Marvel's whitewashing cop, you want me to save the world?

Forest Hills High School, Queens, New York.

In the last row by the window, Jessica Jones tilted her chair back.

She pressed the back of her head against the wall, twirling the ballpoint pen between her fingers.

What is the teacher on the podium talking about?

She didn't hear a word of what was being said, probably because of the railway expansion after the Civil War.

My mind keeps replaying the scenes from Times Square a couple of days ago.

Neon lights, GG signs, people holding up their phones all over the street, and that middle-aged man in a purple suit being blocked at the alley entrance by two thugs.

She helped him.

He simply went up and twisted one of their wrists and kicked the other's shinbone.

Those two people probably had broken bones, or at least cracked bones.

But it's nothing.

From childhood to adulthood, her way of controlling her strength is to release 90% of her force before making contact, leaving just enough to make someone feel pain and let go.

She has been practicing for many years.

However, the uncle looked at her strangely at the end and didn't say thank you.

But it's okay, helping others still makes me a little happy.

She spun the pen faster, the shaft buzzing between her thumb and forefinger.

"Hey, Parker!"

Someone in the front row called out, and Jessica looked up.

Peter Parker was squatting in the middle of the aisle, his stationery bag scattered on the ground.

Several ballpoint pens rolled under the desk legs, and an eraser was stepped on, with a grain of sand embedded in its surface.

His glasses were askew on his nose, and his hair fell down from behind his ears, covering half of his face.

He was reaching for the pencil that had rolled into the corner in the distance, his fingertips still half an inch away from the shaft.

Standing next to him was Thompson.

This guy's school uniform sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing two forearms twice as thick as Parker's.

He looked down at Parker, who was squatting on the ground, a smirk playing on his lips. He glanced at the person next to him to make sure they were watching too.

Jessica stopped writing.

In the past, she wouldn't have paid any attention to this kind of thing.

From a young age, she knew that she was different from other children.

She can jump more than ten meters high, leaping directly from the ground to the windowsill of a third-floor apartment.

She can shatter hundreds of layers of tiles stacked together with a single punch, breaking them all the way from the top to the bottom.

She had accidentally injured a classmate; she broke the boy's wrist.

She really only gave it a light squeeze.

The whole family moved overnight, and then moved several more times afterward.

It always happens because she can't stand it for long at the new school; someone always comes to provoke her.

My parents found some great jobs while I was at Forest Hills High School.

My mother told me on the phone not to mess this up again.

So she kept enduring it.

I tolerated Thompson throwing Parker's backpack into the trash can during PE class.

I tolerated it when I saw someone pouring milk into Parker's plate in the cafeteria.

I tolerated it when I saw Thompson push Parker into the locker and lock it in the hallway.

Until recently, a strange person appeared in Queens.

That guy in the red bodysuit.

At first, it was just two lines of text squeezed into the margins of a newspaper:

A suspected vigilante hung a thief upside down from a street lamp, which gradually made headlines.

Jessica collected all the reports she could find, a dozen or so in total, and the accompanying pictures were so blurry they looked like they were taken through frosted glass.

But she could tell that the guy, like her, could do things that ordinary people couldn't.

She just couldn't understand why that person would do these things.

Why choose to wear that bodysuit every night, jump around on the rooftops of Queens, tie criminals to lampposts, and then disappear before the police arrive?

She thought about it for a long time but still couldn't figure it out.

Until two days ago in Times Square, she actually helped a person who had been robbed.

She finally understood.

At least, helping others makes me happy.

Helping others makes me happy.

There are no moral considerations involved, and you don't have to think about whether it's right or wrong.

I was happy when I made the move, and I was happy afterward.

As for how long this happiness will last, she hasn't figured it out yet.

Jessica stood up and walked over to Thompson.

She was half a head taller than Thompson, and when they stood closer, his gaze fell exactly on her chin.

"Do you think this is fun?"

The voice was not loud, and the tone was flat.

"Hey Jessica, I was just kidding with Parker."

Thompson reached out and lifted Parker, who was squatting on the ground, by the back of his collar, straightening him up.

Then he slapped Parker on the shoulder with such force that Parker staggered to the side.

"Look, Parker and I are best buddies!"

Jessica turned to look at Peter Parker.

The nerd was still adjusting his glasses; there was a small fingerprint on the lens.

The spot on his shoulder where Thompson had patted him still had the fabric of his school uniform crumpled up.

"Is he your good friend?"

"Yeah, it's okay." Peter's voice was very soft, as if he were speaking in a library and afraid of being glared at by the librarian.

Jessica looked at Peter's face; he was avoiding her gaze.

She suddenly lost interest.

If this guy had just said, "He's not my friend," or even just shook his head, he would have been fine.

She would then go up and give Thompson a good beating.

But he said: It's okay.

He felt fine.

