An ancient person once said: if you advise someone to be magnanimous, heaven will strike you with lightning.
Advising someone who wants to commit suicide is the same.
The orphanage kids were just an external factor. Gwen had never heard of anyone killing themselves because someone else's kids were chasing their dreams.
The main problem was still money.
As the saying goes, when a man reaches middle age he has no choice but to soak goji berries in his thermos…
Wrong, that's not it.
It should be: when a man reaches middle age he has no choice—broke, powerless, and fucked.
Anyway, Mr. Steve was dead set on jumping. For a middle-aged man whose physical and mental pillars had both collapsed, nothing you said would work.
So Gwen decisively changed the subject. "Actually, I'm here to jump too. Do you know why I climbed all the way up Wayne Tower?"
Mr. Steve looked puzzled. "Isn't it because the view is nice?"
"It's pitch black! What view is there!" Gwen lowered her voice. "Have you heard the old legend?"
"Huh?"
"The legend says that if you jump from the highest point of this city with the most sincere faith, there's a 2% chance you'll land completely unharmed and your dreams will come true."
"How is the 2% calculated?"
"Don't worry about the details!" Gwen said seriously. "After careful investigation, I found out the legend is fake."
Mr. Steve laughed bitterly. "Of course it's fake…"
"It's to cover up another truth!"
"Huh?"
Gwen's voice became mysterious and gloomy. "Have you heard of Eastern Feng Shui?"
"Uh… I've… heard of it?"
"Actually, when the Wayne family built Wayne Tower, they invited a mysterious Feng Shui master from the East and set up a great Feng Shui array inside the building to suppress and protect the family's fortune. After my careful investigation… do you see that fountain down there? That's the dragon eye of the Feng Shui array. As long as we jump from here with the determination to die, if we can land in the fountain water, we can be reborn and defy fate!"
Mr. Steve was completely stunned.
From the look on his face, it was obvious he didn't understand a single word.
Poor kid. He's never even read tomb-raiding novels from the ancient Eastern country. His spiritual world is too empty. No wonder he wants to kill himself.
Gwen sighed. "In words you can understand: it's a trial. If you can jump into the fountain, God will grant you new life."
"Ah?"
This time Mr. Steve understood, but his brain was still frozen.
"Anyway, we're jumping either way. Want to give it a try? What if you're the lucky one?"
"I don't think I am… Ah—!"
"Stop wasting time!"
Gwen kicked Mr. Steve off the building and followed right after, activating Leap of Faith.
"Aaaaaah—!"
Steve, falling through the air, screamed like a woman. "I'm not mentally prepared yet!"
Gwen floated beside him and comforted softly, "You don't need mental preparation for jumping off a building. We've already jumped anyway. Don't overthink it. Just adjust your posture, aim for the fountain, hold your breath. We're about to land!"
"No! I mean I haven't cleared my computer hard drive yet!"
"......"
Gwen covered her face and sighed. "Sorry, my bad."
"Nooooo—! The police will check my computer! My entire E drive is my collection!" Mr. Steve clutched his head and cried. "Anyone! Please destroy my computer! Quick! I don't want to end up on the news because of this!"
"Cheer up. In a way, isn't this also being reborn?"
"I don't want this kind of rebirth!"
Steve's scream cut off abruptly. Gwen grabbed his collar, slung him over her shoulder, spun 720 degrees, and positioned herself for landing.
"Splosh—!"
Splash splash splash—
Soaking wet, Steve crawled out of the fountain with great difficulty. He shivered in the cold night wind for a long while before he came back to his senses and realized he was completely unharmed.
"My God… I… I'm still alive?"
Steve subconsciously patted himself all over, then turned to look at the magical fountain that had saved his life.
There was no white tight-suited weirdo there.
"Was it all a hallucination? Did I drink too much?"
Mr. Steve looked completely lost, his mind blank. He had no idea how to face this damn reality.
"Was it really a hallucination? But I survived!"
The words the white creature had said flashed through his mind.
Eastern Feng Shui? God granting new life? Defying fate?
He gradually calmed down. His body stopped shaking. His eyes began to grow firm.
I was already dead, but I came back to life!
This is God's will! I shouldn't die here! I still have things to do. I still have a mission I haven't completed!
I… have truly been reborn!
Mr. Steve had an epiphany!
Just as his eyes were starting to burn with fanaticism, a crisp crack sounded beside him, yanking his thoughts back from zealous spiritual faith to cold reality.
It was his laptop.
By the standards of this era, it was cutting-edge high-tech—very heavy, very expensive, with a huge hard drive capacity of dozens of gigabytes.
Now it was smashed to pieces.
The man died, but the hard drive wasn't wiped.
The man survived, but the hard drive was shattered.
Which one looked more tragic?
Even Mr. Steve couldn't decide for a moment.
But at least there was still hope.
He was alive, even if unemployed.
As long as he was alive, there was hope!
Mr. Steve squatted down, pried the cracked hard drive out of the laptop's corpse, carefully put it in his pocket, then sat down heavily beside the fountain.
He rested for a while, then stood up and limped toward home.
Gwen lay on the roof above, watching his back disappear into the night with a gratified smile on her face.
She had saved another person today. Maybe even a whole family. Maybe even many people's dreams.
As long as she does one good deed a day, the world will become a better place. That was her brand of superheroism.
Leap of Faith height recorded: 381 meters.
Achievement points gained:
Jump from 50 meters +10
Jump from 100 meters +15
Jump from 200 meters +20
Jump from 300 meters +25
She farmed a full 70 achievement points, but when she checked the gacha machine, it required 100 points per draw.
Full of malicious Japanese mobile game energy.
Gwen sighed. She should have jumped from the antenna earlier. With the antenna it would have definitely exceeded 400 meters.
Good people don't always get good rewards. It's practically torturing perfectionists.