Chapter 155: The Trolley Problem
The scene of that day reappeared in Jess's mind.
The drunk girl stumbled down the street.
She had blonde hair and a fair face that was flushed with drunkenness, and the smell of alcohol was rising from her body.
In the alley behind her, a few thugs were watching her and were ready to make a move.
Seeing this scene, Jess, who had just got off work, stopped.
She looked at the blonde.
That drunken look didn't seem fake.
Jess knew there was a bar nearby. The girls working in the bar usually had to work very late, until four or five in the morning, when the customers had left or gone to sleep, and they could go home after work.
During the day, they may not even be able to sleep in, and have to get up very early and become students, teachers, or even mothers again.
Being a hostess is a risky part-time job. Because you have to accompany customers and drink a lot of alcohol, if you encounter a difficult customer, things can get bad.
And after finally getting rid of the difficult customers, they may encounter danger because of leaving get off work too late - just like what the girl is facing now.
A drunk girl meets a gangster in a dark alley late at night. The ending of the story should be self-explanatory, right?
Jess watched the scene coldly.
The same thing is happening everywhere in this world, yesterday, today, tomorrow... every day, such things are happening continuously.
Jess had no obligation to prevent this from happening.
Although she thought so, Jessie still paused and walked towards that place.
She glared at the thugs who were ready to make a move and lifted the girl's arms.
"Tell me where you live," she commanded.
The bar girl leaned her dizzy head on the shoulder of the woman who suddenly came over. Her brain, which was almost blacking out from the drunkenness, finally felt a sense of crisis: "Huh...? Why am I telling you this..."
"Because if you don't tell me now, you're going to end up as two idiots," Jess said sharply, her words bluntly. "And then you're going to wake up in some stranger's room or on some garbage dump the next morning, waiting for someone to call the police, idiot."
"Then three or four months later, you find yourself pregnant, and you touch your belly, which shows no sign of pregnancy, and look for black clinics everywhere to seek an abortion. I believe that your alcohol-soaked brain still remembers some basic common sense: abortion is illegal in our state, and you can't go to a regular hospital for an abortion."
"Think about how much money you have to save to have them abort the baby in your belly? Idiot, that's what you can earn by working part-time at a bar for at least a month."
After she scolded her, the girl's expression changed from confused to a little more sober.
A gust of cold wind blew, making her shiver. She whispered "thank you", wrapped her coat tighter around her, and told Jessie her address.
Jess listened to the address and thought expressionlessly: That place is even dirtier than this stupid place they are in now.
"The place is a little hard to find, how about——"
"—I know where it is."
Jess interrupted her.
She turned around and glared at the hooligans who were hesitating whether to come forward, which drew a series of regretful "tsk" sounds.
She took the woman's arm and walked silently in the dark alley.
When she safely delivered the woman to her destination, Jessie heard her murmur "thank you" again.
She waved her hand impatiently.
"Please, be smart." She seemed to want to lean against the door frame, but she really hated the filthy environment here. In the end, she just pinched her bag and looked down at the girl condescendingly, "If you continue to be as stupid as you are now, you won't be healthy for long in this shabby place."
She watched as the woman stumbled onto the bed—the door to her apartment was right next to the bed. Dirty clothes were scattered on the bed, and sharp-eyed Jess spotted a cigarette butt at the foot of the bed.
The bathroom was shared by all floors. Seeing that the woman was too drunk to get up, Jie Qian was reluctant to ask her to stand up and wash up.
She gripped the door handle, took another look at the unlit room, and wordlessly helped the woman close the door.
"I can't live for long like this..." she muttered to herself.
After a while, he smiled self-deprecatingly: "This is our fate."
In this fucked-up world, weaklings like them, if they don't desperately try to grab onto something, will eventually be worn down and left with nothing.
Jessie turned and left the dilapidated residential building.
She groped her way in the dark, bypassing one obstacle after another.
It wasn't too late yet. At this point in time, the city's nocturnal creatures had just awakened and were in a state of commotion.
Fortunately, Jess was already familiar with their daily habits, and she herself was even one of these "nocturnal creatures".
So even though it was late, Jess still walked at a leisurely pace.
This sense of relief lasted until she heard footsteps closely following behind her.
No matter how fast she walked, the footsteps followed her like a shadow, sticking to her and refusing to let her go.
Shit, she thought.
He did one good thing for eight hundred years, but ended up getting himself thrown in jail.
It doesn't matter. She is familiar with the terrain here. As long as she turns the corner, she will reach the more prosperous neighborhood...
