 'defiled' March.
"Wow...people sure have quite an opinion," the same young man with blonde hair said as he looked through Weibo. He founded a post of a player asking opinions on the newest addition to the Astral Express Crew.
"But still, some people raise quite a good point. Why did he add to the game at the very last minute? Why didn't he get some sort of teaser or even announcement about him? Surely if they plan on changing things, they would tell their player, or maybe they forgot...?" The guy muses before he receives a notification from Bilibili.
He at first ignores the notification and continues to look through Weibo, wondering if anyone might find something or even a leak. But, as he refreshes the page, he blinks as a lot of HSR players either start apologizing to Zhi Jiang or even straight up crying for him.
What is going on!?!
He scrolls through Weibo and finds out that the HSR official account has added a new video on Bilibili. He looks at his notification and realizes the previous notification from Bilibili was from HSR.
He looks at the video's title: 'Animated Short: A Futile Struggle | Honkai: Star Rail." The young man frowns a bit, feeling a bit uneasy from the video title before opening it. The video starts with the Mihoyo company on the black screen before it switches into a scene showing a picture of a family, consisting of a parent and two young boys.
One of the young boys looks like Zhi Jiang if he's a young boy. The blonde young man instantly figures out the trailer is about him. But he wonders why his parents and the other young boy have their faces hidden by the light reflected on a glass surface.
Before he could think about it, a hand grabbed the picture and picked it up. The scene switches to the person who picked up the picture, a young man with messy black hair, wearing a buttoned-up shirt, a pair of trousers, and a pair of sneakers, standing next to a suitcase while also carrying a huge backpack.
The young man instantly recognizes him as Zhi Jiang; he looks exactly like his in-game model, just with fewer scars. He also notices his eyes seem to shine compared to the one ingame.
Could it be that he's watching Zhi Jiang before he got transmigrated? He watches as young Zhi Jiang smiles at the picture before gently placing the picture frame face down and walking out of the room. The screen turns black, and suddenly, the young man hears a radio voice coming from the video.
"Bzzt...we have an updated report for the flying route..."
"...there's a huge storm between..."
"Aaahh!!! The plane loses one of its wings!!!"
"Mommy...I-I'm scared!"
"Mayday, mayday! We're going down!! We're goingdown!!!"
Crash!!!!
The young man blankly stares at the black screen as he tries to process what he just watched. He didn't realize he's been shaking in his seat as the video continues. The video is switched into first-person point of view, the black screen splits open horizontally as a blurry image appears at the center, slowly getting larger as the scene slowly becomes less blurry.
The scene changes to a Zhi Jiang's face, blood pouring from his head, covering his right face as he glances around and notices he is inside the plane, fires crackling around him, a gaping hole at his left. He groans before slowly trying to get up, not noticing that even his legs and arms are covered in blood.
The young man watches in silence as Zhi Jiang crawls out of the plane through the hole. Zhi Jiang's face shows how much agony and pain he's currently feeling, but he didn't stop. The young man sucks in, thinking about how he can keep crawling. He can't even imagine himself going through all that pain, believing he won't even get to crawl a few steps before screaming bloody murder.
Not long after, the plane explode and the shockwave caused Zhi Jiang to stumble. Due to his open injuries, he can't help but scream in pain as the wounds touch the sand. Zhi Jiang stops himself from screaming as he bit down on his lips, shakily getting up and glancing at the giant bonfire where the ruined plane was.
"...holy shit...he almost died..." The young man whispers in shock, unable to believe how lucky Zhi Jiang is. He can't help but wonder if Zhi Jiang might've predicted this might happen, which is why he keeps crawling despite all the pain.
The screen shows Zhi Jiang's bloody face staring blankly before more blood squirts out of his head, and he fainted, leading to another black screen.
Unlike before, there are words on the screen, saying 'Year One'.
The video shows a small montage of Zhi Jiang digging scraps around the ruined planes to get some supplies. He managed to gain a small knife, a small box of a first aid kit, a luggage filled with snacks (Zhi Jiang sighs before taking them all, choosing not to be picky due to his situation), and a collapsible fishing rod.
Then, the montage displays Zhi Jiang, whose covered in bandages, fishing patiently while his stomach growls, trying and failing to make a makeshift bow, falling from a tree filled with fruits, and desperately chasing after a rabbit. The montage was displayed in a cartoonish way that the young man couldn't help but chuckle.
Perhaps, this is one of the 'space comedy' parts that the developers promised in the first trailer.
Then, the montage continues with Zhi Jiang trying to build a raft, but it collapses, and he immediately falls into the water. The scene switches to him sitting under the tree to avoid heavy rains, then it switches to him sitting on his makeshift camp, carving a single vertical line on the wall. One of the scenes includes him trying to gut a fish near the sea before a shark suddenly tries to jump at him, but Zhi Jiang is barely able to get away.
The screen turns black with the year one on it, before slowly the number slides down to display number 2.
