stjorthotic Chapter 2 Soul breaks in the Atlantic Ocean
Chapter 2 Soul breaks in the Atlantic Ocean
Li Ang gripped the back of the chair tightly.
He was in the front half of the plane, which was connected to the wing and was heavier; the rear half, which had also crashed, was no longer visible.
People and debris kept "flying" out of the broken opening. Because people are lighter than airplanes, they would "take off" and leave the cabin if they didn't grab on.
Li Ang wasting his energy clinging to the cabin at this point was certainly not because he expected the shell to provide any protection when it crashed into the sea.
As is well known, civil aviation around the world does not provide passengers with emergency parachutes or similar items for various reasons.
However, the absence of passengers does not mean that the captain and cabin crew were not present.
Like lip reading, it's a sin committed in a past life.
He used to waste most of his waking hours scrolling through short videos. Although he didn't earn a penny, he could rattle off all sorts of strange and obscure facts.
Li looked down, grabbed the back of the chair, and climbed backwards.
Every step was incredibly difficult. He tried his best to climb backwards to the emergency door of the front cabin as quickly as possible, his fingernails digging into the seams of the cabinet. He pried open a hidden cabinet in the wall, and several parachutes hit him directly in the face.
These emergency items are not complicated in design; they can be worn like a vest. However, their reliability is actually much lower than that of professional equipment.
There were only a few people left in the cabin; some had lost their grip, while others had given up in despair.
Li Ang leaned back against the seat, the force of gravity temporarily stabilizing him, and quickly put on his emergency parachute.
Through the inverted porthole, the deep blue of the horizon was already visible.
Damn, I really don't have time.
Although the movements seemed cumbersome, Li Ang only took about a minute to complete everything, even though he was rushing around.
However, due to its excessive weight, it has now broken through the cloud cover and reached below 4000 meters.
Li Ang had less than two minutes to spare.
He took a deep breath. To be honest, he had only done one parachute training exercise, less than 100 meters, from a helicopter at the police training base.
The reason they didn't learn it after that was simple: the instructors felt that these junior police officers didn't need it at all.
Now, he kicked off the chair, adjusted his posture, and his body instantly detached from the gap in the wreckage, with the debris flying away beneath his feet.
But something dirty grabbed him.
The burly, white-bearded man, who was only half a body, was still alive. He was barely breathing, and didn't even have the strength to speak or open his eyes. He was just clinging tightly to Li Ang's leg, trying to use him to seek a sliver of hope for survival.
Li Ang first deployed the emergency parachute, which was not much larger than the one he used during his helicopter training. Below him was the blue Atlantic Ocean, and in the distance, he could see the outline of a coastal city shrouded in fog.
However, due to the weight of the white beard, the entire parachute tilted to one side, with Leon almost tilted downwards at a 45-degree angle, which greatly reduced the parachute's cushioning effect.
Not a buddy.
You're just here to die, aren't you?
If you want to die, don't take me with you.
Li Ang's anger towards this beast was beyond words.
He tried to kick his legs several times, but the black guy's hands gripped him tightly like pliers and wouldn't budge.
Li Ang groped in his pockets, trying to find something to help him.
As a result, I found a key.
That was the key to the 45-square-meter studio apartment he rented in Brooklyn.
I was asked to take it out when I went through airport security, and then I just put it in my pants pocket instead of putting it in my suitcase.
Li Ang picked up the key and plunged it directly into the black man's eye, piercing his eyelid. The man instinctively raised his hand to block, leaving only one hand gripping Li Ang.
Li Ang seized the opportunity, grabbed the key, and stabbed the hand. The black man reacted, pulling back his hand while blood streamed from his eyes, but still reached out to grab Li Ang.
He kept kicking his legs, causing the blind man to miss his target several times.
The crucial point is that it's about to crash into the sea.
The shape of the waves is already visible, and it is estimated that there are less than 2000 meters left.
Li Ang's eyes were already bloodshot; he absolutely could not let this damned old black man kill him here. He dug both hands into the man's eyes.
At the same time, he used his knee to strike the enemy's chin, using all his strength in the effort to defeat him in one fell swoop.
The other person cried out in pain, and Li Ang could feel the fluid in his eyeballs about to burst at his fingertips, almost squeezing them to burst.
Whitebeard finally couldn't bear the excruciating pain and loosened his grip to stop Li Ang from gouging his eyes. Li Ang then kicked him in the chest.
The two finally separated, but the severed body was still kicked to a distance where Li Ang could not be touched no matter how hard he reached out.
He knew his fate was sealed, and he cried out for God and salvation before falling to the ground.
Li Ang quickly adjusted the position of his parachute.