At that time, she had the confidence to completely get rid of him.
Unfortunately, the person following her seemed to be more familiar with the terrain than she was.
Before she turned the corner, a hand with cotton soaked in anesthetic was tightly covered over her mouth and nose.
When she opened her eyes, she was here.
The dim, damp basement was isolated from the outside world, without sunlight, and without the concept of day and night...
Only the cruel Jack the Ripper.
Jess resented God more than once.
Since human beings were created to live on the earth, why should they be divided into different classes, let them hurt each other, and let the strong enslave the weak?
Who is responsible for all this?
Let her live such a humble life, even worse than a dog?
She had been struggling with all her might to survive, so why didn't God let her go and let her fall into the hands of this cruel murderer?
She harbored resentment, which was somewhat mitigated by Jack's occasional gentle treatment and became increasingly difficult to control with the appearance of Jane Athena.
Jane Athena was the most perfect girl she had ever seen.
Enthusiastic, lively, confident, capable, gentle, kind... She doesn't have to do anything, just stand there and she is already looked upon as useless by comparison.
So, that night, she deliberately made some noise and put the blame on Jane Athena.
"Mr. Jack, she did it!"
She could still recall every detail of that day, including how Jane Athena looked at her with a hint of sadness in her eyes, the broken bowls and the mess on the floor, and her own trembling hands behind her back.
Jane Athena knew what had happened, but she was extremely obedient and let Jack take her away and drown her. She even cooperated with Jack and cursed at him, angering the man.
Jessie White didn't understand the existence of such people.
Could it be that she has never been hurt by anyone, so even when facing false accusations and death, she still does not harbor any resentment?
Unlike her, who was struggling ugly in this world, and still wanted to try her best to live one more day, even if it meant living without dignity.
"I just want to live!"
Amid the sound of rushing water and Lin Xi's quiet eyes, her tears continued to flow, and she almost shouted these words in a hoarse voice.
The water slowly came up to their knees.
Lin Xi felt a little uncomfortable because of her wet skirt.
She touched her hair in distress, thinking that if the water came up, the scattered, wet hair would make her very uncomfortable.
She looked at Jessie and patted her shoulder: "The first thing to do when facing life's problems is to distinguish between friends and enemies..." (Note 1)
"My friend, you just haven't figured out your primary problem."
"Neither Jane Athena nor I are your enemies. The real enemy is on the first floor, above our heads, the guy who opened the floodgates."
For Lin Xi, the real enemy is hidden deeper.
After Jack the Ripper, besides the word "white" that he said, there may be another person, or even a group of people, who are observing her reaction and testing her through this incident - that is the enemy she really needs to face.
In order to see their faces more clearly, Lin Xi would rather let her hair and skirt get wet temporarily.
Jess burst into tears uncontrollably.
Lin Xi discerned her emotions and found that the girl was really sad.
"All right, all right, little Jessie."
Lin Xi hugged her and rubbed her back soothingly. "You just answered my question. According to the principle of equivalent exchange, I should tell you my secret, right?"
"Aren't you curious?"
"Hmm, how did I make the things in my ears disappear? If you weren't curious about this, I'd be frustrated, okay?"
Jess sobbed, "I don't fucking want to know... I'm going to die here!"
"Well, since you're about to die here, you should be more curious about this!"
"Scientists all have the belief in pursuing the truth, and you should also have the confidence to pursue the truth."
Jess: "I'm not a scientist! Besides, damn... scientists are all rich..."
Noah in Lin Xi's ear: "...To some extent, Miss Jie Xi is right."
“Most scientists come from middle-class or higher families.”
Lin Xi: "...That's not the point!"
Noah: "Ms. Lin, I've collected so much information about human society, but I still have doubts about its structure..."
Jess was still crying: "No, this is the point for me! Wuuwuwu... If I were a rich person, I wouldn't be so unlucky!"
Lin Xi: “Ahhh, Noah, my friend in my ear, do you really want to discuss American social problems with me under such circumstances?”
Jess stopped crying a little. "W-what? So, you really have a friend in your ears? Do you really have a split personality?"
Noah: "Ms. Lin, calculations show that discussing this kind of issue helps distract attention. By the way, it's not just an American social problem."
Lin Xi: "Dear, that's not split personality. What I just said is that I clearly have schizophrenia..." (Note 2)
Jess: "So you really do have schizophrenia!"
Lin Xi: ...
"No...it was actually a joke..."
She only has one person, one mouth and a pair of ears. Don't make it difficult for her by making her chat with two people at the same time!
