"Qin Jiang has something to go abroad, and I'm Lin Huai, the acting editor who is acting on her behalf to urge the draft." Lin Huai said.
The other party obviously hasn't woken up from the chaotic sleep. He sat up and stared at Lin Huai's face for a while, the emptiness and concentration in his eyes made Lin Huai feel a little creepy. After a lot of difficulty, he gave an "um" and said, "Oh, it's you..."
After speaking, he stood up and went to find the manuscript buried deep in the computer. Under the light of the computer screen, his facial features were finally clearly visible.
Tianshu's appearance was quite beyond Lin Huai's expectation. Different from the "shaggy beard, wearing a white coat, black eye circles and slovenly appearance" that he sketched in his mind before, Tianshu is actually quite handsome, and he can even be said to be a quiet and beautiful man. His facial features have a bit of a sense of sharpness, and when he squints to look at the screen, the tails of his eyes are raised, and his whole body has a casual and careless demeanor.
But his outstanding appearance is not the reason why Lin Huai stared at him for a long time... He stared at this person only because—
"I always feel like I've seen this person somewhere..." He rubbed his chin and thought, "Where have I seen this person?" Why do I have no impression at all? '
"Did I see you somewhere?" Lin Huai asked, "I don't know why, but I always feel like I've seen you somewhere."
"Lu Xun said it." After hearing Lin Huai's question, the other party said without turning his head, "Handsome people are often similar, and ugly people are full of strange things. You will think that it is normal for me to look good. Finally , the manuscript is here, do you want to read it first?"
"Did Lu Xun say that..." Lin Huaixu raised his eyes and moved to the computer.
I saw the file that had just been copied lying quietly in the USB flash drive, its title was "Song of the Murderer".
Click to open the file, and the first thing that appears on the screen is a short prologue.
'I decided to murder a man. '
'A former man. '
'He died three years ago. '
Lin Huai held the mouse and slid down the document. What appeared before his eyes was a first-person novel about a person who was determined to murder a ghost, and had various conjectures about the formation mechanism of that ghost.
Tianshu's writing style is quite concise and sophisticated, without any redundant adjectives, but between the lines reveals a cold air without any sense of compassion. The protagonist's ex-boyfriend died three years ago. Three years later, the protagonist wanted to marry his new boyfriend, but found traces of his ex-boyfriend reappearing in his life. The extra advertisements in the mailbox, the water droplets on the dining table, the hand-painted sunflowers on the glass mist...all of them show the protagonist a fact—the ex-boyfriend who died in an accident is back, and he is going to drag the protagonist to hell.
Throughout the story, the protagonist is calmly considering the possibility of killing his ex-boyfriend. From the mechanism of his becoming a ghost, to the constant adjustments and attempts of the final method to kill the ghost... In the end, the protagonist succeeded.
This story was supposed to have a happy ending, but in the end, after seven years of marriage with her current boyfriend, the protagonist saw a sunflower painted on the glass in a foggy winter... Lin Huai watched with goosebumps all over her body. After finishing this novel, I finally felt a little relieved when I saw the ending.
Tianshu gave him a bottle of coconut milk while he was reading the novel. While inhaling, Lin Huai heard Tianshu ask him what he thought: "What do you think of this one?"
Lin Huai thought for a while, and said sincerely: "It's too scary, too real, and it causes discomfort."
"... This is really the first time someone gave me this evaluation..." the other party said, "Is the ending terrible?"
"No," Lin Huai took a sip of coconut milk, "Seeing that someone tried every means to kill a poor ghost, and used so many effective methods, watching that ghost finally escape from death... It's too much Terrible."
This is like a group of people getting together to watch Taoist priests fight monsters. Others would laugh "hahaha" when they saw a big evil monster being beaten by a Taoist priest, but Lin Huai would substitute himself as a monster, trembling at the sight of the death of the same kind.
This also illustrates a phenomenon-horror thrillers in the usual sense are horror films for Lin Huai. Horror movies in the usual sense (such as Zhenzi being beaten by a Chinese Taoist priest), for Lin Huai, it is a real horror movie.
At the same time, ordinary horror movies, because the idea is too extravagant, will make Lin Huai too sniffy and cannot achieve the effect of scaring. For example, the muscular man yelled "the world!" when Sadako climbed out of the TV, paused the time, and then yelled "Mu Da Mu Da Mu Da" and beat her into small pancakes and other plots that were too grassy. But the most frightening thing about the novel in front of me is the feasibility embodied in it.
People will die if they are killed, and ghosts will die if they are killed in this way...
"... This is the first time I've met someone who reads novels from the perspective of a ghost." Tianshu was a little surprised.
"Because it's really too scary. Haven't your readers complained about you? What kind of bloody violence, what doesn't conform to the core values of socialism..." Lin Huai felt as if he had read an article to the penultimate chapter, but he didn't feel anything. Unprepared Seeing that Gong has been fucked before and gave birth to a child, like a Danmei reader, he is full of the urge to shake the author's collar.
"In the past, there were complaints about writing about people being killed. Later, writing about ghosts being killed has never happened."
"...What, why do you humans have such double standards in life? Do ghosts have no heart? Will ghosts not hurt when they are killed..."
Lin Huai became even more depressed, and huddled on the gaming chair and sighed: "If I were the author, I would add a special episode about the success of the ghost..."
Tianshu said coldly: "If you exceed the word count, you need to pay more."
Lin Huai: "... As a ghost novelist, you have quite a professional ethics..."
