When Chen Yang saw the constellation book in Miss Qiao's hand, he bit the tip of his tongue accidentally. He hissed and a slender girl in a white dress flashed through his mind. It was the fairy Qiao Qiao. She stopped on the first floor of Building A3 with the little mute.
"Sister Qiao, you also know horoscopes?" Chen Yang swallowed his sigh.
"I know a little bit." Miss Qiao's lips curled up, her beauty was so charming and attractive that people couldn't take their eyes off her. She opened the book and asked Chen Yang about his zodiac sign again.
Chen Yang said: "Libra."
"Libra... your fortune today is very stable." Miss Qiao tapped her fingers on the open horoscope book. "You have completed the task. This has been verified."
Chen Yang nodded.
Miss Qiao said: "Your fortune this week is also very stable,"
Chen Yang saw Miss Qiao pause for a long time, as if waiting for his cooperation, so he cooperated and asked nervously, "What's the matter?"
"You're popular with the opposite sex," Miss Qiao said ambiguously, "and even more popular with the same sex."
Chen Yang: “…”
"Xiao Yangyang, there are a lot of bad peach blossoms around you." Miss Qiao's expression changed from ambiguous to sympathetic.
Chen Yang twitched his lips. It shouldn’t be that serious.
Bad peach blossoms are like flies. How many of them can be staring at him? He is not a bunch of them.
"However, your fruitless relationship in the first half of the year will experience a major turning point, and your true love will appear," said Miss Qiao.
Chen Yang didn't understand: "What is the right fate?"
Miss Qiao raised her eyebrows: "It's destined."
Chen Yang's heart was beating uncontrollably, and each beat seemed to be calling Chao Jian's name.
"Is it destined?" Chen Yang heard his own hoarse voice murmur, "It is destined."
Miss Qiao said meaningfully: "Xiao Yangyang, you have the potential to be a love-brain."
Chen Yang was speechless.
"Once you meet love, the ship of life will turn around and revolve around it," said Miss Qiao. "Love is supreme."
Chen Yang wanted to say something but didn't say it, because he remembered something that Chao Jian and Xiang Zimu had revealed.
Chao Jian revealed that when they first met, he was an experienced old tasker and Chao Jian was a newcomer, so he did not invite the other party to join the team. But after Chao Jian completed a few more tasks, when he met him again, he let Chao Jian join the team.
That should be after considering many aspects, and they won’t impulsively bring people in without thinking.
Xiang Zimu said that after Chao Jian joined, the team of three became a team of four, and the team of four occasionally became a team of two, and he would teach Chao Jian one-on-one.
Chen Yang's tongue tip scraped the inner wall of his mouth, feeling a little painful.
"Look, sister, you will have a great harvest in both love and career in the second half of the year..." Miss Qiao stopped again, but this time she was not intentionally teasing Chen Yang. Her long and thick eyelashes drooped down, covering what was in her eyes.
Chen Yang ate the last piece of candy in his mouth. After that, his career path was broken, his body was torn into pieces, and his love life was shrouded in blood.
The saying that everything changes rapidly is suitable for the business world, and even more suitable for the task world. Often, you are congratulating yourself for escaping death one moment, and dead the next.
Death without any preparation, without even having time to cry out in pain. This is the most common phenomenon in the mission world.
Miss Qiao seemed tired. She closed the horoscope book and pinched her eyebrows with her fingertips.
"It's great to have a successful love and career. Sister Qiao said this with good luck." Chen Yang lowered his voice. "Sister Qiao, have you calculated your fortune?"
"My own doesn't count." Miss Qiao put the horoscope book back into her bag.
Chen Yang pursed his lips and turned his head to look at the newspaper cart.
They were not allowed to move around in the car or check the newspapers around them between the end of one mission and the start of the next.
Just like now, everyone can only stay and wait for new passengers to come on board.
"Go inside, go inside!" the driver suddenly said to the void beside him, "Don't stand at the door!"
