I...... Dead?

Is this the afterlife?

With no five senses and no desires, the heart is surprisingly calm despite drifting alone in the endless darkness.

…………

"What's going on with this? Why was it assigned to us? ”

"Hey, hey, hey...... Occasionally, this happens. ”

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Who's talking?

Before that...... Why can I still hear sounds?

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"Have you ever seen this before?"

"I've seen it a few times, it's rare...... To put it simply, it is a special item that has been 'replenished' from outside the 'Styx'. ”

"Doesn't this phenomenon affect the 'balance'?"

"Hey...... On the contrary, it is a form of balance; Whenever a soul is 'completely obliterated', that is, it is obliterated that it cannot even go to the Stygian Sea, it is necessary for this foreign object to fill in the subtracted quantity. ”

"So what do we do with it now? Do you want to take advantage of it? ”

"Forget it, look at it like that, it's clearly coming from a physical universe where there are almost no supernatural phenomena; In that kind of boring universe, the vast majority of living beings do not leave souls at all after death, and even if they do, their spiritual energy is extremely weak, and most of them will drift in the atmosphere without spirit children until they slowly disappear; Other words...... Although it is considered a very small heresy in that universe, at this point, it is not only weak, but also has some more subtle innate attributes......"

"Hmm...... It looks like an 'insulator'. ”

"That's right, while this property makes it very resistant to all non-material supernatural abilities, it also limits the upper limit of its psionic abilities, and there is little room for a soul of this nature to develop in 'us'."

"'Are we here'? Listen to that...... You're holding back some bad ideas, aren't you? ”

"Hey, hey, hey...... I do know a good place for it, where it should be more useful. ”

"Hmph, boring, I'll deal with the next batch, whatever you want."

…………

They're talking about me.

It's supposed to be a terrible feeling to be judged and then at the mercy of others, but I don't feel emotionally at all right now.

There is neither fear of the unknown nor the slightest anger.

I don't even really care if those two voices are gods or ghosts.

This state of desirelessness is really not very accustomed.

…………

"Hey, hey, hey...... Rest assured, once you regain your physical body, you will be out of this state in no time. ”

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Can you hear me?

…………

"Absolutely."

…………

But I just sent it out in my head...... Well, I don't have a brain anymore, just like I don't have a mouth and vocal cords either.

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"Hehe, don't think about those insignificant things, I'll ask you now...... If I told you that you could travel to another universe and be born again, would you rather be a man or a woman? Rich second generation or right second generation? What kind of skin tone do you want? What is the height and appearance? ”

…………

Wow, I can choose these by myself, so isn't my freshman like the EASY mode game number?

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"Hey, hey, hey...... No, I'm just asking you, who said I want to meet your requirements? ”

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Ha?

…………

The guy who liked to laugh lewdly didn't respond to me anymore, and my consciousness faded away from his laughter.

And when I regained consciousness, all my feelings as a human being had returned.

The intense discomfort all over my body reminded me of the reality of being human.

People are really contradictory creatures, and when I was in a state of soul, I felt that "life is better than death", but after I really came back to life, even if I am now hungry, cold, and hurt, I feel that it is better to die than to live.

The place where I woke up was an abandoned public toilet, and the cause of the abandonment was, as far as I could see, a clogged pipe; There's a smell in the air that makes you feel like "it doesn't matter if you vomit or not," and there's a sticky, yellow-brown liquid building up all over the toilet floor.

Undoubtedly, the first thing I was glad to have been when I was "resurrected" was that I was sitting on the floor with my back to the wall instead of lying face down......

After about a minute, a strong chill prompted me to stand up and rub my arms as I stumbled on the spot.

I didn't even have to step out of the toilet to know that it was no more than five degrees outside, and I was wearing only a short-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, and I didn't even have a pair of shoes and socks on my feet.

A short time later, I went to the sink and saw through the broken mirror on the wall what I was now—a young white man with a scruffy beard, his hair was long and messy, and everything from his skin to his clothes was not dirty, and he was ridiculously thin.

I gathered my thoughts and quickly came to the obvious conclusion: I was reborn in the body of some homeless man who froze to death in a public toilet.

However, I didn't feel any frustration about it, I thought it was good.

If I were to be reborn in my 90s and unable to take care of myself in a hospital bed, my second life might be hopeless.

But now, despite the fact that my body was cold and hungry, and that I had a lot of bruises on my body, probably from someone else, and that I had nothing in my pocket, at least he was still young.

A person who still has a lot of years to live, even if he falls into the unbearable field, there is hope for his life.

When you are hungry, you go to find something to eat, when you are cold, you try to warm yourself, you can live one more day, you earn a day, and you can make yourself better every day, which is a big profit and a special earning.

