After ending the call with Li Xingfang, I sat dazed for a long time.
It seemed the reason things had gone wrong lay with Li Xingfang, not with my own powerlessness. More precisely, I had created an opportunity for him, and he had chosen to run from it.
I looked up at the sofa opposite me.
That blurry outline was still there, looking like a ghost from a horror movie. It didn't look like Ye Qing, whom I had seen on the previous few occasions.
Ye Qing—or the people from Greenleaf—should all have the confidence to seize an opportunity like this. As long as I could give them the chance to change their fates, they would grab it firmly and make sure the tragedy didn't happen again.
"What are you planning to do?" I asked, then paused. "After I save all of you, what will you do? Keep running the agency? Or..."
"Then we'll have a new life," Ye Qing said with certainty.
I fell silent.
"Danger and disaster are unavoidable, but just as I found you, if something like this happens again, I'll keep going." Ye Qing sounded as if he were answering the question in my mind.
I clenched my fist.
I should say, that was exactly what I used to believe, too.
Misfortune couldn't be prevented.
A pedestrian carefully walking along the crosswalk, stopping at red and going at green, could still be hit and killed by a speeding car that ran the light. That was misfortune. Did that mean they should stop going outside and lock themselves at home?
Even staying indoors wouldn't help. Fires, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes... There were too many natural disasters in this world. People's Celebration City wasn't in an area prone to natural disasters, but typhoons, torrential rain, and heat waves still