World Hatred

“…Anyway, since the situation doesn’t look good, I’ll agree.”

After some wordplay ended, Briar Churchill showed that she had quickly grasped the situation.

“Someone like me could go as a national representative, not just as a guard, and it wouldn’t be strange. But you?”

Churchill’s words were right. Considering Briar Churchill’s own position, she might be somewhat unsuitable as a diplomatic envoy representing the British government or the British Empire because she doesn’t hold any public office.

However, due to her reputation as the strongest talent of her generation, her beauty, and the honor from her family, it’s not unreasonable for her to attend as an ambassador representing Britain in this incident. Of course, Britain would probably send a minister or prime minister, but it wouldn’t be awkward for Churchill to go either.

But in my case, it’s a bit different.

“That’s right. I really have no justification to go unless I’m a guard.”

“If the central government is thinking of purging Zhou Lizhi, they won’t be pleased with you coming along.”

“I guess so.”

“Should I hide it too? About going to Beiping at the end of this month, I mean.”

I nodded to Churchill. Briar grinned and flopped down on the bed.

“Interesting. It’s thrilling. It finally feels like a real incident is happening. Don’t you think?”

“Honestly, I didn’t hope for any incidents to happen when I came here.”

“Me neither. It’s always better when noisy things don’t happen. But if something is going to happen anyway, isn’t it better to be in the middle of it rather than circling the edges?”

“I don’t know…”

She didn’t propose to have sex that night. We both quietly fell asleep in our respective beds and woke up on time the next morning. But even though we woke up on time, there wasn’t much to do. Huangpu’s time had essentially stopped due to the national mourning period.

There was no morning exercise assembly, no notification to attend classes. As the platoon leader, I received a special directive to ‘be careful that foreign students don’t engage in any unusual behavior during the mourning period’, but neither Zhou Lizhi who gave the order, nor the school authorities, probably expected much of a role from me.

At the very least, I thought I could somehow control Briar Churchill. And among the others, the one I was concerned about was… perhaps Barbara Tikhonov.

I roughly read the letter delivered in front of our dormitory room door, then threw it to Churchill and put on my coat. Briar, who was brushing her teeth while looking in the mirror, saw the letter’s contents and mumbled:

“Then don’t you have nothing to do?”

“Speak after spitting out the toothpaste.”

“Then isn’t there no need to go out?”

It seems she found it strange that I was putting on my coat when the notification of complete class suspension had come. I pointed to the phrase containing the special directive in the letter and explained to her.

“There’s a notification asking to manage other foreign students. It’ll be tough, but I’ll try to make an effort at least.”

“So, are you going to go around knocking on dormitory rooms?”

“No. I’m planning to look for the Soviet colonel first while walking around the playground or walking paths. She seems like she’d still ride a bicycle even at a time like this, and if she’s doing something reckless at this time, an accident could happen.”

“Well, the atmosphere is not good. The official announcement says it happened due to Nanjing’s mismanagement, but there are conspiracy theories that the Soviet Union is clearly behind it. There’s even talk that Huangpu was safe because Tikhonov is at this school.”

“You seem to be quite friendly with the Chinese.”

“There are guys who pick fights with me too, telling foreigners to get lost. Because of the current situation, I didn’t blast them away with sound waves. I tried hard to endure, you know?”

Briar’s eyes sparkled as if expecting praise. I lightly stroked her hair and nodded.

“You did very well.”

“Did you just stroke my hair?”

“Is there a problem?”

“Not at all. If you really want to, you can stroke it some more.”

Her reaction was somehow creepy, so I took my hand off her hair. Briar returned to her bed with a slightly disappointed face after finishing washing up.

“Then I’ll sleep a bit more, so you can monitor people doing morning exercises, or knock them down, whatever you want. Should you wake me up if something happens?”

“The notice has a postscript saying to thoroughly do self-study using the library and such during the mourning period…”

“I don’t study even when it’s not a mourning period.”

Briar Churchill didn’t seem to care much about the grades she received at school because she said she didn’t plan to stay here for long. But for someone like that, her scores on pop quizzes and the recent midterm exam weren’t bad at all. Her physical strength was also in the upper ranks within this class, no, just objectively speaking, so she’s someone who could grow into an ability user beyond simply ‘the strongest of her generation’ if she put in a little more effort.

