Chapter 128:Choice, which I don’t have
Translator: Lionwwang Editor: Lionwwang
Is it worth?
I close my eyes, then open again, continue to look at the ceiling.
I even dare not to close my eyes. Because once I close it, it seems as if I see Jim is standing in front of me and saying to me coldly: “I’m sorry, little 5.”
Sorry?
Sorry!
I pull a smile from the corner of my mouth unconsciously, then I glance at the fat fellow’s face, saying slowly: “I… I don’t know.”
His face is calm, then he is coming up to put his cigarette in my mouth and let me take a puff. Then take it away. This action makes me feel warm.
“I feel terrible.” I squeeze these words out of my mouth and turn to look at him. For this moment, I’m feeling very weak. The real weak!
“I understand. It’s normal for you to feel bad now,” he is saying lightly. There’s a slight mockery in his eyes, “Do you believe me now?”
“What?”
“Remember what I told you the day before yesterday?” He is saying coldly, “There is no kindness in the world that you can repay with your life, except for your own parents.”
I struggle to raise my finger. He takes the cigarette for me again. This time, he simply leaves half of the cigarette on my mouth and lights another one for himself.
“I used to regard Juan as my father.” I’m clenching my teeth and looking at fat fellow. He’s stunned for a moment, eyes slowly falling on my face: “Father?”
“Yes.” I’m smiling, but my eyes are wet, “When I went to school, my parents passed away. Later, I had a master who was the first great benefactor in my life. Unfortunately, he died early and I could not repay him. Juan was the second. He gave me alomost everything. He gave me job, good payment, trainings and trusts. He looked up to me, took me as his confidant…”
I am describing calmly about what happened when I was found by Juan; about how Juan promoted me from a dish boy; about Juan asked me to practice boxing together, sauna with him, then rub his back. At that time, he was really like my father!
When I’m speaking. Fat fellow does not interrupt, just listening quietly all the time.
After listening, he is suddenly sighing, standing up and walking to the window. He is looking out with his back to me, then suddenly laughing with sarcastic: “Juan seems to have misread this time!”
I look at him, somewhat puzzling.
He is turning around and staring at me: “It’s a pity! Juan is tough enough and skilled enough to control people. Unfortunately, he misread you! He really misread you, kid!”
I still utter no word.
He flickes the cigarette ash quickly and saying lightly: “I didn’t expect you to be such a person! Kid, I was wrong on you too. You are not only persistent, but also too stubborn that you don’t know how to live or die! If Juan is smarter, hey! If I were him, I would find you directly and tell you face to face that I’m facing death. If you don’t die, I’ll be dead. If I were him, I would not send people to kill you, but to tell you these words in person. With your personality and his position in your heart, I am almost sure that you would even die for him voluntarily without sending someone to kill you!”
At this point, he is laughing as if he has seen the most ridiculous thing in the world: “The smarter the more foolish! Juan, you’ve done a stupid thing this time!”
After laughing enough, he is sighing, looking at me, thinking a while, and sighing again: “Actually… Nor can he be said to be foolish, but in his way of thinking, it is impossible to think of the possibility of voluntary sacrifice on your own initiative.”
I’m silent.
Indeed, if Juan didn’t send Jim to kill me, but of told me face to face calmly that if I don’t die, this thing would be impossible to solve, and he would die himself. In such a situation, maybe I would really die for him!
No… Not maybe, that’s almost sure!
“It is impossible for a selfish people to understand the selflessness.” Fat fellow is smiling, shaking his head and sighing, “Actually, Juan also really had no idea already. Subordinate like you, there’s no boss won’t like! There are too few loyal people nowadays. You are willing to serve him, abandon your love and life to save her daughter to escape. Such sentiment, which boss does not like? He wants your life just for self-preservation. What morality, what kindness, really at the critical moment of life and death, they just think of themselves. Nor can he be regarded as selfish, but morally speaking, it’s too chilling for you!”
I still have no words.
I just feel very disappointed.
My heart is as freeze as an ice!
With a reluctant smile, I am gasping and saying: “Thank you anyway.”
He’s shaking his hand: “I may not be a good man. I just think that it’s a pity that a boy like you would die like this. So, I just try to save your life.”
I really feel ridiculous.
Juan, I have tried my best to protect his daughter’s life, I insisted on not giving up, but he wants to kill me at last! And a complete stranger saved my life just because I pleasing to his eyes
I sigh: “Where is this place?”
“A safe place.” Fat fellow is saying with the smile, “That doctor is good, isn’t he? He just has a bad temper. He was medical soldier. Both of us used to carry guns and been to battlefields together. Now he’s a veterinarian. But the medical skill is really good. Don’t worry, if he says that you won’t die, you won’t die. That fellow’s face stinks a little bit, but his eyes are still accurate.”
