A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 230 CST Monday UTC+8: 4:08 PM
Only a barely audible hum of electricity could be heard through the receiver.

Quinn held the silent microphone, waiting without uttering a word.

"Is this a phone?" Amamiya Nene asked.

Tamulan lacks electrical technology, and the so-called "telephone" is Merlin's name for the arcane device that transmits sound.

The two look very similar, the difference being that the Temuran telephone has a mechanical rotary dial mechanism with a built-in arcane matrix, making it look much heavier.

Earth's telephone, on the other hand, resembles a simplified version of the Tamuelt telephone, with clear and concise number keys and a display screen—three bars indicating waiting signify that the call has been dialed.

But there was no sound coming from the microphone.

Quinn hung up the phone, and a slow dialing sound rang out. He dialed the Jianghai City phone number again and continued to wait.

But as before, there was still no sound.

There was neither a sudden disconnection tone nor any notification sounds such as "Unable to connect," "The other party is on another call," or "The other party is busy." The call should have been connected, but the signal that should have been transmitted back from Jianghai City was completely silent.

Quinn waited for a full three minutes, and even the old lady sunbathing at the door wondered why he didn't speak.

Normally, even if the other party doesn't answer the phone after it's connected, it should automatically hang up and switch to a busy tone after ringing for so long, but there's still no sound from the phone.

"If you can't get through, just try again," the old woman said in the Guangxi dialect.

Quinn hung up, redialed, and waited. (The same text is repeated twice in the original.)
"Is this phone broken?"

"What?" The old woman didn't quite understand Mandarin.

Quinn repeated it in a stuttering, off-key dialect, and she denied it with "Oh dear, how could that be?" saying that someone had just come and hit her before Quinn.

In 1999, mobile phones were already widely available, and telephone technology was quite mature; long-distance and short-distance calls were commonplace. Quinn paid for the water, carried his bottled water and food to another shop, and dialed again.

But just like before, there was no sound when I called.

He went to another store. This time, Quinn waited for a while, watching the previous customer finish their call and confirming that the phone was working properly before he went up to make his own call, but the result was still the same.

Quinn narrowed his eyes slightly. The appliances in his hometown were all from his parents' wedding: a Little Swan washing machine, a radio, and a telephone. That old but never-broken domestic telephone, even more than 20 years later, could still receive New Year's greetings calls from his grandfather's comrades-in-arms on the first day of the Lunar New Year every year.

Besides the home phone, what other phone numbers have existed since 1999?
Memories are like a vast and complex palace. Quinn came to the deepest part, back when he was still an infant, his grandmother's lullabies interspersed with sales calls from health product advertisements spun into catchy rhymes drifting from the living room.
Quinn dialed a new number, the call connected, but there was no sound.

The phone number for the village secretary from my rural hometown, who passed away from heart disease in 06, was answered, but there was no sound.

He changed to a Beijing-based number, the hotline for CCTV's children's channel. The call connected, but there was no sound.
Finally, Quinn stopped adding area code prefixes for other cities and instead dialed an eleven-digit phone number. The phone finally emitted a slow but rhythmic connection tone.

About ten seconds later, the call was answered, and Xiao Liu's tired and puzzled voice came through the receiver: "Hello? Who is this?"

"I."

"Captain Zhang? What happened?" Xiao Liu immediately perked up.

These days, things are different from later generations. Cell phones are expensive, and phone calls are expensive too. Making a call is usually for something important.

"The hotel air conditioning is cold, so remember to cover yourself well when you sleep so you don't catch a cold."

".?"

A muffled "Thank you for your concern, Captain Zhang" came from the other end of the line. Quinn hung up the phone, paid the bill expressionlessly, and began looking for a vehicle along the street.

"Can you contact your family from the abyss?" Amamiya Nene whispered under his collar.

Quinn shook his head.

"I think I've been too naive. Let's get to Jianghai first and see what happens."

He bought three maps at the newsstand: a map of Beibu Gulf City, a traffic map of Guangxi Province, and a national highway map, all of which were newly drawn in 1999. Maps are not cheap; these days, electronic navigation is not reliable, and truck drivers rely entirely on maps to find their way.

Quinn wandered around for half an hour before finally finding a Mercedes S500.

The pure black Mercedes-Benz W14, often seen as the ride of big shots in Hong Kong movies, was parked in front of a nightclub. The dozing security guard didn't notice that the man walking past him had a wire in his hand. He walked to the driver's side door, unlocked it in less than three seconds, and got in as if it were his own car.

As expected of one of the best luxury cars of this era, the transmission system under the steering wheel is highly integrated. An ordinary car thief would have to spend ages figuring out how to disassemble the panel to start the engine, but Quinn simply used his fingers to pry it open, his fingertips like steel pliers, to remove the ignition wires behind the key, connect them, and wipe them clean—

The pleasant engine sounded, and the Mercedes-Benz smoothly drove away from the nightclub entrance. The security guard, seeing this, thought it was the owner driving it himself and waved goodbye.

Amamiya Nene popped out from under the collar. The back row had double-glazed soundproof windows with curtains, and she could finally fly freely for a while, observing the world in the abyss through the windshield.

"Is this my dad's carriage? An arcane machine that doesn't use mana? Or is it a horseless carriage?" She watched Quinn turn the steering wheel and shift gears from time to time with curiosity.

"It's different, this is a manual transmission."