It's as if she really has some mental illness!
"You really don't want to know?" Lin Xi refused to give up.
Jessie stopped crying for a moment.
Then she suddenly reached out and reached for Lin Xi's ear.
Lin Xi did not resist at all and let the girl touch the communicator quietly nestled in her cochlea.
Jessie brought the communicator in front of her eyes and looked at it carefully using the light coming through the "kitchen" door.
……can't read.
The hard communicator was made of a special material, and Jess couldn't even tell whether it was metal or plastic.
But whatever it was, it was something Jess had never been able to touch before.
Just like the tablets, touch-screen phones, bracelets and electronic products on display in street windows, this thing must be similar. In Jess's eyes, these things are collectively called useless high-tech products that only appear on those fashionable and wealthy people and are their topic of discussion.
"Huh." Her tone became a little surprised. "So, you really do have 'friends in your ears'?"
Lin Xi spread her hands and said, "It's genuine, Miss White."
Jie Qian glanced at Lin Xi.
This man still had that annoying confidence on his face.
She held the hard object next to her ear and tried to put it in, but it didn't go in because she used the wrong method. In the end, Lin Xi helped her put it in.
"Hello?"
She called out tentatively.
Noah was silent for a while, unsure of Lin Xi's meaning, but finally responded, "Hello, Miss White."
“Wow.”
Jessie White exclaimed.
"You're not a policeman, are you?" she asked impatiently. "Those policemen are so stupid and can't be trusted at all..."
"With all due respect, Ms. White, based on common sense, there's a 90% chance that the communicator in the victim's ear belongs to a police officer. Your remarks are likely to make the officers uncomfortable. Considering the considerable power enjoyed by American police, such inappropriate remarks could put you in danger."
Jie Qian curled her lips and said, "Who cares! I like to gamble, and I'm going to bet that you are the 10% chance."
Noah shut up.
It really is that ten percent.
"...You can call me 'the friend in your ear', just like Ms. Lin."
Noah considered it and spoke cautiously.
There are not enough clues to tell whether Lin Xi wants Jessie White to know her identity.
So he gave Jess a vague title and hoped that Miss White would not ask any further questions.
Fortunately, as the AI wished, Jessie White did not ask any further questions, perhaps out of her instinct to seek benefits and avoid harm in troublesome situations, or perhaps because her curiosity was not that strong.
The water gradually reached their waists.
Jie Qian listened quietly to the sound of water and returned the communicator to Lin Xi: "Your friend, I'm returning it to you."
Not knowing what she was thinking about, she started to cry again.
Damn it. She cursed fiercely in her heart.
Even when she died, she had a friend by her side - even if that friend was not by her side, she was not alone because of the communicator.
And what about me? Nothing!
I can't even tell the difference between split personality disorder and schizophrenia!
Trash, idiot, fool!
She raised her sleeves and wiped her tears.
Lin Xi let out a sigh.
"Jessie."
"Woo, w-what are you doing?"
"When the water comes up, remember to prioritize your breathing."
"What's the meaning?"
She stopped crying, raised her head, and revealed her red eyes.
At this time, her face was a little pitiful and innocent, unlike her previous forced maturity and indifference, and the distance between them became closer.
Lin Xi shrugged.
"What it means is, just try to survive and don't worry about me."
Jie Qian gritted her teeth and said, "Even if you don't tell me, I will do it!"
"I don't need your fucking pity!"
Her glare seemed unthreatening against the backdrop of the tear stains on her cheeks.
However, Lin Xi still raised his hands and made a false gesture of surrender: "Hey, I definitely don't mean to pity you!"
"It's just good for both you and me."
For some reason, Jessie White's original plan was to pull Lin Xi down when the water level rose and there was not enough oxygen for both of them to breathe, so that she could buy more time to live; but when Lin Xi took the initiative to ask her not to worry about him and to prioritize her own survival, Jessie didn't want to do that anymore.
So cheap.
She cursed herself in her heart.
After so many years and having learned so many lessons, why can't you get rid of this pitiful sympathy and unnecessary pity?
"Then what will you do?" She sneered, "You haven't been held in a pool by... Mr. Jack, have you? You don't know how painful it is to be suffocated to the point of near death, right?"
"You are a young lady who has never suffered!"
"When I drag you down, don't regret it. If you hold on to my ankles and don't let go... I'll definitely kick you real hard!"
Facing the emotional and aggressive Jie Qian, Lin Xi said "Ouch", smiled, and pointed to his ears:
"Don't worry about me. Don't forget, I still have friends in my ears."