Then he comes up to me, touching the bandage on my body gently, and then laughing: “Unfortunately, you have good skin and flesh, look very energetic, but you’ll have many scars in future. Within so many scars, it must be frightening to wear less clothes in summer. Finding a girlfriend is likely to be affected.”
How can I have interesting in talking about this now? I’m just smiling bitterly and saying nothing. Fat fellow raises his eyebrows and laughing: “Well, actually you don’t have to worry about it. A man living without depand on appearances! Only women live on their fucking pretty faces! Men with the ability to do everything!”
He is sitting down slowly, looking at me: “What do you want to do after that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I’m telling the truth.
I really don’t know what else I can do. I don’t know where the path is.
Originally, my goal was to protect Dorra and send the girl to Juan safely. Now this thing is over. But Juan is going to kill me. Who else can I find? Where else can I go?
“Hate?” Fat fellow looks at my face and asking suddenly.
“Hate? Not hate?” I shake my head and my neck moves the wounds. I feel very pain, “I can’t tell.”
Just then, the door is knocked outside.
Fat fellow is frowning and shouting: “Doc, knocking your ass! Don’t you have a key?”
No one answers, just still knocking.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Three knocks, two long, one short.
Fat fellow’s face is becoming heavyly at once. He is standing up slowly, glancing at me quickly, then looking at the door, muttering to himself: “Damn, this guy is really dead-hearted.”
He reaches out to search the under of my bed slowly and pulling out a pistol, looking at me coldly: “Lie still.”
He is sitting down slowly, leaning on the chair, one leg over the bed, and then sighing: “Come in, no need to knock and knock and knock, don’t bother!”
The door opens silently. First, the butcher-like doctor, with a dirty white coat, is steping backwards from outside. His hands are hanging down on both sides of his body and his eyes are looking out coldly.
Then I see a gun on his forehead! Then the arm, and finally Jim is coming in slowly from the outside. He is taking one pistol on the doctor’s forehead in one hand, and another pistol in the other hand. As soon as he enters the door, he’s just pointing the gun at me.
His face is cold and his eyes are bright. Although he doesn’t even look at me, but I feel like I’m stared at by a venomous snake.
Fat fellow is still leaning on the chair, squinting his eyes, the fat on his face is so crowded that there are only two gaps in his eye’s positions. He is looking at Jim quietly. Jim comes in and kicks the door shut. Fat fellow sighs.
The doctor does not speak, but slowly stretching out his hands, indicating that there is no sense of resistance, and then stepping back to the wall. Jim stares at him for a moment and slowly lowers the gun he is pointing at.
Then he turns to me, takes a look at me and says: “Little 5.”
To be honestly, my heart is feeling strange at the moment. Very strange!
Jim comes and pointing his gun at me. I don’t even mean to be afraid at all!
Yes, there is not even a trace of fear! I feel as if I have breathed a sigh of relief, as if I have simply felt that: That’s it.
A voice in my heart seems to say to me: “That’s it! It’s a good end.”
“Jim, do you have to do that?”
It’s the fat fellow speaking. His voice is calm. He is even looking at Jim with a bit of laziness.
“I have no choice.” Jim looks at him, the gun is still pointing at me: “If he does not die, Juan would die. If Juan dies, many people would die!”
Fat fellow doesn’t move, holding the gun in his hand, but does not lift it. Instead, he is sighing, with a trace of pity in his eyes: “Is that what Juan said? Do you really believe it?”
“I believe it!” Jim replies faintly, then slowly approaching and looking at me, “Little 5, people living, some things can’t do, some things must be done! Some things have no choice! Do you understand?”
Suddenly, a trace of anger is bursting out in my heart!
I’m jumping up from the bed! Despite the severe pains of many wounds on my body have twisted the expression on my face. I’m looking at Jim deadly. My voice is hoarse: “Jim, I don’t respose your words, can I ask you a question?”
“…” Jim hesitates, the he says, “OK, you say.”
I am laughing. I don’t even understand why I can still laugh at this time! But I’m just laughing!
“You say there is no choice, very good!” With the complicated keen-sight, I am staring at him, “Choice! Let me ask you, when you entrusted Dorra to me, did I mention to you about choice? Did I choose not to do it?! When Dorra was caught by the son of the big boss, did I choose not to cause this trouble?! I gave up my family, my job, my lover and my life for this matter. Did I choose not to do that? Did I say to you at that time that ‘I have no choice’?”
The muscles on his face are twitching.
I face his gun and continue to say coldly: “Okay, now I’m going to die. You said I have to die, so there’s no choice. When you need me to bleed, form bleed or protect myself, I chose to bleed! When it’s your turn to kill me, you say you have no choice!” Gradually the smile on my face comes out with a slight grudge, facing Jim directly, then pointing to my forehead and shouting, “Shoot here!”
