A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 275 Out of Control?

That was the Spring Festival when the branches were laden with snow.

In the small rural village on the outskirts of Jianghai City, couplets and embroidered windows adorn the landscape. The village secretary's booming voice blares from the loudspeaker, calling each household to the village committee to collect cured meat and New Year's cakes. These days, few children are willing to return to their hometowns; young people prefer to spend their precious annual leave traveling all over the country. The televisions in the houses play boring reruns of Spring Festival Gala skits. The golden sunset presses down on the snow-white branches. A dilapidated Jeep emblazoned with "Youthful Spirit, Keep Working Hard! Steel Bones, Building Dreams in the Northwest!" drives into the village, its dust rack covered in a thick layer of yellow dust resembling a layer of armor.

The car's shock absorption relied entirely on the passengers' buttocks, and it wobbled as it came to a stop in front of a small, unlit courtyard. Although it was a rural area, it was still rural Jianghai, where many villagers could afford to send their children abroad to study. Even the poorest wouldn't drive such a beat-up car, which attracted the stares and scrutiny of many elderly people chatting at the village entrance.

In the twilight sunlight, the car door opened. A foot in a slipper stepped onto the snow, only to be quickly pulled back by the cold. The driver cursed, "Damn it, I forgot to change my shoes—"

"Do you Cantonese people wear flip-flops even when you go to the moon?"

The driver got out of the car; he was a rather ordinary-looking young man, whose clothes suggested he had been working for some time. He looked at the "Qin Family" signboard on the gate of the small courtyard, which was covered with a thick layer of dust, and then glanced at the brand-new couplets on both sides of the gate, thinking that he should buy some New Year's goods.

The advantage of rural areas over cities lies in the warmth of human relationships. Even though the old lady in this courtyard has been gone for several years, the villagers will still put up new couplets for this empty house every Spring Festival.

He walked to the door, reached behind it, and found the key hidden in its usual spot. The old brass lock was a bit rusty and difficult to open, but there was no need to replace it, since there was nothing valuable in the house.

"There are so many people in this world~ In the crowd, there is an open door." The car stereo played a strangely sad song. The door opened, and another young man who had been hiding in the car to keep warm put on his socks, jumped out of the car, and shivered like a grandson from the cold.

"Even in typhoons, heavy rains, and snow, we work hard, work incredibly hard—don't underestimate the environmental adaptability of civil engineers, it's unbelievable!!" He shouted strange words and rushed in first.

"That's great." The man in the thick cotton-padded coat sincerely praised, "I feel like you're the kind of man who gets hurt by a dump truck at a construction site and then shines brightly in another world."

"To be honest, I think so too." The thinly dressed man suddenly felt warm and began to seriously fantasize about various beginnings in another world.

"But the bad news is that there was no time travel, nor was there another world."

"It's the Lunar New Year, can you say something auspicious?"

"The good news is that there really are dump trucks. We look forward to you shining brightly on the construction site for the rest of your life."

"Tell me something I don't know." The civil engineer looked miserable, shivering with anger. The thought that he had only had a holiday this Spring Festival since he started working, and that the holiday would end soon, made him want to find a rope to hang on the door like a weather doll.

He knew his way around and entered his grandmother's room with ease. The wooden bed was still covered with a floral blanket and quilt, with a layer of plastic film on top, covered with fine dust.

His gaze fell on the oxygen concentrator beside the bed, past the dressing table, the trash can, the rice container, and the large red umbrella his grandparents had used for their wedding decades ago. Most patients with severe lung disease need one of these; otherwise, they may have difficulty breathing while sleeping.

The machine has a touch panel with a line of high-end German brand name engraved below. This product is nothing special today; any domestic medical device factory could make a better one. But back in his high school days, the customs duties alone for one of these instruments could buy two of them today.

This equipment was delivered by the driver the day after Mi Yutong's father visited his home, so that he wouldn't have to spend money to rent equipment from the hospital every month.

He recalled the price of the machine, took out his phone—an old iPhone 6 Plus that would drop frames even when unlocking the screen—opened the counter, and added a set of numbers.

Above this number are many more numbers, but most are subtractions, with each reduction roughly equal to his monthly salary. Since graduating and starting work, this number has grown from seven digits to six digits, with the initial digits gradually decreasing. At this rate, it will reach zero in another year or two.

He opened his grandmother's dressing table and found a small box at the very bottom, which was the poor family's safe. Inside, besides some old but worthless silver jewelry, were a few booklets.

Grandpa's discharge certificate, Grandma's work injury certificate, Father's death sentence approval notice, and his parents' cremation certificates. He flipped to the bottom and took out his passport.

He hesitated for a moment, then took out the documents again and began to look through the yellowed photos on them one by one.

