"She sank little by little, the water spread from her waist to her chest, and then to her shoulders, the chill gradually soaked into her body, and the tingling was followed by numbness...
There is a somewhat bumpy riverbed under her feet, densely covered with waist-length water plants, and she can feel them full of strength and toughness through the heavy pants. Every step she takes is slow and heavy...
The water poured into the mouth, the nose, the ears, quickly eroding the last breath with despair and indifference, without a trace of pity...
After a short blank, she began to struggle, looking up, desperately trying to step back, or up...
But she was already firmly tied to the bottom of the river. No matter which direction she was in, she couldn't move. Every stroke of her arm felt like it was smashed into a huge jelly, and her legs could no longer move. The water plants that would normally be broken with a slight pinch have now become firm ropes...
Even if she looked up three inches above the brightly lit water surface, she could no longer take in even half a breath of air in her lungs...
She seemed to be planted on the river bed, and slowly swayed in the water along with the water plants around her..."
It was very quiet outside the window. Occasionally, fish pierced down from the water surface, and the sound of water rubbed by the fish tail made people sleepy in the dazzling afternoon sun.
Yuan Wu leaned on the cushion behind him, lit a cigarette, saved the half-written novel, and closed the computer.
This short-lived idleness, like an 80-year-old man sitting at the door with an 18-year-old dog at his feet, is mixed with a bunch of unfinished things, but repeatedly comforting himself "So what?" Very comfortable.
Before the cigarette was finished, the sound of thumping footsteps came from outside, and the footsteps were very heavy, causing the boat board under Yuan Wu to vibrate slightly.
Yuan Wu closed his eyes and sighed, took two puffs, and then pinched the cigarette.
The footsteps suddenly slowed down when they were still a few meters away, and then disappeared.
After waiting for a while, he stood up and walked to the window lightly, and suddenly reached out to the bottom left of the window to fish.
"Ah!" A string of crisp laughter sounded, with a childish nasal voice, "I was caught again!"
Following Yuan Wu's hand and being carried by the collar was a five- or six-year-old boy.
"Big head, have I told you that your IQ will grow according to this trend, and you probably won't be able to find a girlfriend in the future?" Yuan Wu looked at him, "Do you have no other place to hide?"
"What?" Big head raised his face.
The big head is actually quite cute. Compared with his parents, his facial features are not very similar to his own, and his head is not big.
The nickname was probably because of the good wishes of the people on board. Yuan Wu looked at the water outside the window, and it was not easy to sink his head with a big head.
"No, I said you were too heavy and running too loud." He leaned back on the mat.
"Brother Xiaowu," Datou walked in through the hatch, "Did you know..."
"My name is uncle." Yuan Wu said.
"Uncle," Datou changed his words immediately, "Do you know..."
"Take off your shoes." Yuan Wu said again.
Datou swiftly kicked off the slippers on his feet, ran to him and squeezed and sat down: "You know what?"
"I don't know." Yuan Wu brought him a popsicle from the mini fridge next to him.
"Then let me tell you," he put his head close to his ear and put his mouth together with his hands, "there are drowned people on the other side of the pier, and many people are watching."
"Did you see it?" Yuan Wu glanced at him.
"No, my mother said that children can't watch and will be hooked away." Datou said seriously, and then he pursed his lips tightly, looking nervous.
Yuan Wu smiled and took a piece of money from his wallet: "Go and buy a pack of cigarettes for Uncle."
"Well," Big Tou took the money, "Can I drink a bottle of milk today?"
"Okay, lollipops can also be eaten." Yuan Wu stood up and walked towards the hatch.
"Where are you going?" Datou asked after him.
"Collection." Yuan Wu replied.
It has been three days since I walked out of the cabin, and when I stayed in the cabin, I didn't feel it. When I stepped out and stood on the deck, Yuan Wu only realized that the sun was very unrestrained today. It was almost five o'clock and it was so bright and moving.
He squinted his eyes and looked up at the sky, a piece of white swaying, and after ten seconds there was an illusion that he was already flying in the sky.
He sneezed and looked back.
It is quite far from here to the pier, it takes about seven or eight minutes to walk.
Yuan Wu walked slowly over there along the wooden plank between the two boats.
This place is called Shenqiao, a wetland on the outskirts of the city.
Two rivers pass by here, leaving a large area of water, one by one connected like a small lake. In summer, reeds will grow, and occasionally there will be one or two spots that are more than ten square meters above the water surface.
The side where Yuan Wu lives is a river bend. After the old wharf was abandoned, all kinds of old boats were parked here layer by layer. Some of them have no owners, and some have owners to be repaired but have not been repaired. The grounds are crowded together and connected by various wooden boards of different widths, like a water maze, and there are many fish cages in the middle.
Yuan Wu is not alone here, such as the Datou family and their neighbors, those who guard the net boxes, and those who do not have a house on the shore or have a house but are used to living on the water.
But he was the only one who lived so far from the pier.
A few dozen meters away from the old wharf, you can see a lot of people crowding around there. There are also people carrying cameras. It seems that people from the TV station are also here.
Yuan Wu did not go to the pier, he squatted down on the bow of a boat next to him, and lit the last cigarette in his pocket.
