"Cooperate? No way I'm cooperating. Never gonna cooperate."
Ethan glanced outside through the small window of the warehouse.
'So this is what it feels like to be surrounded by the police. Two cops?'
One with a loudspeaker, one with a gun.
If Ethan remembered correctly, unless they were criminal police officers, ordinary police officers only had rubber bullets in their guns. They were the kind that could at most cause a fracture if they hit you. There was absolutely no way they could kill you.
'That is it?'
'And they want to surround me?'
'I'm a man who was once surrounded by thousands of cockroaches and still managed to escape alive.'
But going out and taking the cops head-on was naturally out of the question.
Ethan scanned the warehouse and noticed that its roof had a double-layer structure. There was a larger sheet of metal covering a smaller one, with a whole ring of empty space between them.
Although the gap was only about half a meter wide, as long as he could climb onto the roof, it would still be easy to crawl out through the gap.
There were lots of old sit-up mats in the warehouse, stacked quite high.
Nearly two meters high.
Ethan pushed the old sit-up mats into the corner, then picked up a wooden office chair from the floor that was missing one leg.
He threw the chair up first, then quickly climbed from the floor onto the sit-up mats.
As he climbed, countless clouds of dust rose into the air.
They made his nose and throat unbearably itchy, but he knew he couldn't cough. That way, the cops outside wouldn't know whether there was actually anyone inside, and at least he'd have more time to escape.
Ethan propped the three-legged chair on top of the sit-up mats. Its height was just enough for him to reach the edge of the thin metal roof.
"Ha!"
With a little force, Ethan did a pull-up and quickly flipped himself out.
Bang!
Because he'd rolled up smoothly with a curling motion, the sound of Ethan landing on the metal roof wasn't very loud. It was only a soft noise.
"Uh…"
Ethan looked at his hands, then at the metal sheet beneath him.
He became even more suspicious of this world.
'When did I get such good skills? I am practically as badass as an action star in a martial arts movie.'
'If I have these skills, why do I need to become a corporate drone after graduating from school?'
'I can go straight to Hollywood to work as a stunt double, or just make some short videos on Tube. Wouldn't making money that way be great?'
'Wait…'
'Graduating? Corporate drone?'
'Which one is the dream, then? Am I not a mage?'
What had originally been a mix-up between two worlds had now become a mix-up between three worlds. Although Ethan had already determined that the world he was currently in was the fake world, which of the remaining two worlds was the real one?
Which was fake?
"Everyone inside, listen up! You're surrounded by the police. I advise you to come out and surrender immediately!", The cop was already getting impatient. The one holding the loudspeaker had started speaking much faster, "Come out right now, or we're going to rush in and arrest you! By then, it'll be too late for you to turn yourself in!"
The cop's voice startled Ethan, and he suddenly snapped out of his self-doubt.
'Run first!'
The sports warehouse had been built right beside the wall at the very back of the school, so behind it was actually a perimeter wall.
That wall was just about a meter shorter than the sports warehouse.
Ethan rose onto his tiptoes, hunched over, and quickly walked to the wall. Then he grabbed the edge of the sports warehouse roof with both hands once again and pulled himself down. His feet landed steadily beside the wall.
The wall was only two meters above the ground.
Ethan repeated the same trick, and soon landed on the road behind the school.
An auntie passing by with a basket of groceries looked at Ethan suspiciously. Her gaze seemed to be questioning why he had climbed out of the school and why he wasn't studying properly.
At the same time, she seemed to be hesitating over whether she should report this student for skipping school.
"What are you looking at! I got expelled, fuck your mother!"
Ethan angrily kicked a trash can, sending it crashing loudly and startling the auntie. Her face showed obvious anger.
You can lose everything but your nerve.
Once he'd let himself be intimidated by an auntie…
Who knew what those aunties who could sweep through the global gold market and conquer Wall Street were capable of.
So Ethan immediately pointed at the auntie and roared, "Old hag! Keep looking and I'll beat your ass! I've already been expelled anyway. I'm gonna be a bum from now on. At worst, I'll just spend my days inside. Who's scared of who? Fuck!"
As the saying went, the tough feared the ruthless, and the ruthless feared those who didn't care about dying.
Ethan had already made his attitude of not caring about his life clear.
The auntie didn't dare look at Ethan anymore.
She hurriedly lowered her head and walked away.
After all… a student had already been expelled from school.
Reporting him really wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead, she might end up being targeted by this piece of social scum.
Better to go home, play with her grandson, and educate her grandson properly: he absolutely must not study hard, and under no circumstances should he ever have any thoughts of dropping out of school.