Chen Yang sat up, leaning against the back of the chair. Another passenger got on. What would it be this time? He hoped it would not be an ordinary, inconspicuous mass item. It would be better if it was a little special, so that people would remember it at a glance. Then, as soon as the item appeared, the corresponding information fragment would appear in his mind.
A few seconds later, a drop of blood appeared on the ground in the front aisle, forming a small bloodstain.
Then another drop.
There seemed to be a slight "pop" sound in the air. Although the sound was small, it made people's scalps numb and they dared not breathe.
The passenger who got on was holding something in his hand, and blood was dripping from it.
Then,
He started walking towards the back row with big steps and soon reached the back row, leaving a trail of blood wherever he passed.
The bloodstain stopped next to the seat where Wang Kuanyou had sat before his death, and there was only a not-so-wide aisle between it and Chen Yang and Miss Qiao.
Chen Yang smelled a strong smell of blood. Before his brain started to work, he saw a large machete on the seat.
The blade was about sixty to seventy centimeters long, the handle was dark red, the blade had been used so many times that it was a little curled, and blood was flowing down like a blood snake.
There were still a few blood clots stuck to the sharp tip of the knife.
This knife just killed someone!
The air in the back seat condensed, and the driver shouted in the dead silence: "The next stop is the terminal!"
The bus moved forward, heading towards the final leg of the journey.
The five-minute countdown begins.
"Oh my god, a murderer..." The female office worker moved from her seat to the last row, "Is it a murderer?!"
"Shit!" Huang Mao howled. This was not his mission. He didn't need to worry about not having enough time or whether the murderer could be found. He was just scared and excited because it was the first time he saw the murderer's weapon. He wanted to know who killed the murderer in the end.
"Is it the police? If caught, they will be sentenced to death." The female white-collar worker looked at Miss Qiao who was looking out the car window with her arms crossed, "The answer is the law."
"… "
"If he was caught, that's the answer. What if he wasn't caught?" The man with glasses stood up and stared at the machete on the chair warily, fearing that the knife would suddenly fly towards him.
He had no doubt that the machete would be able to cut off his head in one blow.
"This item is too explosive. Everyone, think about it and see if you have seen it somewhere before!" The man with glasses took off his glasses and wiped away the cold sweat on his eyelids.
"Yes, yes, I feel like..." The yellow-haired man added smoothly, but his voice stopped abruptly.
He, the man with glasses, and the female office worker were all strangely silent, because they were sure that none of them had anything to do with the machete case that they had seen in the newspapers in the car.
It shouldn't be.
Murderer and machete, these two pieces of information are very special. Even if you glance at them accidentally, you will leave an impression.
The three of them couldn't figure it out, and they all looked at Miss Qiao at the same time.
Chen Yang's sight had long been on Sister Qiao. The props for the last task were too special and more memorable than he expected, but there was no information fragment in his mind, not at all!
The bad premonition I had when I was helping Wang Kuanyou search for clues... came to my mind again.
Without waiting for Miss Qiao to speak, Chen Yang stood up, walked past her to the aisle, half-knelt and looked at the bloody machete.
The newspaper in this bus has larger handwriting than the regular version, and there are pictures for each ghost's background clue. The pictures are black and white, not very small, and the machete pattern is very conspicuous and easy to remember.
There are a total of twenty-three people in the team. This is the twenty-third mission. They have to check the newspaper for clues every time. Chen Yang remembers searching the car twenty-two times. If the picture of the machete was in the car, he would not have no memory of it.
Chen Yang took a deep breath. He subconsciously thought that he had missed it, and that the several teammates who were still alive had also missed it, and it was not caused by any other reasons.
Just as Chen Yang was about to start searching every corner of the car, Miss Qiao's voice came from behind him: "Is there a small hole on the handle of the machete?"
Chen Yang checked quickly: "No."
"No?" Miss Qiao turned around instantly, and the next moment she saw Chen Yang touched the machete, turned it over, and said to her, "Yes." She seemed to be stunned for a second, then laughed, "Really..."
Chen Yang felt that Sister Qiao's mental state was deteriorating at a terrifying rate. He put down the machete and casually rubbed the blood on his pants. His eyes never left Sister Qiao and his expression was very serious.