A sea breeze rose up, greatly slowing down Li Ang's descent.
"God, good people shouldn't die so easily."
Looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.
On this azure sea, Li Ang is the only solitary black dot within ten thousand meters.
…………
Night has fallen.
The starry sky reflected on the sea was a beautiful sight that Li Ang had never seen in his past or present lives.
It would be better if we saw this in a more relaxed situation.
After falling into the Atlantic Ocean, Li Ang drifted at sea for most of the day. Although he was cushioned by an emergency parachute, his leg was still broken the moment he touched the surface of the sea.
The force generated by falling from such an extreme height could not be completely dissipated by a piece of cloth and the sea breeze alone.
From morning till night, he barely managed to stay afloat on the sea thanks to the buoyancy of his life-saving parachute.
Li Ang knew the route; it was a straight line from Miami to New York.
It was a stroke of luck amidst misfortune. If the Homelanders had arrived a few tens of minutes later, Li Ang would have only crashed into the Northern Continent, and if he had landed on land, he would most likely have been paralyzed from head to toe.
It's most likely located off the coast of Georgia or South Carolina.
After drifting for an unknown amount of time, Li Ang opened his eyes to a pristine white ceiling.
If he hadn't heard someone calling him in English, he would have thought he had traveled through time again.
He was so exhausted that he forgot that he had been knocked into the sea by the tide several times in the latter half of the night and was almost completely exhausted when he finally encountered a father and son who were out fishing at night in a speedboat. They rescued him and brought him back.
The father, who was passing by the room door, saw Li Ang wake up and called him down for dinner.
Dinner time.
The other party is a family of three.
The father and son thought he was a video blogger because some death-defying challenges have become very popular recently.
Surviving a parachute jump from a crashing flight was too bizarre for Li Ang to explain, so he simply admitted it as a misunderstanding.
What surprised him even more was that when he woke up, his fractured leg had already healed. He had only slept for less than a day.
After dinner, the kind family let him stay overnight in their guest room.
Li Ang returned to the room where he had woken up.
He plopped down on the bed, finally having a moment to catch his breath and think about what had happened.
First, the hijackers hijacked the plane, and Homelander killed one of them. Then, he was ambushed by the hijacker, who had regenerative abilities. In his instinctive counterattack, he accidentally killed a group of passengers. Because the scene of the accidental killing was filmed, and due to the questioning of the crowd, Homelander chose to destroy the plane and kill everyone.
Ah, the people of our motherland still have that familiar taste.
After all, in this world, he is outwardly the one who saves the world, "pure and innocent," but in reality, he doesn't care about human lives at all. Once you offend him, you're doomed.
Whew!
What a troublesome day, Li Ang said, trying to calm himself down. So much had happened these past few days.
He sorted out his various thoughts, and now the most urgent thing was what to do next.
Li Ang took out his phone; it was an old iPhone that the father and son had given him.
In the US, you can get a phone card at any store without needing an ID, and the same goes for train tickets.
I lay on the single wooden bed provided in the guest room and drew the blinds.
I connected to the owner's WiFi and turned on the black box.
The first news in the search for the crashed flight was about the one Li Ang was on yesterday.
It was a reporter's interview with Homelander. In the footage, Homelander sighed repeatedly, lamenting his inadequacy and how he flew too slowly. He said he was in Washington at the time, and by the time he arrived, the hijackers had already destroyed the plane. Their purpose was to kill people and take revenge on society.
In the comments section below, several charitable organizations posted links to crowdfund over ten thousand dollars to build a memorial for the victims.
Some busybodies even listed all the passengers in the comments section, including Leon Ulysses.
(Li Ang is his original name; Ulysses is the surname he gave himself when the police station was issuing him a temporary ID card after he joined the police force.)
Oh no, I'm dead.
If he were to suddenly appear in public now and be recognized, he would definitely be questioned by reporters about what happened. As things stand, it's unlikely that Homelander would allow someone who witnessed his massacre to appear in public.
In a sense, he really is "dead".
Li Ang was furious. He had finally found a job, and if he worked steadily for two years, he could get a green card and then have legal status to do other jobs.
At least we can live a normal life, right? Things are just awful right now...
Li Ang dared not think about it anymore, because every time he thought he was unlucky, reality would become even more unlucky.
After much deliberation, Li Ang decided to return to New York first, where his bankbook was located, containing all his current money, a total of $11000. That was his training salary, calculated at the rate of $14500 after tax for a regular police officer, a salary only available in New York, a city prone to accidents.
It is indeed very high, but let's not forget the fact that three of his police colleagues died in a bank robbery on his first day of work.
More American police officers die here than soldiers.
