After buying the flowers, Meng Zhoushan did not go back immediately. Standing on the busy street, through the crowd, he saw the young man in the wheelchair buying vegetables skillfully but with difficulty, then pushing the wheels with both hands and leaving this simple vegetable market made up of stalls from all over the place.
Meng Zhoushan was afraid of being knocked down by passers-by, so he followed from a distance until he saw the elevator. Then he turned the corner of the corridor and slowly walked towards the elevator.
I thought the elevator door should be closed.
I didn't intend to take the same elevator with Nian, so as not to appear too deliberate.
However, when Meng Zhoushan stopped at the closed elevator door and was about to press the button, he found that it showed that the elevator was still on the first floor and had not gone up, so his fingertips could not stop.
With a "ding", the elevator door suddenly opened slowly.
Sui Yue sat in a wheelchair, watching quietly. On her knees were several plastic bags filled with vegetables she had just bought. Seeing Meng Zhoushan, she hesitated and asked, "Aren't you coming?"
Her fingertips kept pressing the door-opening button, and she softly added two words: "Uncle..."
These two words seem to carry many other meanings that are hard to explain.
Meng Zhoushan paused after hearing this, then walked into the elevator: "Thank you."
When did I discover myself in the year of thinking.
"It doesn't matter."
Sui Yue pressed the close button. She noticed that Meng Zhoushan was holding a pot of flowers in his arms, but they hadn't sprouted yet, so she couldn't tell the quality, so she couldn't help but take a few more glances.
Seeing that he had been staring at the flower pot in his hand, Meng Zhoushan had to look down as well: "I saw some for sale on the roadside just now, so I bought one."
Sui Yue nodded: "I know, ten yuan a pot."
The stall owner always collects unwanted flower pots from everywhere, fills them with soil from the roadside flower beds, stuffs a few melon seeds in them and sells them. He may not even charge a few cents.
The residents nearby all know that anyone who buys it is a fool.
Meng Zhoushan quite likes this pot of flowers: "This is a sunflower."
"She lied to you," Sui Yue said, "The ripe melon seeds stuffed inside can't sprout."
Meng Zhoushan was stunned for a moment, and then he turned to look at Sui Yue, but he could only see her pretty face and thin pointed chin. He fell into silence for no reason.
Sui Yue suddenly smiled: "I lied to you..."
Perhaps because of the dim light in the elevator, the light was reflected in my eyes, giving them a fainter glow: "Keep it, it will bloom."
The elevator had arrived, and the double doors slowly opened, revealing the dark and dilapidated corridor. Meng Zhoushan adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, handed the flower pot to Sui Yue, walked to the back and pushed her out of the elevator: "Kid, you are not used to being lied to."
The voice was low and the faint scent of cologne on her body was very pleasant, forming a sharp contrast with the rotten and musty smell in the corner.
Sui Yue pursed her lips when she heard this, and inexplicably looked a little embarrassed. It was not until they were about to separate at the corridor that she reached out and picked up the pot of flowers and handed it to Meng Zhoushan: "Your flowers..."
Because he was in a wheelchair, this movement looked a bit strenuous. The sleeves of his ill-fitting clothes were too wide and slipped down, revealing his two scarred arms.
Meng Zhoushan thought of the family environment and seemed to have guessed something. He paused for a moment, then leaned over and squatted in front of Nian, at eye level, and said with a smile: "I'm not very good at growing flowers, so I'll give this pot to you."
Meng Zhoushan said, "I will live here for a long time. If you can make it bloom, I can grant you a wish... any wish will do."
It was like coaxing a child, or like burying a flower representing hope in the rotten and damp mud. In the long and dark time to come, it would break through the high walls on all sides to let in a ray of daylight.
Sui Yue didn't say anything, maintaining that posture without moving, and in a trance, the scene of their last meeting in their previous life overlapped with hers.