Quinn gripped the large, vintage-looking steering wheel. Mercedes-Benz at that time didn't wrap steering wheels in leather like later models; instead, they used plastic wheels encased in walnut wood, giving them a substantial feel. When he learned to drive, he used Mi Yutong's family's S500. That car was a bit newer, with its headlights evolving from square to triangular. It was bought by Mi Yutong's father at the beginning of the century, witnessing the rise of a business tycoon starting in real estate. Perhaps out of nostalgia, he hadn't sold it after getting a new car, keeping it in the garage and having his driver clean it every holiday.

The man cheerfully called him over, and like a father embracing his son, put his hand, adorned with Buddhist prayer beads, on his shoulder, pointed at the Tiger Head Ben and said, "Go get your driver's license when you're an adult. You can't go abroad without a car."

"I just went to England to discuss investment before the new year. I visited Buckingham Palace and London Bridge. Don't be fooled by its impressive appearance; the roads are actually not as wide as those in China. Do you know why Rolls-Royce is the best British car? Because on the narrow roads in England, no one dares to cut you off with such a big luxury car!"

"If you're free in the evenings, have the driver take you for a spin before you go home. Just drive this one, the Rolls-Royce. Hey, you can't read those broken foreign languages, it's a sports car, and it's a manual transmission, you'll need to know how to drive it."

"Yutong inherited her looks from her mother, which is a good thing, because someone like me would have a hard time getting married. But she also inherited her terrible sense of direction from her mother. If she loses the car, we'll buy her another one. Actually, it's for you to drive. You can't rush when you drive, you have to be steady."

"Do you know what I like about you? You're not like those young, impetuous guys; you're steady. When I was your age, I saw those rich people on the road, practically flooring the gas pedal so the whole world could hear the engine roar, just to let everyone know they were driving a Mercedes-Benz. They drove too fast, and after a crash, they couldn't get back up. So the day I got my hands on a Mercedes-Benz, I gripped the steering wheel and told myself to drive carefully."

"You're just like me. Even if you're driving a Rolls-Royce, you'll drive it steadily. If you drive steadily, you won't crash, and you'll live a long life."

Quinn floored the accelerator, the ferocious V8 engine roaring across the bumpy road. The steering wheel swung wildly, and the motorcyclists and drivers cursed and yelled, "Driving like this will get you killed sooner or later!"

With his superhuman reflexes, he could speed on city streets without a care in the world. Everything seemed to move in slow motion to him, and he skillfully weaved through traffic, appearing dangerous but actually nimbly moving through the flow of cars.

"What a vibrant city!" Amamiya Nene's little parrot head looked around. "The buildings are all square, but they don't seem as tall as those buildings on the Falling Floor."

“Times have changed, and this place is much more backward. But if we use the average standard of living as a benchmark,” Quinn paused, “at least in my country, even this city now is far superior to Temuran.”

"But the architecture isn't very attractive," Amamiya Nene commented from the perspective of someone from another world.

Quinn remained noncommittal, but the architecture of Temuran did indeed have an aesthetic touch. There were only concrete bungalows from the 90s, a time of change. It would be fifteen or even twenty years before modern buildings with reinforced concrete and glass canopies rose up and became part of the landscape.

"Who were you calling just now?" The little parrot flew to the leather seat in the passenger seat and looked at him.

“My grandfather.” There was nothing wrong with saying that. Quinn rested one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the window sill, propping his head up with his other hand, and said casually, “But at this hour, it’s probably my grandmother who will answer the phone.”

".them"

“I know they are fake, projections of the abyss, or something else. I just haven’t heard their voices in a long time.”

After the car crosses the bridge, the national highway is ahead. Driving along the national highway until you reach the provincial capital, you can then get onto the Guangxi-Guangdong Expressway and head north.

Amamiya Nene had never seen Quinn like this before.

Amamiya Nene always felt that he was hiding something, using abstract language or inappropriate humor to cover up his inner thoughts, and dealing with everything with a work attitude.
But Quinn at this moment was very real. As if he had let go of all pretense, he lowered his head slightly and stared at the road, his cheeks relaxed, his eyes filled with a longing that had not yet turned to sorrow, like a traveler reminiscing about the road he had traveled, loneliness enveloping his weary soul, a comfort indeed.

Do you miss them?

“Of course,” Quinn replied. “Everyone misses their mother, but I don’t have my grandparents in that position. They are my only family.”

“Unlike your father, they have already passed away. I have no regrets. I have done everything I could, and I have fulfilled their last wishes. It is a good thing that I cannot get through on the phone, because I would not know what to say anyway.”

"Oh, you have such a cute side too?" the little parrot teased. "Even though you have a sharp tongue, a bad heart, are arrogant, and have a lot of wicked tastes, you're actually still a..."

Quinn sneered, "She's still a daddy's girl."

The parrot swooped down and stomped hard on his hair with its claws.

Do you believe me or not—

"You peed on my head?"

"Ah~~" Quinn looked up and opened his mouth: "It would be best to filter it with stockings. Thank you for the treat."

"Go to hell."

Amamiya Nene flew to the back row and surrendered, meow.

"I'm going to sleep. I'm so sleepy after turning into a parrot. Wake me when it's time—Ugh!!"

She had just settled down on the sofa when Quinn slammed on the brakes, nearly sending the little parrot flying. Amamiya Nene regained her balance and was about to yell at the man below for getting angry because he wouldn't give her a drink, but she noticed that Quinn had a serious expression on his face and was staring intently ahead.

".What's wrong?"

"This bridge"

Quinn glanced at the time: 4:08 PM. Forty minutes had passed since the car was started, and it should have already left the Beibu Gulf region.

However, the dusty, bustling construction site remained in sight, and apart from the abnormally large sun, reality seemed perfectly normal.

"—We've been here before."

(End of this chapter)