Wandering America: My kill threshold is far ahead

Before setting off, Ma Jie checked the WiFi at the recycling station and found that the nearest flea market was about 7 miles away.

After counting the US dollars he had barely warmed in his pocket, he decided to take the bus.

Taking a taxi? With your family's financial situation, being able to free your legs is already a blessing; don't ask for too much.

As the second largest city in the United States, Los Angeles' public transportation system is just so-so, with buses running every 15 to 20 minutes on average.

Unfortunately, the broader Los Angeles metropolitan area covers 87000 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to 1.46 times the size of Tongliao.

People rely on cars for their daily commute, which can be hundreds of miles round trip, and that's the norm.

If you rely solely on public transportation, you'll basically be confined to a small area, such as the city center where homeless people congregate.

Finding the automatic ticket machine, Ma Jie bought a pass for $1.75, which allowed unlimited transfers within 2 hours.

If things go smoothly, we can get back on the train before it expires, saving several tens of cents.

Don't underestimate the value of even a small amount of money. Only those who are truly destitute understand the true worth of every penny.

But after boarding the bus, he discovered that the buses here did not have a stop announcement function. If you want to know where you are, you have to check through the operator's APP.

Even if the bus reaches your stop, the driver won't stop automatically. You need to pull the yellow rope by the window beforehand for the driver to stop at the next stop.

There was no other way but to estimate the distance by the car's speed and time, and then ask the elderly white lady in the front seat to help check the stop when I felt it was about right.

The old lady was quite warm and friendly. She struck up a conversation with him for a few minutes, and they said goodbye to each other in the end.

After getting off the bus, Ma Jie walked about 100 meters west. From a great distance, he could hear a group of people shouting slogans loudly.

If you take a closer sniff, you can still smell gunpowder and burnt buildings in the air.

Several police cars and fire trucks were parked in the flea market, and police officers in state trooper uniforms were busy inside.

Yellow warning tape was strung up at the entrance, with a sign that read: WARNING: KEEP OUT.

Then look at the protesters who came from all directions. More than half of them were wearing American military uniforms. Some of them even had white hair and were still sitting in wheelchairs waving their fists.

"Sir, what happened?"

Ma Jie walked over curiously and asked a middle-aged man with receding hair who was holding a photo frame.

The photo frame contained a group photo of young soldiers, which looked quite old.

"Pitt, they killed Pitt, a veteran who fought in the Vietnam War, received a presidential medal, but could not enjoy his old age in peace."

The man was quite agitated and strongly requested that Ma Jie turn on his phone camera to record what he was about to say.

Originally, Ma Jieke just wanted to find out what was going on, but he had no choice but to play the role of a reporter. If he just left like that, who knows what outrageous things the other party might do.

The conversation revealed that around 10 a.m. this morning, a veteran named Pete Lillard went to a shop in the flea market and detonated his homemade C4 plastic explosive with a detonator.

The explosion killed seven people, including Pete, injured more than 20 others, and affected hundreds of stalls to varying degrees.

"May God bless them." Upon hearing about the tragic accident, Ma Jie made the sign of the cross on his chest in a perfunctory manner.

The man continued, "Private Pete and I enlisted in the same year. We only trained in the army for a month before being deployed to the battlefield."

"Young people today have a hard time understanding what war is like. They just watch those Hollywood blockbusters and play shooting games on Steam, and they think it's cool and exciting. But the real battlefield is not like that. The enemy is hiding in the jungle. You shoot and they run away. You can't catch them. Several of my comrades were driven crazy. In the end, they didn't die on the battlefield, but they killed themselves."

"But that's not the worst part. What's really deadly are mosquitoes, snakes, spiders, the sweltering air that makes it hard to breathe, bamboo sticks covered in feces, tripwires with bombs attached, and all sorts of landmines."

"In the end, we left behind the bodies of 6 compatriots and returned to our motherland alive, but you would never imagine that the road home was longer than the road back from the battlefield."

"According to incomplete statistics, at least 20% of Vietnam War veterans suffer from severe PTSD syndrome. In the years that followed, 100,000 people committed suicide due to their inability to reintegrate into society, their inability to find jobs, and the lack of understanding from family and friends, all while suffering from the double blow of financial hardship and mental illness."

"For the first six months, all I could hear when I closed my eyes were the sounds of gunfire and screams. Eventually, I could only rely on sleeping pills to stay asleep under the guidance of a doctor."

"Private First Class Pete fared even worse. In an encounter, he was hit in the lower body by machine gun fire, resulting in the loss of both legs and his fertility. He can only survive on disability benefits."

"Later, his wife could no longer tolerate the situation and filed for a no-fault divorce in the local court."

"But guess what the court ruled? That son of a bitch judge first took half of his property through the principle of equal division, and then, under the pretext of his wife's unemployment, classified him as the high-income party."

"In this way, 40% of Pitt's benefits will be forcibly transferred to his ex-wife as alimony until she finds a job and proves that she has a source of income."

"So the woman deliberately stopped looking for a job and stopped getting married, and started hanging out with her new boyfriend, conspiring to swindle money from Pete."

"Can you imagine? A person with all four limbs exploiting legal loopholes to make someone who relies on prosthetics support them."

"At first, I could barely make ends meet with that little bit of money, but later the cost of living in California became more and more expensive, and that little bit of subsidy was not enough at all."

"We petitioned the Department of Veterans Affairs several times, and the answer we received was always the same: financial difficulties. But just this year, Representative Mike Waltz posted a video on Twitter showing that the Air Force spent $9 to purchase a bag of industrial parts that cost less than $2 in China. What? Are they made of gold?!"

At this moment, a bearded soldier in an old-fashioned military uniform with medals plastered on his chest, who had been listening attentively, squeezed into the frame: "Young man, you might be wondering why Private First Class Pete doesn't go find a job, unlike Commander Tyler in 'Forrest Gump' who started his own business and became a shrimp fishing tycoon earning millions a year?"

"Let me tell you, all his subsidies combined are only enough to cover the bill for his antidepressants."

"Severe auditory hallucinations made him extremely irritable, and he was evicted by the landlord after repeatedly smashing the doors and windows of the apartment."

"So he ended up on the streets, living in a tent in Skid Row. While able-bodied people can earn a little money by collecting recyclables, he had to rely on others to do even simple things like receiving relief meals."

"What's worse, just a few nights ago, a group of homeless people who had been planning this for a long time broke into his tent and robbed him of all his cash and daily necessities right in front of him."

"He cried out desperately for help, but no one was willing to lend a hand."

"After receiving the report, the police only took a token statement and assured him that they would catch the murderer."

"Forced into a corner, Pete had no choice but to painfully sell the Purple Heart, which had been with him all his life and symbolized his honor."

"But of the thousand dollars the shop owner gave him, eight hundred were counterfeit."

"Although this crime did not warrant death, it became the last straw that broke the camel's back."

"This is the great America. Your property taxes, your health insurance, your student loans, your credit cards, and your pension—all of these are legally manufactured tools to harvest wealth. These tools turn the middle class into the poor, the poor into the homeless, and the homeless into corpses!"