: Is this what you call a genius? If it were any other series, the connection probably would've been cut off before he even finished saying the word "information"!
: A genius really is a genius! That's freaking awesome!
: Now we've gotten all the information from outside. Screwllum really handled this well. That's a huge relief!
: The most reliable protector!
: Giving all the information in one go is way better than dragging it out bit by bit.
: Hahaha, after all, this is Honkai: Star Rail. While he was talking, I was terrified he'd say half a sentence and then we'd get nothing else.
: Judging by what Screwllum said, was it Lygus who altered the Emperor Scepter?
: This guy really has been evil all the way through. But what exactly is his goal?
: March 7th really is in Amphoreus!
: But we haven't seen her at all!
: The confusing... Phainon situation still hasn't been explained either.
...
As Screwllum transmitted the information, the viewers also began discussing it heatedly.
Whether it was the news about March or Lygus, both were extremely important! After delivering the message, Screwllum disappeared from where he stood.
The connection was severed. The camera didn't continue focusing on Stelle and Dan Heng. Instead, it suddenly shifted.
The person who appeared before everyone was actually March 7th!
She wasn't in her beautifully frozen state. It was the living, breathing March!
Within a vast azure-blue space, March 7th held her head, looking as though she had only just awakened.
"Ugh..."
"Cold... it's freezing..."
March 7th's voice trembled. She opened her eyes. Those eyes were now filled with pitiful helplessness.
"Hold on... am I dreaming? This is way too strange..."
March looked around at the space surrounding her, but couldn't make anything out.
Not only that, her vision was also completely blurry, as though countless Wubbaboos were flying in front of her...
After becoming a little more clear-headed, March 7th tried hard to recall what had happened earlier.
But there seemed to be a gap in her memory. The only thing she could remember was the memory of talking with her companions before this.
How had she ended up here in the blink of an eye? March 7th shook her head vigorously, then looked ahead.
The camera followed March's gaze, revealing the scenery before her.
A sky filled with stars. Floating fragments of celestial bodies. And at the very center, a spiral-shaped, solidified object from which a yellow pillar of light shimmered.
The viewers were no strangers to this place. When Stelle had been glanced at by Qlipoth, she had been in this very space!
The Path Space!! How did March end up here?!
Shock and confusion filled the viewers' hearts. They suppressed their curiosity and continued watching.
Although March 7th could sometimes be a little silly, her memory was still very good.
After Stelle had fallen into the Path Space, she had described the scenery here to March. So the moment March saw this scene, she immediately realized where she was.
"That's it! Stelle warned me about this place, right before Qlipoth glimpsed her..."
"Oh no... Have I accidentally walked onto some weird Path?"
March 7th rubbed her chin, staring at the center of the Path Space in confusion.
With her intelligence, she could only come up with one explanation right now! She must have done something that attracted the attention of a Path!
Thus, March desperately searched her mind for any major things she had done.
"Have I done anything earth-shattering?"
"Have I done something crazy without remembering? Unless forcing Pom-Pom into new outfits and borrowing Mr. Yang's shoulder massager counts..."
"I don't think... I don't think there's anything else."
But no matter how hard March 7th thought, all she could remember were these extremely ordinary things.
Just then, her eyes suddenly lit up.
"Could it be... Aha?!"
"That's right! Dragging me into the Path Space over something this boring, who else could it be besides Aha?!"
"So stepping onto the Path of Elation is actually this easy?!"
March 7th immediately began grinning foolishly. She looked completely carefree.
She had been frozen for so long that the viewers had been worried sick about her.
Now, seeing March 7th behaving exactly as she always had, they immediately felt relieved while also being unable to hold back their laughter.
...
: Pfffft, hahahahaha! I couldn't hold it in, bro.
: Seeing March like this puts me at ease. She was frozen for so long that I was terrified her brain might've gotten damaged from the cold.
: What do you mean, brain damage? March's IQ is already at rock bottom. There's no room left for it to drop.
