"He said a lot to me that day, things that he didn't usually say."
"The person you mentioned, is he still in this building now?" Chen Ge could hear the voices around him trembling.
"He moved out and hasn't come back for a long time."
"Then do you want to see him again?" Chen Ge gently tugged at the corner of his shirt: "I think you should have a lot to say to him. After all, he made you feel cold and not feel warm."
"I… "
"It's okay, I will help you, I will definitely help you." Chen Ge stood up slowly against the wall: "If he doesn't leave Hanjiang, within a week, I will bring him. When you see him After that, I can take you to a warmer place."
The woman didn't answer, and Chen Ge wasn't in a hurry: "Now I have another reason to live, keep the coat, I'll be back."
Stepping forward, Chen Ge was about to walk up, when the woman's voice sounded again behind him: "Don't go any further, you can't come back."
"Can't come back? Why?"
"Because the thirteenth floor is above the fourteenth floor."
A coat was stuffed into Singer Chen, and the cold and damp feeling slowly dissipated.
"What did she want to tell me?" Chen Ge grabbed the coat in his hand: "The residential building in Jiangyuan Community does not have the fourteenth floor, the thirteenth floor should be the fifteenth floor, but she said that the thirteenth floor is the fourteenth floor? In other words, the fourteenth floor actually exists?"
Having come here, Chen Ge will not back down, he knows that he is very close to the truth.
Counting the steps silently in his heart, Chen Ge came to the thirteenth floor. This floor was very quiet, just like an ordinary residential corridor, without any abnormality.
Walking to the fourteenth floor, when Chen Ge was halfway there, the tip of his nose moved slightly, and he smelled the fragrance of rice.
I don't know what it's made of, or what kind of dish it is, but my brain seems to judge in an instant that this is a scent of rice, as if it was branded deep in my memory.
"It came from the fourteenth floor. Someone is cooking?"
Going up step by step, I don't know if it was because of too much physical exertion or too much mental exhaustion. Chen Ge felt that there were too many steps between the thirteenth floor and the fourteenth floor.
Obviously the number is the same as other floors, and the number of leg lifts is the same, but it takes more time.
When the fingertips fell, dry and cracked skin appeared on the originally smooth wall, and there seemed to be a lot of debris in the corridor.
Everything around him gave Chen Ge a feeling that was both familiar and unfamiliar.
He mechanically repeated the movement of raising his legs and falling, smelling the aroma of rice, and finally came to the fourteenth floor.
When he just stood firm, the door shaft in the corridor turned, making a clattering sound, an iron door was opened, and then a man's voice came from the depths of the corridor: "Chen Ge, are you home?"
The moment he heard this voice, Chen Ge's mind went blank, he turned around suddenly and faced the corridor.
He has listened to this man's voice for more than 20 years, and he came home. He did not know how many times he had heard it since he was a child.
He had already remembered this voice in his heart and engraved it on his bones.
"The meal is ready. As soon as you went upstairs, your mother heard your footsteps."
With the nails gouging into the flesh, Chen Ge slowly raised his arm and grabbed the blindfolded black cloth.
He wanted to take a look, he had never wanted to open his eyes so much.
The hand holding the black cloth became harder and harder, and strips of blue-black blood vessels appeared on the back of his hand.
"How does it feel to go to school alone for the first time?"
"Anyone else picks up the kids?!"
"No one bullies you, right?"
"Have you made friends? You're so similar to me, shouldn't you be unpopular?"
"Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands, don't run around..."
A sentence came from the depths of the corridor, until the door pivot turned again and the iron door closed.
The man's voice disappeared, and the voices of other people, men and women, old and young, rang out one after another in the corridor.
"What's wrong with the new family? Every day in the middle of the night, after the child falls asleep, he goes out. No wonder his child has nightmares every day."
"Have you heard that his house is full of laughter during the day and crying at night, isn't the child afraid of being alone in the house?"
"It's weird. I saw their family of three go out during the day with my own eyes today. Why is there still a child crying in the house at night?"
"Brothers! I found one thing, the new house is not the adult's problem, but the child's problem! I saw with my own eyes a doctor from a hospital in Xinhai came to treat the child! Don't let your own children. Play with him!"
"How do you feel that after being treated by the doctor, the child became more ill? Do you know? That child told his parents about the nightmares he had during the day, and at night when his parents were not at home, he told his own shadow about those nightmares, scaring everyone to death. !"
"That's not right. He doesn't sleep day and night. When did he have nightmares? Did the child really talk about dreams?"
"Don't scare me, forget it, they're about to move out anyway, just bear with it for a few more days."
"Move away?"
"Well, I heard that they are going to the western suburbs. The parents of the children are going to work in a paradise."
The voice in his ears slowly dissipated, Chen Ge still stood there, his hand still clutching the blindfolded black cloth.
After a while, Chen Ge took a deep breath: "I only remember those beautiful things. I have forgotten most of what the neighbors said, but there are a few key points that need to be paid attention to."
"When I was very young, I had contact with a doctor from Xinhai Hospital, that is, after being treated by him, I began to tell my shadow about nightmares."
"My shadow should have become strange from that time. The key to everything is that doctor."
"The doctor came from Xinhai, and the cursed hospital is between Xinhai and Hanjiang. Is this a coincidence?"
Standing on the fourteenth floor, Chen Ge silently turned around and turned his back to the corridor that made various sounds.
He grabbed the black cloth with his hand slowly and hard, and finally took off the slightly moist black cloth. At this time, his eyes were still tightly closed.
"I really want to open my eyes and see you guys, but I know it's impossible." Chen Ge didn't look back, he leaned against the wall and continued to walk up: "You gave me everything you had, now I use mine everything, to find you."
In the dark corridor, Chen Ge's back was a little different from before.
Fifteenth floor, sixteenth floor, seventeenth floor…
Counting the steps in his heart, Chen Ge knew that he was now on the seventeenth floor, which is theoretically the top floor of the building, but he didn't open his eyes in a hurry.
"The fourteenth floor doesn't exist, but the girl with a cold body said that the thirteenth floor is the fourteenth floor. This building originally had seventeen floors, and if you add the extra fourteen floors, there should be eighteen floors in total. It's like the eighteen layers of hell."
After Chen Ge finished speaking, he touched the wall and moved his steps, and soon the toe of his shoe touched the steps going up.
"Sure enough, there is still the eighteenth floor."