Chapter 146
When people are in a bad mood, they tend to walk while looking down at the ground.
It's a little less common now thanks to smartphones, but in the past, it was something everyone had probably experienced at least once. And so, everyone must have, at least once, absentmindedly yet attentively looked at this thing on the sidewalk or street.
A manhole.
That gray circle you'd see here and there along the roadside when nothing else was going on.
A maintenance passage through which workers could access underground water pipes.
Everyone knew that.
So at least once, they must have looked at that round gray manhole cover and imagined it.
Someone suddenly coming out from underneath.
Or... imagining themselves opening it and going down inside. Of course, it wasn't something one could easily encounter in real life. To begin with, those covers weren't something anyone could lift easily. Most of them weighed over 100 kilograms.
So usually, it was something that remained purely in the realm of imagination...
'When something you've casually imagined in everyday life actually happens in reality.'
In that moment, people couldn't help but grow curious and focus their attention.