Not to mention that I am now in a state of sound limbs and normal five senses; Even though I have a few disabilities right now, I don't think it's okay.

It's nice to be alive, those because of a little setback...... People who are looking for death because of a little in their studies, relationships, and work don't understand the preciousness of life at all.

Maybe it's because I've "died once" that I don't see a lot of things differently now.

With that in mind, I walked out of the public toilet.

Looking at the sky, it was still early in the morning, and the original owner of my body should have gone to the toilet to spend the night because the weather was too cold last night, and he was desperate, but unfortunately he was still "frozen to death", otherwise there would not be this one of my "borrowing corpses to return to the soul".

In fact, the inside of the public toilet is not much warmer than the outside, because this is a toilet in a park, and the entrance adopts a T-shaped partition and the design of the outer wall is concealed, there is no door at all, and the cold wind swishs in.

The first thing I did when I came out was to go to the dirt nearby to dry the sewage off my feet, because getting my feet wet would only make me colder.

Then I started rummaging through trash cans nearby, and managed to find a few rags to wrap my feet in, and I got myself two "sleeves".

In the process of rummaging through the garbage, I saw a lot of half-eaten food, although some of it was still wrapped in wrapping paper, but I thought about it for a while, and I still didn't eat it after all.

There were so many bacteria in the trash can that I couldn't risk even if the food was wrapped in paper; After all, I'm just hungry now, and I can keep myself hungry, but if I have a bad stomach and causes inflammation or internal medicine, I need medical support.

It didn't take much time to get the "clothes", and after about half an hour, I walked out of the park and prepared to "ask for food".

As I passed by an alley outside the park, I was accosted by a couple of guys who were cooking around a fire with a bucket, and I looked around and saw that they were all dressed in rags, but they were much thicker than me, at least they were real clothes.

I thought they were making a gesture of kindness, but I soon found out that something was wrong...... The one of them said to me in a mocking tone, "Your 'new clothes' are pretty trendy, but I still prefer your old clothes." With that, he pointed to the ragged trench coat on his body, and laughed, and the two guys next to him laughed with him.

Through their words, it quickly became clear to me that the three guys had robbed me last night, beating me, the former owner of the body, and robbing him of his coat and shoes, causing him to freeze to death in the park toilet.

Therefore, there is some truth in the saying that "only between peers is naked hatred", even if it is a homeless person.

After a few moments, I walked away.

I ignored them, and I had no intention of taking revenge on them.

They are not worth remembering.

One day, they will die in a filthy shack, tormented by a disease that they don't know what it is, painfully, lonely, and helplessly.

I don't have to go out of my way to do anything to them.

Some people have hope when they live, and some people can only be liberated when they die.

For this kind of people who are willing to degenerate and slowly decay, it is already a punishment for them to go.

…………

At noon, the temperature has risen somewhat, and sitting in the sun, although it is still cold, is basically bearable.

This body is very weak, and even though I think I have strong willpower, I don't have the strength to move anymore.

I need to eat to replenish my body's calories, or I might die again when the sun goes down......

Of course, I also had a backup plan: if it didn't work, I would find a chain of fast food restaurants, rush in, turn over the counter, grab a handful of food and stuff it in my mouth, and then rush out into the street while chewing, find a police car, and get on the hood of the police car before the clerk chased me out...... If this plan goes well, then I will have a place to sleep tonight.

But it's just a no-brainer, and I don't want to cause trouble if possible.

As luck would have me, around one o'clock in the afternoon, a young man walked up to me and handed me a newly bought hot dog.

I've been watching it for a long time, and when he and his fox friends were laughing at me from a distance, I guessed they might be trying to play a prank.

Sure enough, I opened the hot dog and took a look, and found that there was a large amount of yellow mustard squeezed inside, but I still pretended not to see it, took a shallow bite, and then put on a spicy look, and made a very exaggerated reaction with tears in my eyes.

The young people laughed across the street when they saw my reaction, and they leaned back and fell back with joy. After a while, they didn't find it interesting anymore and left.

It seems that the universe I came to after traveling back in time is at least one thing the same as where I used to be - enough of the social stupidity.

That's a good thing.

When they left, I stopped the show, ran to the nearby fountain and drank a few sips of water, then pulled all the mustard out of the hot dog, and ate slowly with the fountain water, until at the end I left a small piece of bread, carefully rewrapped it in wrapping paper, and put it in my trouser pocket.

This meal is also considered a high-calorie food, and with this meal at the bottom, it will not be a problem to survive until tomorrow, and the next thing to solve is the problem of keeping warm and sleeping places.

I always feel ...... I was doing some kind of survival activity, ironically, if I were to survive in the wilderness, I would have access to almost everything around me, but in a place like the city, where resources are abundant and even wasteful, I have a lot of limitations.