Although Li Ang is nominally dead, according to the American banking system, as long as the passbook is in hand, the money can be withdrawn by going through a "channel" at most, with a loss of some money.
He has nothing now, no green card, and it's hard for him to find a decent job other than being a policeman, especially in his current situation. He probably won't have any income for a long time, so this money is very important to him.
As for whether or not to leave New York, where native-born Americans frequent, and where to go next.
After so many unexpected changes, Li Ang couldn't come up with a good solution after thinking for a long time. He felt that it was better to be a food deliveryman in his previous life. In any case, he decided to go back to New York and get the money first.
Including this skydive, I've died about 1.5 times already. How much worse can it get? I'm just a worthless life, whatever.
There are other issues now.
He turned off his phone. The room was dark, but moonlight streamed in through the blinds. Li Ang took off his pants and looked at his legs.
How did my leg heal so quickly? I can still vividly remember the crisp sound when I hit the sea and the "sore" feeling. It can't be an illusion. This feeling is just like... that black guy's.
He had a bold guess in his mind.
He stood up, found an unused toolbox under the bed, and found a screwdriver.
He placed his hand on the bed, took a deep breath, and then plunged the screwdriver into it.
The screwdriver pierced the back of his hand. Enduring the excruciating pain, Li Ang pulled out the screwdriver, turned on his phone's flashlight, and stared intently into the wound.
After staring at it for a long time, he saw the mutilated flesh growing at a rate barely visible to the naked eye.
This is definitely not a self-healing ability that ordinary people can possess.
Although I don't know the underlying principle.
Li Ang was certain that he had inherited the regenerative abilities of that burly black man, but he didn't seem to be as powerful as the guy himself (after all, that guy could get up even with a hole in his stomach and could lock someone up with half his body).
Will I gain superpowers the next time I kill someone? Where will these powers come from?
Li Ang is still clueless. There are more pressing matters to attend to now, namely, what to do tomorrow.
I ordered train tickets online for the next day.
Li Ang fell into a deep sleep. When he woke up, the wound on his hand had completely healed, and his skin was even smoother than before.
He got another free meal, and after eating and drinking to his heart's content, before Li Ang could even speak, the family offered to give him some travel expenses.
After noting down the family's email address, Li Ang set off for the train station, hoping to have another chance to repay their kindness in the future.
This small town has a small airport, which is naturally faster, but for at least the next three years, Li Ang doesn't want to take any form of transportation that leaves the ground.
I boarded the train.
Amazed by how bad the infrastructure in the United States is, after a bumpy 7-hour journey, Li Ang got off at Pennsylvania Station.
This is the underground of Midtown Manhattan, North America's busiest transportation hub.
Although it's not really necessary, since Americans are extremely averse to surveillance, there's none of that in train stations or on the streets.
But with so many people around, Li Ang deliberately covered his face as he walked onto the ground, back to familiar New York.
It has been about a hundred days since he transmigrated here.
Before becoming a policeman, he had just arrived in a completely unfamiliar place. He lived in a tent on the street and spent more than two months practicing his spoken English with other undocumented immigrants. He did many part-time jobs before he gradually became familiar with this strange world.
It wasn't until the third month that things started to get on track, from renting an apartment and submitting resumes to police interviews and training.
He genuinely believed back then that life was getting better.
All Li Ang has on him now is an old cell phone, a few dozen dollars in change, and the apartment key that helped him kill the burly black man.
Li Ang held the keys as he walked through the bustling commercial street filled with tourists.
American architecture always follows a similar style: cement gray facades with touches of Greek and British-style columns and railings. Along the streets are people of all skin colors, speaking different languages, coming from all over the world with various purposes.
Back in Bay Ridge, he rented a place on the third floor of an unremarkable street-side apartment building.
This area is mostly traditional working-class communities for older, middle-aged people, with few noisy young people.
Li Ang opened the apartment door, and upon entering, there was a spiral staircase. To the right was the door of the landlady's house.
He tried to make as little noise as possible and quickly went upstairs.
It's Thursday, 13 p.m. The adults are at work, the children are at school, and the building is quiet.
Back in front of the familiar door.
Suddenly, Li Ang saw a scene of Homelander firing heat rays outside the plane. He usually stayed here playing on his phone and at most saw this superstar in short videos and movies.
Thinking about what happened a few days ago is truly terrifying.
He calmed himself down, inserted the key, and turned the lock.
Step into this small 45-square-meter rental room.
The entrance leads directly into the living room/bedroom, where a woman sits on his bed, rummaging through the drawers beside his bed.
The moment Li Ang saw the woman, he was so startled that he took a half-step back and said in a muffled voice.
"Good afternoon, Director."
.........