After listening to this story, I had a strange feeling in my heart, as if I was about to wake up from a dream. I vaguely feel that this is a precursor to memory recovery. I should have taken this opportunity to concentrate, hoping to use this opportunity to regain my memory. However, for some reason, there is always a feeling of laziness in my heart that suppresses my subconscious. It was as if a ball of soft and heavy cotton was blocking the outlet of my memory, making my wish to awaken my memory fail again.
I sighed, almost losing faith in recovering my memory.
The conductor smiled lowly, as if appreciating the story the woman told. Seemingly noticing my depression, he suddenly said: "Boy, do you understand this story?"
I didn't want to talk to the conductor, but I recalled the plot of the story in my mind, but without thinking about it, I replied: "It's just a magical story."
The conductor smiled contemptuously and asked, "Is that true?"
I frowned, and the recollection in my mind had reached the end of the story, and it suddenly dawned on me. I admit that because of the trouble of amnesia, I did not pay too much attention to this story. Now when I finally recalled the whole story, I suddenly felt an inexplicable chill in my body. The feeling was not that of horror, but that I realized at this moment that this story gave people an unexpectedly weird feeling.
"That... isn't a human?" I asked tentatively, looking at the woman telling the story. The woman smiled at me, her smile not at all gloomy like the previous ones, but with a kind smile. I noticed that the long skirt on her body was colorful, as if she had come from a hundred flowers, and was stained with bright colors, as beautiful as the patterns on the wings of a butterfly.
At this moment, I felt that I had grasped the key to the matter, and tried to ask the woman, "What on earth are you..."
"In the past, Zhuang Zhou dreamed of a butterfly, and a butterfly came to life. He said that he was in harmony with his will, but he didn't know Zhou Ye. Suddenly he realized that he was like a Zhou Ye. I didn't know that Zhou's dream was a butterfly, but the butterfly's dream was Zhou Yu?" The conductor suddenly said, "This is Zhou Ye." The voice was as loud and deep as a bell, and I even felt an invisible ripple spread through the air, quickly reaching my body and even the depths of my soul.
I was stunned and couldn't continue what I just said. The woman looked at me deeply, turned around and left. When I looked back, the woman's figure had disappeared. I inspected the carriages and saw many people sitting with indifferent expressions, but none of them was the woman just now.
"What are you looking at?" asked the conductor.
"She... doesn't seem to have your ticket?" I asked.
"Because she doesn't need it." The conductor's voice returned to its previous laziness, and he said leisurely, "If you have time to care about others, you might as well think about your own affairs. What's more, you seemed to have thought of something just now."
Yes, when the conductor said the sentence in "Zhuangzi", I felt that the blocked memory outlet was suddenly opened. At that moment, countless familiar scenes appeared before my eyes, but in the next moment, everything disappeared again.
I tried to remember again, but in vain. I beat my head and said to myself in annoyance, "What the hell is going on?"
The conductor sighed and said: "You are so stupid! Let me remind you again. Instead of empty memories, it is better to think about what has been happening here."
"Here? What happened?" I was a little confused, but I tried to think, "It's just stories being told here. What else is there?"
"Do you remember those stories?"
Feeling that the conductor had lost his patience, I panicked for no reason and recalled to myself, "First came "Death Confession", then "Dangerous Building", "Seeds"..."
As I recalled these stories, I found a familiar feeling, especially some of the plots... I seemed to hear a crisp sound of "click", or maybe it was just some kind of indescribable sound that could only be expressed through onomatopoeia. To express the feeling, memories finally swept through my mind like a tide. At that moment, I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but I felt boundless fear because of that memory.
"Remember? Then tell me." The conductor immediately added, "Uh... I mean, what story did you think of?"
"No, I don't want to say it." I guessed that the expression on my face must be very painful, so I slowly lowered my head.
"Concealing it won't do you any good," the conductor said coldly, "By the way, well-intentioned advice. If you don't tell the story, or are the last to tell the story, you will be left in this carriage forever."
I just nodded slowly and said no more.
"It's up to you." The conductor sneered and said to the rest of the people in the carriage: "Who else hasn't told a story? Hurry up!"
With "well-intentioned advice" first, the remaining people rushed forward and told several stories such as "There is a Tiger" and "The Pale Forest". Time passed as the stories were told, but I didn’t hear any of those stories. Because I know those stories have nothing to do with me.
The sound of the car rumbled, thinking over and over again, the rhythm was boring. I looked out the window. No matter how much time passed, the sky was always dark. I stared blankly at the dark window, reliving the previous memories over and over again. My fear deepened little by little in the process, but I couldn't stop my thinking. In a daze, I seemed to feel that I was falling, as if I was about to fall into the terrifying abyss as in my memory.
"You are the last one." The conductor's voice suddenly rang in my ears, which startled me, but also saved me from the fear of falling. I was back in reality, of course, if the carriage I was in could be called reality.
"Why do I have to say it?" I asked, staring at the conductor on the screen.
The shadow shrugged, "Say it, maybe it will make you feel more relaxed."
"That kind of horrible and absurd story should not be known to others. Ignorance is the real happiness!" I said.
The conductor smiled and said, "That was before, what about now?"
I looked around the car. Everyone was silent, as if they were asleep. Everything that happened here, as well as the various hints from the conductor, had already made me aware of it. Seeing the current scene, the speculation in my mind became more and more certain.
"Speak out, so that you and I can be liberated." The conductor looked like he was being persuasive, but he never felt the slightest kindness.
And what he said at this time made me frown again. But I had no time to think about it further, because the story had been swirling in my mind for a long time, and it had gradually reached the point where I couldn’t say it anymore. If this is really..., then it's time to free yourself.
I took a deep breath and said slowly, "This story is called - Looking Back from the Abyss."