Affected by the economic crisis, the number of people who died by suicide this year had reached another historic high. Global suicide figures could not be counted, but both the United Kingdom and France had seen more than a hundred thousand suicides—far exceeding normal years.
The methods of suicide kept popping up in endless variety: some jumped into the sea, some leapt from buildings, some hanged themselves, some shot themselves. There were even oddballs—perhaps they had read themselves stupid—who chose to swallow bullets.
They swallowed the bullet, but unfortunately did not die at once. Unable to bear the pain and too weak to seek medical treatment, they had no choice but to kill themselves a second time.
Tower Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, Paris's Eiffel Tower, California's Suicide Bridge, and Japan's Mihara Crater had all become famous suicide meccas. The governments of the two countries had been forced to close these "tourist attractions."
It could be said that this economic crisis had directly pushed many countries into an era of negative population growth ahead of schedule. Everyone was too busy saving themselves—who still had the heart to have children?
Suicides were no longer news. If one day passed without anyone killing themselves, that would be news.
The whole world was littered with wailing refugees. At this point, no one spoke of saving the market anymore; nobody knew how to save it.
The virtual economy had been inflated from the start. Once the bubble burst, many people discovered what that huge pile of so-called "high-quality enterprises" truly amounted to.
No matter how great a company's potential for development was, the market capacity at its core was limited. It could not grow without end.
Only now, looking back, did everyone suddenly realize that most of those so-called high-quality enterprises had already been hollowed out,