He felt that being patted on the shoulder, patted on the back of the head, or being lifted up by the collar was nothing serious.

"Alright."

She didn't say anything more and turned to walk towards the classroom door.

Two female classmates stood up from their seats and followed her. One ran over and took her left arm, while the other came around from the right.

"Jessica, are we going to Times Square again this weekend?"

Jessica put the ballpoint pen into the side pocket of her backpack and thought for a moment.

The image of the man in the suit looking at her one last time flashed through her mind again.

But apart from that, I still felt good after helping someone while walking in the lamplight that night.

"no problem."

"Didn't you see the news? The day we went out, two people died on the street next door."

The girl on the right held up her phone; the screen displayed a thumbnail of a news notification.

The headline in red reads: West Street Murder Case.

"It's super close to Times Square!"

"Two people died?"

Jessica paused for a moment.

That night, she broke one man's wrist and fractured another's shinbone.

She was certain that the force was just enough to make them loosen their grip, and certainly not enough to kill someone.

A radius fracture in the wrist requires a maximum of two months of rest, while a tibial fracture in the lower leg can heal on its own as long as one avoids playing basketball.

She has controlled her strength for many years, and there is absolutely no possibility of her making a mistake.

"Yes, it's now called the West Street Murder Case, and it's even in the newspapers."

"Speaking of newspapers, did you see today's news? The child abduction case at the port—that's truly terrifying."

"The entire street was cordoned off, and hundreds of people died. I heard that several truckloads of body bags were used."

The two female classmates started discussing whether they should go to Times Square again on the weekend.

One person felt that Manhattan was too chaotic lately, while another felt that the more chaotic it was, the safer it was, because the police were all there.

Jessica did not join their discussion.

She quickened her pace, turned out from the other end of the corridor, and practically ran down the steps in front of the teaching building.

He only left one sentence: "Call me when you're leaving, I have to go home urgently!"

When I got home, I threw my schoolbag on the bed, and kicked off one shoe, leaving it by the door and the other on the table leg.

She sat down at her computer desk, pressed the power button, and left the cursor in the search bar for a long time before typing: West Street Murder Case.

As the webpage loaded, her fingers tapped lightly on the mouse.

The photo that popped up on the page showed the faces of those two people.

The thinner one was lying on her side on the ground, one hand pressed under her body, her knuckles still bearing bruises from being twisted.

The fat one was lying on her back, her right trouser leg cut open, and there was a dark purple swollen mark on her calf, the spot where she had been kicked.

His pupils contracted slightly.

The mouse wheel rolls forward.

Cause of death: Asphyxiation.

She read the two words twice, then released the mouse, her right hand fingers still trembling slightly in mid-air.

She didn't kill him.

The cause of death was neither fractures nor internal organ rupture, but suffocation.

She did not attack their chests, nor did she strangle them.

These two people were still able to move after she left.

But why would someone suffocate in such a spacious place?

That street is open-air.

As she left, she glanced back; both of them were still rolling on the ground, panting louder than if they had just run 400 meters.

How could someone suffocate with that amount of breathing?

She closed the webpage, stood up, and sat down on the bed.

Bring your knees in, wrap your arms around your calves, and rest your chin on your knees.

What would have happened if she hadn't taken action that night?

The two men will leave after robbing the older man.

He took the watch, wallet, and suit jacket, disappeared into the crowd in Times Square, planned to sell the watch somewhere and spend the money in a bar.

They will live.

Even if they survived, they would continue to rob others; at least they wouldn't die in a dark alley that night.

Then she wouldn't see the news, wouldn't see those two faces with the headline "West Street Murder Case" in red.

Then she would also feel that helping others is a very happy thing.

But is there another possibility that someone else passed by that street after she left?

While the two thugs were still rolling on the ground, that person walked up to them and did something that caused them to suffocate.

In any case, she did leave them on that street.

Break their bones so they can't escape.

They put a label on them that they couldn't move and then handed it to the person who was passing by.

She buried her face in her knees.

……

Times Square.

Neon lights turned the night into an artificial day.

The female celebrity in the GG brand has changed three different lip colors since last night.

The screen on the roof of the building in the middle changes the sponsor's logo every ten seconds.

Kilgrave turned in from Sixth Avenue, his hands in his pockets.

The purple of the suit shone brightly under the neon lights, the tie knot was pushed to the top, and the shirt collar was buttoned up neatly.

His hair was styled neatly with hairspray, and he stepped between the light spots of the streetlights and the GG sign with each step.

His gaze swept from left to right.

A girl standing at the intersection holding her phone up to her face; a backpacker dragging a suitcase, just coming out of the subway station.

These days, he has walked through every alleyway between Hell's Kitchen and Times Square.

West 38th Street, West 42nd Street, Ninth Avenue, Tenth Avenue.

The girl in the black hoodie who broke someone's wrist under the streetlight never appeared again.

