Wandering America: My kill threshold is far ahead

This shout immediately alerted the others; compared to the white boy, the Asian boy attracted significantly more attention.

There were even white-collar workers in shirts and leather shoes pointing and whispering behind their backs, making some unpleasant comments to their colleagues.

After feeling the change and coins in his pocket and looking at Jimmy's innocent smiling face, Ma Jie swung his arms and began his run-up.

Whoosh! With waist and stance in perfect harmony, using the ticket machine as a springboard, the body rotates 360 degrees in mid-air, executing a beautiful front flip.

After landing safely, the two happily gave each other a high five.

A gasp rippled through the crowd, and their expressions grew even more disgusted and strange.

"Hey buddy, why do you always steal my thunder?"

"Haha, all I can say is that you still need to work on your athletic talent."

A few meters away, a white man in a gray hoodie, who had recorded the scene with a GoPro, walked up to him without any hesitation and greeted him: "Hey bro, that move you just did was awesome! I'm a short video creator on TikTok. May I ask which country you're from?"

Ma Jieke thought for a moment and replied in a language he couldn't even understand himself: "The front wheel doesn't turn, but the back wheel does, smida, amanika oh weep yo ashi ba."

"Swoosh!" The other person gave a thumbs-up with satisfaction: "Yoshi yoshi, sayu na la."

After the other person left, Ma Jie was dumbfounded, but judging from his serious expression, he didn't seem to be joking.

Forget it, take care of him.

The two chatted and laughed as they entered the subway station's public restroom. Jimmy took off his backpack and placed it next to the sink, then unzipped it and took out a towel, toothpaste, disposable toothbrush, comb, face wash, and a bag of shampoo.

I glanced at the words on the packaging; they must have been received from shelters and relief stations.

"Don't be shy, Jack, take it. I have plenty of these."

As he spoke, he handed over an unopened multi-pack. Although it wasn't worth much, there's an old Chinese saying: "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

Ma Jie thanked him, washed his face thoroughly, and then plunged his head into the pool, letting the cold water pour over his hair.

After washing up, Jimmy pulled out some paper from the tube and, under the death stare of the cleaning lady behind him, began to clean up the splashed foam and water stains.

"Jack, even homeless people need to maintain personal hygiene. Only when you take care of yourself will illness and misfortune stay away from you."

On the subway leading to the poor streets, Jimmy continued to impart his survival skills: "Although we can exploit loopholes in hospitals, such as taking advantage of the emergency room system to force doctors to treat patients first and pay later, and then refuse to pay the medical bills, thus achieving one or even multiple freebies, I don't recommend doing that unless it's a matter of life and death. In America, credit bankruptcy is equivalent to life bankruptcy. Businesses will refuse to hire you, landlords will refuse to rent to you, banks will refuse to open an account for you, and all your possibilities for changing your fate will be completely blocked. You'll never be able to turn your life around until one morning when you're found frozen to death on a street corner."

"Oh, stop it, bro. If you keep going, I'm going to burst into tears."

After responding to his well-intentioned reminder with an exaggerated tone, Ma Jieke was very curious: "Jimmy, you look like a well-educated person. I even have reason to believe that you don't come from the lower class."

"You guessed right." Jimmy brushed back his long blond hair that covered the corners of his eyes. "My dad was a lawyer. He was fired from the firm where he had worked for nearly ten years because of a loss in a crucial defense case. He became depressed and spent his days drinking heavily. My mom was a doctor who worked in obstetrics and gynecology. Due to a misdiagnosis, a patient lost her baby. The other party filed a lawsuit against her and the hospital. The person who should have stood up and used legal weapons to defend his wife's rights got himself completely drunk the night before the trial."

"To keep her medical license, my mother spent all her savings and used the money from credit card overdrafts to pay for expensive legal fees, but in the end she still couldn't convince the judge and the jury composed of human rights organizations. They believed that an unborn baby is also a natural person, and that this was a premeditated murder, not an accidental medical malpractice."

"This lawsuit caused the hospital to suffer more than 300 million yuan in compensation losses, and my mother's medical license was revoked by HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) as a result."

"Three months later, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, accompanied by severe somatization. When I visited her in the mental hospital, she was sitting in the yard, repeatedly apologizing to a tree."

"As for my dad, he hasn't cared about me since then. There are so many empty bottles in the house that you can't even step on them. When I was taken away by the ACF (Children and Families Administration), he only asked how much compensation he could get."

"Later, I was sent to live with a middle-class family, an elderly couple who were professors at an Ivy League university and were very popular with their students. I naively thought that my life had taken a new turn."

"Until a few days later, my stepfather barged into my bedroom, trying to persuade me to wear his wife's underwear..."

"I refused, stabbed him in the arm with a fruit knife, and ran out into the street alone. It was raining that night, and my life as a homeless person officially began."

In the end, Jimmy's facial expression was not complicated, even quite calm.

"How old were you back then?" Ma Jie didn't offer any words of comfort. A man who had been wandering for years had long since become numb.

"I think I was eleven or twelve, I don't remember exactly," he said nonchalantly. "Anyway, I've gotten used to this kind of life. The California government gives me welfare every month, sometimes more, sometimes less. If there's an election, I can get several thousand dollars at once. The most valuable thing I've ever sold in my life is my vote."

"Then why are you still picking up cans? Wouldn't it be better to just lie down like everyone else?"

"No." Jimmy shook his head. "I want to save the money to pay off Mom's debts, redeem our house, and bring her home from the hospital once she's feeling better."

"Oh my god, respect, brother, I have nothing to say but best wishes."

Jack Ma exclaimed from the bottom of his heart, "The American version of 'Empresses in the Palace' is so inspiring!"

This is going to happen to me. Go ahead and pay me back, you son of a bitch! If you're so capable, wait until I die and send the bill to my coffin.

A few minutes later, the subway arrived near Poor Street. Jimmy quickly gestured for him to get up: "We're here, Jack. We need to hurry. Free lunch doesn't mean unlimited lunch. If we're late, it'll be gone."

"Would you like to have a running contest?" Ma Jie was lightly dressed and had no physical burden, but he was carrying a lot of bags, making him only slightly better off than a pregnant woman.

"On your marks, get set."

"Damn, you're playing dirty, aren't you?"

Seeing Jimmy rushing ahead, someone couldn't help but curl the corners of their mouth and quickly followed after him toward the shelter.