She was truly a strange person. After observing Briar for nearly two months, I definitely felt that she wasn’t just a lazy genius. She was a natural hard worker. There’s a saying that even the ability to work hard is a talent. Briar was born not only with innate talent but also with the talent to know how to work hard, and she was educated to utilize that talent.

However, she seemed to want to deny the fact that she was a hard worker. It wasn’t just superficial vanity. There are often people who deny their hardworking tendencies out of vanity while working hard to the point of death. People who try to show off by packaging the results they achieved through effort as results achieved through genius talent mostly do this.

But in Churchill’s case, it wasn’t like that. She seemed to genuinely dislike the fact that she becomes overly immersed, focused, and hardworking in everything. Although I haven’t entered her mind, it’s probably because it seems too much like a ‘model student’.

She flew all the way to China, intentionally acting eccentrically within her family because she disliked herself for responding excessively to her family’s expectations. It wouldn’t be strange if she disliked herself as the hard worker who led her to that position.

“It’s decent enough if you just dislike yourself.”

I muttered to myself before going out. Churchill’s sensitive ears didn’t miss my muttering.

“What did you just say to me?”

I turned around, looked at her, and then nodded.

“Don’t come to hate the world. When I disliked myself, there was at least a corner to escape to, but when I came to despise this world, there was no hole left to escape to.”

“Hmm… But in times like these, is there anyone who doesn’t hate the world? Hatred for the world is the driving force of change. It’s also the spark of revolution.”

“I wish I could say I hate it hoping the world would change. Not hating it while wishing for its downfall.”

Unconsciously, the truth in my heart flowed out of my mouth. Churchill tilted her head, grinning as if she found my words interesting.

“Revolution was also destruction.”

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Some leaders might have thought it wasn’t destruction but change, and later historians might package it with words like innovation and transformation, but for those who were there at that moment, it might have been the end of the world. The end of kingdoms, the emergence of new classes, chaos, destruction, anomie. It’s okay. Even people who want to break the world might end up making it better in the end.”

“Are you telling me to live with such a strange hope?”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying.”

Churchill wiggled her finger and smiled.

“The things you do wanting to break the world might end up making the world you so hate better. In fact, isn’t that the scariest thing for a potential pessimistic terrorist like you? The Greeks are geniuses. The Greek tragedies left by genius writers thousands of years ago are still alive and breathing at this very moment. The rise of Marxists who wanted to end imperialism ended up breathing life into the colonial rule of empires that could have been liberated, and the Xinhai Revolution that started to bring democracy to an incompetent empire led to the birth of a dictatorship even more stringent than the Qing Empire. Isn’t it interesting to see revolutions with lofty ideals produce results that negate their own reason for existence?”

“Conversely, destruction carried out because of hatred for the world making the world better, that too is the tragedy I fear, right?”

“So don’t think unnecessary thoughts. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you getting hurt is a certainty anyway. Ah, shall I give you a piece of advice?”

“I’ll listen to it once.”

“Try loving the world. If you come to love the world, you’ll want to protect it, and according to my tragedy theory… couldn’t the actions you take to protect the world ultimately lead to results that break the world? For you who hate the world and want to break it, that would be the best possible outcome.”

It was a nonsensical wordplay that made no sense at all. I felt pathetic for seriously listening to such talk.

“I understand you want to create a crazy persona, but how about writing better lines?”

I grumbled. Briar burst into laughter, holding her stomach and lying down on the bed.

“Ah, was it too artificial?”

“Lines that are too blatantly saying ‘I’m a strange person’ don’t actually make you look crazy. Try to establish the character better. Well, I’m going out now.”

“Wait a moment.”

Briar caught me one last time.

“The rest might be nonsense, but this is sincere. Try loving the world. By any means necessary.”

“I think I’ve already become a bit like that.”

I couldn’t deny it. I once vowed never to whisper love to anyone again except for mission purposes. But from some point on, haven’t I been repeatedly doing things that disqualify me as an operative, like pouring out even my innermost thoughts to people around me and whispering love?