Miss Qiao sat in Chen Yang's seat, with her back against the car window, facing him and the aisle: "The owner of this knife was my target in my last mission, and he slaughtered a murderer in a hospital."
"Then why is he here?" The man with glasses in front looked shocked.
"The previous mission was also at this mission point." Chen Yang said.
"What's the meaning?"
The female office worker explained with an incredulous expression: "What it means is that this city is a big mission point, and it is divided into small mission points."
Huang Mao let out a "Fuck!" and leaned on the back of the chair behind Miss Qiao: "Beautiful sister, you are so lucky."
Among the other three teammates, except Chen Yang, the other two had the same idea.
Although they sneered at the murderer's appearance in this mission, how could such a bastard be considered a human being? Killing him was called acting on behalf of heaven, so how could he be considered a murderer
"Just tell me the answer now." said Huangmao.
Chen Yang's mentality was completely different from that of the three people. The muscles on his back were tensed: "Sister Qiao, you didn't kill that person?"
"The killer was very tough. He fought back even though we had only one life left. He found a chance to escape and we chased him. A teenager in the team and I followed closely behind. Later, the teenager was stronger than me," Miss Qiao recalled. "When I arrived, the killer's head had already been chopped off by the teenager."
Chen Yang said: "This question is the same as the previous one, also a trap question." Maybe it is aimed at you as well, he added in his mind, and after thinking about it, he said the second half of the sentence directly.
"I know." Miss Qiao pulled off the leather string of her high ponytail, and her long straight black hair fell down. She used both hands to push her hair back, and her scalp was scratched and stung. "The answer is everyone who participated."
Just as Chen Yang was about to speak, he was interrupted by Huang Mao: "That's right, for a team mission, you have to name all your teammates."
Miss Qiao pushed her thick hair to one side of her shoulders, leaned her upper body back, and hit the back of her head against the glass window.
Chen Yang asked: "Don't you remember who your teammates are?"
Before Miss Qiao could even open her mouth, Huang Mao shouted, "No way? This is impossible, right?"
Chen Yang's forehead twitched. Apart from him, there were four people left in the team, three of whom had already completed their mission and could go back as long as they arrived at the station.
The female white-collar worker's boyfriend died, so she can't be active anymore. The man with glasses is a little calmer and more reserved, but the blond man is the loudest.
Chen Yang wanted to find a piece of tape to seal Huangmao's mouth, or knock him out.
The yellow-haired man closed his mouth under Chen Yang's glare.
Chen Yang glanced at the front of the car, where the time was displayed. One and a half minutes had passed out of the five minutes. He whispered to Sister Qiao, "Is the time between the two tasks too long?"
Miss Qiao said shockingly: "It happened yesterday."
Chen Yang was stunned.
"That happens very frequently, there's no way I could forget it." Huangmao couldn't help but yell again.
Chen Yang gave him a slap before asking Sister Qiao: "Too many teammates?"
"Seven or eight." Miss Qiao answered every question Chen Yang asked.
"Oh my god, there are only so few people, they must remember it." The yellow-haired man has a short memory and his head is almost close to Miss Qiao's neck.
This time it was not Chen Yang's turn to take action. Miss Qiao grabbed the yellow-haired man's hair and pulled him out of the back seat as he screamed for mercy, and threw him heavily against the back door.
"Ouch, it hurts so much." The yellow-haired man climbed up holding the handrail of the pillar, grinning and wanting to get angry, then turned around and looked for a place to sit down with a hum. Anyway, this was not his task, he was not in a hurry, no matter what, let it be whatever it wants!
Neither the female office worker nor the man with glasses spoke up for him, so why not just use his ears to listen
Time is passing, there are three minutes left, two minutes... Chen Yang's sweat was oozing out of his back more and more. He could see that Sister Qiao's personality at this time was different from but also similar to that after the reset. They both liked to act alone and didn't care much about team meetings and exchanges. The rules were really targeting her.
The rules knew that her team awareness was not strong, but still asked such questions.