Meng Zhoushan stood up straight and pointed to his door. "I live there. If you have nothing else to do, you can come over anytime."
Sui Yue's eyelashes trembled when she heard this, and she finally slowly withdrew her hand holding the flower pot. She lowered her head and unconsciously touched her stump. When she looked up again, Meng Zhoushan had left.
"… "
The corridor was silent.
Sui Yue carefully placed the flower pot on her knees and pushed her wheelchair back home. When she passed the stairs, she looked up and saw something, then she slowly stopped moving.
The corner of the stairs was dark, and a dirty old red mop was quietly leaning against it. The cloth strip was thin, and in the dim light it looked like a woman's hair.
Sui Yue looked at it for a moment, then suddenly smiled, retracted her gaze, and rolled her wheelchair back home.
A drunk man was lying on the sofa in the small living room, holding a half-burned cheap cigarette between his fingers. The gray ashes fell all over the floor, choking and pungent. The old TV was playing the new season's football game, and the signal was intermittent and crackling.
There was also an obese young man lying on the bed playing games, his lips an abnormally dark purple color.
Sui Yue pushed the wheelchair into the room and called the male lead on the sofa: "Uncle."
Chen Pingchuan had been staring at the TV without even glancing at it. Hearing this, he frowned impatiently and said, "Why are you taking so long to buy groceries? Everyone next door has finished their meal. Go and cook."
Sui Yue nodded and pushed the wheelchair to the narrow kitchen corridor. She bent down and carefully placed the flower pot on her knees in the corner, then began to wash vegetables and cook. Fortunately, the stove was low, so it was not too strenuous.
Not long after, a thin, middle-aged woman pushed the door open and came in. Her hair was tied up with a plastic clip, her eye sockets were deep, her cheekbones were high, and she looked extremely mean. She shook the coin bag in her hand, and the coins inside rustled. She put her hands on her hips and cursed, "I really shouldn't have gone to the chess and card room of Old Man Hu's house. He cheated behind my back and made me lose more than ten yuan."
Chen Pingchuan was annoyed when he saw her: "Playing cards, playing cards, all you do every day is play cards! Can you go out and find a job if you have that much free time?! Your son is going to have surgery soon, and we haven't collected enough money yet!"
Wang Suying said sharply: "My son, isn't he your son?! Chen Pingchuan, if you were a man you wouldn't end up like this. With such a small salary per month, you can just support a beggar!"
Nian, who was lying on the bed playing games, suddenly burst into tears when he heard this: "Mom, I don't want to die?"
Wang Suying immediately went forward and hugged him, patting him and coaxing him: "What nonsense are you talking about? Akang, my dearest child, if you don't live, I won't live either. I worked so hard to give birth to you. I will definitely get the money for the surgery..."
Chen Pingchuan got annoyed when he mentioned the surgery fee: "Yes? Where did it come from? I have sold several houses, it's just a bottomless pit. You want me to earn money for the surgery? What are you daydreaming about!"
When he said this, he was completely unaware that the house was the inheritance of the Sui family.
Sui Yue was concentrating on cooking and seemed not to hear the noisy and ugly quarrels. In the end, the farce ended with Wang Suying being slapped in the face.
She didn't dare to fight with Chen Pingchuan, so she walked to the stove and pinched Sui Yueliang fiercely: "You are born to collect debts! Your legs are broken and you can't walk. You are so slow even when cooking. Why should I keep you!"
The woman's nails were so sharp that they broke the skin and flesh when she pinched through the thin clothes.
Sui Yue said nothing.
During the meal, Wang Suying added a large bowl of rice to her son Akang, and fiddled with the two dishes on the table, searching for the scattered pieces of lean meat like pearls among grains of sand, and then put them all into her son's bowl.
Chen Pingchuan threw his chopsticks in anger and said, "Wang Suying, if you don't want to live with me anymore, just divorce me! You are so stingy that you only buy this much meat to feed beggars!"
