Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

Arthur was running for his life, running towards the foot of the hill, panting.He felt the whole mountain moving gently, rumbling, heavy, and secretly under his feet.He felt waves of heat hitting behind him and above his head.He ran like hell.The mountain began to slide.He suddenly felt the power of the word "landslide"—he had never felt it so clearly.Before, it was just a word to him, but now he realized with great horror that "cracking" is really a weird and hateful behavior of "mountain".He himself is suffering from this behavior.He was terrified and trembling.The earth is sliding and the mountains are grunting.He missed.He fell, he got up again, he stepped on the ground again, got up again and continued to run. "Avalanche" began.

Pebbles, boulders, and boulders raced down around him like clumsy puppets.They're getting bigger, harder, heavier, and deadlier if they hit you.His eyeballs quivered with them.His feet trembled with the ground.He was sweating profusely from running, and his heart was beating wildly along with the whole mountain. Logically speaking, he must not die.Because the next event in the Agra Jag accidental death saga hasn't happened yet.It's a pity that Arthur couldn't think of this at the moment.As he ran, the shadow of death was tightly entwined in his heart, under his feet, on his head, and on his hair.

Suddenly he tripped and fell with considerable force.Just as he was about to land, he saw a small navy blue travel bag ahead of him—the very same one he had lost (in terms of his personal time) at baggage claim at Athens airport ten years ago.So, he was surprised to find that he didn't touch the ground, but jumped into the air, and the melody of joy suddenly sounded in his heart. That's what he does: fly.He looked around in amazement.Undoubtedly he was flying.No part of the body touches the ground, nor is any part approaching the ground.He was indeed floating in the air, with large rocks flying around him.

He looked down curiously, and he was thirty feet away from the shaking ground.It means: Those big rocks can't stay here for long, because they have to abide by the iron law of gravity and keep falling down.But the iron law, suddenly, gave Arthur a break. At the same time, as if in an instinct of self-preservation, he was rightly aware that he had to try not to think about it.As soon as he thought about it, the law of gravity would catch a glimpse of him, thinking "what does this guy think he's doing?" and then it was all over. So he started thinking about tulips.It won't be easy, but he has to think about it.He thought of the lovely curves of the tulip bulbs, and he thought of the flowers they bore in every color.He wondered, how many tulips can grow (or have grown) around a windmill within a radius of one kilometer?Soon, he lost his imaginative interest dangerously. He only felt that the air under his body was about to slip away, and he was about to float in front of the big rock.So he tried to change his mind and thought about Athens Airport instead - and thus managed to be depressed for five minutes.When the depression was over, he was surprised to find that he was already more than two hundred yards away from the ground.

Now, how to go back?He thought for a moment, but quickly forced himself to divert his attention in order to maintain his balance. He is flying.What should I do now?He looked down.Not to look hard, but to glance lazily, to look in passing.He couldn't help noticing the following two facts: First, the mountain seemed to have completely crumbled away—there was a huge hole a little below the top of the mountain, which should have been the location of the huge cave church, which once housed his own statue, and the poor man. statue of the scarred Agrajag. The second thing is his travel bag, which was lost at the Athens airport.It lay conspicuously in the clearing, surrounded by devastation, but it itself was not hit by any stones.He didn't know why—and besides, the odds of that travel bag showing up here were even more frighteningly small, so Arthur didn't want to know why it hadn't been smashed.The point is, it's already here.And that ugly fake leopard-skin bag seems to have disappeared - equally incredible, but a good thing after all.

Now, he had to pick up the travel bag.He was a man who was now floating two hundred yards above a strange planet whose name he couldn't even name.That travel bag, a fragment of his past life, a relic of his vanished home light-years away, he couldn't leave it behind. Then he remembered that if the bag had remained in its original condition, it should have contained the only jar of Greek olive oil in the universe. Slowly, carefully, little by little, he began to fly down.Shaking from side to side, like a wobbly piece of paper. Everything went well and it felt good.The air held him up, and at the same time let him slide down through it.Two minutes later, he was only two feet off the ground.What followed was a difficult choice.He floated lightly up and down.He frowned, trying to relax again.

If he picks up that bag, can he move it?Will the extra weight drag him down to the ground? Will just touching something on the ground release the mysterious power that holds him up? Wouldn't it be better to just land and stay on the ground for a while? If he lands, can he fly again? He reminded himself not to think about it any more, but the thought couldn't go away.Maybe he will never be able to fly again.His mind was full of worries, so he floated up a little more.He wanted to remember this feeling, this amazing, limp movement.He floated and floated, and tried to dive. The dive was successful.He swung his hands forward, his hair and nightgown were thrown back, and he dived from the air to the ground.An arc was drawn, and it slid into the sky again.On the way up the slide, there was a slight brake, and the gliding stopped.braked.He floated there.

very good.he thinks.That's how to pick it up.Just dive down and grab it before sliding up.This will take it away.It might go a little off, but he's sure he'll catch it. He tried to rush a few more times, and the movements were getting better and better.The wind blowing over his face and the movement of his body made him feel intoxicated in his soul—the first time since—well, as far as he can express it, since he was born—that he was so intoxicated.He was floating in the breeze, looking at the wilderness, the scenery here - very ugly, a dilapidated scene.He didn't want to read it anymore, and now he just wanted to pick up the travel bag, and then...he didn't know what to do next, anyway, let's talk after picking it up.He walked against the wind, floated up with the wind, and turned around.Perhaps Arthur didn't realize that he was "pulling" at this moment.

He faces the wind.He bent over in the air current, tested the "water", and dived down.The breeze brushed over his body, and he shivered.The ground seemed to shake for a moment, then calmed down, and slowly came up to him—coming up with the duffel bag, coming up with its cracked plastic handle.When he was halfway diving, he suddenly had a dangerous idea - he didn't believe that he was really flying.Sure enough, he immediately fell down.He tried his best to dispel this thought, glanced at the ground, reached out his hand, passed the handle, tried to float up again-but finally failed, and fell suddenly.Flesh and skin were injured, and he fell on the hard rock and struggled painfully.

He staggered to his feet, jumped anxiously, and swung the travel bag around, sad and desperate.His feet suddenly changed back to the way they were before, sticking tightly to the ground.His body, like a sack of heavy potatoes, stumbled on the ground; his heart sank to the bottom as if it had been filled with lead.Arthur hung his head weakly, shaking his head, his whole body was sore, and his head was dizzy from the pain.He tried to run, but his legs were limp.He stumbled and was about to fall when he remembered—not only the jar of Greek olive oil in the bag, but also a bottle of duty-free rosin wine.Overjoyed, he was distracted for about ten seconds, and when he came back to his senses, he was already flying again.

So, he cheered, jumped for joy, relieved, and relaxed.Sometimes he dives, sometimes turns, sometimes sideways, sometimes circles.He swaggered up the updraft and began to count the contents of the bag.It felt, he thought, like the celebratory dance the angels feel when theologians are counting the angels on the tip of a pin.Suddenly, he laughed out loud, because in addition to olive oil and wine, he found in the bag a pair of scratched-on sun eyes, some sand-covered swimming trunks, and some crumpled Santorini postcards. , a big ugly towel, a handful of interesting rocks, and lots of scraps of paper with people's contact information - people he'd be happy never to see again - even though there were more sentimental reasons for that.He threw away rocks, put on sun glasses, and let the pieces of paper drift away behind him. [① Santorini: a small island in Greece, a tourist attraction. ——Translator's Note] Ten minutes later, when he leisurely walks through the clouds, a big and notorious cocktail party is coming.