"Sister Qiao, how many can you remember?" Chen Yang said.
Miss Qiao didn't say anything, she was thinking.
"If you can't remember someone's name, think about the people and things related to that person, or start from the beginning of the last task and see if you can remember it. Generally, there will be a self-introduction during the process." Chen Yang gave Sister Qiao some advice. He wished he could get into her mind and help her refresh her memory.
Miss Qiao stood up and walked to the opposite side, looking down at the machete on the seat. There was a bloodstain on the bottom of her dark brown Martin boots, and she walked towards the driver's side after rolling over it with her shoe sole.
Chen Yang followed behind her, breathing heavily.
"Xiao Yangyang, relax." Miss Qiao said without looking back.
Chen Yang couldn't relax. He had no memory of the second half of the mission and didn't know if Sister Qiao could get out of here.
"Heh." Miss Qiao suddenly sneered, "You knew you were going to take advantage of my weakness, damn it."
It was the first time Chen Yang heard her swear. Before he could react, he saw her running back, grabbing the machete and throwing it out. The wall of the car covered with newspapers was like copper and iron, and the blade made a "clang" sound when it cut into it.
The machete fell down, but there was no damage to the car wall.
This happened suddenly and ended suddenly. Miss Qiao kicked the machete away as if nothing had happened and walked to the driver. She first said the name of her teammate who left a deep impression on her.
"Chao Jian."
Chen Yang raised his head suddenly, his head buzzing. A moment later, he heard Sister Qiao say a name he had heard before, "A Jing."
That was Wu Yu’s boyfriend, and Chen Yang also remembered him, which meant they were once teammates.
"Xiangdong." Miss Qiao's thin lips slightly opened, and the third name that Chen Yang was familiar with popped out.
Chen Yang didn't have time to be surprised, he just stared at Sister Qiao who was stuck.
"Seven or eight?" Miss Qiao looked up at the roof of the car. "Seven... or eight..." She asked herself and answered, "Seven."
Chen Yang's cheeks tightened.
Miss Qiao met his worried eyes and twitched the corners of her lips meaninglessly: "Seven."
Chen Yang said: "Then there are still three left."
"There are only three left, think about it again!" He grabbed Sister Qiao's arm, tightening his grip again and again, "Think about it again."
"You have a sense of responsibility. Good, good, good, I think." Miss Qiao walked around in a small area. After a while, she said, "There is an old man with a white beard. He is quite knowledgeable and well-educated. His name seems to be... Feng... Mr. Feng."
Chen Yang paused pressing his phone. He knew all of these people, so could the last two be the same
However, he had never heard of the two teammates that Miss Qiao mentioned at the end.
Seeing that there were only a few seconds left, Chen Yang said quickly: "Sister Qiao, please check again if there is anything wrong. Calm down and think carefully." It's just like taking an exam. You have to check it after you finish writing it, just in case there is a mistake.
Miss Qiao didn't check because the driver's dead mouth started talking.
"We have reached the final stop."
The driver's tone was not as lively as before. This time it was dead, "All passengers, please get off from the back door in turn. Please be careful when opening the door. Please walk well when getting off. Thank you for taking bus No. 31. Goodbye."
The paper back door of the bus slowly opened a gap under the gaze of several people, and the gap opened to its maximum in an instant.
Huangmao was the first to rush out, and he disappeared in an instant.
Next is the man with glasses.
The female white-collar worker was not in a hurry to leave. She said her final goodbye to the paper figurine of her fiancé, tears streaming down her face.
"I'm going home," the female office worker said softly, her face full of tears, "I will continue to move forward with your hope, I will definitely realize our wish, I will... I will..." She murmured a few words, covered her mouth and staggered out of the car, unable to stay even for a hug. Because the paper figurine was not all her fiancé, there was also a ghost attached to it.
"Sister Qiao, we also..." The moment Chen Yang turned around, the words on his lips suddenly froze.
A paper man stood quietly behind him, looking at him.