The last sentence is an insult to Sui Yue.
Sui Yue's bowl was clean except for a small spoonful of rice. She was used to being scolded, so she neither picked up any food nor drank any water. She just finished the little bit of rice she had.
At that time, Meng Zhoushan returned home, cooked some pasta to fill his stomach, and then sat at his desk to write his narrative. The golden pen slid across the white paper, leaving traces of ink:
I lived in this dilapidated building again, and everything was the same as before. It was like time went back to the beginning. But this time I had an extra chance to find out the truth.
People always look for answers after the crime has occurred, but most of the incidents cannot be found because the truth is sealed in the mouths of the dead, and unless time goes back, there is no way to restore the fragments.
I like true stories. I record them as they happen.
This time I stood at the forefront of time. Whether it was the murders that happened back then or the clues about Ouroboros, they finally opened a crack.
Meng Zhoushan paused as he wrote this. He realized that the narrative tone of this text could easily cause misunderstandings if others saw it, so he hesitated for a moment, then blackened it with a pen and threw it into the trash can.
The system fell on the corner of the table: Dear host, congratulations, the villain's blackening degree has been reduced to 9999
Meng Zhoushan habitually adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and stared at the system quietly, with a bit of inquiry and scrutiny: "Is there any difference from before?"
System: Of course, the degree of darkness has dropped by 00099!
I don't know if I've gone through too much, but the system is now very calm. Its diamond-like body is dazzling in the light, but for some reason it is missing a small piece.
Meng Zhoushan couldn't help but take another look: "Aren't you missing a piece?"
The system was shy and turned into a pink diamond: it was accidentally picked away.
At this point, it suddenly remembered that it seemed to have forgotten to tell Meng Zhoushan something. It was all because Fang died too early, and it didn't have time to tell him, but it seemed too late to tell him now.
How should I start
You, my previous host wants you to help pay back some money
Given the special nature of "Dangerous Building" as a memoir, Meng Zhoushan was not actually reborn in a book in a sense. The system counted on its fingers and finally decided to wait until it was about to leave this world before telling Meng Zhoushan, it was all the same anyway.
Meng Zhoushan didn't know what the system was thinking. He turned a page and wrote a sentence on it with a pen that no one could understand:
At nine o'clock in the evening on the 26th, on the seventh floor, the first snake appeared.
If Meng Zhoushan remembered correctly, the first murder in this dangerous building occurred at 9 o'clock in the evening on the 26th. The deceased was a perverted old man who lived on the seventh floor. He liked to wear a half-naked vest and shorts, wandering around the streets looking for and peeping at young girls.
The body was not found until three days after death, and a Ouroboros pattern was painted on the wall at the crime scene. This was also the beginning of the serial murder case.
Meng Zhoushan looked down at his watch. Today was only the 23rd, and there were still three days left.
Yan Yuezhao was in charge of the criminal police in this area. Meng Zhoushan picked up his phone and wanted to call Fang to remind him, but he couldn't explain how he knew about the murder, so he could only send a text message: Come over and treat you to dinner at 8 pm on the 26th.
Yan Yuezhao replied quickly: It depends on the situation, I will go if you are not on duty.
At this time, Yan Yuezhao was too busy with work to take care of his family, so he divorced his wife half a year ago. A rough man was overwhelmed with being both a father and a mother to a seven-year-old son.
Meng Zhoushan didn't really expect him to come.
Meng Zhoushan spent the whole afternoon sitting at his desk reviewing the murders that happened that year. The victims were of different ages and genders, but the only thing they had in common was that they all lived in this dangerous building and their bad habits were hard to change.
I drew an Ouroboros pattern on the paper and fell into deep thought. This pattern is very common in religious mythology and is synonymous with immortality and perfection. It symbolizes repetition and reincarnation of life.
But the Ouroboros cannot move, because it can only exist in the same position, rotating in a circle forever.
