Kou Tong was about to get out of bed, but was held down by Huang Jinchen and wrapped a blanket around him: "I finally sweated a little, what are you looking for? I'll find it for you."
"Things in the safety wall." Kou Tong said, "Everything is taken out - the switch is at the top of the cabinet, you can touch it out."
The huge bookcase is split on two sides, revealing the lockbox inside. Huang Jinchen looked back at him, Kou Tong said casually, "The password is BODEBX."
Huang Jinchen paused: "you... tell me this... "
Kou Tong leaned on the head of the bed, raised his head and smiled at him: "There are no state secrets in it, and some are technical, anyway, you can't understand."
For some reason, Huang Jinchen's mood suddenly became very good.
The small cipher box popped open from the inside, and the yellowed file bag lay there quietly, as if displaying the secrets buried in the long time and space. Huang Jinchen held it in his hand, and suddenly became a little frightened, as if he was not holding an old file bag, but Kou Tong's heart and memory.
"Turn off the light." Kou Tong said softly, Huang Jinchen turned off the light, and he raised his hand to turn on a small dim light hanging on the head of the bed.
Huang Jinchen sat beside his bed, raised his hand to wrap the blanket over Kou Tong's body, watched him open the file bag, and poured out a musty smell inside. I don't know if it was because of the light or because of the fever, Kou Tong's face looked extremely pale, and the long and thick eyelashes were not curled up like Westerners, but hung straight down, casting a gloomy shadow. At that moment, he lost his smile, like a ghost who was imprisoned in the ruins and forgot who he was for ten years.
After an unknown amount of time, Kou Tong took a folded admission notice and said, "This is the first gift I received after the projector entered the experimental stage and I officially 'retired'. Free Compensation."
"O University gave it to you?" Although Huang Jinchen belongs to a half illiterate youth, he has occasionally heard a word or two about some well-known universities, "Oh my wife is really capable."
As soon as he came out, the dark and quiet atmosphere of the entire bedroom was broken, and Kou Tong's thoughts of connecting with the past were suddenly interrupted, and it felt like a breath was stuck in his throat.
For a moment, Kou Tong smiled softly without raising his eyes, but his eyes in the shadows softened a lot and looked less gloomy. He raised his lips in front of him and softly "shhh": "Don't. interrupt."
Huang Jinchen obediently shut up.
"It's my first time to travel." After a while, Kou Tong closed the admission letter and picked up the old photo next to him, "Some are in college, and some are staying in Europe when I have nothing to do. photo below."
Huang Jinchen imitated the speed of his speech, kept his voice very low, and asked very softly, "Why didn't you take pictures later?"
"I later found out that I have no interest or talent in photography." Kou Tong said, "I no longer develop photos. At most, I take a few pictures with a card machine or mobile phone, and I don't bother to take them out, so I put them in the memory card. on."
Huang Jinchen watched him flip through the old photos one by one. The people in the photos looked no different from the current Kou Tong—sunny smiles, all kinds of wretched or deliberately pretentious poses, probably not a few years ago. However, when I turned to the last few pictures, some older photos appeared.
Huang Jinchen was taken aback.
The little boy in the photo doesn't look more than ten years old, and the boy is indistinguishable between men and women, which makes his facial features look more like Kou Tong's mother, but Huang Jinchen looked at it for a long time before he remembered... That little boy may be Kou Tong's childhood.
He asked softly, "Is that you?"
No wonder he didn't see it for a while, it is difficult for anyone to connect the little boy in the photo with the current Kou Tong - that little guy has delicate eyebrows, with a pure and beautiful look unique to young children, but he looks a little dead. gas.
He is like a... lifeless doll, standing quietly beside the woman, looking out through the photo, his eyes do not have the liveliness and agility of a child, but make people feel a little indescribable indifference and indifference .
He didn't smile, but the woman next to him was forcing a smile - the corners of his mouth were pulled up stiffly, but there was no smile line curved at the corners of his eyes.