Noah spoke at the right time: “Your friends in the ear and your friends outside are always ready to serve you, Miss Lin.”
Lin Xi smiled happily.
"Who the hell is worried about you!"
Jess stamped her feet in anger.
Although her weak body and the resistance of the water soaking her lower body made her action look more like a coquettish act than anger.
The water gradually reached their chests.
Lin Xi leaned against the glass and looked down through it.
The fluorescent bomb is not very visible from this angle.
But she still saw it in the reflection on the glass.
"How much longer?" she asked.
Noah and Jess responded at the same time:
"Six minutes."
"Three minutes."
The former was said by Noah through the communicator, and the latter was said by Jess to her.
Six minutes was the remaining time Noah calculated would be needed to analyze the bomb remote control, and Jess was referring to the time it would take for the water to reach their heads.
"Three minutes?" Lin Xi raised an eyebrow and asked back.
"I told you I'd count down."
Jess raised her eyes and glanced at the water outlet on top of the glass device. "If you don't tell your friend in your ear to think of a solution within three minutes, we're really going to drown."
“Death is nothing at all ~” (Note 3)
Lin Xi elegantly tucked her scattered hair behind her ears and sang softly: "Play, smile, think of me, pray for me."
"Let my name be ever the household word that it always was..."
(Play, laugh, think of me, bless me. Let my name be a household name forever, as it always has been...)
“…There is absolute and unbroken continuity.”
(…Life continues in an endless cycle.)
Jie Qian listened quietly to Lin Xi's poem and said through gritted teeth, "At a time like this, don't recite poems that are only read at funerals!"
Lin Xi: "This is an advance rehearsal!"
"Little Jessie, think about it, who else will mourn for you besides yourself?"
After saying this, Lin Xi shook his head and continued to recite the poem.
Jessie White's breath hitched.
She couldn't deny that Lin Xi was right.
Now, everyone who cared about her and everyone she cared about were dead, leaving her alone. She should have been free of worries, but she was still struggling to live because of some inexplicable obsession.
There were many people who would mourn Jane Athena, and now the guy in front of him who seemed to have a mental illness seemed to have no shortage of people mourning him either, except him...
Just like the skinned rat that died at Jack's hands, it was dead, smelly and rotten. People who saw it would just stay away from it and no one would feel sorry for it.
She felt the water level rising as Lin Xi recited poetry.
Now it's up to the neck.
The cold water touched her chin.
Now she can still breathe while standing, but in a while, she will have to tilt her head back to get in touch with the air; after a while, she will probably have to stand on tiptoe to get in touch with the oxygen that is necessary for human life.
She watched Lin Xi leaning against the glass and reciting poetry seemingly at ease, and couldn't help but think of what she had read in the newspaper a long time ago.
"People react differently to things that are upsetting."
"Some people will experience rapid heartbeats and shortness of breath, while others will experience uncontrollable cold hands and feet and trembling all over."
"There are also some special people who may have good qualities that prevent them from expressing overly intense emotions, so they express them in a more restrained way."
"For example, they suddenly speak faster and say something out of the ordinary."
...Could this guy be the kind of person described in the newspaper?
Jess watched her suspiciously.
Although the water was now up to her mouth, she was no longer as frustrated as when she had released the water.
Anyway, I only have one life left, so I'll live one minute at a time. Who cares?
Before others die, they will have a revolving door and recall the good experiences from their childhood to the present, but she has no good experiences worth remembering at all, so what is there for her to recall?
It’s better to think about meaningless and useless things to make yourself appear more unique.
Lin Xi, who was sitting opposite her, also felt the rising water level about to overflow his lips, and the repetitive chanting of poems finally stopped.
All that was left was the sound of water pouring down relentlessly.
She stood on tiptoe: "It's deep water now, little Jie Xi~"
Jie Qian glared at her and stood on tiptoe, trying to show her mouth. "Deep water area, what the hell? Ugh... Do you fucking think we are swimming in a swimming pool?"
Lin Xi responded with a giggle: "Who said it wasn't, little Jie Xi!"
"Well, let me jump up - ha ha ha, we, uh, are now in the deep water of life -"
————
(Note 1: Paraphrased from Mao: "The primary problem of the Chinese revolution is to distinguish clearly between friends and enemies.")
(Note 2: Split personality disorder is multiple personality disorder, and schizophrenia is more common. The most obvious symptoms are auditory and visual hallucinations.)
(Note 3: Death Is Nothing At All, by Henry Scott-Holland.)
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