My Will Rules Another World

Beneath the scorching summer sun, Ling Feng weaved through the noisy city streets on his Forever‑brand bicycle. Ling Feng inwardly scorned every car he overtook. So what if they were fancy luxury sedans? They were stuck in traffic jams, crawling slower than ants. Private cars were growing more numerous across China. Car owners would drive even for short trips, resulting in constant traffic congestion, a shortage of parking lots, and soaring oil consumption. Massive amounts of petroleum had to be imported every year, yet many of these private cars were essentially hauling thin air, wasting gasoline for nothing. Still, this situation had given Ling Feng his current job: making city deliveries by bicycle. In downtown traffic, a bike moved far faster than cars. It burned no gasoline, released no exhaust, and was perfectly eco‑friendly. “Aha… Give me a cup of water of forgetfulness…” Ling Feng’s phone in his pocket suddenly rang. Hello!” Ling Feng pulled out his Nokia cellphone. “Ling Feng, where are you? Why haven’t you arrived yet? The client has pressed us many times!” An angry roar came from the phone. “I’ll be there right away, two minutes,” Ling Feng replied while speeding up. He would not have been late if he had not just helped a little kid find his mother. Some people these days never watch over their children properly, only rushing to grab cheap bargains for themselves. When night fell, Ling Feng finished his day‑long work and returned to his little nest, his own private world. It was a separate small courtyard, a forgotten corner of the city. That was why Ling Feng could rent it for only two hundred yuan per month. One corner of the yard was piled high with discarded electronic components. Inside the house, apart from one bed, almost all the space was taken up by machines. Several monitors proved that these devices were homemade computers. Ling Feng was a genius. He had built all these machines with his own hands through self‑study and countless experiments. Their computing power was quite a leap ahead of the world‑standard computers of his time. Why would such a genius end up doing this kind of job? The answer was simple: he held no official diploma. Though Ling Feng had scored nearly full marks in math, physics and chemistry since childhood, his liberal‑arts subjects were far weaker. English in particular was terrible; he only knew the twenty‑six letters of the alphabet. For this reason, all his computer systems ran on Chinese‑character programming. He once had a chance to attend university. One college took notice of his perfect scores in math, physics and chemistry on the college‑entrance exam. Yet tuition alone cost twenty thousand yuan a year. Adding living expenses, the total would exceed thirty thousand yuan annually, a sum his family could never afford. Faced with this reality, Ling Feng joined the wave of migrant workers and headed for Shanghai. During his years in Shanghai, Ling Feng discovered that bookstores let people read books for free. The stores were huge, and crowds of visitors read right on‑site. Following this trend, Ling Feng came every day to dive into his favorite subjects: mathematics, physics and chemistry. In this era, almost everyone would come into contact with computers sooner or later. The moment Ling Feng laid eyes on a computer, he threw himself deep into this field. Still, even if he saved every penny of his salary without spending a cent, it would take him half a year just to buy one computer — not to mention the money he needed to send back home. So he studied computer books in bookstores, covering both programming and hardware, and visited an internet café only once a week. One day he passed a junkyard and spotted an old computer among the scraps. After haggling with the owner, he bought his very first computer for five hundred yuan. He repaired the worn‑out computer and got it running. With this machine, Ling Feng finished his experiments on Chinese‑character programming. Still, he knew this shabby device could never unlock the full power of his Chinese‑character programming system. He made up his mind to build a computer of his very own. From then on, besides reading in bookstores every day, he would drop by the junkyard every now and then to chat with the owner and buy some “electronic trash”. Some components could not be manufactured by Ling Feng on his own. To obtain those parts, he endured endless hardships and went through untold difficulties. The bitterness he suffered was beyond other people’s understanding and imagination. Ling Feng rode his Forever bicycle at top speed to a street‑side ramen restaurant and ordered a bowl of ramen noodles. After finishing his meal, Ling Feng walked out of the restaurant. He spotted a beautiful woman walking toward him from across the road — or at least that was what his wandering mind imagined. The woman was simply crossing the street; she was not heading for him at all. Wait, wasn’t the light red? There was no need for her to rush over to him this fast, Ling Feng thought. Right at that moment, he saw a BMW speeding down the road. The woman noticed the car too, yet she froze on the spot, too stunned to move. Ling Feng instantly calculated that even if the driver slammed on the brakes, a collision would be unavoidable. Do not ask how he could figure this out; Ling Feng was a genius in such matters. Without a second thought, he let go of his bicycle and sprinted forward as fast as he had ever run. He threw himself and shoved the woman out of harm’s way. She was pushed clear. Yet Ling Feng knew he could not escape the impact. A fleeting thought crossed his mind: he had just touched her chest, and it had felt surprisingly soft. Boom! A deafening crash rang out. Ling Feng felt himself flying — and indeed he was, hurled through the air by the impact. Thud! Another heavy sound. Ling Feng lost all consciousness. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, yet his heart stopped beating before they arrived. Ling Feng had left this world. Just as the line went: I leave softly, taking not a single wisp of cloud with me. Still, he had left countless things behind, though he would never know it. After learning that the man who had saved her had died, the young woman waited at the hospital for Ling Feng’s parents to claim his body. She found out Ling Feng was their only son, and she resolved to take care of the elderly couple for the rest of their lives.