The woman and child only took up half of the photo, and the other half was empty, with a big fork made by someone with a bright red fountain pen.
Kou Tong held the photo, and the whole person was still. For a moment, Huang Jinchen almost had an illusion, as if his breathing had disappeared.
"It's me." After an unknown period of time, Kou Tong said like a dream, "My mother is next to me, and the place where the cross is supposed to be my... father. But he doesn't exist in this space, so all the photos with his position , there will be such a person free."
He lightly pinched the photo paper with his fingernails. During this period, neither of them spoke, except for the paper's rustling voice: "I remember...he is here."
"It was raining heavily that day." Kou Tong said softly, "but he was very happy because it was their wedding anniversary..."
The faded things in his memory flashed through his mind as quickly as a glimmer of light, like a dusty treasure chest that was suddenly opened, and all the things inside were still the same. There seemed to be a fine sound of rain outside the window. Above the city, the air also became sticky and wet.
"He slammed the door open and said loudly, 'Come on, we're going out to eat today, and we have to take a family photo.'" Kou Tong's pupils seemed to have suddenly lost focus. Through the old photos, they fell to the ones from many years ago... Lost Over the years, "We went out together, ate something, and took a lot of photos in the photo studio opposite the hotel, and also enlarged one in the living room."
"What, did you not have a good time as a child?" Huang Jinchen asked in a low voice.
"When he doesn't drink, he is a man who likes to talk and laugh. After drinking..." Kou Tong paused, and said in a flat and light voice, "I'm not a person anymore."
Huang Jinchen tentatively stretched out a hand and held the back of Kou Tong's hand. He felt that he struggled uncontrollably, and the whole person was smart. The carefree Doctor Kou suddenly became extremely sensitive to other people's touches. Huang Jinchen Q: "Is it domestic violence?"
Kou Tong nodded: "He doesn't allow my mother to talk to other men. Since he was young, he has been a lifeless man, and he has even made a name for himself by being a fool. When he is middle-aged, it is even more outrageous. Later, when I turned over his case, it seemed that he had a record of drug involvement. When he was in a bad mood, he would drink alcohol, and then…”
"He beat your mother? What about you?" Huang Jinchen asked, "Have you ever touched you?"
Kou Tong's profile was tensed, and he didn't know what he recalled. After a long while, he laughed coldly, and touched the blood-red fork with his finger, but did not directly answer Huang Jinchen's question: "I really want to kill it. … he."
Huang Jinchen has an intuition like a beast. Although he does not understand what is the law of memory, what is perception, and what is non-structural diagnosis, he just feels that not answering questions directly is an escape in itself, even if he does not want to escape. , but his instinct still made him avoid technically.
So Huang Jinchen held his hand tightly and asked, "Answer me, has he hit you?"
"He strangled my neck." After a while, Kou Tong said with difficulty, as if he had difficulty breathing, and his voice became weaker, "He strangled me by the neck and pressed me against the wall, and his eyes were red. Bloodshot, the breath is full of alcohol and stench. Like a monster."
Huang Jinchen's heart tightened.
"My mom came screaming and he pushed her aside, dropped me, hit her on the head with a wine bottle. Hit her a lot... Drink mixed with blood - until she lay motionless on the ground."
"And then?" Huang Jinchen asked in a soft voice, "then what happened to her?"
"Then some of his brothers happened to come to the house. I didn't know what was going on. When he saw that he was about to die, he pulled him away. She was sent to the hospital." Kou Tong said, "It was like this every time, he was drunk, Hit her, then sober up, regretful, kneel, apologize, swear…”
"If it's like this, is she still willing to be with him?"
"After she was discharged from the hospital, she took me home to pack up and prepare to leave this alcoholic."
A loud noise, a woman's scream, a child's sudden burst of hysterical crying, a man's scolding... The sounds were mixed together, as if they could directly hit a person's soul, Kou Tong suddenly reached out and hugged his head, fingers The tips were white, pressed firmly against his temples, huddled against the head of the bed, his shoulders sticking out of the blanket, his soaked shirt pressed tightly against his thin, curled shoulders.