The expression on his face is changing a little. He has opened the pistol insurance. But he does not pull the trigger.
Fat fellow is sitting up slowly, raising his gun and pointing at Jim: “Jim, you’ve changed.”
“I didn’t change.” Jim is shaking his head, “That’s the way it is. If he doesn’t die, Juan would die.”
“Are you fucking brain broken?!” Fat fellow is becoming angry suddenly, jumping up from his chair and staring at Jim, “Let me ask you, Juan is going to kill this kid because he would die if the kid is alive. Do you believe that? What about his daughter? Why can his daughter live?!”
“Because we can find a body to replace her.” Jim answers quickly.
“Then this kid can do the same, why not?” Fat fellow says coldly.
“Because he’s not at all reassured!” Fat fellow’s cold words, like a knife, pierceing a sheet of paper that has been covering the matter in an instant, “Because Juan is not reassured! He takes his own life seriously. The safest way for him to guarantee his life is to let the kid die! Because the dead person won’t talk, the dead peoson won’t reveal his things, the dead peoson won’t betray him! He didn’t kill the girl because that is his daughter, he can’t do it! And this boy, although he has a good relationship with him, but not his own son after all. A subordinate sacrifice is sacrificed, it doesn’t matter! That’s what matters! Is it? In the final analysis, Juan does not believe in others, he only believes in himself! The bottom line of the matter is that Juan is afraid that he will be in danger if the kid not dead. That’s just a possibility! But he can’t even tolerate the possibility that endangers him!”
Jim’s corners of eyes are trembling.
Fat fellow has said so much in one breath, then slowly sitting down and putting down the gun in his hand: “No matter this kid dead or alive, in fact, Juan is not necessarily in danger. He is just afraid that the kid will be found and betray him. In fact, you can find someone to replace him. Every day, there are so many corpses in the morgue in the hospital. You can just find one to deal with, can’t you? But Juan, for his own safety, is too careful, too cautious!”
Jim’s gun is still pointing at me.
At this time, fat fellow is speaking in an unusually calm tone with the last sentence slowly. This sentence immediately defeats Jim’s psychological defense line!
He is saying slowly word by word: “I ask you a question. If you can answer it, I’ll let you kill this kid. I won’t stop you!”
“What?”
“If…” Fat fellow’s tone is lightly, “If this time Juan’s daughter was not protected by him, but you. Encounter this situation, you guess Juan in order to ensure his own safety, will he decide to kill you too?”
Jim’s eyes seem to have a light fading slowly.
Fat fellow is smiling coldly and says: “This kid is just a mirror. Jim, can’t you see Juan’s character now? Did he really save you for the sake of righteousness? If you don’t have the ability, will he save you? Can’t you see through this kid’s thing?”
He is shaking his big head, saying quietly: “It’s a chilling thing to be seen!”
Jim puts down his pistol suddenly!
He looks at me for a moment in silence, then suddenly taking out his wallet from his pocket, taking out all the cash, piles, slowly putting on the ground, then thinking about it and putting his gun on the money too.
“Don’t use your bank card anymore. It will leave the records. Follow the records and you can be caught up.” Jim’s tone restores that mechanical indifference without any emotional fluctuations.
He looks at the doctor in the corner and says: “Doc, I’m sorry, I’ll invite you to drink some other day to make amends.”
“Lose your mother’s ghost!” The doctor scolds him coldly and then adds, “Next time you come to me for help, I’ll double charge!”
Jim doesn’t look at him, goes to the door and gives me a deep look: “Go, the farther you go the better! Never come back! Your family will be fine, I promise!” He seems to hesitate for a moment, muscles are trembling, and then clench his teeth.
He forces a smile suddenly. It’s a very bitter smile: “Little 5, I actually really admire you!”
The door is closed. After a long time, I still look at the gate somewhat blankly. It’s quiet in the room, only the stack of banknotes on the ground and the gun Jim left me!
Suddenly the doctor is jumping up, pointing at fat fellow and scolding: “Damn! Ocean, you’re fucking sick! You don’t know how dangerous Jim is?! Why don’t you shoot? You take it seriously?!”
Fat fellow also a whole face’s angry, throws the pistol away, scolding with the butter smile: “Shoot with what?! I still want to get the hell to beat you! Why there is no bullet in this gun?! I was hanging my heart just now! Damn it, if everybody’s got a gun on hands, would I be afraid of him? But I don’t have a bullet in my gun!”
The doctor stops talking and rubbing his nose after a while: “There’s no bullet in the gun? Damn, I forgot!”
Then fat fellow comes to pat me on the shoulder and pulling me out of my meditation: “Now, kid, things are over for the time being. Clean up, I’ll take you out of here now.”
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