I bought a prison in the United States.

Ringo did not return to the motel.

He sat in his office chair all night, with the well-worn book "How to Survive in a Small Business" spread out in front of him, but his mind was thinking about something completely different.

At three in the morning, he finally admitted a fact.

He couldn't sleep not because of excitement, but because of fear!

It wasn't because of violence against fear; he had seen things far more terrifying than violence.

The phone calls from debt collectors after bankruptcy, the menacing looks from employees demanding back wages, and the sight of your wife packing her bags and leaving.

Those things will take root in your heart and grow into a tree called "I failed".

Then you'll live in its shadow for the rest of your life.

Now, Ringo is terrified of failing again.

In his past life, he owned two companies. The first one was a cross-border e-commerce company. He caught the wave and achieved an annual revenue of 20 million yuan in three years.

But unexpectedly, the platform's policy changed, his supply chain was cut off, his inventory piled up overnight, his cash flow broke down, and in the end he couldn't even pay his employees' salaries.

The second company was doing community group buying. This time, he was smarter, controlled costs, and took a steady and pragmatic approach.

But with the outbreak of the pandemic, all plans fell through...

Having gone bankrupt twice and started from scratch twice, he thought the third time would be different, and that setbacks wouldn't defeat him.

As a result, he time-traveled and became another bankrupt person.

Fate played a cruel joke on him: no matter how many bodies you change, your soul remains the same.

If you can't swim, changing swimming pools won't help.

Lin Ge is looking for something he didn't have in his past life, and something he can't obtain through conventional means in this life.

He needs a massive amount of information.

It's not the kind of macro-level information you see in newspapers, like whether Reagan will be elected or whether manufacturing will be outsourced.

He knew all of this because he was a time traveler.

What he needs is micro-level information, in the present moment, and in his surroundings!

What exactly is the attitude of the prison guards?

Which prisoners can help him?

What other secrets or loopholes does this prison hold?

Are there any politicians nearby who can provide him with external support?

This information is hidden in people's minds, behind documents and numbers, and in those corners that will never be written into reports.

The average person's brain cannot remember everything.

Even if he is a time traveler, his memories are not an infinitely large hard drive.

Lin Ge began to recall the details of his time travel.

That day, he was staying up all night in his apartment looking at a business plan when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his heart, and then everything went black.

When he woke up, he was lying on the floor of a cheap bar in Tulsa, his mouth full of the smell of alcohol, his mind filled with decades of another person's memories.

But there was one detail he couldn't figure out during that awakening process.

For a fleeting moment, between darkness and light, he saw a ray of light.

The light shone on him, and it felt as if something had opened a hole in his brain, allowing a flood of information to pour in.

He initially thought it was a hallucination from his near-death experience.

But now he can sit peacefully in this dilapidated office, listening to the snoring and murmurs coming from the distant prison cells.

He began to wonder... if that light had left something for him.

Lingo closed his eyes, trying to recall the feeling of receiving the information.

He pondered for a long time, his mind like an old radio being slowly tuned.

After a while, fragmented images began to appear in my mind.

Lin Ge saw a woman's face in the image, and he was quite certain he didn't recognize her.

Golden hair, dark brown eyes, and fine lines at the corners of her eyes...

With a whoosh, the screen disappeared.

"This is……"

Lin Ge's heart raced; he was certain that it wasn't a memory from his past or present life.

He didn't know what it was, but he was certain that there was something else going on with him.

"Please, let me see it more clearly."

He closed his eyes again, and this time he tried a different method.

It's like pushing open a door to let things from the outside in.

This time, he heard some faint sounds, as if someone was whispering in his ear, but there was a thick wall between them.

"...I don't want to do this anymore...I should have left a long time ago..."

"...Who did he think he was...a newcomer..."

"...The contract...will not be renewed at the end of the month..."

The sound lasted for a moment and then disappeared.

Lin Ge opened his eyes and found his hands trembling with excitement.

Although I haven't figured it out yet, this feeling isn't an illusion.

That light truly gave him something.

This seems to be a kind of ability to read other people's surface consciousness?

No, those fragments are too blurry to determine what he has.

……

At 5:30 a.m., there was some activity in the prison.

Lin Ge stood up from his chair, stretched his stiff neck, and then walked out of the office.

He spent the entire night trying to figure out what had suddenly appeared on his body.

This made him somewhat discouraged. Was he under too much pressure and experiencing auditory hallucinations?

Only one safety light was on in the corridor, casting a long shadow on the floor in a dim yellow light.

"Da da~"

His footsteps echoed in the empty corridor, sounding as if someone was following him.

When he entered the kitchen, Mrs. Martha was already there.

She looked more tired than yesterday, with deep bags under her eyes, and her hair was haphazardly tied into a bun, with a few strands of gray hair escaping from the bun and falling across her forehead.

When Lin Ge saw her, she was holding a kettle and pouring water into a large pot.

"What are you doing here so early?" Mrs. Martha turned around and glanced at him.

"I can't sleep."

Ringo casually sat down at a stainless steel table and watched Mrs. Martha begin preparing breakfast.

"It's a good thing you can't sleep."

As Mrs. Martha spoke, she placed the pot on the stove and turned on the fire:

"That means you still have a brain. Those who fall asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow are either heartless or have already given up."

What time did you get up?

"4:30."

Mrs. Martha took a bag of bread from the refrigerator:

"I need to prepare breakfast for seventy people, and four hours isn't enough."

As Lin Ge watched her busy figure, he recalled the face that had flashed through his mind last night.

That's clearly not Mrs. Martha, so who could it be?

He picked up a piece of bread, swallowed it whole with hot water, and casually asked:

"Mrs. Martha, how long have you been here?"

"It's been more than three years."

She took a knife from a drawer and began cutting bread.

"After my husband died, he came into the picture. His name was Carlos. He worked in the oil field and died in an accident."

"The insurance company refused to pay compensation, saying that the accident was caused by my husband's improper operation."

"The medical bills weren't reimbursed because the hospital the ambulance took him to wasn't covered by the policy."

This familiar plot is typical of Elizabeth Isaac.

Ringo had chewed half of his bread but hadn't swallowed it because he suddenly saw two words appear above Mrs. Martha's head:

"sad"