It wasn't even dusk when Zhang Man came out of Li Wei's house. She planned to go back and sort out the topics she had done before preparing for it.
It was very windy outside, it didn't rain or snow, but there was a bit of damp water vapor. The billboards on the roadside were blown to one side by the strong wind, and they were so fragile that they seemed to collapse in the next second.
She looked up at the dim sky and tightened her coat.
It's only been a sunny day, and there will probably be another blizzard tonight.
The bus drove very fast, and the driver seemed to be going home from get off work before the blizzard came, but he still didn't catch up—before he arrived at the station, the sky began to snow heavily, without any buffering process.
Zhang Man got out of the car, put on a down jacket hat, and walked from the station to the community. The most terrifying thing in the winter in City Z is not the rain nor the snow, but the strong wind.
The sea breeze was howling, and she was a little unsteady, so she squinted and walked quickly, wanting to go home quickly.
However, before she got downstairs, she heard loud voices and heart-piercing crying, in such a heavy snowy day, it was like an ice blade that pierced the tranquility.
Zhang Man frowned, quickened his pace, walked to the next unit building, and found that there was a circle of people downstairs at this time, and a police car with a red light was parked outside the crowd.
Her temples jumped up and she squeezed her way through the crowd.
The people who collapsed and cried in the crowd were a family of three, two young people, and an old man—the old man she was very familiar with, the grandmother who lost her granddaughter in a previous life.
Zhang Man's heart tightened, his scalp was numb, and he had a very bad premonition.
Sure enough, the next second, she heard the hoarse and heart-piercing cry of the old grandmother.
"My baby girl, my baby girl was snatched away, the man was wearing a hat and took my baby girl away from my arms... I didn't catch up with her... Nanna she, she was crying all the time, she was calling grandma Ah... the traffickers who are going to die, the kidnappers, they should all go to hell..."
She cried so hard that the old lady in her 60s and 70s sat paralyzed in the snow with white hair, wailing recklessly, watching the tears of several women with children beside her.
This kind of pain of losing a loved one is something people have not been able to restrain so far.
Next to the old lady, the woman who looked less than thirty was probably the mother of the child. Her hair was messy, and she sat on the ground with a pale face, ignoring the heavy snow, crying as if she was about to lose her breath.
The slightly calmer man beside the two of them choked with red eyes, while telling the police next to him what happened.
Zhang Man's heart was pounding.
Why does it still happen? She thought she had already reminded it, it should, it won't happen again.
People in the surrounding community were talking about it.
"Oh, this old lady is so pitiful. I heard that she took the child out to buy vegetables today. She was holding her in her arms, but was snatched by a man wearing a hat on the way back."
"Tsk tsk tsk, you said that the current human traffickers are too rampant. Stealing children can't be changed to robbing. I don't dare to take my granddaughter out of the house."
"I tell you, don't spread the word. This family is probably offending the Bodhisattva. When I went out with Mrs. Zhou some time ago, she kept saying that children can't be put in a stroller. It's easy to be taken away. As a result, she was held in her arms the whole time, or she was snatched away. Do you think this is poisonous or not?"
"Don't mention it, it's all life, what's not in life, can't touch it, what's in life, can't escape."
- If you don't have it in your life, you can't touch it, and if you have it in your life, you can't escape.
A gust of wind suddenly hit, and dense snow fell from the sky, falling on her hair and clothes, and a piece or two fell on her exposed neck.
Zhang Man's scalp exploded, and in the ice and snow, the chill spread from every pore on her neck, causing her to shiver.
Dense goose bumps, at this moment, covered her arms.
She suddenly realized that many things can really change if she thinks she has the ability to change.
…
After Zhang Man left, the boy held the peace charm she gave him, sat on the sofa, and watched quietly.
I haven't felt this way for a long time. I don't do anything, but I don't feel bored. On the contrary, every corner of my heart is warm.
He remembered the serious expression on his face when the girl handed him the peace talisman just now.
She seems to be serious about many things.
In the afternoon, she was doing the questions, and he was watching. She frowned and thought about those questions. She made the drafts and notes clearly and clearly. Her handwriting was delicate and round. On this page, you can clearly see the traces that were printed on the next page.