He could actually remember everything, he just wanted to look through it.

He closed the suitcase and returned to the living room. His friend, shivering from the cold, saw the passport in his hand and exclaimed in surprise, "It's really here! You managed to find this!"

"I left it here after graduating from high school." He paused. "If it weren't for Brother Chen getting married, I probably wouldn't have used it for the rest of my life."

Brother Chen was the restaurant manager at the restaurant where he worked during high school, and he always took good care of him.

"Being a rich kid is so great. I also want to get married in Bali," my friend said enviously.

"Back when you first graduated, it wouldn't have been hard for you to find a rich woman. Shen Jiajia hinted at it to you several times, but you just pretended to be stupid and sent Genshin Impact memes to disgust her every day. She drives a BMW M4, and it's already a miracle that she even bothered with a stupid anime fan like you."

Unlike him, whose appearance is just average except for his height.

Even after years of torment on construction sites, my friend's skin is tanned, his hairline has receded, and he's gained some weight, but he's still quite good-looking. He was even more handsome in his youth, boasting that he didn't need to buy his own milk tea in junior and senior high school because he drank the ones his female classmates gave him—I'll tentatively believe that.

"A rich woman? What kind of rich woman is she? She's not even as good as your ex-girlfriend," my friend sighed.

He walked to the altar in the living room—originally where his parents' memorial tablets were placed, later his grandfather's was added, and after a few years his grandmother's was also placed there, with photos of the two elderly people on the left and right. He stepped onto a stool and patiently cleaned the dust with a rag.

My friend was still chattering on and on.

"Shen Jiajia? No way, she has tattoos. Don't think I'm prejudiced; if I look at her normally because she has tattoos, then all her tattoos are for nothing."

"Is it the tattoo that you're disgusted by?" he sneered as he wiped it. "What you're disgusted by is that she tattooed her ex-boyfriend's name on it."

"Tsk, it's not quite like that. That K-pop girl isn't a good match for an otaku like me. Besides, she's a bit of a Western worshipper. I feel like a child born to someone like her would be a loyal reader of Yilin magazine."

"You've actually become picky? If my buddy hadn't rescued you, your mom would have arranged twenty blind dates for you this Chinese New Year."

"Hey."

My friend rubbed his shoulder and sighed.

"Actually, my requirements aren't high, you know. My ideal type is..."

"Xiaomi-style, NIO-style, and Boundary-style"

"Seriously, let's not get abstract."

"Wasn't it you who led me astray?"

"My buddy likes Saito Asuka, but I'm realistic. I don't need a girlfriend who's Saito Asuka, but she should at least look about 80% like her, right?" My friend started wishing: "Ideally, she should have Rin Tohsaka's figure, Shoko Toyokawa's family background, and Mai Sakurajima's personality. White-stockinged lolis would also be nice, like Taiga Aisaka."

He just said whatever came to mind from his dream, and he laughed in exasperation: "Where's the seriousness? Where's the reality?"

"Why is it unrealistic? Maybe one day I'll move the God of Cement while I'm shoveling mortar at a construction site, and as a reward, I'll bump into a beautiful girl with a slice of bread dangling from a corner of the foundation."

"The only ones who will hit you are thieves stealing steel bars."

"Is time travel really the only way to achieve this, you motherfucker?"

He wiped the altar clean and then fetched a ladle of well water to wash the rag. "Transmigration is great. I don't have any ideal type. You can find a princess, saintess, priest, or rich girl in another world and have a daughter for me. We can each have our own relationship. You can call me Dad, and I'll call you Dad."

"Fuck you." My friend said with a look of disgust, "You think you can have my daughter?"

"I can't imagine you having a daughter."

"You know, I'm the kind of man who doesn't show off. Have you read 'Dragon Raja'? Chu Tianjiao is just another version of me! He's willing to save the world for his child."

After finishing cleaning, he took out three sticks of sandalwood from the drawer under the altar, but couldn't find a lighter, so he held out his hand to his friend: "Can I borrow a light?"

"Where did this fire come from? I'm not a Wang Yuan fan, I don't use his light stick."

“My brother works in civil engineering and doesn’t smoke. He just uses a pipe to relieve boredom. I feel very proud of him.”

"?"

My friend was too cold to even argue. He took the three incense sticks, ran back to his car, and lit them with the jeep's cigarette lighter.

"Give."

"Thank you dad."

He held up incense and bowed to the two photos and four memorial tablets on the wall.

My friend also bowed, and as expected of someone from Guangdong, he put his hands together and bowed three times earnestly, much more respectful than his blood relative.

He knelt and climbed onto the altar, placing the burning incense sticks in the offering altar at the top.

