Chapter 2 Chapter One

He didn't know what to do.Usually, he always knows what he has to do, and he is the kind of person who makes plans and then effectively executes them.But this time, everything that happened to him was against him, and he felt that he could not have foreseen this situation.He was stuck in a traffic jam on the A1 highway for two hours, making himself drowsy, and by the time he drove to Edinburgh, most of the morning had passed.Then his car broke down in a one-way traffic circle, before road closures caused by a burst water main hampered his travels.In the process of driving north, the rain has been relentless, until the car drove into the outskirts of the city, the rain began to ease.But despite the rain, the interest of the crowds gathering was undiminished - he would not have guessed that this was because Edinburgh was holding a "festival" and carnival crowds circled the streets during the festival. , as if the world had just declared the end of war.The only thing that could give him a slight impression of the Edinburgh International Festival was a TV program of "Evening Review". He had turned to it by accident before, and saw a group of middle-class bad embryos discussing some pretentious avant-garde dramas there. .

He ended up in the seedy heart of the city.The street was somehow lower than the rest of the surrounding area, a dark canyon cut into the city.The stone road after the rain was smooth and slippery. He drove the car very carefully. The street was full of people, either passing through without warning, or standing in groups in the middle of the road, as if no one had ever told them. They say the road is for cars and pedestrians should stay on the sidewalk. There was a zigzag line as long as the street—people waiting to get into what looked like a bomb hole in the wall, and the place had its name on a large billboard outside the door, It's called "Pioneer Venue No. 164".

His driver's license was in the wallet, and the name on it was Paul Bradley. "Paul Bradley" was one of those names that people tend to forget.He's a little distant from his real name now, and doesn't seem to have ever used it.When not working, he often (and not always) refers to himself as "Ray," which is a reassuringly simple name.Ray is a ray of light, from light or darkness, from day or night.He likes to walk between different identities, it's like walking through gaps.The rental Peugeot he's driving is exactly what he wants to impress, it's not a fancy muscle car, it's a car that normal people drive, a car like Paul Bra A car that a common man like Deli would drive.Ask anyone what he does for a living, that is, Paul Bradley, and he'll say, "It's boring. I'm just an office guy, working with files in the client department of the company."

As he was driving, trying to figure out a way out of the damned street from his incomprehensible Edinburgh road atlas, someone ran right in front of his car.This was the type of man he loathed—a dark-haired young man with deep-prescription black-rimmed glasses, a two-day stubble beard, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.There are literally hundreds of people like this in London, all trying to look like French existentialists of the sixties. He dared to say that none of them had actually opened a book on philosophy.He has read quite a few books like this, including Plato, Kant, and Hegel, and he still thinks about getting a degree one day.He slammed on the brakes, and the guy with the glasses hopped away like a matador avoiding a bull, and managed to miss it.The guy was furious, waving his cigarette in his hand, pointing at him and yelling.Uncharismatic and unassuming, could his parents be proud of such an education?He hated other people smoking, it was a disgusting habit, and he hated someone pointing at him and screaming "Get the fuck out" and spit spitting out of that guy's dirty, nicotine-tinted mouth.

He felt the car hit by something, the impact of driving into a badger or a fox late at night, only this time the impact was in the back of the car and he was pushed forward by the force. Luckily the guy with the glasses did another matador dance, and if he was still in the front, he would have been crushed to pieces.He watched the situation behind him in the rearview mirror.It was a blue Honda Civic, and the driver had gotten out of the car.A stocky guy with the bulk of a weightlifter's muscles, the kind of guy who can only rule the gym, and who's too young to survive extreme conditions.There was no way he could have lived in the jungle or desert for three months like Ray did.He couldn't survive even a day.He wore driving gloves, ugly black leather gloves with holes in the knuckles.He had a dog in the backseat of his car, a beefy Rottweiler, the kind of dog this guy should have.This guy is a living example of a certain stereotype.The dog was convulsing in the back seat, spraying saliva all over the car windows, scratching the glass desperately with its paws.He wasn't much worried about the dog.He knows how to kill a dog.

Ray got out of the car and went around the rear bumper to inspect the damage.The Honda driver started yelling at him, "You stupid, fucking idiot, look what you've done!" in English. Ray trying to find something non-confrontational to say to calm this guy down, you know he's like a pressure cooker on the verge of beeping, he can't wait to beep, his legs are bouncing like a weight out of shape level boxer.Ray was neither attacking nor defending, and the expression on his face was neither angry nor happy. However, he heard people whisper "Ah" in unison because of panic, and he found that the guy suddenly fucked a baseball out of nowhere. Bat, then he thought, shit.

For several seconds after that, his mind went blank.When he regained consciousness, he had fallen to the ground, holding the part of his head that was injured by that guy in his hands.He heard the sound of glass shattering—the bastard was smashing his car windows side by side.He struggled to stand up, but in vain, he could only stand on his knees, the posture seemed to be praying, and the guy was already walking towards him with the bat in his hand, weighing the weight of the bat with his hands , ready to hit a home run in his skull.Ray raised an arm to defend himself, but the movement made him even more dizzy, and he fell to the stone again, thinking, God, is this the end?He's given up, he's really given up (where's he ever done that) but then someone comes out of the crowd waving a black square thing and throws it at the guy in the Honda , the guy ate a bit on his shoulder, and couldn't help but staggered.

He lost consciousness for a few more seconds.When he recovered, he found two policewomen bent over him, and one of them said to him, "Sir, it's all right." Another was calling an ambulance on her radio.He was overjoyed to see the police, for the first time in his life.