The snow is still falling;
The people around,
It started to become less and less.
Like a movie theater that has ended.
Getting more and more depressed.
Zhou Ze stood there, allowing the snow to slowly cover him and turn him into a "snowman".
The man who smashed the car disappeared.
The onlookers disappeared.
The man lying on the ground was gone.
Slowly,
The car is gone,
Between heaven and earth, there is only this vast expanse of white, so clean;
The only thing that was eye-catching was the bloody red pool on the ground.
It's like a stain that can't be washed off or wiped away.
It persists.
It is so annoying and makes people uncomfortable.
In the bloody red,
The old man kept shouting,
It seemed like he was venting the repression that had been building up for a long time.
"Now, do you know what I am?"
It's like I've finished venting.
Like tired,
I also feel bored and meaningless.
The old man walked out from the bloody blood.
He was still wearing the same green coat, the same pair of Liberation shoes with muddy soles, and he still looked like an old farmer. He even sniffed his nose, wiped it with the back of his hand, and then threw it on the ground.
Zhou Ze nodded.
"You're already dead, old man."
"Yes, he is dead, but I cannot die. Every time I die, I have to come back and change someone else to start over again."
The old man put his hands on his hips, and seemed to want to continue cursing, but it seemed that he couldn't do it anymore.
The old man is dead, but he still exists.
Xu Qinglang's master is dead, but his master will continue to appear in the future.
He is a demon, floating in the sky. He will fall down and enter a person's body. Xu Qinglang's master is the previous one. Because of this, that person was able to understand the mysteries, had deep obsessions, and became a celestial master wandering in the world. Even the local ghost messenger did not dare to touch him.
A week ago, he appeared here and was killed by Zhou Ze, really killed. But the one who died was only Xu Qinglang's master, the real evil, the demon who created all this. He was just washed away of everything.
He hid in a dark corner and licked his wounds slowly.
He hid among the crowd and quietly gathered his strength again.
He was waiting for time to slowly pass, he was looking for the next person to possess, this was his destiny and also his reincarnation, just like the little loli and the gang of ghosts who always had to find a host body after entering the world from hell.
he,
Also needed.
"Do you know how old I am?" the old man asked Zhou Ze.
Zhou Ze shook his head.
"I am very old, so old that I almost forgot what I looked like at the beginning. Storytellers say that every blade of grass and every tree has its destiny!
But I just can’t figure it out, I can’t understand it, and I can’t find out what the fucking meaning of my existence is.”
The old man was talking.
On the left side of his body, the snow disappeared and an old street appeared.
There are hawking sounds and various small shops on the street.
There was also a platform with a person kneeling on it.
"This is the one that happened the furthest back in my memory, but that I remember most clearly."
Caishikou,
There are more and more people.
Before he knew it, Zhou Ze found himself surrounded by people. Most of them were wearing gray clothes and had long braids on their heads.
Greasy,
Watery.
This scene seems familiar.
An executioner escorted the man onto the platform. The knife had been sharpened and the man had already knelt down.
The people watching below began to cry and sob.
Some covered their eyes, not daring to look.
Some covered their ears, not daring to listen.
Some simply turned away, not even daring to face it.
The autumn wind was bleak and leaves were falling. The executioner took a sip of wine and heard crying from the audience.
The death row prisoner did not cry. He continued to kneel, but his back was straight. The people watching below were crying for his misfortune, shaking their heads, lamenting, feeling melancholy, and grieving for the passing of life.
In front of Zhou Ze,
The old man's eyes were dull.
He walked up to Zhou Ze.
He reached out to help Zhou Ze straighten his collar, like a kind elder. He grinned, revealing his yellow teeth, and continued:
"I came to you to ask you a favor."
"explain."
“If I die, I won’t be able to come back in a short time, but maybe in a few years, a dozen years, or even decades, I will come back.
So, I beg you, when I come back next time, just kill me, okay
This guy has some things inherited from his ancestors. I'll tell you where they are. If you go and have a look, you should be able to pick up some interesting things. If you like them, feel free to take them and play with them. He's dead anyway."
"You shouldn't say that to me." Zhou Ze replied.
You should say it to the one inside your body.
The old man showed a strange smile on his face. He looked at Zhou Ze, licked his lips, and said:
“Same.”
"How long will it take you to come back?"
“Soon.”
The old man showed an expression of "no hope in life".
With a wave of his right hand,
A bridge appeared.
A line,
Divided the two worlds,
On the left is the Caishikou from a hundred years ago;
On the right is a modern bridge.
On the platform at Caishikou, there was an executioner holding a knife and a condemned prisoner kneeling;
There was a man squatting on the bridge, ready to fall at any time.
A line divides a hundred years of time.
