Chapter 0557 – Nobita Nobi
”Hello? Hello! Where are you now! I can help you, I can help you!”
Chen Ge shouted into the phone, but the only thing that answered him was the sound of flames burning.
”Calm down, never calm down!”
He gripped the phone tightly and kicked open the door of the haunted house, rushing towards the tallest office building in the park.
Sprinting with all his might, he ran to the roof of the building and stood at the highest place in the paradise overlooking the Nine Rivers.
The lights, the traffic, the only thing you can’t see is the fire.
But now the flames were clearly rising on the other side of the microphone, and crackling noises kept coming out.
The fire had spread.
”Hey, I don’t know if you can hear me on this one, I just want to tell you that I can help you, and there are people in this world who will.”
The current rustled as if the fire had reached the phone line, and without any message, the call was disconnected.
Listening to the busy tone on the other side of the phone, Chen Ge’s heart was a little blocked.
What that author was talking about in the last paragraph should be his own fantasies, and after his persistence had not been rewarded all this time and his dreams collapsed, his spirit might have gone wrong.
Holding onto the guardrail at the edge of the building, Chen Ge looked into the distance.
After a few minutes, he dialed that phone number again with a hint of luck, knowing that it was unlikely, but still wanting to give it another try.
A busy tone rang in his ears, and he didn’t know how long it had been ringing.
Chen Ge sighed softly, and as he was about to hang up, the phone was suddenly picked up.
”Hello.”
What came from the other side of the microphone was a completely unfamiliar voice.
Wrong number?
Chen Ge subconsciously looked at the phone number once, and the several numbers were all correct, but the sound of flames burning in the microphone disappeared, and the phone side was quiet to the point of being depressing.
Same number, different voice, Chen Ge calmed down as he recalled the description of the number on the black cell phone – the police had found that every one of the deceased had dialed this number in the last hours of their lives.
There was more than one dead person!
After realizing this, Chen Ge quickly sorted out his emotions and adjusted his voice and tone of speech, “Hello, may I help you?”
Without knowing the situation or what had happened to the other party, this was all Chen Ge could say.
”Help me? No, thanks.” The voice on the other side of the phone was a little weak, as if it was about to fall asleep.
”You look very uncomfortable.” Chen Ge was uneasy for no reason, the other party was frighteningly calm, which reminded him of the writer just now, “Can you tell me where you are right now? If you want to find someone to talk to for a while, I can go over right away.”
”It’s too late.” The man spoke slowly, “If you really want to help me, could you give my landlord a word before you hang up, the utility bill, on the suitcase.”
”Landlord? How am I going to contact him then?” Chen Ge listened to the man’s tone, it felt like he was explaining the aftermath, he wanted to know where the man was at this time, the landlord was a good breakthrough.
”She lives in the residential area to the left of Fairytale Kingdom Paradise, on the first floor of building six.” The man’s voice was breathless, as if talking was an effort for him now.
”Fairytale Kingdom?” Chen Ge’s mind flashed through the location of this paradise, built in the southern suburb of Jiujiang, it was a children’s paradise that was specially created for children, and then it was shut down for some reasons, “Then do you have her contact number? I’m afraid I won’t be able to find the place when the time comes.”
Chen Ge decisively headed downstairs, he was prepared to personally go to the southern suburb of Jiujiang to take a look.
Human life was at stake, he didn’t hang up the phone and tried his best to stabilize the other party, “Listening to your voice, it feels like you’re sleepy, didn’t you have a good rest last night?”
”I haven’t slept well for a long time.” The man smiled, “I don’t know why, during the day I have no heart and soul, but at night, I will be rambling, tossing and turning just can’t sleep.”
”I understand this pain of yours very well, I always can’t sleep at night as well, and I’m often still skulking outside alone at three or four in the morning in the middle of the night.” Chen Ge empathized, and what he said was indeed the truth.
The man seemed to have found a trace of empathy in Chen Ge’s sincere tone, “Do you always have insomnia too?”
”Yes. My parents disappeared half a year ago, and no clues have been found so far, I live in pain and anxiety every day, and can only rely on helping others to seek a hint of solace for my own soul.” Speaking here, Chen Ge’s tone changed, “But I will still insist on looking for them, and when I find them, I will definitely tell them loudly about my anger and worries before running over and hugging them tightly.”
”Good luck finding them soon.” There was a hint of softening in the man’s tone, though he was getting worse, as if he would pass out at any moment.
”Can you tell me about yourself, just treat me as a passing stranger.” Seeing that it was almost time, Chen Ge asked tentatively.
