Jiang Zhiming had died again. This time, he had no doubts—he was truly dead.
Because before his “eyes,” there wasn’t even darkness, let alone light.
Jiang Zhiming, being uneducated and unmotivated in life, didn’t think of philosophical concepts like “emptiness” or “void.” Instead, his mind wandered to something a friend of his once said:
"If you’re aware that you’re dead, can you really call it death? That’s just a special kind of life."
So he wasn’t shocked. He continued to think normally.
Before his death, Jiang Zhiming had been a civil servant, well-versed in clichés and empty phrases. Now, another line surfaced from his memories of banter at the dinner table:
"The proletariat owns nothing; the only thing they lose are their chains."
Well, now he truly had nothing left.
Yet, he still existed.
What would you call this? A wandering ghost?
That didn’t quite fit. Without a brain, he couldn’t even see the countryside if it were there. A field, present or not, made no difference to him.
But he could still hear.
He heard silence.
It was like standing in a desert on a pitch-black night, except there was no black, no night.
The worst part, perhaps, was the absence of touch—no sensation of heat or cold.
Someone else might feel an imagined chill from sheer terror.
But thanks to his talkative friend’s musings, Jiang Zhiming was somewhat prepared for this. In fact, he felt a tiny flicker of curiosity, maybe even excitement.