Chen Yang's eyes turned red, and his breathing became extremely disordered. He was a little at a loss. He stretched out his hand to touch the paper man, but his hand was shaking. "What's going on? Sister Qiao, why?"
The voice in the car answered Chen Yang's question. Miss Qiao forgot a name. It was not a team of seven, but eight. There was one person she didn't remember.
Missing a teammate means losing your own life.
Chen Yang's threshold had dropped to an unusually high value, which had a great impact on him. After recovery, it was still very unstable, and now it dropped rapidly. Warm liquid flowed out of his red eye sockets. He watched the paper man walk to the back row, pick up a machete, and slash it across the air with evil and rampant force.
That was not Sister Qiao anymore. Chen Yang didn't even have time to say goodbye. He rubbed his face vigorously, which was swollen due to the intense emotional fluctuations, walked towards the back door with heavy steps, and looked back.
His eyes swept across the paper figures one by one, and finally stopped on the paper figure that Sister Qiao had transformed into.
"Sister Qiao, goodbye." Chen Yang restrained himself and choked for a moment, then repeated solemnly, "Goodbye."
After this separation, he and Sister Qiao met again in the future. They got to know each other again and became teammates, old teammates, and friends again.
Now Chen Yang hopes they can meet again.
He hoped that Sister Qiao would also enter his revolving lantern from the machine room of Sanlian Bridge, and that they could all reach the finish line and meet again.
The moment Chen Yang stepped off the bus, he stood in the living room, and in front of him were furnishings that were so familiar to him that they couldn't be more familiar.
This is Sanlianqiao, his home!
Before Chen Yang could come out of his complicated emotions, there was a knock on the door.
Someone was knocking on the door. It might be a neighbor. Chen Yang was not sure. When he was about to ask, a loud and angry curse came from the bedroom.
"Oh, fuck, I'm so sleepy."
The sound made all the pores on Chen Yang's body open up. He watched another self come out of the bedroom. He was wearing a set of gray dog-head pajamas, barefoot, with his eyes narrowed, his hands tightly grasping his dyed chestnut hair, and he complained as he walked.
"How come it's morning so soon? I feel like I just laid down and I'm so sleepy. I can't take it anymore. I have a headache..."
"Brother Yang, are you up yet?" Outside the door was Chen Yang's acquaintance, his former partner, Xiang Zimu.
"Not up!"
The person who was speaking staggered to open the door, yawning. "Ms. Xiang, what are you doing here so early? Are you looking for... What are those two big lumps on your face? Did someone beat you up on the way here? Tell me who beat you up, and I'll kill him."
"That's called blush." Xiang Zimu said coldly.
Chen Yang was stunned for a while, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It turned out that the important moments in his life were not all tasks, but also fragments of life.
If it wasn't a mission, he would just be a spectator, watching his former self getting along with his friends.
In fact, this is the real review of the revolving lantern.
Chen looked up at himself with short chestnut hair and thought, this is good, he just sent away two teammates, Wang Kuanyou and Sister Qiao, and they can't continue to come, this time he can take a break.
Life is a movie, made up of countless plots. Chen Yang's first two plots were in holographic online game mode, and he went straight in. This time he was the audience.
Chen Yang witnessed Xiang Zimu arguing with his former self, with a rich expression on her face. He felt a sour feeling in his heart. Xiang Zimu used to have short hair with curled ends. Her hair color was flax with a hint of gray-brown. She was warm and down-to-earth, just like a girl next door.
She was not like this later on. She was like a black and white painting soaked in mist, or like a handful of snow on the top of a mountain, cold, lonely and unreal. Her eyes were always deep and distant, as if there was something between them and she couldn't see clearly.
The only similarity is that she has a face as white as jade in the past and in the future.
“Brother Yang, don’t sleep anymore. Brother Sun is… today…” Xiang Zimu grabbed the person who wanted to climb onto the bed.
"Blind date, I know, I'll just sleep for ten minutes, just ten minutes."
Xiang Zimu was like an old mother, shaking the quilt hard on purpose, feeling disappointed with the person. Finally, she covered the person who fell asleep in seconds with the quilt and turned to go to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat.