”My life is very meaningless.” The man thought back for a while and uttered these words.
”Life is not interesting in the first place, mainly because each different person gives it a different meaning, so it becomes not so boring.” Chen Ge had already run out of the office building and towards the outside of Paradise.
”Maybe, my birth was an accident, growing up it was my father who took care of me as I grew up, he worked hard for a meager paycheck and was as ordinary as a random person you see on the road.” The man’s voice slowly lowered, though the speed of his speech didn’t change much.
”I grew up weak and gave him a lot of trouble, and when I went to school, I was in an even more out-of-place state. I always felt stupid, I couldn’t do anything right, I couldn’t concentrate, and no one liked to be friends with me.” The man took a breath as he hesitated and continued, “At first the teachers just thought there was something wrong with my personality, and I thought the same thing myself, until then one day the teachers called my dad to school and they suggested I see a doctor.”
”See a doctor?”
”Yeah, the diagnosis came back as Nobita-Fat Tiger Syndrome, funny name, I thought it was pretty funny when I first heard it.” The man smiled, but he couldn’t hear any happiness in his voice.
Chen Ge was also hearing about this disease for the first time, and Nobita-Fat Tiger seemed to be a character in a certain cartoon, “What are the specific manifestations of this disease?”
”The collective name of foreign countries for such psychofunctional disorders as hyperactivity disorder and attention deficit disorder, of which Nobita represents attention deficit disorder, which is the disease that I suffer from.”
”I knew nothing about this disease at the time, and when I went back to school, my classmates just knew that I had it, but they didn’t bother to learn about it. The truth is that sometimes they just need a reason to isolate you, and a brain disease happens to be a great excuse.”
The man said all of this in a very matter-of-fact way, as if it was nothing at all compared to what was happening behind him.
”After high school, I didn’t continue, feeling sorry for my father. I looked for a lot of jobs but was fired because of my personality, I started to become afraid of meeting people, and my condition got worse and worse, eventually evolving into major depression, and I was sent to a correctional center for mental illness.”
”I was in my early twenties at the time, and not only was I unable to bring any help to my father, I was dragging him down like a blood-sucking locust.”
”Under these circumstances, I gave it a lot of thought and decided to leave.”
”I posted the last thing I wanted to say to my father on the internet and set it to be posted on a timer.” The man sighed deeply, “If I had left that day, maybe it would have been nothing.”
”Don’t ever think like that! Live to have everything!” Chen Ge had gotten into a cab and told the driver to drive towards the southern suburbs as quickly as possible.
”I was resuscitated, but during the time I was in a coma, the words that were timed to be released were made public.”
”It was the first time I received so much concern, and I had a feeling of trepidation.”
”After I recovered, I went online and made a clarification that I had troubled everyone and that I was fine.”
”A lot of people gave me reassurance that it’s okay, but I also saw some private messages.”
”Why aren’t you dead yet?”
”Why are you still popping Q’s?”
”I’m still looking forward to your first seven days to burn incense for you?”
”Sleeping pills found in time is very good to save, choose Bacchus Killer class of poison.”
”Can’t you just die quietly?”
”I’m wondering why so many people expect me to die when I’m obviously no one’s friend. Is it because my death will make them smile?” The man’s voice broke and became lower.
Chen Ge felt a little vicious even listening to these words, “I don’t think you can let them get what they want, the more they beg for you to die, the happier you have to live, smile a lot, and piss them off!”
The man on the other side of the phone let out a soft laugh, “You can be such an interesting person, I was also bitter for a while, and then after talking to my father I realized that he didn’t care that I was sick or that I was dragging him down, as long as I was alive and well, all with him.”
”I was twenty-two years old and my father’s words gave me the greatest encouragement that I was not a useless person and that I could do it.”
”Actively cooperating with the treatment, three months later, I was discharged from the hospital.”
”Knowing my condition, my father would be very nervous about meeting people, and he specially helped me to get in touch with a job where I didn’t have to meet people – for me to play the role of a large cartoon doll in a children’s park.”
”On the day I started work, the park staff took me to the warehouse and asked me to choose one of a bunch of cartoon doll costumes.”
”I instantly fell in love with the Robot Cat, with its big head and a small fan inside, and another reason was that I suffered from Nobita Fat Tiger Syndrome when I was a child, and I thought the Robot Cat could bring Nobita good luck.”
”After a brief training I was on the job, and my daily work was to wear the robot cat doll costume, prepare candies and small gifts in the pocket in front of my stomach, and then play with the children in the children’s playground.”
