In winter, it was already dark early, and with a rain, the whole world was almost dark.
The cinema in front of me became the only light in the darkness.
It is narrow, between two walls, there is only a wooden door for one person to enter and exit. There are two strings of lanterns hanging at the door. The lanterns hang long on both sides of the door, shining a warm orange light in the swaying wind and rain. It is outdated, and even the posters on the wall seem to have been pasted from the 1970s to the present, with mottled colors and blurred handwriting. It is unforgettable, because it is called Life Cinema, it is located at the intersection of Rouge, and it is the place where Ningyu people are thinking about when they are dying.
Ning Ning walked towards it, but was stopped by someone.
It was a man with a Zhang Xuebai mask on his face, dressed like a thug in the old times. He wore a white jacket, a black cloth belt around his waist, and a pair of black cloth shoes on his feet. "It's not time yet," she said.
"Look." Ning Ning raised her hand, and the rain fell on her palm, "It's raining so hard, can I buy a ticket to go in and wait?"
The opponent shook his head.
Ning Ning said something or another, but the other party just kept shaking his head.
There is actually such a ghost place, such a ghost guard! Ning Ning could not wait to open Dianping immediately to give it a negative review. She turned around angrily and raised her hand to call for a taxi.
The taxi took her away quickly, and the taxi took her back again.
Opening the car door, Ning Ning returned to the gatekeeper and asked, "Is the time up now?"
The gatekeeper said calmly, "Five minutes left."
Ning Ning looked down at his watch, it was eleven fifty-five.
She couldn't help remembering what her mother said to her before she died: "At twelve o'clock in the evening, go to the cinema at No. 35 Rouge Road to watch a movie. You go alone."
It's really twelve o'clock, not a minute more, not a minute later.
Ning Ning covered her handbag over her head, the rain was getting heavier and heavier, she walked back and forth at the door, feeling like an idiot. As soon as five minutes came, she immediately walked to the door, but was stopped by the doorkeeper raising his hand again.
"Tickets." The gatekeeper still said in an angry voice.
Ning Ning was in a hurry for a while, and finally took out an old movie ticket from her handbag. A thin piece of yellow paper with a circular stamp on the left, which reads the admission ticket, and a rectangular box on the right, with Life Cinema in the middle, and the first eight rows of forty below. Number five.
The gatekeeper didn't seem to expect that she would actually be able to take out the tickets, so he gave her a rare look, then lowered his head and tore off the tickets, letting the wooden door behind him say, "One person, one ticket, entry is void."
I can finally go in. Ning Ning breathed a sigh of relief. Before entering the door, he glanced at the poster posted on the door.
An old poster. It looks like a remnant from the 1970s and 1980s. It looks like an oil painting. Maybe it was washed by the rain. The color and handwriting are a bit mottled. Although the two leading actors above are beautiful, their faces are very unfamiliar. Ning Ning recognized it. Without any one of them, only their names can be seen from the cast list.
Title: "The Circus of the Republic of China"
Starring: Chen Junyan, Li Xiulan.
"I haven't heard of it." Ning Ning muttered in her heart, turning her head and entering the door.
Unlike the dilapidated facade, the inside is unexpectedly neat.
Carved wooden chairs are lined up in the middle. At first glance, it looks like a theater in the Republic of China, but the front is not a stage with a big red curtain, but a white movie screen.
"Your seat is here." A staff member led Ning Ning to the front of the seat. It was a little girl in a floral cheongsam, with a soft voice and a mask on her face, not the indifferent white like the guard. It was a smiling ancient lady's mask, with a touch of red in the middle of her lips.
Ning Ning sat down on the seat and looked around, there were always people wearing masks coming and going, even Aunt Sweeping had a crying mask on her face.
"Why are you all wearing masks?" Ning Ning took a cup of hot drink from the cheongsam girl and asked while warming her hands.
The little girl replied with a smile: "The staff must wear masks."
Ning Ning finally understood what the weird feeling was when she first came in. Looking around, there are all staff wearing masks, and she is the only guest without a mask.
Even if it's a midnight show, it doesn't need to be so deserted, right
Just wanted to ask if there are no other guests? The aunt who bent over to sweep the floor suddenly straightened up and walked outside with a broom. The other staff also stopped their work one after another as if they had heard a bell that only they could hear, and retreated towards the door like a tide.
This situation was too much like escaping from a fire alarm. Ningning couldn't help but stand up from her seat and asked behind them, "Where are you going?"
A group of people stopped together and turned back together.
Crying mask, monkey mask, scholar mask... All kinds of masks looked at her. Behind the ancient maid mask, the little girl in floral cheongsam said in Wu Nong soft language: "The movie is about to start, please enjoy it."
Ning Ning wanted to ask more, but suddenly, the lights went out, and about three seconds later, the screen in the distance lit up, and in the darkness, white flowers were all over.
"I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid." Ning Ning sat down while hypnotizing herself, put the straw in her mouth by the way, and drank a hot drink to suppress the shock.
The screen went blank for a while before a line of words slowly appeared.
"This film is based on a true story."
Then a man's voice sang slowly and leisurely: "Let the kid be kidnapped, let him choose a wooden man, the lame, the blind, and the amputee, all of them think it as they are, and make them beggars to ask for money."
Ning Ning's sweat dripped down.
She sat motionless in the seat, only her eyes rolled around in horror.
It wasn't that she didn't want to move, but that she couldn't move since the man spoke.
She opened her mouth desperately, trying to make a cry for help, but she couldn't say a word. Instead, the voices of others were getting louder and louder. The voices of men and women, from far to near, became more and more clear in her. Shouting in my ear: wake up, wake up, wake up...
"Ning'er, wake up!"
Ning Ning blinked suddenly.
She was able to move, but was too frightened to move.
She could speak, but she didn't know what to say.
In front of him are three men and women, three unfamiliar faces.
One was an old doctor with a gray beard in a white coat, who was pulling open her eyelids with two fingers, the other was a middle-aged woman dressed as a maid in the Republic of China, folded her hands and kept reciting the Bodhisattva, and finally a man in his thirties. A 1-year-old man with a thin face, a funny moustache on his lips, hair and clothes that seem to have not been washed for several days, eyes that are even red as if he has not slept in a few days, holding her hand straight. Tears: "Ning'er, don't sleep anymore, don't scare dad anymore."
Ning Ning looked at the hand he was holding, a small hand, white and thin, wrapped in his big bronze hand.
The picture was frozen on these two hands, and the camera gradually zoomed out. In the empty cinema, there was only a cup of hot drink placed in the place where Ning Ning had just sat, quietly exuding the last bit of heat.
Outside the gate, the rain fell down the eaves and crashed on the ground. The gatekeeper slowly turned his head and looked at the poster on the door.
Behind the starring list, an ink dot suddenly appeared in the blank space, followed by a stroke, like an invisible pen, and a new name was added at the back.
Title: "The Circus of the Republic of China"
Starring: Chen Junyan, Li Xiulan, Ning Ning.