When I was little, I used to climb up and down all the way around. Once, I accidentally stood on the altar and my grandfather slapped me. It was the rule that you could only kneel there and not stand.

With his hands in his pockets, he thought about his childhood and couldn't help but wonder if he would raise his children the way his grandfather had raised him. He figured it was probably not the case, and he likely wouldn't bring his children back here. He casually remarked, "My grandmother talked quite a bit about my marriage before she passed away."

"Intelligent, kind, virtuous, capable, beautiful, oh, and has a big butt so she can bear children easily."

The friend laughed it off, and the two were equally indifferent when it came to respecting the deceased.

"Making a wish here? Looking for someone like this in this day and age? Does she even deserve a girl like this?"

He thought for a moment, then said out of the blue, "Actually, my grandma probably likes her quite a bit, but I've never talked to her about her. In my grandma's eyes, she should be the perfect granddaughter-in-law."

My friend stopped talking, so I couldn't continue the conversation.

Friends know perfectly well who "she" refers to, so it's best not to mention it.

"I'm going to disappoint Grandma. I'll be single for the rest of my life." He said dejectedly, but there was no regret or remorse on his face. He just said it in a nonchalant way: "It's pretty hard for me to fall in love with someone purely. I don't really believe I can accept an intimate relationship without any ulterior motives."

The friend didn't take it seriously.

"Aren't we the two of us?"

He remained silent for a long time, then lowered his head deeply.

"It feels even more tragic now."

"Hey, your best buddy's trying to comfort you."

"Then let's look for the one that matches my grandmother's goals."

He grabbed his passport and left home. The setting sun was so bright it made him squint. He smiled and said:
"Search for me in another world. When you get hit by a cart and die, remember to have the kingdom's princess summon me."

"It's the Lunar New Year, so let's talk about auspicious sayings."

The setting sun was so bright that he could barely open his eyes.

Quinn was somewhat dazed. The golden sunset streaming through the window was just right, pressing against the snow-white marble window sill, reminding him of his hometown and fragmented memories.

He took a deep breath and gently massaged his temples with his hands.

Lately, this phenomenon of mental fog has become more and more frequent. No matter what he does, he can't recall what he remembers. Time seems to slip through his fingers, leaving him stuck in place like he's having a dementia attack.

"What's wrong?" Xia Dai'er's voice was soft and sweet, her delicate chin resting on his shoulder.

“It’s nothing. I just remembered, oh,” Quinn paused, then gently kissed her smooth forehead. “If my grandmother were still alive, she would love you.”

"Of course, my charm is..." As the girl spoke, she suddenly realized the other meaning behind his words, and her pretty face blushed slightly.

The Branson Hotel on Cloud Drive, one of the tallest buildings in the city besides Grindelwald's Eye, offers views of Mirror Lake and the reflection of the setting sun from its floor-to-ceiling windows. It has hosted many foreign dignitaries and is one of the best hotels in Eswell.

Of course, it's also the most expensive; renting a room by the hour for a nap costs a full 12 silver coins.

In the past, Xia Dai'er didn't dare to come because the staff all knew their young lady. Now that she was disguised, it was much more convenient. However, the girl couldn't help but feel ashamed when she thought that her wet sheets might be cleaned by one of her own employees.

Chaldale won a lot of money at the casino, but Quinn didn't take it, leaving the chips on the table before leaving. In his opinion, his girlfriend, who knew nothing about gambling, was able to keep winning so much, which was probably arranged by Ike. He wondered how much of it was to please the Branson family, and how much was to please him. The dealer's act was too convincing. The sense of defeat in Chaldale's eyes when she left was genuine.

After all, she had just caused Ike a lot of trouble, so it would be too unfair to take money from him again. Xia Dai'er attributed her winnings to the fact that she had just prayed to the goddess, which made Quinn happy to tell her to pray again, hoping to win the lottery without a condom. She was bitten hard in every sense of the word.

The setting sun bathed the ground in a golden light. Because of the high-rise building, there was no need to worry about being seen even without drawing the curtains. Kicked-off high heels and clothes lay beside the bed. His hand rested on her slender, soft waist, and a thin blanket covered her lower body. Her thighs were hooked together, creating subtle and ambiguous movements.

"Don't pick at it if you're not going to eat it."

"What were you spacing out for? I called you and you didn't respond," Xia Dai'er said, clearly annoyed. "Who were you thinking about?"

Hallucinations, delirium, and amnesia are all precursors to loss of control.

How to suppress uncontrolled addictions?
He turned over, ignoring the girl's screams and pleas for mercy, and pressed the blanket down hard, followed by her trembling breaths.

“Dair.”

He nibbled on her earlobe and whispered, "Can you tell me about your father?"

(End of this chapter)