"I must be crazy, I must have watched too much anime, my brain is hallucinating." Chris repeated to himself constantly, not even noticing that he was already going 120 km/h. Driving at 120 on a road with a speed limit of 60 meant that another 3,000 (currency) fine was inevitable.
But he couldn't care about these things anymore. It seemed like only the current speed could make his memories not keep up with him, and let him forget that bloody scene. But the more he wanted to forget, the more clearly the brutal scene would appear in his mind. Especially the smug look on that young police officer's face, it was still vivid.
Looking through the rearview mirror, Chris noticed the bloodstains on the rear window. He quickly turned on the wipers, frantically pressing the windshield washer button, washing away the bloodstains little by little.
However, even though the bloodstains were already invisible, in Chris's mind, those bloodstains were still like a nightmare, lingering in his heart.
He felt that he was probably sick, and needed to find a psychologist to treat him. He wondered if psychological clinics were expensive, Chris had never been to one before. He had heard that many psychologists were liars, and had no effect at all.
Chris's thoughts were all over the place.
But before that, he had to wash his car thoroughly.
"It's okay, no one will come looking for trouble. The surveillance has clearly recorded that it was the gang who did it, it has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you." Constantly giving himself psychological suggestions, Chris's mood slowly calmed down.
He slowly lowered his speed back down to 60, and his pounding heart also returned to its normal rhythm. Everything seemed to have returned to its original track, and he went home after work as usual.
Perhaps because today's events were too intense, Chris, with his taut nerves, felt that his peaceful life was different from usual.
Woof woof—
The neighbor's dog barked. This was very normal. A long time ago, he had known that his neighbor had a dog, but he had never seen what it looked like. The barking that never stopped at any time was a little annoying. He had once complained about it, and it did become quiet for a few days. He hadn't heard a single bark.
But today, when the dog started barking again, Chris couldn't help but wonder if it was because it had smelled the blood on his car.
He was a little irritable, praying that his neighbor wouldn't report him to the police because of this.
Luckily, even after he opened the door of his home, no police officers suddenly rushed in to arrest him.
Tiredly taking off his shoes, he saw two or three pairs of unfamiliar leather shoes scattered on the floor of the shoe rack. Chris sighed, and tidied up the leather shoes one by one.
"It's probably my sister's colleagues again." He muttered softly. He glanced at his sister's tightly shut door with some helplessness. His sister's new job was too busy, not only did she often have to work overtime, she would occasionally bring her colleagues home.
Every time there were extra people in the house, Chris would feel very uncomfortable. Even when he locked himself in his room and played games alone, he would often make mistakes.
"I hope they leave soon." After changing his shoes, Chris went to the kitchen and randomly made something to eat. Snacks were scattered all over the kitchen, and there were some small sugar pills he didn't recognize.
Chris didn't like sweets. Compared to sweets, he preferred the Mabo Tofu, that was praised as being something divine in anime. He had heard that the food was both spicy and numbing, and that eating it was like a volcano erupting, but he had never eaten real Mabo Tofu before. The few times he went to Chinese restaurants because he was curious, they were all run by the locals.
The restaurants mostly sold fast food products like chicken wraps, the tortillas were very dry, the chicken was very tough, and the price was much more expensive than regular fast food restaurants. Chris had a strong urge to complain that they were defrauding consumers, but since he never liked to cause trouble, he felt that it was better to play a few more games than waste time doing that.
Thinking about playing games, all of Chris's irritation from the day disappeared.
He had a high-performance computer that was still in decent condition, and later, after saving money, he bought a PS4. His salary wasn't high, after spending the money he spent on games, he could barely maintain his life, but that was all.
These two devices were almost his entire life, satisfying most of his entertainment needs.
After locking himself in his small room, Chris felt that the entire world was quiet. There was no endless work, no picky bosses, no gangs, and no chaos. What kept him company was only the beautiful 2D world.
He had a secret he didn't dare tell anyone. Compared to those mature, older women, he preferred those pure and beautiful little girls. Chris knew very well that he wasn't a lolicon, and he wouldn't like little girls in the 3D world. He simply yearned for beauty, and would even grab his keyboard and start ranting when other netizens made vulgar remarks.
He wanted to protect a place of pure innocence, he wanted to find a sanctuary for his soul.
Just like the protectors of sacred grounds in those Shenzhou novels, dedicating her entire life to the sanctuary she protected.
"Why am I having so many strange thoughts today?" Realizing that his mind was overly active, Chris quickly shook his head. He turned on his game console and started playing a casual game.
Perhaps because of his restlessness, he only managed to get second to last place even in a casual game.
Then he turned on his computer, went online and played Magic: The Gathering against people in the arena for a while. Unsurprisingly, he was completely destroyed.
Frustrated by his repeated failures in gaming, Chris felt annoyed, and began searching online for newly released manga.
A manga called [Shenzhou Broken Sword Chronicles] (Saga of the Shattered Swords) entered his vision. The manga was entirely in Chinese. Chris's Chinese wasn't very good, but he had been browsing online for a long time, and there was no shortage of instant translation software.
"Qian… how do you read this character? Qian Yu? No, it should be Qian Jue (Thousand Judgements)" This was the problem with instant translation, many rare characters couldn't be directly translated, especially in works from Shenzhou, those were even more difficult to understand.
The manga was very short, only a few pages. It seemed like it was newly released. But Chris liked the art style, he liked that wuxia vibe.
Even after trying every form of entertainment, the burning energy in his heart still wouldn't go away.
Why was this? Was it because he hadn't found the right game?
But he usually avoided those violent games, pure violence only made him feel disgusted.
Just try it.
He muttered to himself.
He opened a game called ATG5. As he controlled the main character in the game and started slaughtering everyone, a smile finally appeared on his face.