He even spent an entire night standing under the streetlights on West 38th Street.

She closed her eyes and breathed in all the lingering scents of the street, trying to sift out even the slightest trace of her own rhythm.

But the streets were filled with the sour smell of homeless people's sweat, the pizza boxes left overnight in the trash cans, and the dampness rising from the sewers.

She wasn't there.

It was as if she had stepped into his hunting ground and then retreated, leaving not even a complete footprint.

He walked to the edge of the plaza, near the intersection of Seventh Avenue.

A man in a gray shirt was walking briskly towards us from the opposite direction, a briefcase tucked under his arm.

Holding the phone to his ear with his left hand, he said, "I know, I know, I'll definitely hand in that report tomorrow."

Kilgrave reached out and gently placed his palm on the man's chest.

The man with the briefcase was stopped in his tracks.

He looked up at the stranger in front of him, who was more than half a head taller than him, from above the phone screen, and frowned.

"Have you seen a very clean girl?" Kilgrave asked in a very friendly tone.

"Huh? Are you crazy? Don't block my way to work."

The man with the briefcase put his phone down from his ear and looked Kilgrave up and down.

The suit fabric was nice, but that thought only flashed through my mind for a fraction of a second before being overwhelmed by impatience.

What era are we living in? Do you still expect to find a perfectly clean girl in Times Square?

Even if you take a Greyhound bus from the cornfields of Iowa to New York, you'll be covered in a layer of stench from the urine and gasoline exhaust as soon as you enter the Port Authority station.

He spent seven years in New York, working his way up from intern to project manager, and he'd seen far too many people like him.

Sure enough, all sorts of idiots can appear in New York.

He took half a step to the left, preparing to go around it.

Kilgrave didn't even open his lips, only uttering two syllables.

"stop."

The man with the briefcase had his left foot dangling in mid-air, his center of gravity had shifted to the left, but his body remained frozen in place.

He remained motionless, with one side of his body tilted to the side.

The phone was still pressed against my ear, but the screen had already gone black.

His fingers could feel the frosted texture of the phone case, and he could hear the electronic doorbell coming from the convenience store on the roadside.

He could see the colors of the clothes of everyone walking past him on the sidewalk, but he just couldn't move.

He opened his mouth, trying to shout for help, but his vocal cords wouldn't move.

Kilgrave walked over, bent down slightly, and brought his lips close to his ear.

The sound was very soft, almost like an exhale.

"So, have you seen it?"

The man with the briefcase opened his mouth on his own.

His tongue was moving, and his vocal cords were vibrating, but he didn't choose to utter each syllable.

When the sound came out of his mouth, you could even taste the saliva, the same flavor as the pickled cucumber from the sandwich he had eaten at noon.

"no."

"Really? Where can I find her?"

Kilgrave murmured those words.

He was already prepared to send this guy back to the company to find a window.

The man with the briefcase moved his mouth again.

"If you want to find someone, either go to the gang or the police."

"Oh?" Kilgrave refocused his gaze on the other person's face. "Go on, why?"

"If you're a girl traveling here, you're very likely to be targeted by gangs. Gangs in this area kidnap tourists, so asking them is the fastest way to find out."

The man with the briefcase spoke in a steady, clear voice.

He has worked in Times Square for seven years and has heard about gangs kidnapping tourists dozens of times.

Gossip in the break room, idle chatter in the elevator, and advice from the security guard downstairs at the company.

He knew the distribution of these gangs in Manhattan Harbor, their approximate territories, and could even name a few gangs he had heard of.

Kilgrave shook his head; the mob couldn't kidnap her.

That girl was neither a tourist nor of average build.

She has enough strength to break the forearm bone of an adult male with her bare hands.

With that kind of physical strength, he wouldn't be forced into the car by two thugs driving a van.

"Then call the police. There are quite a few surveillance cameras around Times Square, so they might have caught it."

Kilgrave's eyes lit up, and he pulled his right hand out of his pocket and patted the man with the briefcase on the shoulder.

"That's right, how come I didn't think of that?"

This idea truly pleased him.

The surveillance network in the police station is more stable and predictable than the intelligence network of gangs.

All he needed to do was walk into the police station, find someone with the authority to access the street surveillance footage, and take a look.

"Thank you."

The man with the briefcase was still standing there, leaning to one side, his eyes wide open, the capillaries in his eye sockets constantly congested.

"Go to work now."

Kilgrave turned around and put his hands back into his pockets.

He took a few steps and then turned his head away.

"Remember, jump down after you finish your coffee."

The briefcase-wearing man discovered he could move again.

My left foot was on the ground, my briefcase was tucked under my arm, and the back of my neck was covered in sweat.

He walked step by step toward the company.

His mind was screaming to stop, but his legs kept moving, his steps steady, and he even put his briefcase back in place.

The sunlight shone on his back; his shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to his spine, feeling icy cold.

……