The drowning people have been carried away, and the people watching the lively have not dispersed. They are all around the reporters watching the TV station and interviewing a few people who often fish here.
In a place that is usually too calm and peaceful, a little something can make people inexplicably excited for a long time.
Yuan Wu did not know the specific circumstances, but it was not unusual for someone to drown in Shenqiao.
Shenqiao is a tourist attraction in the suburbs of the city, but it does not include the half of the old wharf. The old wharf is too far from the road, the water surface is narrow, and the water conditions are complicated. Generally, tourists will not come here, and several farmhouses are yellow.
However, in the summer, people still occasionally come to play in the water to avoid the flow of people, so every year, several people who do not understand the underwater situation and do not find the right place to launch float up from the bottom of the water.
He listened to the unfinished discussions of the group of people watching the lively for a while. The person who didn't come up this time was missing three days ago and was found in the East Bay today.
In the depths of the reeds in the East Bay, there are several large lotus flowers that grow very well, and some dry land with a small area. Except for the villagers who used boats to carry oxen to farm the fields, there are almost no people.
Datou asked him mysteriously, wondering why the lotus flowers in Dongwan grow so well
"I know," Yuan Wu nodded, "a lot of people died."
The big head stared at him for a while: "You are very strange, scary."
"Huh?" Yuan Wu also stared at her, "I didn't push those people down, what's scary."
After that day, Big Head wouldn't let Big Head come to his boat to play, even though Big Head didn't come too often.
Yuan Wu finished smoking and was about to leave, when the female reporter from the TV station jumped onto the boat unfavorably and walked over unsteadily: "Hello, fellow, can I ask a few questions?"
Yuan Wu made no sound.
"Fellow, do you live here?" the female reporter asked again.
"Yeah." Yuan Wu stood up, turned around and walked back.
"Do you live on the boat or in the village over there?" The female reporter stopped him, "Can I ask you a few questions?"
"No." Yuan Wu answered very briefly, bypassing her and continuing to walk forward.
"Then do you know about someone drowning in the East Bay?" The female reporter was a very young girl. She seemed to have just graduated. She followed up very persistently and asked a series of questions, "In the past two years, more people have drowned than in previous years. Duo, what do you think is the reason? You should be a local villager, can you give some relevant safety advice to tourists?”
"I don't know, I didn't think about it, I can't," Yuan Wu stepped on the board connecting the two boats, glanced at the feet of the female reporter squeezed beside him, and reached out to stop her, "When..."
"What? I..." The female reporter refused to give up the opportunity to interview, and took a step forward regardless of obstacles, and then let out a short scream, "Ah!"
Yuan Wu's hand that stopped her quickly changed to pulling her, but it didn't work, so he made a profit: "Heart."
The boards made by refitting and spelling out the door panels under the feet are a little old, and some of them are already rotted. The female reporter stepped on it very well, and before she finished speaking, the person had already fallen into the water.
There was a burst of laughter on the pier. The water was shallow, but the female reporter was still very embarrassed by the sudden fall. She screamed in the water and fluttered several times before standing up.
Yuan Wu sighed, turned and walked away.
The female reporter who was pulled ashore by her colleague in laughter finally gave up the interview and did not chase after her.
When he got back to his boat, Datou was sitting on the bow with a pack of cigarettes, and there was a big gourd next to him.
Seeing him coming, he raised his hand from a distance: "I bought it back."
Yuan Wu gave him a thumbs up.
"Have you seen the dead?" Datou asked, the words of curiosity were almost written on his face.
"No," Yuan Wu put the gourd tied with a rope on his back, "you go home."
"I don't want to go home," he shook his head, "I want to chat with you."
"We don't have a common language." Yuan Wu took the cigarette in his hand and threw it into the cabin.
"Oh." The big head responded.
Yuan Wu entered the cabin, took a cigarette from the cigarette case and took it. When he was about to light his cigarette, he glanced outside and found that the big head was still sitting on the bow.
"Hey, big head." Yuan Wu took out the empty cigarette case in his pocket and threw it on the gourd behind him.
With his hands behind his back, he touched the gourd and looked back at him.
"Go home." Yuan Wu said.
"What is a common language?" Big Head asked.
"It's the common language." Yuan Wu took him by the arm and lifted him up.
"What is the common language?" Big Head asked again.
"It's the common... language." Yuan Wu carried him across the board and put him on the boat next to him.
"What's in common?" Big Head continued to ask.
"You have it and I have it." Yuan Wu turned around and went back to his boat, and when Datou wanted to step over the board, he pulled the board off.
"What about the language?" Datou asked standing there.
"Just talking." Yuan Wu opened the hatch.
"Then we're talking the same thing," Datou persisted, "why don't we have a common language?"
Yuan Wu said nothing, walked into the cabin and closed the door.
In the crack of the door, the big head could be seen standing and thinking for a while, then turned and walked away.
He breathed a sigh of relief, lay down in the cabin, and lit the cigarette he was smoking.
The boat is very small, with a small bookshelf and a mini refrigerator, other places are Yuanwu's bed, clothes and computers, as well as some messy books and snack bags thrown around.
