When alcohol and gas burned, the fire would be very quiet.
Only when wood burned would there be this kind of crackling sound.
"Hello? Is there anything I can help you with? "
Ten seconds later, Chen Ge saw that there was still no response from the other end of the phone, so he tried to ask.
The wine bottle fell, and something seemed to have spilled out. The fire burned even brighter.
"Hello! Is anyone there? "
The call was answered, which meant that there had to be someone standing near the phone.
"Could it be a fire? Are you okay? Please tell me your location immediately! "
Chen Ge became nervous and shouted.
The fire was still burning, and there was another voice in the rising flames.
"Can I talk to you for a while?"
His voice was pleasant, but his throat was hoarse.
"Sure, I don't have anything to do at the moment." Chen Ge was worried that the man would not speak. As long as they could communicate, he would be able to get useful information. "Then what do you want to talk about?"
After a long time, he replied, "I don't know."
He spoke very slowly like he was thinking.
Chen Ge heard the difference in the man's tone, but he did not dare to speak carelessly, afraid that he might agitate the man.
"Why don't we think about something happy?"
"There are many happy things. Everyone is happy, and I know I should act happy, but I just can't."
"Relax, then how about we think about some good memories?"
"Memories?" The man was silent again, but the voice on the other end of the phone became clearer. "When I was young, my parents often argued for the sake of survival."
When he heard the first sentence, Chen Ge felt that something was wrong. This was not a good memory. He wanted to interrupt the man, but the man on the other end did not seem to have any intention of stopping.
"My mother was very strict with me, and she wanted me to be a successful child. I have always been a good child, a bit shy, and I did not like to talk.
"In primary school, my studies were not bad, but in six years, I only got one certificate for being a good student.
"In junior high, my English was very poor, and my grades were average. In the third year, my mother found me an English teacher to tutor me. After school, I still have to go to class. By 9: 30 pm, it will be 10 pm when I get home. "
"The teacher's teaching is very good. When I was recruited, I scored more than 90 points in English. Although I didn't do well in Mathematics and Chinese, my overall score was still in the top ten of the class. I think I scored more than 560 points."
"With this result, you can apply to all the high schools except for City No.1 High School."
"Actually, I don't understand. Why did you label the child at that time?"
"City No.1 High School is the best high school in the city, and I'm 20 points behind. If I want to go to No.1 High School, I'll have to pay 18,000 yuan more."
"My parents' monthly salary is more than four thousand yuan. In order to give me a better starting point, they paid more money for me to go to Yi Gao."
"Am I grateful?"
"I don't know either. Maybe I don't want to feel guilty, but I worked so hard for the first three months. I was worried that I would be exposed, worried that others would know that you didn't get in with your own strength, that you got in through the back door."
"Actually, other people wouldn't care that much. Maybe I'm a very proud person, or maybe I don't want to be different from them."
"In the entrance exam, my score was above average. This made me happy, and I started to work harder."
"But during the midterm exam, my score slipped to below average."
"I couldn't find the reason. Perhaps there was a problem with my study method, or perhaps I didn't work hard enough."
"I gave it my all."
"When the final exam results came out, my ranking slipped again, and I fell to the bottom."
"A person with excellent grades turned into a bad student. His identity has changed, but there is still a process of psychological adaptation."
"When you start to adapt psychologically, you'll change from a good student to a bad one."
"I'm a bit strange myself. I'm one of those bad students with high self-esteem and pride."
"When the arts and science classes were split, I met someone I liked. It's hard to describe that feeling, but I'm happy to see her."
"She was a very good student, and she was very hardworking. She would always go to class early in the morning.
"The key to our classroom was with the class monitor. I would wake up early every morning to help her open the door before the class monitor came."
"There were many similar things. When she went to the canteen for lunch, I would stand in the corridor with my English book, memorizing words. I wanted to wait for her to come back and watch her walk from the canteen into the education block."
"It's embarrassing. I memorized words for a whole semester, but my English score was only around thirty."
"My results got worse and worse, and I was always in the bottom ten. When I reached the third year of high school, when everyone was fighting for their lives, my interest was to read and write."