After each formula, she drew a small circle, and inside the circle were neatly arranged numbers.
In her problem-solving process, there are not too many fancy skills and clever ideas, and most of them follow the most basic and most reliable problem-solving ideas, and do it well-likely to cure obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In fact, they are, to some extent, completely different. She is different from his inattentiveness. Although she is quiet, she has her own love for this world.
She will do everything she can, in a small circle of life, to do everything well.
Such a girl suddenly broke into his life, causing him to doubt her authenticity from time to time.
For him, it was like hitting the jackpot.
He put the talisman in the chest pocket of his pajamas, close to his heart.
But the next moment, he thought of the girl who said seriously, let him find a safe and hidden place at home to put it away, and he must not lose it.
The boy shook his head, stood up with a smile, and walked into the bedroom.
Hidden and safe place…
He opened the wardrobe, and in the bottom corner, there was a mahogany box with a combination lock - it was brought to him by the way when grandpa sent someone to hand over his father's inheritance to him, saying that it was the most important thing in his father's life. The relic, he has not opened it for so many years.
The password is his birthday.
0110.
He opened the mahogany box, and an old smell came out.
He put the bright yellow safety talisman into the box. He originally wanted to close it, but he suddenly became interested.
The teenager turned on the lights in the room and spread the box on the bedside table.
There isn't much in the box.
The most conspicuous thing on the top is a wooden comb that is close to carved. Because of the passage of time, the original purple red of the wood has become a purple-brown after precipitation.
The teeth of the comb are not dense, but the wood is hard, and the complete red sandalwood is carved with delicate plum blossoms. The wood wax is shiny, and after so many years, it still exudes a refreshing sandalwood aroma. The back of the comb is curved, and a word is engraved on it.
"fennel".
The boy was startled, it was Janet's name.
He put down the wooden comb and picked up another yellowed photo.
The photo has a plastic seal, and the date is written in hot gold in the upper right corner, and the font is slightly off. He carefully identified and found that it had been seventeen years since now.
There is a man and a woman in the photo, both of whom look their best age.
The man is dressed in a straight suit, handsome and high-spirited. He wears sunglasses and hugs the woman with a sweet smile beside him.
The woman was dressed in fashion, with a plain white dress in a camel-colored trench coat, and a black and white polka-dot silk scarf around her neck. The long curly hair and the yellowing of the photos made her look like a modern girl turned from a European street corner of the last century.
However, the most important thing is that under the woman's dress, the towering belly is hard to ignore, and her chin is also slightly rounded.
The background of the photo is the Seine River hidden in the white fog, and the towering Eiffel Tower can be seen behind the two.
Different from the changing times and human beings, those buildings have been standing there for ten, decades, or even hundreds of years, welcoming the new sunrise every day.
A certain corner of Li Wei's heart is slightly depressed. It turned out that Janet looked like this when she was young, but it is a little different from now.
He closed his eyes and thought about what Janet looked like now, suddenly feeling that he couldn't remember. He shook his head, it seemed that he had to get in touch with Janet for a while, it had been a long time recently, and he didn't think of her.
There were several other things in the box—a heavy gold lock, which he must have worn as a child, and two strands of hair tied together.
The hair is a couple.
At the bottom of the mahogany box, there is a children's English book with a slightly curled edge, which was probably used for enlightenment when he was a child.
The boy carefully pulled out the book.
The cover is a color for children's books, with "Benny the Lion" written in exaggerated swashes, and a colorful English title. Below the title, a cute little lion turns its head and faces forward, with one front hoof raised and a "yeah".
He was amused. It turned out that when he was a child, he also read such a childlike book.
He remembered Manman again.
I don't know if she had read similar books when she was a child, or if she read warm children's stories in a milky voice.
Just thinking about it makes my heart itch, and I can't wait to pinch her face in the next second.
While thinking about it, the teenager opened the book "Benny the Lion" and turned to the first page at will.
It's really enlightening. Each English sentence has a Chinese translation below it, and another line is Chinese pinyin.