The video shows several montages of him trying to survive at the deserted island quickly, and the young man watches as the video shows some images before going to a black screen with Year 2 switch to Year 3, then another montage, then another black screen. It continues for a while before it displays Year 6.
The young man shivers as the soundtrack shifts, sounding more somber than before. The scene shifts into first person once again, showing a forest before he suddenly encounters a wild leopard. Said animal notices him and lunges at him, opening its maw widely before slamming Zhi Jiang down. The young man jumped as he wasn't expecting a sudden jump scare.
To make things even more horrifying, Zhi Jiang's scream can be heard as the leopard lowers its head and takes a huge bite on Zhi Jiang's shoulder, causing him to scream louder. In desperation, Zhi Jiang stabs his small knife into the leopard's left eye. Before the leopard could even let go, Zhi Jiang shoved his entire hand into the open wound, and the entire screen was covered with blood and slowly turning black.
Before the young man could process the entire shitshow he had just witnessed, the scene displays Zhi Jiang attempting to fish on a river before a bear suddenly attacks him. Once again, the young man watches a bear mauling Zhi Jiang through a first-person perspective, and Zhi Jiang has to use both of his hands to keep the bear's maw open. However, the bear manages to bite his left wrist, and blood starts to cover part of the screen.
Zhi Jiang successfully pushes the bear's head away and tries to grab his spear, but the bear pins him to the ground. The moment he grabs the spear, blood sprays from his right side before Zhi Jiang screams in pain once more. The young man just watches in horror as the screen is covered in blood once again and slowly turns black.
The next scene shows through Zhi Jiang's perspective, once again, this time he's on a raft trying to leave the island once again. But tragedy struck once again as he was attacked by a huge shark.
"I-I can't keep watching this..." The young man pauses the video before covering his face, taking a few shaky breaths. What the fuck did he just watch!?! He thought HSR was supposed to be a space comedy! Why did he just witness a guy getting mauled 3 times!?!
Is that why Weibo is filled with people posting apologies to Zhi Jiang!?!!
He didn't want to keep watching, but the video still had 2 minutes left. He can't help but scream in his mind, wondering what more Mihoyo wants to show everyone after those brutals scene.
He exits the full screen and starts looking through Weibo once again, but the website is filled with more posts on how the players are apologizing to Zhi Jiang. The young man's curiosity slowly overwhelmed the fear of watching another mauling scene. Relenting, he opens the Bilibili tab and continues watching.
The scene shows Zhi Jiang sitting next to the campfire, stitching all the torn skins and muscles, biting on a piece of wood to stop himself from screaming. After finishing stitching, he uses a piece of metal he had placed on the campfire and sticks it into the stitched wounds, cauterizing them.
It ain't practical, but the muscle torn was very severe; it looks like a piece of it almost fell off, and he already lost a lot of blood due to the previous mauling.
After Zhi Jiang finishes cauterizing his wounds, his jaws loosen as the wood falls from his mouth. He starts breathing heavily, his body trembles like a leaf, before he roars and starts thrashing his limbs. Every tool he made, every scrap he gathered, and all the recycled tools and materials, he just tosses around.
After a while, Zhi Jiang stands in the middle of a ruined camp, his hair is a mess, his arms and legs tremble before he collapses. Tears start to escape his eyes before he cries.
The young man watches with sympathy, unable to look away as Zhi Jiang continues to weep. He had every right to do so. Year 6 is basically the worst year for him, and not to mention, all the frustration he felt towards his failures from every previous year had accumulated.
But one question did rise in the young man's mind.
Why is there no ship or plane passing by? From all the montages, Zhi Jiang had intentionally made a huge campfire to create a smoke thick enough to gather any passing transportation. But 6 years have passed, and no one has seen it?
The screen suddenly turns black before a picture of young Zhi Jiang standing beside his family appears. The young man seems confused at the scene before the image suddenly covered in blood, and slowly, the picture crumbles and becomes unrecognizable.
This had confused him, wondering what that even meant. Then, the screen turns fully black. The young man wonders if another year has passed, but what he saw had made his stomach drop.
The black screen only displays the word Year.
He didn't need to be a genius video analyst to guess that Zhi Jiang had forgotten how much time had passed since that day. The screen shows an image of older Zhi Jiang silently watching the dying campfire; his hair is longer, and his facial hair has covered his face, looking completely unrecognizable.
Zhi Jiang didn't do anything, just sitting there in a fetal position while watching the campfire. The video focuses on his eyes, and the young man notices how there's no sign of light in his eyes. The video switches into first-person perspective, showing the campfire slowly dying.
As it does, the scene slowly turns blurry before it turns dark. As the campfire dies out, everything turns black. Before the young man processes the fact that he just watched someone die in a short animation, he was interrupted by creepy laughter, and the Honkai Star Rail logo appears.
He blankly stares at the screen before unconsciously closing the tab and opening Weibo.
One thing comes to mind: Where is the 'space comedy' he was promised?!
To be Continued