The night is glitzy and the lights are as numerous as the sea,
A series of neon high-rise buildings, a series of brilliant avenues, the development of the fourth largest city in the United States is vast in the dark,
Compared with Calgary, which basically relies on the oil industry, it has developed towards diversification in the 1980s, with a high degree of medical, aerospace, transportation, education, international trade and finance...
Houston's nights are noisier and more prosperous.
And just in a place where you can overlook this bustling scene, on the roof of a building not far from the city center,
There is nothing, only the darkness of the night wind,
A man stood here with dull eyes. He glanced at the bustling scene in the city center in the distance. No one knew what he was thinking at this moment.
Then,
Jumped from the roof of the building.
Although it was only six or seven stories high, it was already deadly enough. When his feet left the roof of the building, the night wind howled suddenly, and the ground hit him at an extremely fast speed!
It was already dark, and no one noticed this scene.
But at the moment when the man fell to the ground!
A red lace ring appeared out of thin air, a jet of darkness suddenly rushed out from it, and then everything underneath the man fell to the surface floated up!
In the blurred vision of falling, I can only feel a blur in front of my eyes.
The next second, the man found that he was still standing on the roof of the building. The night wind was blowing coldly. The experience of jumping from the roof of the building just a few seconds ago,
It makes people suspect that it is a hallucination that occurred in a trance.
And exactly what he was thinking, the man just looked around blankly, then looked at the bottom of the building silently, and fell forward again with no strength.
boom--
The figure fell to the ground, and this time the ‘hallucination’ did not happen again.
But before he fell forward, an invisible force pulled his body back and made him fall asleep unconsciously.
At this moment, Fangran walked out of the dark corner on the roof and looked at the man on the ground in front of him and sighed helplessly.
Jumping off a building to commit suicide is not an easy way to escape. The feeling of your body losing support and falling to the ground will instantly amplify your fear infinitely.
The acceleration of gravity will be like a person holding your neck tightly. Your body will become stiff due to difficulty in breathing. At the same time, your eyes and ears will be congested and your senses will be blurred.
As long as the fear in the mind is very clear, emotions such as regret, collapse, and nostalgia will appear easily.
But from the moment you jump off, you can't look back.
In the end, he can only face his own death in the torture of fear and regret.
After surviving such an experience, Fangran thought he would wonder if he was hallucinating, and collapsed to the ground with lingering fear. He realized the fear of death and lived well.
But he never expected that he would make the same choice without regaining consciousness.
In the Rolls-Royce, he sensed the warnings from Haiji and Mullin patrolling the surroundings, and directly used the [Floating Card]. Without time to control it carefully, the [Floating Card] floated up.
Fangran finally saved this man in the critical moment of only three or four seconds.
But now it seems that it is not that simple to really 'save' him.
A person who really wants to die will find another chance to commit suicide even if he is saved once.
Knowing this truth very well, Fangran looked at the fallen man in front of him, and after some consideration, decided to contact his family first.
Wanting to find contact information from him, I squatted down, but at the moment I turned the other person's body over,
Fangran was slightly stunned for a moment.
He has a weathered face of about forty years old, with stubble on his thin face, deep-set eye sockets, and a hint of tiredness and haggardness that cannot be concealed in the wrinkles.
What appeared in front of Fangran's eyes at this moment was a somewhat familiar face.
I grabbed this feeling of familiarity and tried to recall it. It took me a while, but in my memory, which had been filled with energy agreements, scenes, dance parties, underground spaces, dark worlds and other major events in the past few days,
Find out memories about him from passers-by who have some impressions along the way.
This was Uncle George who kindly took him and Selika to the city on the night they left the black market.
Recalling that time, it seemed that the driving route was the same as tonight's. I couldn't believe this amazing coincidence.
Fangran looked at George who was sleeping and couldn't find anything on him to contact his family.
After thinking for a while, I finally exhaled,
He called Mullin back to his shoulder.
Symbolizing 'memory', the power derived from the night device can peer into other people's hearts, but it is uncomfortable to experience other people's life experiences from an almost first-person perspective.
Fangran has always tried his best to avoid using this ability.
Contact the police and let El investigate slowly or hand it over to Adeline directly. There is no other way to deal with this situation.
I was just thinking about his desperate intention to fall out of the building again just now. Would such procrastination not be able to change his fate of jumping off the roof after he left? Hypocrisy that is irresponsible to the end,
Thinking of his gentle smile when he offered me a ride that night, I felt that maybe this was the reason for accepting the help.
Mana consumption, ability activation,
Although it is not the state of Ye Qi's liberation and can only be roughly felt like a bystander, it is enough to find the reason why he committed suicide by jumping off the building.