Huang Jinchen put his arms around his shoulders, ignoring Kou Tong's struggle, and held him tightly in his arms.
"Shh..." he said, "it's okay, look, the space hasn't vibrated abnormally yet, we don't need cold water yet, calm down a bit. Didn't we make it later?"
Kou Tong was in his arms, and even his voice was a little low: "... He suddenly rushed up and locked the door. He knocked her unconscious, then dragged her to the ground and kept dragging away... It was like dragging a corpse, while Staring hard at me. Then locked her up."
"Is it illegal detention?"
"Um."
"and then?"
This time Kou Tong was silent for a long time. After an unknown amount of time, he closed his eyes in pain: "I can't think of it..."
Huang Jinchen was silent for a while, but after all, he was not a professional. Although he vaguely guessed that the place that he couldn't remember was the most important thing, he still didn't know what to do. He could only hug him and pat his back lightly. Back, after a while, he finally found an opportunity and asked, "Did you cut the wound on your hand yourself?"
Kou Tong was shocked.
"Is it cut at that time?"
"...No." Kou Tong broke away from him, took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling where a shadow had been cast, "That was later, after she passed away."
"Why?" Huang Jinchen asked.
Kou Tong closed his eyes and could see that he wanted to calm down as much as possible, but his eyebrows kept shaking slightly. After a while, he opened his eyes and shook his head wearily.
Sure enough, psychiatrists are not so easy to be, Huang Jinchen rubbed his chin.
He picked up the crossed photo, looked at it, and commented, "Your mother's face was not as good-looking back then as it is now."
Kou Tong smiled bitterly: "Is it strange that you have a good-looking face?"
"Hmm..." Huang Jinchen looked at her for a while and then described, "She has no flesh on her face, she's shriveled, her lips are blue and purple, and she looks sick and not refined..."
Kou Tong suddenly widened his eyes and grabbed his arm: "What did you say?"
"I said she had a sick face and was not in good spirits." Huang Jinchen repeated.
"That's not it, you said her lips were blue..."
Huang Jinchen suddenly felt the familiar vibration.
He glanced at the cold water on the ground tangled, but he was reluctant to splash him with cold water when it was about to happen - a normal person would have to sneez a few times, Kou Tong already had a fever, wouldn't it kill him
"The lips are blue and purple..." Kou Tong didn't realize it, but he laughed lowly, the expression on his face was extremely gray, almost like a dead person, "Yes... Her lips always look blue because she has a heart disease. At home...there is a medicine cabinet, and she always has her quick-acting heart-saving pills and nitroglycerin."
His speech was getting faster and faster, and the vibration in the room was getting bigger and bigger. There was chaos in the living room, and someone started to knock on the door desperately and shout "earthquake". Huang Jinchen ignored it. When it comes to what Kou Tong wants to say.
"She was locked in a small house and lived without anyone or a ghost. I tried many methods, and someone at home was always watching... I couldn't protect her, I couldn't save her, even if I got close to her room The corners of Kou Tong's eyes were actually wet, he stared at the ceiling with wide eyes, but tears rolled down his hands one after another, burning his hands, "I can only... I can only get rid of her. ."
"I can only free her. I can only... free her..."
He repeats this phrase over and over again, almost frantically, as if re-witnessing the helpless little boy who empties the vial and spills life-saving pills under the sofa, and then waits until one day she falls ill and can't breathe , his face was blue-purple, his eyes rolled back, and he was as ugly as every dying man...
It was rare for a man who was a little sane to rummage through boxes and cabinets looking for medicines, only to find a few empty bottles.
At the age of ten, a little boy murdered his mother with his greatest courage and ingenuity.
He knew that in his whole life, he would never love a second woman so deeply, and maybe... no second person would love him as much.
The mirror hanging in the air shattered, Huang Jinchen gritted his teeth, pressed Kou Tong's shoulders, leaned in and fiercely blocked all his sobbing... He decided to use a more violent method to wake this person up.