"People often say that time can change everything." The old man smiled bitterly, "But there are some things that even time can't change. I feel that the next time I come back, it won't be too long. You just wait.
I may come back to see you next time I come back."
There were many people gathered under the bridge to watch. The number of onlookers was so large that the operation of the bridge was paralyzed.
The police came to maintain order. They maintained the cordon and asked the onlookers to move back a little, but the people in the front were pushing forward and the people behind were pushing forward, so they couldn't disperse at all.
Everyone was as enthusiastic as they were in the early years when they squeezed into buses to go to the cinema and rushed to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy things.
The firefighters have already set up ropes and are ready to risk their lives to rescue people.
"Jump, jump quickly!"
"Damn it, if you don't jump, the sun will kill me!"
"Brother, are you going to jump or not? Just say something. If you don't jump, I have to go back and cook."
"Be more agile, make your moves more standard, and make smaller splashes, so that you can get higher scores for your technical moves!"
The people shouting below urged and vented their dissatisfaction while holding their phones, taking photos and videos, and then posting them on Weibo and Moments:
"I'm so worried about him. Why did he jump off the building? Come down quickly!"
"Life is precious. Everyone only has one chance to live. I hope you guys up there can be more open-minded and come down soon!"
"Come down. Life is bound to have its ups and downs. There is nothing you can't let go of. You still have your family and friends who will continue to support you. You still have us down there who are worried about you!"
"I'm so worried about the guy up there. Don't jump! Come on, firefighters. You have to save him!"
Finished posting the dynamics,
Put down the phone,
Everyone endured the scorching sun.
I started urging the person above to hurry up, be quick and efficient, because the sun was too hot, there were no parasols, and no convenience store to buy a bottle of iced Coke.
"One hundred years." The old man smiled and licked his lips.
"puff!"
On the left side of the line, the executioner's sword fell and the head rolled down.
“Plop!”
On the right side of the line, the man jumped off the bridge and hit the water.
The world seemed to have fallen into a state of silence at this moment.
An eerie silence.
then,
Both sides of the line,
Let's boil together.
At Caishikou, a group of people ran over with steamed buns in their hands to dip them in blood. Those who got the buns shouted, "Human blood steamed buns can cure all diseases!"
At the bridge,
When the firefighters and police officers mourned the loss of a life and even cried and shed tears,
A few curious people secretly crossed the isolation zone and rushed to the body that had just been salvaged. They lifted the white canvas covering the body.
Look at the appearance after drowning.
All of these can become topics of conversation for them in the future. For example, when drinking with friends, they can brag about the man who jumped into the river and committed suicide on the bridge a while ago. It was such a tragic death. I saw it with my own eyes.
Both ends of the line,
Disturbance,
And it started to get more and more chaotic.
In the end,
The old man's figure was also getting fainter and fainter. He spread his hands, feeling helpless and at a loss, as if there was nothing more sad than a dead heart:
"I want to die."
This was his last lament.
Then, he waved to Zhou Ze.
"Goodbye, wait for me to come back next time, please... kill me completely."
“Buzz…”
All around,
Light and shadow began to tremble,
Zhou Ze raised his head silently.
He was still standing in the bathroom of the bookstore, holding a towel in his hand ready to wipe his face, and in front of him was the mirror.
Behind him, there was no dark shadow or old man.
Zhou Ze didn't feel dizzy, confused, or uncomfortable.
The old man said that this was an illusion that could not be simpler, so simple that Zhou Ze himself could easily wake up from it.
This simple illusion naturally would not bring any physical effects to Zhou Ze.
Go ahead and pick up the towel,
Wipe your face,
But the water on my face had already dried up.
Now wipe it.
It's Khan.
Cold sweat.
After walking out of the bathroom, Zhou Ze sat down in his favorite window seat. The afterglow of the setting sun shone here, casting a long shadow.
Most people in the originally bustling bookstore were recuperating on the second floor, and now only Boss Zhou was left sitting downstairs.
I don't know why.
Zhou Ze felt a little cold.
It was a colder feeling than the night a week ago.
It was even comparable to the feeling I had when I first walked the Yellow Springs Road.
Because this was the first time Zhou Ze came into contact with this kind of thing.
It is not a ghost.
It is not a living thing.
It has no form, and it doesn't even know what it is.
But it looked like a demon, with its eyes wide open.
In this heaven,
Whether it is windy or rainy, or sunny and bright,
It is watching everything below.
And ready to wave his devil's wings at any time,
Come down.
This kind of gaze,
It is known to have lasted for a hundred years.
under,
It may continue.
I don’t know how many centuries it will last.
Just like the words left by the person in his body after killing him:
"He's not dead yet..."