"I read all kinds of extracurricular books, web novels, magazines, sci-fi, and suspense novels.
"The more I read, the more a world would appear in my mind, a world that I imagined myself. It was also the first time I created an author's account online and tried to write."
"There were still a hundred days until the high school exam. My friends from the night market returned to their studies, and I sneaked out to write my story through the surveillance cameras.
"During the hundred-day rally, the school leader gave a speech on stage. I looked at him and thought about the books I liked, the authors I liked. I wanted to be like them. To shape a world that many people would like. "
"After the high school exam, there are two ways to interpret this."
"First, it's over, and second, it's over for me."
"I only passed the cut-off point for junior college. Compared to those who were not satisfied and wanted to repeat their studies, I decided to use this last chance to confess."
"It was very real. I didn't say anything, but the girl I liked was with the class monitor."
"I went to get a haircut. As the only junior college student in the city's top high school, I had to maintain my composure."
"I didn't plan to contact them anymore. Perhaps it's because people with high self-esteem don't like other people's sympathy."
"Even if I'm a bad student, I have to be a bad student with a dream."
"After I entered university, writing became my everything. I planned to create a work that combined all the elements from ancient to modern times."
"I read many books and knew a little about everything. I submitted my work to a website."
"The first contract I signed was at that time. 300,000 words were published, but no one read it."
"Then, I submitted to some random websites, but they didn't want it."
"In the second semester of my junior year, some students started to get busy with their teaching qualifications. I went to a place furthest from home for my internship."
"The factory my father worked for closed down, and the boss was sentenced to ten years for illegal fund-raising. My mother was the only one left at home, and her salary was less than two thousand."
"So I went to do my internship. The place furthest from home had the highest salary, and I could see the sea."
"Thirty-three students from my school interned at that company. Because it was a frontline job, the temperature was above forty degrees, and they had to come into contact with copper mud and kerosene frequently. After a month, only sixteen of them stayed.
"Due to professional reasons, I was transferred to another department. The work was not easy, but it was acceptable."
"Slowly, I got used to it. The leader thought that even though I didn't like to talk, I was honest and serious, so I became a permanent employee."
"I worked eight hours a day, one day off a week. After I got used to this life, I started to reflect. Was I going to work here for the rest of my life? As a worker in the new era, how could I not have dreams? "
"I started writing again. I worked eight hours a day and wrote 4,000 words at night. 4,000 words that no one read, no one liked, and no one scolded me."
"Nothing would change if I didn't write. Writing, even though it was tiring, at least I enjoyed it."
"Perhaps naivety favors those who work hard. There were not many readers, but the girl I liked in high school suddenly appeared on WeChat."
"When I was in my second year, I heard from another male classmate that she had broken up with the class monitor, but I was too obsessed with writing my own sci-fi story, so I didn't pay much attention to it.
"After that, we kept in touch. I went to visit her during my annual break and wandered around her school."
"The difference between junior college and university was only one word, so I didn't think the difference was that big. But after she started her master's and PhD, the difference was huge."
"I can't remember when I confessed, and I don't know what I said at the time, but in any case, they were not suitable."
"It wasn't that bad, right?"
"After that, I continued to work and write until the book reached the shelves."
"Still, no one read it. My monthly fee was about six hundred, and six hundred was for full attendance.
"After that, I searched for my own book and found many pirated websites. I was furious. I went to report and file complaints. I tried my best to add the QQ account of the person on the pirated website.
"There were even readers' comments on that site, and it was even livelier than my original book. After I added that person, I told him to remove my book from the shelves immediately, or else I would use all sorts of methods to defend my rights.
"He ignored me.
"I went to other pirated websites and realized many of them were the same person's QQ account, so I tried to reason with him.
"He still didn't reply. In the end, as a proud student, I begged someone for help for the first time.
"As the original author, I told the person who started the pirated website, 'I won't ask you to remove my book from the shelves anymore, but don't update at the same time as me. Can you wait for three days after my original chapter is released before you update? If you don't agree after three days, how about one day? I'm begging you. "
"I even posted in the comments section of the pirated website, saying that I only earned six hundred a month, and if people liked it, please support the original.