: But seriously, she's still so optimistic and grinning like an idiot. It's actually kind of reassuring.
: Her eyes are still as clear as ever!
: When in doubt, blame Aha, huh?!
: Aha's reputation really speaks for itself.
: Aha: Hard to say.
...
And just like that, March 7th laughed foolishly along with the viewers. But... was that really the truth?
"Child of Remembrance..."
"Step forth... into the depths of the Path Space..."
An ethereal voice suddenly echoed through the Path Space, interrupting March 7th's fantasies.
Her eyes instantly widened. Her clear gaze was filled with panic as she stammered,
"Who's... who's there!?"
"H-Hey, cut it out! If you're there, just... come out and talk, okay? You're freaking me out... I can't even think straight!"
She had been frightened, thinking she'd encountered a ghost.
The voice didn't answer her. Instead, not far from March, an illusory gate of light gradually became clear.
"Cast aside your fears..."
"Step forward... through the Gate of Memory..."
The ethereal voice sounded once again. March 7th stood there at a loss.
She scratched her forehead, hesitantly examining the gate of light.
"The voice... is it showing me the way out?"
No one could answer March's question.
In the end, her instinctive desire to leave this place won out. Still hesitating, March 7th began walking toward the gate of light.
But before she had taken more than a few steps, another voice suddenly rang out, far more urgent and vivid:
"Oh no, don't fall for it..."
"They're lying to you, turn back now..."
To the viewers, this voice was both unfamiliar and strangely familiar.
Judging from its tone and manner of speaking, it sounded like Cyrene?!
...
: Is that Cyrene?!
: It really sounds like her... but I don't dare say for sure. We've only heard Cyrene speak a few lines so far.
: This is getting more and more mysterious, holy shit.
: But March being connected to Aha was just a joke. Is her connection to Remembrance actually real?
: Yeah, this also matches our previous speculation.
: But it looks like beneath the surface of Amphoreus, while we were watching the main story unfold, something incredible was also happening behind the scenes on the Remembrance side.
: Cyrene seems to be connected to Remembrance too.
...
...
The two voices pulled back and forth. One told March to go in, while the other told March not to enter.
March 7th felt like her head was about to explode. She had no idea whose words she should believe.
She took another two steps back, then stood at a spot neither too close nor too far from the gate of light, clutching her hair in frustration.
Multiple-choice questions had always been the type of questions she was worst at. Whenever she encountered something like this before, it was always someone else who made the decision!
"I... which one of you am I supposed to believe?"
Unable to come up with an answer after racking her brains, March 7th simply gave up and directly asked the two unknown voices.
But no one spoke again. It seemed that somewhere in the shadows, the two voices were fighting each other?
That left March in quite the predicament. She anxiously paced around in circles, wavering between believing and not believing.
But in the end, her desire to return to the Express and see her companions still won out.
Gritting her teeth, she ran toward the gate of light.
Although it looked fairly close... The distance between them was actually quite far.
Even with March 7th moving at a decent speed, the distance between her and the gate of light did not visibly shrink.
Instead, during this process... March saw several familiar figures.
"Wait... Master Diviner? From the Luofu?"
And beside the Diviner was someone dressed like a Memokeeper from the Garden of Recollection.
March had seen someone dressed like this aboard the Express before. She called her the "Messenger."
"Fu... I mean, Master Diviner, what brings you here?"
"And you, Miss Messenger... do I know you from somewhere?"
March 7th walked up to Fu Xuan and the Messenger, looked at the Messenger, and asked with an uncertain, awkward smile.
"A pleasure to see you, Miss March." The Messenger smiled politely at March 7th.
That familiar feeling suddenly made March realize who she was.
Previously... All of Honkai: Star Rail's important side stories, aside from those shown to the audience as part of the main storyline, had been stuffed into Pom-Pom's collection.
That also included a small story involving March... She had asked Fu Xuan to investigate her memories in hopes of discovering her origins, but in the end, she had been stopped by someone who looked like a Messenger from the Garden of Recollection, and the matter ultimately came to nothing.