”I love the feeling that I can’t help but smile myself when I look at the smiling faces of the children.”
”Hiding in the doll costume, I also have a sense of security, not only not afraid, but also take the initiative to go and visitors to communicate, I think this job is simply tailor-made for me, the robot cat can really bring Nobita good luck.”
”Just like this for a long time, sometimes my father will come to visit me, in fact, I know all about it, whenever he sneaks over, I will act extra serious, I don’t want him to think that his son is a useless person.”
The man’s voice was trembling softly, he seemed sleepy and sleepy, his speech was slowing down.
”When I was twenty-five, my father found me, and he was proud of me, thinking that I had surpassed a lot of people by remaining undefeated by life even so.”
”He believed that I could continue to live my life bravely, and then told me that it would also be safe for him to go out of town to work, and that his friend had introduced him to a very good job.”
”I didn’t suspect anything at first and would still talk to him every week, but gradually I realized that he sounded strange.”
”Finally, one day, I took a vacation, went out of town, and found the friend he was talking about, but the other person said that he hadn’t introduced my father to a job, and that my father wasn’t there.”
”Back in my own city, I searched for a long time before I found him in a shabby rented house.”
”The room was full of the smell of Chinese medicine, my father was emaciated too much, I didn’t know until that time that he was suffering from leukemia, and had been fighting it hard, and without the money for treatment, he was looking for remedies, and making some Chinese medicine for himself to drink, and because he was worried about the impact on me, he found an excuse to go out to work.”
”My dad ended up leaving, I felt useless, the belief that supported me to live in the first place was to let my dad enjoy his old age, but I didn’t expect it to end this way.”
It was a very flat tone, but Chen Ge listened with a bad taste in his heart.
”I knew what my father was thinking when he left, so I tried very hard to live, but I always felt that something was missing in my heart, and when I was twenty-seven years old, the children’s park was going to be shut down for various reasons.”
”I tried everything I could to get it back, but I was just a Nobita, not a robot cat.”
”The cartoon doll costumes were actually very uncomfortable to wear; it was hot in the summer and you needed to wear a layer of tights underneath, otherwise the clothes would stick to your skin and it would be hard to get them off. But when it really came to the day that I had to take it off, I found myself a little reluctant to do so.”
”Wearing it, I was the Robot Cat in the eyes of the children, with countless gifts and candies in my pockets, but after I took him off, I became that Nobita again.”
”I realized that I hadn’t really improved after all these years, I fought with myself every day, but never really won.”
”I turned thirty this year, I don’t want to be that tired, I’m going to get some sleep.”
The man’s voice got lower and lower, to the point where it was almost inaudible by the end.
”Hey..! Don’t you fall asleep first!” Chen Ge was worried about the man falling asleep, he was afraid that the other party would never wake up again.
The cab sped along the highway in the western suburbs, and Chen Ge was still some distance away from the place the man was talking about at this point.
”Wake up a bit! I’ll be there soon!” Chen Ge’s voice was getting louder and louder, but the response from there was getting smaller and smaller.
Gradually, it seemed as if the man had really fallen asleep.
Chen Ge didn’t dare hang up and desperately urged the driver, and half an hour later he finally arrived at the place the man had said.
Getting out of the car, Chen Ge rushed into the building and knocked on the door of the landlord’s house.
After half a day, the door was opened.
”Hello! I’m looking for someone, male, around thirty years old, rather afraid of life ……”
Chen Ge said all the information he had gotten from the phone call, he was only halfway through when the woman who opened the door’s face became very pale, “What are you looking for him for?”
”Where is he? He’s in a dangerous situation!”
”Where?” The woman looked at Chen Ge strangely, “That person is already dead, wearing doll clothes that he got from somewhere, he ran into a closed children’s park by himself, the police found out too late.”
”When was this?” Chen Ge’s phone was still in his ear.
”A couple months ago, I think, the guy seemed out of place, didn’t have a single friend, left so suddenly that the utility bills hadn’t even been paid.” The woman took a step back, closing the door to the room most of the way.
”Then I’ll go to the paradise and take a look.” Chen Ge nodded, and when he turned around, he suddenly thought of something else: “Right, that utility room fee, if you look on his luggage, you should be able to find it.”
”Luggage?” The woman’s gaze toward Chen Ge became even more strange, “What’s your relationship with him?”
”I’m his friend.” Chen Ge took his cell phone and rushed out of the building, running towards the children’s playground that had been abandoned next to him.