Chapter 108: The Street Ablaze with Lights

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Adonis followed the police to the station, where he saw a man consumed by grief and a child bewildered by innocence. The man’s black coat was dust-covered; Adonis fell silent. This modest family was about to be shattered by a single accident. A sudden, inexplicable guilt crept into Adonis’s heart. Had he taken that alley during the robbery, could the woman have survived?

“Are you sure this isn’t a mistake? I kissed her just this morning,” the man’s eyes brimmed with a desperate disbelief that defied understanding. In moments like these, everyone experiences a distortion of time and space—the overwhelming sorrow tricks the mind into thinking it’s all a cruel illusion.

Only when he saw his beloved, silent and unresponsive, did the man accept humanity’s most unbearable pain: no matter how deeply loved, people must eventually part. He fought back the urge to collapse under the weight of his emotions. Standing beside him was his son, and as a father, he buried his anguish deep within.

Adonis sat on a bench in the police station, a shopping bag from the department store beside him. Though told he could leave, he did not, his mind a turbulent sea. Those facing death for the first time often experience unique physiological reactions—sweating, nausea, dilated pupils—all subconscious manifestations of the survival instinct. Adonis was no exception. He distinctly heard the gears turning in his mind, as if something innate, long sealed away, was finally awakening.

The image of the woman lying in a pool of blood replayed relentlessly in his mind, an unending film. His brain forced a simulation of that moment: the black man raising a gun, his finger squeezing the trigger; the woman too stunned to resist as the cheap alloy bullet tore into her chest. Blood gushed forth like a clear spring beneath yellow sand, an invisible reaper wielding a black scythe.

He saw the man tending to his wife’s affairs, then turned toward the boy, who was happily enjoying his early dismissal from school. Adonis bent down to speak with him.

“Didn’t they tell you why you’re here?”

“No, but getting out early is usually a good thing.”

Adonis felt a sharp pang in the part of his brain that controls emotional regulation. He stared at the innocent child as a vast mental force surged over him like a tidal wave. He tried to speak but found no words.

“What’s wrong with you?” the boy noticed the raw pain on Adonis’s face.

“Your mother is dead. You shouldn’t feel happy about that.”

“What is death?”

Adonis fell silent. The throbbing pain in his head transformed into countless shadowy figures, each beginning to debate.

“Life is the constant elimination of what leads us toward death,” one voice spoke with absurd mania.

“Death is everything we see when awake,” another voice echoed from an ancient Greek polis.

“Death is the soul’s temporary release,” said a figure, speaking with unwavering conviction.

“Death is something utterly irrelevant to us,” said a tone as cold as its words.

“We should submit to nature’s doom,” came a voice tinged with the weariness of time.

“Our souls outlast our bodies,” and “There is no such thing as total annihilation,” two voices chimed simultaneously with the precision of mathematicians.

“Death is the spirit’s reconciliation with itself,” muttered a figure like a solitary wanderer.

Adonis’s head pounded fiercely. He could no longer attend to the debating figures. Staggering to his feet, he fought to keep from collapsing. In his mind, he cried out, “Enough!” The cacophony instantly faded, leaving only intermittent pain to remind him of the argument that had just ceased.

“No matter how much you call your mother, she will not answer,” Adonis said weakly, sorrowfully realizing that human sorrow and joy are not the same for all.

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“She is just asleep,” the boy said seriously.

Adonis was at a loss. How could he explain to this child that the woman’s cellular structure had been destroyed, her tissues softening, microbes slowly consuming her body? In human society, she would be placed in a coffin and buried, soon reduced to bones, with only a tombstone remaining for remembrance.

“Why won’t you say anything? You haven’t told me what death is yet,” the boy repeated the word.

“Because I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

“Have you ever experienced death?”

“No.”

“It’s normal not to know what death is then. But do you know who has? Maybe we can ask him.”

“I don’t know.”

“Since you think death is like sleeping, maybe it’s a long sleep. Usually, my mom sleeps from night until morning. Maybe this time, it’s longer,” the boy offered his own explanation.

“Do you think my mom dreams? You must know what dreaming is, right? It’s like being in another world, which seems more interesting than this one. Since my mom’s been sleeping so long, she must be having lots of fun there.”

Adonis looked at the boy. He seemed to understand something but couldn’t express it.

“Your mother really is asleep,” Adonis said, a strong nausea rising in his stomach, a faint sting deep in his mind.

“Then I can ask her what dreams she had when she wakes up,” the boy said, swinging his legs on the bench.

Adonis’s mind was in chaos, as if someone had flipped a switch inside him. Something was unleashed.

“No! He has no chance! That woman is dead!” a harsh voice shattered Adonis’s thoughts, turning his brain into mush.

An alien mental obsession roared like a mad beast. Adonis felt the immense psychic force and painfully grabbed his hair.

Someone in the station noticed his distress. A police officer hurried over, “Sir, do you need—”

The rest of the sentence faded from Adonis’s hearing. The world splintered before his eyes. A dazzling light forced him to close them. How long passed before he opened them again, the scene before him was incomprehensible.