"I haven't had breakfast yet. By the time you get up, I'm afraid it will be cold. I'd better do it myself."
Chen Yang saw Xiang Zimu run straight to the kitchen with ease, open the refrigerator, take out a transparent bowl, open the lid, reach in, take out a diced radish and eat it.
"I made this a few months ago. Brother Yang is really... Oh, it's a pity that taskers don't die from ordinary diseases. They only die in the task world or in connection with the task. Otherwise, his grave would be... Bah."
Xiang Zimu slapped her mouth a few times, put down the transparent bowl, rolled up the sleeves of her thin cardigan to boil water, and took eggs and flour. She was going to make pancakes.
Chen Yang was originally at the kitchen door. He saw something and rushed in quickly.
There was a thin bloodstain on Xiang Zimu's left wrist, which had formed a scab.
Chen Yang opened his mouth subconsciously: "How did you do this?"
Xiang Zimu beat the eggs with one hand, humming the refrain of "Tomorrow Will Be Better" leisurely: "Sing out your passion, stretch out your hands, let me..."
"How did you do that?"
These words were not said by Chen Yang, but by myself back then.
He looked at himself who was catching up on his sleep in the room, and then he strode over and pointed at the scar on Xiang Zimu's left wrist. His face, which was much more carefree than he was now, was full of seriousness.
Xiang Zimu continued to beat the eggs: "It's okay, I just scratched it accidentally."
"Tell me, Xiangxi, how could you be so careless to get to that position?"
"I was just careless." Xiang Zimu threw the eggshell into the trash can. "I'm making pancakes. I have to hurry. Brother Sun and his blind date are scheduled to meet at nine o'clock..."
The bowl in her hand was snatched away and slammed heavily on the table, and the egg liquid inside splashed out in panic, with a few drops falling on her cardigan.
"Brother Yang, what are you doing?" Xiang Zimu wiped the egg liquid off her cardigan with a rag. She looked very calm.
"I was just about to ask you, Zimu, didn't we all agree to go down together? Do you want to go first?"
Xiang Zimu blinked innocently: "I didn't want to leave first, I just, how should I put it," she pouted, "I didn't see the sun when I woke up in the morning, and I was in a bad mood. I saw the dagger on the bedside, so I cut my hand, nothing else."
"Haha, I won't tell you. I'll go find Brother Xiaowen and see if he believes what you're saying."
"No, I'm telling the truth, every word is true. Let's not tell him about this little thing. Today is his important day, let's not cause him any more trouble."
"… "
Chen Yang watched Xiang Zimu put down the sleeves of her cardigan. Maybe she wasn't lying now. She didn't have that thought. She was just feeling down for a moment, but...
Chen Yang's mind flashed with the scene of Xiang Zimu repeatedly pulling up her sleeves to cover her left wrist during the mission in the small town. At that time, he couldn't understand what she was hiding, but at this moment, he suddenly understood. Later, she must have cut it, maybe more than one or two.
Without a partner, whether looking back or forward, all I see is a vast expanse of whiteness, and the road becomes too difficult to walk on.
Chen Yang sat at the table, watching himself and his old partner Xiang Zimu eat breakfast. When they went to meet Sun Wenjun, he followed them.
That was his uncontrollable behavior, he wanted to follow himself.
Follow the self with chestnut dyed hair, a baseball cap, and sportswear.
Chao Jian was completely imitating him.
The sky was overcast and the clouds were thick. Not long after, Chen Yang met another old partner. Sun Wenjun had not changed much. He was dressed casually, wearing a pair of frameless glasses on his nose, with a smile on his lips, and his temperament was elegant and humble.
The blind date partner had not arrived yet and sent a message saying that there was traffic jam. Sun Wenjun sat down with two comrades to drink tea.
Chen Yang sat down in the empty seat next to him and listened to their chat.
The topic did not involve any tasks, but revolved around ordinary daily life.
Chen Yang sighed, thinking that he used to live a very clear life and separated his tasks from his life very clearly, and he didn't seem to have any mental trauma, which was amazing.