Chapter 1 (1/2)
Chapter 1 – He Came From the Future
It was high noon on a blistering hot summer day. So long as one was outside, it would be impossible to escape the rays of sunlight coming from above.
n.o.body had the strength to speak. Even the birds were silently hiding among the leaves. Only the cicadas continued to cry out restlessly, as if they knew their lives were soon approaching an end.
It was the final day of summer vacation.
Stepping upon the newly paved asphalt roads that led to a normal school, it felt soft, as if it was finally on the brink of melting beneath the intense glare of the sun.
A slim, youthful figure wearing a hat and sungla.s.ses was currently walking along this road.
He walked very slowly.
One moment he was looking at the shabby mailbox over there, the next he was caressing the listless holly leaves that basked beneath the sun's glare. And after that, he stared at an old ad for treating STDs with ancient chinese medicine that had been on an old wire pole for some time.
He seemed to have found everything on this road extremely interesting.
Afterward, he checked the time on his wrist.w.a.tch and suddenly jogged through the normal school's gates until he was beneath the eave of the school building.
His actions would surely be considered strange. When he stopped, a sudden clap of thunder resounded from the air and the originally azure sky was overcome with a black cloud that appeared out of nowhere. Afterward, soybean-sized rain drops began to descend rapidly from the sky.
The youth in sungla.s.ses stood underneath the eave of the building, quietly watching the sky. After a moment of silence, he began to slowly ascend the school building's stairs.
Students had to wait until the next day before they would begin their cla.s.ses, so the school building was completely empty right now. The only one there was the youth in sungla.s.ses who shouldn't have been there.
His footsteps seemed to have a rhythm to them, as if they were an accompaniment to the melody of the rain. Together, it almost sounded as if they were playing the theme to a beautiful prelude.
When he arrived at the stairs leading to the fifth floor, the rain suddenly stopped.
Weather in summer was always a fickle thing. The next moment, the sun hovered proudly in the skies once more, but after the baptism of that pa.s.sing rain, its might seemed to have weakened. With the addition of the occasional breeze blowing by, the earth that had previously been scorched by the glare of the sun seemed to have livened up all of a sudden.
The youth in sungla.s.ses stood there, peering through a gap in the stairwell walls and trying to see the roof of the three-storied teacher's office building fifty meters away.
Yet, his line of sight was limited to a stainless steel fence. The concrete floors outside were completely barren.
He looked at his wrist.w.a.tch, and once again continued to peer outside.
His expression revealed extreme concentration. A concentration so deep that others would wonder if the cement floor over there was about to suddenly sprout flowers.
Oh. Three people came out.
Three men came out to smoke cigarettes.
Among them were two older men laughing as they chatted.
The remaining man was much younger and simply stood silently in the back.
There they stood on the rooftop, looking down upon the school building from behind the fence. One of the older men stretched out a hand and pointed towards the school building and said a few words.
It was a pity that they were so far away. The youth couldn't hear anything at all.
But that youth's gaze followed the movements of that man, focusing on the thing he pointed at.
He suddenly grew excited. His sungla.s.ses covered up a pair of sparkling eyes as he said to himself, ”Father, it’s been over ten years now. I'll finally be able to see you again.”
He sounded like a person who hadn't been home for a very long time and was finally about to see his father again.
☀
On the rooftop, the two older men were still chatting.
The young man seemed bored to death. He got up and went to the other side of the fence to look.
But when he was about seven or eight meters from the two older men, he suddenly grabbed the railings and jumped atop them.
The middle-aged man the youth called father finally noticed the actions of the young man. He pointed at the young man and spoke a few words.
Soon after, the other middle-aged man turned around and looked at the young man.
His voice was exceedingly loud and was carried by the wind and over to the school building.
”Xiao Sun, be careful. Don't fall over.”
But the young man simply waved at them without a concern.
When the two middle-aged men saw he wasn't listening to them, they stopped concerning themselves with him. After all, he was a co-worker and they couldn't just scold him like a child. They leaned on the railing once more and resumed their chat.
The young man saw that no one was paying any attention to him, so he slowly s.h.i.+fted his position and sat his b.u.t.t atop the steel pole railings. He quietly rested his heel upon the outer edge of the railings. Now, only his hands were holding onto the steel pole railings, preventing his body from tumbling down to the ground.
Thus, he stood there like this. He raised his head and gazed up at the sky. As if he'd seen something truly beautiful, he revealed a smile.
Soon after, he got up without any warning and spread his arms like a bird.
Then, his body began to rapidly lean forward.
Birds would fly, but clearly, he would not.
In reality, a person's skull in free fall at such a height wouldn't seem that much different from a watermelon.
As the young man fell, the youth inside the school building gripped his fists tightly. Upon careful examination, one would notice that his nails had actually pierced through skin.