To cook, one had to go to the stern, where a shed was built, with pots and pans and a gas stove, and a tank of gas.
This gas can be used for a long time, because the main function is to cook noodles and dumplings, not to cook.
Yuan Wu didn't eat seriously all day today, so he lay down for a while and fell asleep accidentally and woke up because the surroundings were too quiet, then went to cook himself a bowl of instant noodles.
After eating the noodles, he made another pot of coffee and turned on the computer to see if he could finish this chapter tonight.
There was a jumping avatar on Q. He clicked it and looked at it. It was a message sent by the editor at around 3:00 in the afternoon.
Updates such as holding a knife: Isn't it said that a pit will be opened at the end of the month? It's been two months! I'm knocking on the basin, do you hear me
Yuan Wu put a candy in the coffee, stirred it for a long time before taking a sip, and then replied to the editor.
Laughing and drinking a glass of wine: There are too many things to do, and it will be opened this week.
There are too many things. When Yuan Wu typed this sentence, he felt that he was telling the very sincere truth, but after sending it out, he began to feel a little lost. There were too many things... What did he do
Can not remember.
In fact, he couldn't remember how the three days in the cabin had been spent.
I thought about it slowly and suddenly, and didn't remember.
He opened the document and looked at it. The word count showed that the chapter was 3666 words.
The speed shocked him.
How many days did he write these three thousand words
He sighed, lit a cigarette and held it in his mouth. Through the smoke, he looked at the lines of words on the screen. When he saw it for the sixth time, he finally raised his hand and typed a few times on the keyboard.
"When did the sky get cloudy, he didn't notice, when he felt the cold wind blowing more and more urgently, the surrounding was already dark as if someone had splashed ink with it, and there was still darkness behind the wisps of darkness... "
Still dark... still dark... still dark... and then and then and then he fumbling his fingers on the keyboard and then having a sip of coffee.
Yuan Wu took a sip of coffee, but it wasn't delicious enough, so he got up and climbed to the coffee machine again, poured half a carton of milk and started frothing.
Crawling back to the computer with the rebuilt mocha, he continued to stare at the screen.
After two puffs of cigarettes, he raised his hand again.
"The sound of breathing came from behind, it was not close, but it was clearly heard in the wind, he stopped, but the sound disappeared again...
The light of the street lamp in front began to beat gently, and he was inexplicably frightened. As he continued to walk forward, he heard that breath again in his heartbeat, which was heavy but rhythmic...
It slowly becomes consistent with the beating of the lights…”
A lump of cigarette ashes fell on the back of his hand, and the slight pain made him shake his hand and threw the cigarette butt into the Coke can next to him.
"He has to turn around..."
"The sky suddenly lit up, and the surroundings were like daytime for a moment..."
A light suddenly flashed outside the pitch-black window, Yuan Wu was startled, turned his head subconsciously to look over, the cognition of "this is lightning" has not been fully conveyed in his brain, and a blast of thunder followed at a low altitude. .
Yuan Wu suddenly had a feeling as if his bare bottom was standing in the middle of the square with his two kicks blown under his crotch. The whole person was frightened and refreshed, and he raised his hand and overturned the coffee cup.
"Shit." After regaining his senses, he quickly threw a roll of paper onto the spilled coffee.
When Datou came to play yesterday, he said that there would be thunderstorms today. He also thought that the clear sky was impossible. As a result, when he looked out the window again, his fist was big... No, the raindrops half the size of a fist had already fallen, The surroundings turned from dark night to gray mist.
The rolled paper sucked up all the coffee. Yuan Wu threw the rolled paper into the trash can and was about to make another cup of coffee when a thud came from the bow of the boat amid the sound of wind, rain and thunder.
His hand reaching for the cup stopped, turning to look at the hatch.
The hatch is two wooden boards with a glass window that cannot be opened at the top. He is sitting in the cabin, and he can't see anything from the glass window at this angle.
But he could see it in the crack of the door. When his eyes fell on the crack of the door, he found that what he could see from the crack of the door every time, a small bunting with its big head stuck on the side of the ship was blocked by something.
Someone was standing on the bow.
"Who?" Yuan Wu asked, staring at the crack of the door, rubbing his hand into the mess of clothes next to him, and pulled out a spear gun.
The law and order here at the old wharf is very good, because the people living here are poor, and you can't find anything if you open the door and let you pack slowly. The only thing that may attract thieves is the fish in the cages.
But the cage was not close to Yuan Wu's boat, and any thief with normal intelligence would not come to his boat.
So Yuan Wu took out the spear gun.
He got this spear gun from his dad. He had never used it to fish. The only time he used it was when he pulled the trigger and poked an arrow at his calf while he was holding research.
The people outside didn't answer, but the figure swayed and moved closer to the hatch.
"Welcome!" A warm female voice sounded on the boat.
The people outside seemed startled and quickly backed away.
"Welcome to come again next time!" The enthusiastic female voice sounded again.
Yuan Wu felt that the people outside should have been blinded, so he quickly jumped to the hatch and stuck the front end of the spear gun through the crack of the door.
"Go away," he said.