When Mullin turned into a black light and melted into his black eyes, the memories belonging to 'George' flooded towards Fangran!
Then unexpectedly,
He didn't 'see' any serious tragedies such as wives and children being separated or families being destroyed, nor were there any major desperate emergencies such as gambling debts and repayments.
George's only memory is...
A wave of hesitation.
He is a driver at a recycling depot. His daily job is to sit in his car and drive the recycled items in the city to the suburban scrapyard.
There is no holiday, it goes back and forth.
valley
His job does not require communication with others, and he has no friends here. Every morning after he wakes up and goes out, he gets in the car and sits on a seat with only accelerator, brake, steering wheel, etc.
Start a day of monotonous work that can last up to ten hours.
At noon, he would spend eight dollars to buy four hamburgers from a passing fast-food restaurant, eat them in the car, rest in the car, and then continue to work in the afternoon.
Until get off work.
His young colleagues who would not be able to work for long did not interact with him very much, and he did not have the capital to follow them to cheap bars where men and women hang out.
Without any social entertainment, he went home directly after get off work,
He left the car he had been sitting in all day and returned to the house where he lived every day.
His teenage son is a rebellious campus gangster who doesn't care about his studies.
His wife is an out-of-shape, fat woman who works as a dishwasher in a restaurant and is always complaining.
‘Can’t you work harder! We can only afford the rent this month and the tuition after Wood. When can I move out from here?’
His family has always been at the bottom of society struggling below the poverty line. He has not received a good education and does not know how to change his situation or his next generation.
Sitting and working in a car for long periods of time caused his shoulder and back pain to become more and more frequent.
It takes him a long time to fall asleep every night,
Then when I wake up it's the same day all over again.
Wake up and go out, get in the car, sit in the driver's seat, the same scenery, the same route,
I bought four burgers at noon, ate them in the car, and rested in the car.
I started working in the afternoon, endured the pain in my shoulder until get off work, and then went straight home.
'Wood is fighting with his classmates. I have to go to school tomorrow. If your salary can be increased, I won't have to worry about the less money I will make if I take leave tomorrow!'
After listening to my wife's constant complaints, I went to bed feeling exhausted.
Then wake up and start another day,
Going out, getting in the car, the same location,
Buy a hamburger at noon, eat it, and rest,
My shoulder hurts, I get off work and go home.
'My friend's husband made hundreds of dollars more this month, when can you...'
complain, sleep,
Then another day...
Go out, get in the car...
.....
It’s not just a day or two, but a life like this day after day, year after year,
There is no social interaction, no friends, no one cares about me, no one cares about my life and death, and no direction to live.
There is no joy or hope in life, no light can be seen,
Every day in a cage-like place, repeating monotonous and tiring work, I can only grit my teeth and hold on to the pain. If I don't do this, I won't be able to live.
Every day is hard work, and I think about having to live this kind of life again tomorrow.
A feeling of being out of breath.
From George's memory, Fangran only 'saw' such repressed things, and there were no drastic changes like family destruction or desperation.
From his repetitive life every day, the sold-out burgers, the broken radio, his wife’s complaints, the aching shoulders...
Fangran only saw such small despair piled up together.
Enough! Enough! I can't hold on anymore! I really can't hold on anymore! I don't want to live this kind of life anymore!
I've had enough of the pain and torture every night before I go to sleep!
Let it end! Let me be free!
Feeling the painful inner cry from his memory, Fangran suddenly thought of that night at the black market. He looked at why George's gentle smile towards him felt a little familiar.
He had seen it on Krim's face.
But compared with the young super genius, George is a middle-aged man in his forties who lives at the bottom of Houston.
He wanders in this world, living in confusion.
The collapse of adults often happens in an instant.
At this moment, I suddenly remembered this sentence, and suddenly understood the reason why he wanted to commit suicide.
Fangran sighed, searching for the 'moment' that detonated all his accumulated despair and made him want to jump off the roof.
Then Fangran found it in George's memory.
It was a few nights ago. On his way to work, he picked up an unforgettable beauty and a energetic foreign boy.
Listening to the young man thanking himself loudly in broken English, the sense of accomplishment of helping others gave him a rare sense of excitement in his repetitive, depressing, and hopeless life.
But that night, the police blocked a block for special reasons.
He was unable to return home successfully.
After the mood was lifted, I experienced a small drop of despair, and because of this incident, other small despairs were triggered like a butterfly effect in the following days.
The last straw finally broke George's already broken psychological defense.
And at this moment, the 'fuse' that set off all his despair was confirmed, and the reason for the blockade was learned from his memory.
The moment I saw that dark Bugatti,
Fangran's black eyes suddenly widened, and when he returned from the dark world, he felt the light and contented mood he felt after solving the crisis in the energy field.
Chapter completed!