The sun’s rays fell on the Temple in Heaven mansion that stood between heaven and earth.
The glass reflected the afterglow as if it was a giant oil painting, beautiful.
In front of such a beautiful view, a group of media reporters were carrying cameras and walking around with microphones, constantly making phone calls, trying to contact the management of Temple in Heaven, preferably to get an appointment with Paige and be able to interview them.
Paige pulled the car around back and entered the building through the back door.
The inside of the building was empty, the renovations were not yet complete, but the electricity was on.
Paige took the elevator to the top floor, then took a flight of stairs and pushed open the door to the rooftop.
I don’t know if it’s because the building’s rooftop is close to the sky, but the moment she pushed open the door, Paige felt that all the colors of the sunset were splashed on the rooftop, which was not yet finished.
She looked up and saw a lone bench parked on the rooftop.
Alfredo sat on it, leaning against the back of the chair, his neck tilted slightly forward.
The light of dusk poured over him, his wide, light-colored shirt moving with the wind, accentuating his lean, thin frame.
“Uh-huh…”
A woman, bound hand and foot, sat paralyzed on the head of some broken bricks off to the side, and when she saw Paige coming up, she struggled agitatedly, a pleading look in her eyes.
Beauty.
Paige looked over and saw that she was still wearing high-end brand fashions that were worth a lot of money, but the black tape on her mouth and the messy hair all over her head made her look in a sorry state, where was the stance of that set of beautiful male lovers on the hot search.
Hearing the woman’s voice, Alfredo slowly turned his head, a handsome face with sad eyebrows.
Seeing Paige, the sadness under Alfredo’s eyes gradually dispersed, revealing a hint of a smile, gently saying, “Paige, you’re here.”
“…”
Paige looks at him in silence and walks towards him step by step.
Closer, she realized that he was holding a small fish tank in his arms, filled with water, holding some small stones, decorative water plants, and only no fish.
Paige recognized it as the one she had given to Alfredo.
At that time, Alfredo’s family was the earliest group of people in Wind Island, and almost all of his descendants had never seen the outside world. She could see that Alfredo was a bit scared to face this unfamiliar world, and that he himself was a sentimental and thoughtful person.
So she gave him some fish.
A fish has a short memory, it doesn’t think or worry much, so no matter what kind of environment it changes to, it can welcome its new life freely and happily.
“Sit.” Alfredo smiled.
Paige took a seat on the bench, leaving a distance between her and him.
She looked ahead, the rooftop hadn’t been made into a parapet yet, and at a glance, the view was exceptionally open, as if the clouds were right in front of her, just out of reach.
“Paige, let me tell you a story.”
Seeing that she didn’t say anything, Alfredo sat down and spoke slowly, “There was a man who had lived his whole life on Wind Island, he never thought that he would ever leave the island one day, he was afraid inside, but also vaguely looking forward to it.”
“…”
Paige listened quietly without comment.
“Outside the city was bustling with lights, the words he used to know now had a concrete look, the first day he lived in the house he was assigned to, he could even play with the light switch all night, he never knew that light could come so easily; the second day he received training, his hands were shaking even holding the mouse, he was afraid that he would learn slowly, he was afraid that the others would look at him in a different way .”
In Alfredo’s story, the protagonist is obvious, and he doesn’t try to hide it, but he just doesn’t want to use the word “I”.
As if it wasn’t his story.
Alfredo looked down at the small fish tank in his arms, his fingertips lightly traced down on it, “The girl he adored gave him a fish tank, he understood the other party’s expectations, and he decided to try to adapt to his new life.”
At that, Paige’s gaze was struck dumb and she turned her eyes to him.
He liked her, that much she didn’t know.
“Temple in Heaven is a great place to live, and the people are so nice, they really don’t even discriminate for a minute in their bones when faced with over three thousand oddly shaped Wind Islanders who are flat-eyed and attentive to their teachings.”
Alfredo still had his head down, staring at the waterway in the tank, “He was happy too, he wished he had learned some skills earlier and done something that would have proved his significance, instead of just muddling through life and living and dying like he did back on Wind Island.”
“…”
As he said this, Alfredo suddenly let out a self-deprecatingly bitter laugh as his words took a sharp turn, “But little did he know that from the moment he stepped off the ship, he was being watched.”
As the words fell out of her mouth, Beauty on the side suddenly stopped making “uh-uh” noises, and became unusually quiet.
Paige turned her head to look, only to see Beauty sitting almost rigidly on the floor, her eyes looking fearfully at Alfredo.
Paige suddenly understood everything, “She’s on to you …”
Alfredo went right on with his story, “He was kidnapped, put in a darkened house, humiliated, beaten, drugged, over and over again, forced to submit, told that this humiliation was all a lift for an inferior man like him.”
Following Paige off the ship, he meets Beauty’s eyes in the midst of countless well-intentioned looks, and Beauty’s direct and naked gaze sends shivers down his spine.
At the party that night, he was stopped in his tracks by Beauty, who politely offered him a drink without that look in her eyes from Daylight.
He was still thinking that the plutocrats had changed generation after generation, and that these people were less vicious now than they were then, and were able to put down their barriers and treat each other peacefully.
But just a week after he declined Beauty’s invitation to sit in his hotel room, he was blocked in an alley and beaten up, and Beauty brought someone to save him, with a fake smile on her face.
He seems to realize what’s going on and is much more cautious in his actions.
But then, something even more outrageous comes.
He was kidnapped in broad daylight, and Beauty locked him up, slapped him across the face again and again to force him to give in, ordered his head pushed into the pool, and ordered him to be stripped naked under several standing cameras.
Desperately trying to escape, he called for help from the police patrolling the roadside, and Beauty’s car then arrived on the scene.
The end result was that the police respectfully “invited” him into Beauty’s car.
This was the first time he realized how scary the power of the plutocrats still was in this country A. No wonder Paige had to rely on Enrico to give them freedom.
“Paige? Yes, I admit she’s a character, but she’s also afraid of us, otherwise, how could she just dare to suppress, instead of destroying us all, she comes to be the king of this A country?”
“As long as you behave yourself, I’ll send you back, but you’d better not talk nonsense and break the state of peace between our plutocrats and Paige, and then the ones who will suffer will be the 3, 000 or so inferior people in your slums.”
“Also, that kid’s name is Bastion, right? I see you care about him, so if you dare to disobey me, I’ll have some fun with him.”