A faint light appeared at the end of the dark night, but neither
"Did they place all their hopes on you?" Chen Ge had some understanding of why the man had become a Red Robe. His own resentment wasn't particularly strong, but during his lifetime he had been in contact with countless deceased individuals. More importantly, those dead had treated him as the only person they could confide in.
All the negative emotions, all the sorrowful memories, and all the regrets that could never be fulfilled—the dead had poured all of this onto the crisis hotline operator, accumulating deep in the bottom of his heart.
A qualified suicide intervention hotline operator knew how to untangle the confusion in their own heart. They regarded the human body as a conduit. If negative emotions built up too much, it would cause a blockage. That was why most of the time they didn't dare to think too deeply. When on a call, they would patiently offer guidance, but after hanging up, they would never dwell on the matter again.
The Red-Robed man on the other side of the tracks was different. He had been influenced by the dead. Just like Chen Ge, he would immerse himself in their situations, pour his heart into consoling them, and link his own emotions with theirs.
He genuinely cared about those who reached out for help, but that was also an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do.
By immersing himself in the desperate situations of the callers, he had pushed himself to the edge of the cliff while trying to help those who were already standing on one.
A person's capacity for endurance had its limits. Even professional crisis intervention workers developed varying degrees of psychological problems after years on the job. The man, in rescue after rescue, never had time to readjust his own mental state before being entangled by new troubles.
He reached out to grab hold of those who wanted to end their lives, but his own body was being dragged into the abyss little by little.
The man's teacher had already seen the problem, so he told the man to empty his mind and rest well. But the final result showed that the man apparently hadn't followed his teacher's advice.
He became one of the people he had helped countless times—a suicide intervention operator who chose to commit suicide.
"Why would you do that? Death doesn't solve anything." Chen Ge wanted to persuade the man, but thinking of the man's profession when he was alive, he felt a sense of absurdity wash over him.
"I've considered everything you've said. After all, when it comes to this subject, I'm the professional." Blood seeped from the red robe on the man's body. He was completely different from other malicious ghosts. His eyes were fixed on the distant light, and he seemed to be drawn to it.
"The reasons for suicide can generally be divided into several categories. First, when people develop a distorted perception of the world, life, and their surroundings, they view everything around them through a lens of pure darkness, believing that living is nothing but suffering. My death doesn't fall into this category."
"Second, when a person feels guilt or remorse over something, they may act impulsively. I obviously don't belong to this category either."
"Third, there's suicide as a form of revenge—using one's own death to make others live with regret. That doesn't match my situation either."
"If you break down the reasons for suicide, there are dozens of them, but I don't fit into any single one. I suppose you could say I was a rather special case."
"In truth, I kept trying to convince myself. I had saved so many people, but when it came time to save myself, I suddenly realized how powerless words could be."
"The writer, the amusement park mannequin, and the cancer patient—those three represented three different personalities and attitudes toward life. I grieved their departures. I hated my own helplessness. I sincerely wished from the bottom of my heart that they could keep living!"
"I tried desperately to talk them down, but once you truly listen to their voices, you realize they each had their own reasons for wanting to leave."
"Sometimes I envied doctors. As long as they prescribed the right medicine, they could save a patient. But my job was different. Even knowing that release was a kind of medicine for them, I couldn't let them take it."
"When everyone on the internet attacked me, I spoke my mind. It was a public execution, just without the blood-soaked scene."
The man's expression remained calm throughout. "Many people said I was sick, that I was insane, a murderer, that I was killing people indirectly. But all I wanted was to do was help them."
The light in the distance drew closer. The man stood beside the tracks with no intention of moving out of the way.
"Those who have never witnessed death, who have never experienced that soul-rending agony—what right do they have to point fingers? What grounds do they have to act so superior?" As the light bore down on him, the man's speech quickened. Blood kept seeping from his forehead, staining half of his ever-shifting face. "Only when I rose again from that pool of blood did I finally understand this truth. Those stretches of life—cornered, suffocating in despair—poured into my body. I finally understood them. I understood why those who had once lived would make such an incomprehensible choice."
The man's eyes turned blood-red, all traces of calm gone from his face, his voice growing more frenzied with every word.
"I gave everything I had to heal them. Perhaps I could help them release love more freely, and improve their ability to discover and embrace love. But I couldn't change the concentration of love in the environment they lived in. That's why, even after a crisis intervention succeeded, many of them would go back to doing what they had planned. Because their personal environment hadn't changed. The bullied became victims of silent violence. The isolated children found it even harder to make friends. What could truly save them wasn't me, a suicide intervention operator, but the individuals around them."
"When you get to know most of them deeply, you'll find that the truly detestable ones are certain people in their lives—those who used their own brushes to paint the suicide victims' worlds gray. They are the real culprits!"
"Yet even after the person who tried to save them died, those who had driven them to that point wouldn't show even a shred of grief. Instead, it was the loved ones who cherished them most who suffered in agony."
"Is that fair?" The man looked at the oncoming train and slowly raised his hands. "I only understood these things after I died. In truth, many of the dead are full of regret, but they have no chance to start over. So they placed all their lingering attachments onto me, asking me to seek justice on their behalf."
"Justice? What are you planning to do?" In that instant, Chen Ge felt a bone-deep killing intent radiating from the man. He understood that after everything the man had been through, he had completely fallen into darkness.
"For example, clearing out those parasites who know nothing but greedily taking love while being utterly incapable of giving it. So that no more kind-hearted people have to suffer."
The man said "those"—he didn't intend to deal with just one or two people, but many.
Unlike other Red Robes, this man's cruelty and violence were hidden in the deepest recesses of his heart.
"Calm down. I think there has to be a better way." Chen Ge took a step back and silently called out
"This isn't just my decision. It's the wish of all of them."
Blood churned. The light on the front of the train illuminated the barren wasteland. In the brief flash of light, Chen Ge saw that the man was standing in front of a dense crowd of silhouettes, packed tightly behind him.