Great for kids to watch.
However, in the next second, the warm smile on the boy's face suddenly solidified.
"A long, long time ago, there lived a little lion in the forest, and his name was Benny. He was a happy little lion, and he had the gentlest mother in the whole animal kingdom, Janet, and the smartest friend, Nick. Their story starts now."
…
The book slipped from his hand, and the boy stumbled and sat on the head of the bed, his face pale and his brain buzzing.
A yellowed page of reading, like a key forgotten by the years, opened the door of his memory, which had been sealed for many years.
The young man's thoughts became extremely chaotic and uncontrollable, and two blurred faces flashed into his mind at this moment.
"Weiwei, mom's flight to Vancouver tomorrow morning, you don't have to take me off."
"Mom cooked for you, baby, eat it, it's your favorite dish."
"It's not like this. Quantum entanglement does have such a super-distance effect. As long as this foundation is accepted, the next derivation will come naturally..."
"Is this girl your girlfriend? She's pretty."
They were in his ear, constantly talking, and the buzzing sound was like a bell, causing him to have severe tinnitus.
The heating in the house was adjusted to the optimum 23 degrees, but the boy shivered.
He tried to convince himself.
Janet went to Vancouver, yes, she immigrated when he was a kid. There is also Nick, who is the best partner who will carefully answer for him every time he encounters difficulties in learning.
But the next second, there was a creepy voice in his heart, deep in his soul, questioning him.
Who is Nick? Is he someone you met at the orphanage? Or your classmates at school
Who is Janet? Is your mother's English name really Janet
If they exist, why do you feel so lonely all these years? Why do you eat alone, sleep alone, and do everything alone every day
Why were they not there when you were hung by your father from the clothes pole on the balcony? Why were they not there when you were dumped by grandpa? Why aren't worms there when you're stuffed with worms in your collar
When your life is occupied by large darkness, where are they
The two figures in his mind became more and more blurred, and in the end, he could only see two pale, empty faces without facial features.
It was like a gloomy ghost coming out of Shura's hell.
The young man suddenly remembered a fragment that he had completely forgotten in the past.
He remembered that he seemed to have ordered two dishes on the phone one day. When the delivery boy arrived, he was more than an hour late. He handed the delivery to him, hoping that he would not complain to their store.
He remembered that he opened the takeaway, poured the two dishes into two china plates, and threw the takeaway box into the trash can.
He remembered the day when he took off the cap of the pen and wrote his mother's name on the letter of apology.
He still remembered the dark, empty hallway when he dropped Nick out the other day.
The voice-activated lights on the corridor would turn on as long as someone walked over, but they weren't there that day. Facing the darkness, he beckoned and closed the door.
"what!"
The young man suddenly had a splitting headache at this moment, and he hugged himself in pain and trembling.
Who are they
Who is he
His eyes were flushed, blood splattered from the bottom of his eyes, and his brain gradually became unconscious.
He stared terribly at the big bed and the empty room beside him. The cold, gray furniture seemed to yell at him.
"Fake, we are all fake, in fact, you are also fake."
He stumbled backwards and sat up nervously as he fell into the soft mattress.
It's all fake, everything in this world is fake.
He felt like he stepped on the air and fell into a cliff, his body and consciousness fell uncontrollably.
"No, no, don't..."
The boundless darkness and fear completely drowned him at this moment.
In desperation, the boy suddenly thought of the girl in his arms, who let him kiss.
Her lips, with their real touch and intoxicating aroma, once made him want to stop.
Yes, yes, Manman, he still has Manman.
Manman won't lie to him. She once hugged him under his umbrella. Just now, in the afternoon, under the desk, in his arms, she kissed him back warmly and greenly.
The boy's flustered heart calmed down, as if he had grabbed a life-saving straw.
He stood up, took out his phone tremblingly from his pocket, and scrambled through the phone book.
Saw the only number that existed.
He shook his hand and wanted to click in, but in the next second, he thought of what she had said.
"Nick, hello, I'm Zhang Man."
"Bang—", the phone slipped from his hand and shattered.
Blizzard, coming.