And the person March 7th had encountered at the very end within her memory space had once advised March like this...
"The value of your life does not lie in what happened in the past, but in the present, and the future."
March 7th murmured those words of advice aloud.
"Your memory serves you well." The Messenger spoke in a cheerful tone.
Fu Xuan beside her also began to speak. Her tone and mannerisms were practically identical to the real Master Diviner Fu Xuan, exactly the same as in March's memories:
"March, I conducted some experiments with the Six-Phased Ice you left us."
"Thanks to the Garden of Recollection, the Matrix of Prescience has made a breakthrough in extrapolating the past. Now, we might be able to bypass the obstacles and look directly into your history."
After Fu Xuan finished speaking... the Messenger immediately added, "The Master Diviner is right. Continue down this Path, and you'll be able to find your lost "memories" at the end."
"Since we last met, you've grown much alongside the Trailblaze. You should be strong enough now to bear the weight of your past."
Their words... sounded perfectly reasonable to March.
But from the audience's third-person perspective, they seemed exceptionally strange.
And as for the power of memories... The audience had already gotten a glimpse of it through Black Swan's story.
...
The most terrifying thing about Memokeepers wasn't their destructive power, but their ability to steal other people's memories.
Everything about a person was strongly bound to their memories. The secrets and recollections within those memories often represented a person's entire life.
As long as Memokeepers searched through them, or even modified them... They could easily use those memories to completely change a person.
Faced with the plot currently unfolding on the screen... The audience was extremely vigilant.
After hearing everything, March spread her hands and gave a bitter smile:
"Well, there goes my ice princess fairy tale..."
Only then did she ask suspiciously:
"But I still want to ask, no I need to know... Master Diviner, Miss Messenger, this isn't just another dream, is it?"
"If this is real, why reach out to me at this exact moment?"
Upon hearing the first sentence... The audience thought little March had finally gotten smart for once.
Then they heard the second sentence. And immediately, they could only facepalm.
March was cautious. But only a tiny bit.
Come on! Seeing Fu Xuan in a place like this was already ridiculously abnormal, okay?
Yet March merely questioned it briefly before she started considering things from the standpoint of "what if they're real?"
"The situation is... dire. Your lost memories... they're crucial to the Garden of Recollection."
Master Diviner Fu's tone suddenly became urgent as she explained.
"She's right. The Garden of Recollection's existence hangs on your memories."
March 7th, "The Garden... of Recollection..., huh..."
The Messenger also nodded vigorously and agreed, "You may not want to sacrifice anything to preserve the Garden for now, but in time, you'll understand... your destiny and the Path of Remembrance are extremely closely intertwined."
The moment the two finished speaking... the comments immediately became certain.
...
: There's definitely something wrong with these two!
: They're not the real people! They're being impersonated!
: But they definitely have something to do with the Memokeepers!
: Master Diviner's acting is way too fake. What the hell does the survival of the Garden of Recollection have to do with the Diviner of the Luofu?! Even if the Garden of Recollection exploded, there's no way the Diviner would speak in such an urgent tone. They're making Fu Xuan sound like she's a Memokeeper or something.
: Fu Xuan's tone is way too urgent! OOC!
: I seriously can't take this anymore. If you're going to deceive someone, at least put some effort into it, okay? Did whoever's behind this realize March is so easy to fool that they couldn't even be bothered to properly flesh out the details of the lie?
: That's possible!
: And the Memokeeper behind the scenes who's pretending to be the Diviner definitely hasn't been to the Luofu. The Diviner has always spoken in a refined, literary manner!
: But even though this Memokeeper's words are fake, they still revealed some information. For example, March 7th's past is strongly connected to the Garden of Recollection.
: Was March 7th a Memokeeper before she lost her memories?
: The truth behind this should be pretty huge. Judging from how anxious the Memokeeper sounds, maybe March 7th's past really is connected to the survival of the Garden of Recollection.
: Damn, so our little March really is like Dan Heng, she has some hidden power too!
...