“Woo woo…”
The car drove away, Fang Zheng put down the travel bag in his hand, turned around and looked around. From what he could see, this should be a small rural town in Japan. The station in front of him was shabby, just a simple awning built with wood. The station sign next to it had begun to fade due to the influence of wind and rain, and even the name on the sign could not be seen.
"Ah, you're finally here, Fang Zheng."
At this moment, a voice sounded from behind Fang Zheng. He turned around and saw a woman with short blue hair smiling and waving at him.
"Chihui-senpai, long time no see."
The moment he saw the woman in front of him, just like in the Dark Souls world, Fang Zheng immediately recalled her memories. The woman in front of him was called Chihui Rumiko, and she had attended the same school as him. After graduation, she came here to be a teacher, but was troubled by the shortage of staff. So she thought of Fang Zheng, who had a very good relationship with her at school, so she wrote a letter to invite him to come here. This time, Fang Zheng's identity was to come here as a "rural teacher" at the invitation of Chihui.
"It's been a long time since we last met. This place is very remote. Thank you for your hard work."
"It's nothing."
Hearing Zhihui's words, Fangzheng smiled and shook his head.
"I am very happy to be able to help you, senior."
"Ah, you've been like this since the beginning..."
Facing Fang Zheng's answer, Zhihui showed a somewhat complicated expression. She looked at Fang Zheng quietly, then smiled and stretched out her hand.
"Anyway, Fang Zheng, welcome to Hinamizawa."
Hinamizawa.
Although Fang Zheng had a premonition in his heart, when he really heard this name from Zhihui, he couldn't help but tremble in his heart. At this moment, he could finally confirm what world he had come to - "Higurashi When They Cry".
Fang Zheng is very familiar with this work. It tells the story of boys and girls living in a village called Hinamizawa. If it were a routine ten years later, it would probably be a daily cute show. But "When the Cicadas Cry" is different because there is an extremely terrible disease in Hinamizawa - Hinamizawa Syndrome.
This is a very special pathogen that is transmitted through human mucous membranes, which means that almost any contact with the pathogen will lead to infection. This pathogen is divided into five stages, which are referred to as L1-L5 in games and animations.
L1 is the incubation period, during which the human body will not have any problems or be aware of being infected. L1 patients are no different from ordinary people. In fact, most people will not have an attack until they die.
As long as the patient leaves Hinamizawa, he will enter the L2 stage, which is similar to the early warning stage. During this period, the patient will not fall ill, but pathogens can be detected in the blood. As long as the patient returns to Hinamizawa, he will get better. However, if he does not return for a long time, he will enter the L3 stage.
If the patient enters the L3 stage, he or she will experience auditory hallucinations and itchy throat, as well as mental anxiety, which means that the patient is gradually falling into the onset of the disease.
However, if the patient enters L4, the situation will be more serious. Due to long-term hallucinations and physical discomfort, the patient will become hostile and suspicious of everything around him or her, and may even become extremely manic and restless.
When reaching the end of L5, the patient will experience fear, hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe anxiety, extremely violent consciousness, and strong aggressive tendencies. Moreover, due to the unbearable itching in the throat, they will almost always choose to tear their throats and scratch their carotid arteries at the end of the disease, resulting in excessive blood loss and death.
To use a popular saying on the Internet, "Hinamizawa Syndrome" is actually a virus that turns people evil, and in the story of "When the Cicadas Scream", almost all of the protagonists are evilened and run away because of being infected with this virus, and eventually turn into murderers with blood on their hands.
The appearance of this animation shocked many viewers at that time, because although there were animations about dead girls at that time, the cute girls turning evil and killing people only appeared in a few non-mainstream animations such as "Elfen Lied". However, in "No Time to Cicadas", all the protagonists turned evil and killed everyone else, and each death was extremely cruel and horrifying, which really scared many viewers.
But to be honest, Fang Zheng has always been skeptical about this statement.
Although the main characters in "When the Cicadas Cry", Keiichi Maehara, Rena Ryuguya, Shion Sonozaki, and Sadoko Hojo, have all suffered from the disease to varying degrees, Fang Zheng has always had other opinions on whether it is really the influence of Hinamizawa Syndrome. The reason is very simple, because if you look closely, you will find that almost all of these people who have suffered from the disease have been under mental pressure.
As the protagonist of the story, Keiichi Maehara once committed a crime of harming children. Ryuguya Rena lost all her family property and even her house because her father was blackmailed by a honey trap. Shion's beloved Satoshi disappeared and his life and death are unknown. As for Hojo Satoko, if she didn't have mental problems in her abused family environment, that would be the biggest mental problem.
Even the onset of Hojo Satoshi's illness is suspicious, because the background of Hojo Satoshi's illness was that his family was ostracized by the village because they supported the construction of the dam. After that, Hojo's parents both died, leaving only Satoshi and Satoko to depend on each other. In this situation, without the care of their parents and being ostracized by the villagers, the two young children naturally suffered a lot of mental stress. Hojo Satoshi was also in his second year of middle school at the time, which was the rebellious period, so it was not surprising that he did anything.
At that time, Fang Zheng was studying psychology in college, so out of curiosity he matched the actions of these protagonists. It turned out that even if there was no so-called "virus", humans under tremendous mental pressure would also behave in extreme ways. Not to mention that these protagonists were ultimately a group of high school and junior high school students, whose mental health was not particularly sound. If no one guided them, problems would naturally arise easily.
If you observe carefully, you will find that the common feature of the protagonists who have turned evil and killed people is that they are under tremendous mental pressure and have no channels to solve the problem. They can only take extreme measures to fight against it. There are many clinical cases in psychology. In Fang Zheng's opinion, Hinamizawa just gathered these extreme mental cases together.
Of course, this was just Fang Zheng's guess, but now, he had a chance to verify his guess. The reason was simple... In addition to being invited by Chie Rumiko, he came to Hinamizawa for another reason...
"You are Fang Zheng, welcome to Hinamizawa!"
The bald principal, who was wearing a black suit and looked like a gang leader, strode forward and extended his hand to Fang Zheng.
"Welcome. I've heard about your story from Teacher Zhihui, 'about the mental health of rural children'. I didn't expect you to have such an idea. But it's true. As educators, we should not only pay attention to the physical health of students, but also their mental health... But to be honest, Teacher Zhihui and I are really too busy to handle it, hahaha..."
“That’s exactly why I’m here.”
Holding the bald principal's hand, Fang Zheng smiled and answered. That's right, in the setting of "Dimension Code", Fang Zheng came to Hinamizawa this time at the invitation of Chie Rumiko, to serve as a teacher at the Hinamizawa branch school, and also as a school doctor and psychological counselor. According to Chie Rumiko, she came up with this idea after reading her paper on the mental health problems of rural children, so she invited herself here.
But can the world really solve its own problems?
The free world does not issue missions like the mission world, but lets Fang Zheng find them on his own. However, based on the identity given to him by the "Dimension Code", Fang Zheng has almost guessed what his mission in this world is.
Strengthen your own will, and at the same time protect those young boys and girls who should have faced death, and free them from their inevitable fate.
To put it bluntly, he is here to mess things up!!
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