He was like a spectator watching a silent film; everything dimmed except for the radiant glow representing psychic energy. He saw officers surrounding him open their mouths but utter no sound. Multicolored lights flickered on them, transmitting no information he could understand—no sounds, no gestures—only the glow they emitted. Yet Adonis understood all they tried to communicate. His vision transcended three dimensions. Though the boy stood outside the crowd, Adonis could “see” every movement of his. Lines woven into images were both matter and light, intertwined and tangled. His space felt like a spiritual universe floating outside the material world.

Suddenly, curiosity surged—what state was he in? He wished to feel his existence, but the mere thought caused the world to collapse. Infinite void swallowed him. Time and space proved fragile before the unstoppable darkness. His thoughts and consciousness were torn apart. When all seemed lost, a faint light pierced the endless darkness.

That light was like hope—standing on barren land, surrounded by unfamiliar wilderness, no sign of life. After wandering long and despairing in the dark, a train emerges from a cold, endless tunnel in the night, its whistle piercing the silence, gradually dispelling loneliness.

He desperately tried to grasp that light. Perhaps the gods of fate heard his cry. The high deity wielded a scythe, severing the thread between genius and mediocrity in his life. Suddenly, clarity dawned.

The world regained focus—the noisy voices, the pressure on his chest—these sensations awakened him from the spiritual realm. He opened his eyes to find numerous pairs of eyes fixed on him.

“Sir, how do you feel? An ambulance is on the way...” a serious-faced officer asked, unwilling to see tomorrow’s London Morning News headline declare this man dead in the precinct.

“Sorry, I have low blood sugar. It’s nothing serious; I’ll be fine after eating,” Adonis struggled to stand and bit into the bread from his bag.

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Only after the officers dispersed did Adonis relax. He had no desire to recount what just happened to the police—they might recommend psychiatric care.

Chewing the bread, Adonis reflected on his experience. Was that the spiritual world?

He observed his surroundings. The lights once seen on people had vanished. Swallowing the last bite, he closed his eyes and visualized what he had witnessed. Memories slowly revived sensations in his body. When he reopened his eyes, the world had changed entirely.

Adonis felt a sensation like recalling a skill learned years ago. He explored and approached it bit by bit, finally reclaiming what had been lost—a psychic power innate and unique.

It was as if a new organ had grown inside him. He clearly felt this force within, like a fish sprouting wings—no amount of tail-wagging experience could control these wings.

He cautiously directed this psychic energy toward the boy.

Like raindrops dissolving into the sea, Adonis’s psychic force effortlessly connected with the boy’s faintly glowing aura.

The man, weary after preparing to take his son home, suddenly heard the boy crying loudly.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because my mom is dead.”

Adonis returned home, leaning against a bookshelf. If not for the nagging sensation gnawing at his mind, he might have dismissed everything as a dream.

He hastily pushed papers aside on his desk. Now was no time for philosophical musings; he needed to understand what was happening to him.

Sitting in the chair, he recalled the sensation he had awakened in the hospital. The greatest challenge of flight is the first time you spread your wings; the second time is usually easier.

The world once again immersed in dim strands of light. To Adonis, the city’s thick veil lifted. All disguises were torn away, leaving only the purest information. The joys and sorrows of living beings were nakedly revealed in varying colors of light before him.

Adonis resolved not to remain a bystander. Human curiosity compelled him to approach the streams of light. He wanted to understand them.

At the mere thought, a flood of information surged, nearly bursting his brain. He barely had time to react before his body instinctively recoiled from the pain. He crouched, clutching his head, tears streaming uncontrollably. Physical pain was far less than the impact on his psyche from the emotional torrent. Humans are emotional creatures; feelings transmit among kindred spirits. Fragile in this mental state, Adonis nearly collapsed simply from observing the city’s emotional light streams.

Trembling, he wrote a phrase on a piece of paper: Emotional Flow.

He glanced nervously out the window. The fog had lifted; London’s night was aglow with lights. An elegant, refined city inhabited by people of varied emotions. So far, Adonis’s gift had not reached the point of actively sensing the city’s full spectrum of joys and sorrows.

He decided to call this ability a gift. Despite extensive research, he found no record of such experiences. Perhaps this was God’s favor, bestowing upon him a unique power.

Twenty-four was the prime of his life, the age of insatiable curiosity and adventurous spirit. He did not fear his near-breakdown. Instead, he explored and honed his ability.

After a week of effort, he found the optimal activation range: fifteen meters. This range confined his power—neither dissipating across the vast city nor limited to his tiny self. Within fifteen meters, he could effortlessly and harmlessly read all psychic fluctuations, from humans to animals.

“Hunger.” Adonis calmly observed a hamster in a cage. The furry creature, too, emitted a faint glow. Without touching, Adonis could sense everything it thought. After clearly perceiving “hunger,” he tossed some nuts into the cage and returned to his desk to record notes.

“Ecclesiastes 3:21, ‘Who knows whether the spirit of man rises upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward?’ This seems incorrect. Multiple experiments show animals also possess souls. Perhaps their lights are chaotic, but their emotions mirror those of humans,” Adonis pondered, adding annotations to his notes.

“Current experiments limited to Djungarian hamsters and budgerigars; other animals remain uncertain.”