Seeing the other party's self-closing appearance, Tianshu had a smile on his face, and then he showed a serious expression.
"Wrong." The other party said seriously, "The novelist is just my second job. Besides, I am not a ghost novelist, in fact... I am a science fiction writer, or, a writer of popular science books. "
"All the novels I write come from reality. Although these realities have some extremely small differences from reality through my observation and brain thinking beyond ordinary people-but what I can guarantee is that they are different from reality , is almost indistinguishable."
Lin Huai glanced at his novel, then at him again, and said with a vacant look: "I think novels with ghosts are no longer qualified to be called popular science books."
"One, the novel is just a carrier for me to better pass on my knowledge. In fact, it is indeed very popular, but it is not as popular as games. So I recently tried to contact some game studios to develop scripts, Carrying out my new journey of science popularization... There is no need to say these. Second, why can’t novels with ghosts be popular science novels? Ghosts, like aliens, are just a kind of life that we can’t understand at present. form. Over the past five thousand years, the world has left a lot of materials related to ghosts, but few people are willing to study them. But knowledge has no boundaries. In the near future, this new discipline will surely spread all over the world. Leave your own footprints." The other party said something like a 'madman' in a rare and serious tone, "Third, my real profession is a researcher, a scientist. Writing novels, writing scripts, designing haunted house scripts... just Outside of my research career, my hobby is tied for second with writing code. Of course, you can also take my above nonsense as excuses I made because I don’t want to go out to work and just want to stay at home as a dead house. "
Lin Huaixu focused his eyes and said, "So the books in your room... and the DVDs outside are all your research materials?"
"Yes." The other party said without any sense of shame, "I'm trying to create a new methodology for understanding the supernatural world... But unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a real ghost that exists in reality for research... "
'This person feels like a fool...but his eyes are inexplicably convincing. From a certain point of view, what he said is not the ravings of a madman, but has a certain scientific basis. "Being stared at by Tianshu, Lin Huai's head was a little sweaty, "and the feeling of familiarity is getting heavier and heavier. I have definitely seen this person somewhere... "
Faces in the real world flashed in his heart one by one, and soon, a bunch of fuzzy faces entered his mind.
It was the face he had seen in the infinite game. Due to the protection mechanism of the game, after leaving the dungeon, he will lose most of the memory of the people he has met in the game (at least the kind that completely blurs the impression of the other party), and when he enters the dungeon next time, he will lose most of his memory. fully remembered.
In addition, outside the dungeon world, players are not allowed to mention anything related to the game. He once mentioned the game to Lu Jin in the dormitory, but what he said turned into another paragraph in the ear of the other party.
... And yes, it would be embarrassing, that kind of words...
Could it be that he has seen this person in the game? It's so weird, I've seen it in the copy...
The temples began to throb. Lin Huai asked him, "Then why do you study these things?"
When he heard his question, the other party smiled softly: "I don't see any use now. But in the future, after some things get worse, my work may have a certain use. Even if it is Now... One more person who has seen my work, they will have a little more hope when they encounter certain things in the future. And there is... "
"I want to find an answer," he said, "I want to find the answer behind life."
In Lin Huai's mind, there was a vague candidate emerging from the water. But that person recovered his lazy expression the next moment, yawned and said, "For example, if you want to murder the ex-boyfriend who borrowed money and spread pornographic photos, or murder the suitor of Stoka who has been stalking you, maybe look at it." After reading my novel, there will be some inspiration... "
His tone was too casual, and even made people suspect that the serious words in the previous paragraphs were all fake.
Lin Huaixu narrowed his eyes and said: "I always feel that you didn't mean that just now...but, let's go."
As he said that, he pulled out the USB flash drive and said, "Anyway, thank you for your cooperation. I will send the work to my sister when I get back tonight..."
"Editor Xiao Lin, do you want to stay for dinner?" Seeing that he was about to go downstairs, the other party asked to stay, "I feel that you and I had a very speculative chat..."
"From the beginning to the end, you are the one who is talking..."
Lin Huai opened the door while complaining. The moment he pulled the door open, a pile of orange fur fell in front of him.
The orange cat stared at him with Huang Chengcheng's eyes, arched its back again the moment it saw him, and let out a sound of "owoo-".
Lin Huai: ...
He took two steps back calmly, trying to make the cat retreat with a stare. But this time the cat seemed to have learned the experience and lessons of the last battle, and stayed at the door without moving.
With a trembling voice, he tried his best to keep calm and said, "...your cat..."
"Why did you come here?" Tianshu came over and hugged the cat away, "This cat is fostered here by the neighbor across the door. They are traveling abroad this month, so they threw it here... Are you afraid of cats?"
Lin Huaixu narrowed his eyes and said, "I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid at all."
Having said that, he still kept his body away from the door honestly, sat back on the sofa, and waited for Tianshu to carry the cat back to the living area on the third floor. Besides him, there was a Pikachu as tall as a man sitting on the sofa, and Guipi and Guipi looked at each other in blank dismay.
Speaking of which, Pikachu is also yellow, furry, and has two pointed ears...
Thinking this way, there was a thunder in his ears, followed by an even louder roar. Amidst the thunder that overwhelmed the sky and made people want to shout "Where is the Taoist friend here to overcome the calamity", Lin Huai remembered a piece of desperate news that he had forgotten.
Today, it rains heavily.
He didn't bring an umbrella.
Here, the nearest subway station.
three kilometers.