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In the afternoon, I took an empty jar and asked passers-by for "change", perhaps because of the flowing rag shape on my body, I added points to myself, and by the evening, the harvest was really good, a total of eleven yuan.

Saying...... The currency abbreviation of this universe is RMB, which makes me feel quite slotted, and its purchasing power is similar to what I know to be RMB.

In the evening, I used the ten yuan I had to buy the cheapest disposable umbrella, and then I waited until it was dark, and took advantage of the darkness to find a very poorly secured community, found a used clothes donation box, and put the end of the umbrella handle into it to hook clothes.

These clothes are supposed to be delivered to people in "poor areas", but considering that I am also poor and almost frozen to death, I don't think anyone will bother with me to save a few of these processes; When I have money in the future, I will buy a plane ticket to fly to a poor area, and then go through the regular channels to get it.

In this way, I quickly got two sweaters and a coat, and before anyone could find out, I took the clothes and left.

I went to a deserted place to put on my clothes, and with the last dollar, I went into a public toilet on the side of the street.

This place is a cat during the day, it's the kind of self-service design, like a phone booth, there are five in a row, you can open the door and enter it with a dollar, and you can get two pieces of straw paper at the coin slot, as for the time of use...... Unlimited.

I was overjoyed when I opened the door because I found that there was a toilet instead of a squat, which meant I could sit overnight instead of sitting in the corner with my legs crossed.

I walked in, sat down, closed the door, and began to eat what little bread I had left over from the day.

Don't look at the small toilet place, but there should be everything, and there is a simple washbasin at the back of the door, the kind with a mirror; In the end, it is also a place two hundred years ahead of my original universe, and these civilian facilities have indeed improved.

After eating the bread, I used a piece of broken tube glass that I picked up in the garbage dump to shave my beard and hair, using the hand washing lotion in the toilet...... I thought about it and shaved it too; Although having my hair can keep out the cold to a certain extent, this image is too bad, it will hinder me from going in and out of various occasions, and it is easy to breed a lot of bacteria, it is better to shave my head, and find something to make a hat or wrap it around my head if it is really cold.

Then, I took a "shower" in this self-service toilet.

Of course, there wasn't much water in the sink, and there were no shower heads, so I couldn't shower; How do I wash it...... Take off the T-shirt on your body first, rub it in the water, use it as a wet towel, then squeeze in hand sanitizer, wash yourself from head to toe, and then rinse it off little by little with the water wrung out of the T-shirt.

It took a long time, after all, the space was small, and the place was not originally designed for bathing. Fortunately, it's quite warm in here, and the cold shower gets hotter the more you wash it.

After a rough wash, I swung the T-shirt and wiped it, then quickly dried the T-shirt with the hot air from the hand dryer, and also dried myself as much as I could in a few awkward positions, and finally put on the dry clothes hanging next to me.

After all this was done, I was too tired to do anything, so I just sat on the toilet and fell asleep.

This was the first day I spent in the post-travel world, and I think I'll always remember this day because the first step is always the hardest. After that, the next hurdle I encountered was "finding shoes", and then ...... Actually, it's not that hard.

Because I have cleaned up a lot of myself, I have shoes on my feet, and my old clothes are not too torn, so I don't look so much like a homeless man when I walk on the road. In this way, I can go to the subway station with central air conditioning to spend the night without worrying about the cold.

During the day, I pick up scraps and sell them for money, and occasionally I can do odd jobs, such as moving something for someone, shoveling snow, or something; If my body is dirty and smelly, I will go to the "one-dollar toilet" to take a bath...... Of course, I was able to afford soap and towels later.

When the weather warms up, my days become easier because summer clothes are cheaper and I have saved enough money to buy cheap t-shirts and pants. With new clothes that made me look completely different from the streets, I started posing as a college student and doing "summer jobs" like painting and roofing.

Yes, I can pretend to be a student, my current body is actually a year or two younger than myself, and there are many college students who look like they are forty years old, so it is not difficult to pretend.

In addition, the languages of this universe are mainly Chinese and English, which are spoken by people of any color and color, which also makes my daily life a lot easier, after all, my English is a bit poor......

In this way, the days passed, and before I knew it, it had been a year since I came to this universe.

A year ago, I woke up in a public toilet and was on the verge of dying of cold and starvation; A year later, I was already living in a cheap shared apartment, and I had food, clothing, housing and transportation.

I also went to the federal government to make up a citizen ID on the grounds of "amnesia", and since they really couldn't find out the previous information of my face, I could still choose my own name, so I got myself the name "John Smith", which can be regarded as obtaining a legal identity.

At this stage, I've survived steadily.

So, the next time is to make a decision, in this "second life" in this other universe, do I want to spend it in peace and stability, or do something else?