"Someone replied to me, saying that I was trying to act pitiful, that I was an idiot, that I was poisoned by my writing, that no god would care about such things.
"The person who started the pirated website did not reply to me, and I did not reply to the pirated readers either. After exiting the browser, I continued to write the four thousand words for the day.
"Writing four thousand words a day and updating for a month was the reward for full attendance — six hundred. This six hundred was my reward for my hard work.
"About a week later, I made a mistake when I was operating the polishing machine, and the tooling flew out and hit my hand.
"The middle finger of my right hand was broken, and it was only connected by two layers of skin.
"It happened at two in the afternoon, and I dealt with it at eight at night. I returned to the dormitory.
"I turned on the computer and used seven fingers to write the four thousand words for the day. Four thousand words a day, and I kept updating. That was the reward for full attendance for the month.
"I wrote until one-thirty at night, and I had written three thousand words. Then, I collapsed on the keyboard and cried like a dog.
"What was I doing?
"Later, when I had a break, I went back to my hometown. The girl wanted to treat me to dinner, so we went to watch a movie.
"The movie I watched that day was Big Fish Begonia. I saw the male supporting character sacrifice his life for the female lead, but the female lead still ended up with the Kun.
"I seemed to see myself, and I let go of everything.
"I placed the gift that I had carefully prepared on the overpass, and I squatted on the road until late at night. The passersby probably thought that I was weird.
"After I returned home, I went back to Zhuhai the next day.
"Work and writing. At the time, I didn't even know what kept me going.
"Then I wrote a new book, and after half a year, God finally rewarded the hardworking, and I had the happiest time of my life.
"I met a female reader who was five years younger than me.
"At the time, she was at school, and I was at work. We traveled across half of China.
"When I went to find her for the first time, the typhoon came, and the plane couldn't take off. It was delayed for a long time.
"Coincidentally, the typhoon hadn't left, and there was another one coming. All of this was real.
"At the time, she told me that if I couldn't make it that day, we wouldn't be together anymore.
"The most coincidental thing happened. During the short period between the two typhoons, the plane took off.
"This should be my first time in a relationship."
"Everything that we've done with each other is a first for me."
"The first time holding hands, the first time going to an aquarium, the first time going to an amusement park, the first time passing a Haunted House, the first time taking the subway, the first time kissing …
"This titanium alloy straight man made her worry a lot, and I even hid many of my flaws from her, like the finger that was still problematic even after it was corrected, my education background, and the book that I bragged about.
"Then I wrote a supernatural novel, and it went viral. I felt like God would not mistreat a hardworking person.
"That period of time was like a beacon of light. The bitterness was over, and the dream was just around the corner.
"It was like I could see the weakest student standing in the middle of the crowd thanking me during the hundred-day rally in high school.
"Thank you for not giving up. Finally, one day, you stood together with the authors that you once loved.
"That was the happiest time, but happy times are always short.
"Every year, the circle would choose the best newcomer. I thought my result was in the bag, but I ran into a problem.
"My book took the lead and gave out a total of more than 400,000 yuan in red packets to earn this honor."
"Of the 400,000, about 100,000 came from my readers, and the remaining 300,000 came from my own pocket. I sold my family's old house.
"During that month, I had already thought about what would happen if my book was reported to the authorities. If my book was reported and banned, I would find the problem, kill him, and then burn everything, including myself.
"Thankfully, the book was not banned, but after winning the honor, I suddenly felt like the world had darkened.
"It should be a happy thing, but I couldn't smile.
"Everyone was happy, but I was the only one who tried my best to smile.
"My dream came true, but there seemed to be something wrong with me.
"When I communicate with others, it feels like the other person's mouth is enlarging like a black hole, sucking me in.
"The people that I like and those that I'm close to reject the care that they give me.
"Something must be wrong."
The sound of the fire on the other side of the phone grew louder. It sounded like a wardrobe was being pushed over. The man's voice faded away, and Chen Ge only heard the last sentence.
"This fire is so big …"
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