"The call recording was leaked to the public. The first person to come find me was my teacher."
"It was a little past five in the morning. I had draped my jacket over myself and was catching some sleep in the break room. I vaguely heard the door open, but I was too drowsy to pay it any mind."
"It wasn't until noon, when I opened my eyes, that I realized my teacher was sitting at the desk in the break room, leafing through Menninger's 'Man Against Himself' — a book on the psychology of suicide."
"Sunlight streamed into the room. I still had no idea what had happened outside. I just thought my teacher seemed a bit off today."
"He was the most senior counselor at our center, the one who had personally trained me, so no matter when it was, I always called him 'Teacher.'"
You could hear from the man's tone how much he respected his teacher.
"Your teacher told you about this? What was his attitude?" Chen Ge was somewhat curious. If he wanted to build a good relationship with a Red Clothing, he needed to understand their personality and the obsession they had carried in life — only then could he address the right pressure point and get them to willingly work for him.
"He never said a single word to me about that incident. He just asked me a question." The man gazed into the pitch-black night sky. "If one day he were standing on the edge of a building, how should I go about talking him down?"
"I had never considered that question. In my eyes, my teacher was someone of extraordinary psychological fortitude. A scenario like that was practically unthinkable. I told him my honest thoughts: if that day ever came, I would put everything I had ever learned to use on him, exhaust every last ounce of my ability to save him. If even that wasn't enough to change his mind, then I would respect his decision."
"I never considered my work to be sacred. I just thought it was incredibly important — no different from an ER doctor. I would approach it with the utmost seriousness to save people, but I would also respect their choices."
As the man spoke, his voice gradually dropped. "After hearing what I said, my teacher smiled with satisfaction. He sat beside me like an old friend of many years and told me one thing."
"He said I was a good person, the student he was most proud of, but not a fully qualified suicide prevention hotline operator."
"My teacher could already tell that my emotional state wasn't quite right. He told me to go out more, to clear my mind."
"Being a suicide prevention hotline operator is a very unique job. Leaving aside the crank calls, on average each person takes about twenty moderate-risk calls a night, and one to five high-danger calls. Under the relentless barrage of emotional impact, the operators themselves sometimes get affected — becoming melancholy, crying alongside the caller. And every time that happens, you have to tell yourself: stay calm, keep your composure, and persuade them."
"The human body is like a balloon filled with water. Good feelings, bad feelings, all kinds of emotions get poured into it. If you can't regulate yourself, then when the balloon bursts, that's the moment a person completely falls apart."
"As a suicide prevention hotline operator, your brain soaks in grief and despair every night. Many people leave the job after a while, so at first I didn't truly understand what my teacher meant."
"When I was about to ask him again, he patted me on the shoulder and left. But the book he had been reading, he left behind."
"Later on, I learned that my call recording had been posted online. I became the first suicide prevention operator who was said to have talked someone to death."
"Countless people were cursing me. At that time, I was actually quite calm."
"What others said had nothing to do with me. I only cared about what was right and what was wrong."
"In that respect, I really was a rather foolish person — the kind who would shed tears over a caller's story, who would stay up until dawn talking to total strangers, who would cry alongside them, who would put themselves in their shoes and feel their pain."
"I didn't see myself as a rescuer. I saw myself as their friend."
The man's expression grew somewhat vacant as he spoke these words.
But the vacancy in his eyes was quickly replaced by a bloody red — crimson seeped out from beneath his skin. "Before the outcome of that matter had even emerged, a new situation arose."
"During a crisis intervention, when someone is determined to die and you forcibly prevent them, even if you succeed that time, they will likely attempt suicide in a much more resolute way the next time."
"To prevent this from happening, we sometimes allow them to make an attempt within a controlled range. For instance, if there are air cushions, ambulances, and fire crews on standby, and the floor isn't too high, we won't forcibly stop them from jumping."
"I know this sounds very hard to accept, but think of it from another angle. There are very few people in this world who can truly empathize — even parents find it difficult. A blunt refusal to let go almost always backfires, because it's a manifestation of failing to understand the other person's pain."
"Allowing them to attempt it is a form of respect — a tangible, genuine respect they can actually feel."
Hearing this, Chen Ge already had a bad feeling forming. "Don't tell me you actually did that?"
"During on-site crisis interventions, I did do things like that. It really isn't as terrible as you might think — we only attempted it within a controllable scope. Let me give you another example. Once, a caller wanted to take a bunch of sleeping pills to kill themselves. They were so emotionally unstable that communication was impossible. After consulting with the police, I sourced a low-dose version of the sleeping pills and let them make the attempt."
"After experiencing death once, they changed significantly and started their life over."
"I have many success stories. It's just that this method sounds like it goes against our duties. When the recordings were later made public, this approach drew fierce public backlash."
"I was trying to save people, yet everyone thought I was killing them."
"I started to think about it. My teacher came to talk to me. Many friends tried to comfort me. But the real issue wasn't about me personally — it was about what was right and what was wrong."
The man looked about the same age as Chen Ge, but his voice sounded far more weathered. He stared into the boundless darkness, gazing quietly for a long time.
The expression on his face slowly twisted into something monstrous, then gradually returned to normal, and finally the corner of his mouth curved into an indifferent arc.
"Maybe I really wasn't a qualified suicide prevention hotline operator. But the people I helped — they really did see me as the last friend they could trust in their lives." The man's jacket was now completely stained red, and that half-bloodied face of his was constantly shifting. "This was something I only understood after I died — that so many hopes had been pinned on me."