Meng Zhoushan recalled the leaflet that the attacker had handed to him, on which was printed a sentence:
I devour sin, and I gain eternal life.
I am born perfect, and I go on and on infinitely.
Sounds like some kind of brainwashing ideology.
Meng Zhoushan took off his glasses and pressed his nose bridge tiredly. He was not sure if he was sleeping well, and when he glanced around, he suddenly saw a dark shadow flashing above the window glass, and he could not stop moving.
Meng Zhoushan put on his glasses again, walked to the window, opened the curtain, and looked up, but there was nothing unusual. His eyesight was not good, so he could only attribute the shadow just now to his own eyesight.
This building is very quiet when it is quiet, and very noisy when it is noisy. Meng Zhoushan had just finished packing up his manuscript and was about to take a break when he suddenly heard a faint noise coming from the corridor outside, mixed with the sound of glassware hitting the ground.
When I opened the door and walked out, I saw a mean-looking woman with red eyes running out from the other end of the corridor, holding an obese boy tightly in her arms. She pressed the elevator button hard while turning back and crying, "Chen Pingchuan! You're a useless thing! You only know how to act crazy when you're drunk! Don't think I'll continue to live with you!"
"boom!"
The sound of a wine bottle smashing against the wall, glass flying everywhere. At the end of the corridor, Chen Pingchuan's drunken curse could be heard throughout the building: "Get out of here!"
Then there was the sound of the door being slammed shut.
The boy raised his head from his mother's arms: "Mom, where are we going to live?"
Wang Suying hugged him tightly: "Akang, be good. Mom will take you to the chess and card room upstairs to sit for a while until your dad sobers up."
Meng Zhoushan passed by the mother and son and strode to the end of the corridor, only to see Sui Yue standing outside, locked out by Chen Pingchuan. It was a chilly night, and she was only wearing a thin white short-sleeved shirt.
Seeing this, Meng Zhoushan walked forward, slowly leaned forward and squatted in front of him, and asked in a low voice: "Did you have a quarrel with your family?"
This is the only way to not hurt the other party's self-esteem.
Sui Yue didn't expect someone to come over, and was stunned for a moment. Then she shook her head, lowered her head and slowly clenched the cloth on her knees. Because of the excessive force, her knuckles turned blue: "No..."
Because the collar was wide, Meng Zhoushan saw several bright nail marks on his shoulders, as well as bruises on his arms from being hit by a wine bottle. He paused and said, "It's cold outside, why don't you come to my house and sit for a while?"
After saying this, I suddenly felt that this was like a weird uncle luring an ignorant child, and it was easy to be mistaken for a pervert. Just as I was about to explain, Sui Yue spoke cautiously: "Is it okay...?"
The skin was too pale, so the eyes looked even darker. But at this moment, there were two faint lights flashing in them, like a flame in the cold wind, which would go out as soon as the wind blew, hiding a hope that only the person knew.
Meng Zhoushan paused, then smiled and said, "Of course."
He stood up, walked behind Sui Yue, and pushed the wheelchair towards his home. When he passed the stairs, he suddenly noticed a red mop placed in the corner of the steps, and felt strange inexplicably.
Sui Yue seemed to have noticed something and looked up. Her dark hair set off her fair skin, and she looked very well-behaved: "Uncle, what's wrong?"
Meng Zhoushan came back to his senses and shook his head: "It's okay."
He pushed Sui Yue to the door of his house, then opened the door with the key, pushed Nian in, and gently closed the door with his backhand.
Meng Zhoushan's life was very particular. Even though he moved to this shabby place, he still decorated his room elegantly and cleanly. Compared with Chen Pingchuan's dirty and messy home, it was like heaven.
Sui Yue looked around, her eyes fell on the table piled with manuscripts, then on the leather sofa chair in front of it, and finally looked out the window, pausing slightly.
Meng Zhoushan probably wouldn't go out much for half a month while he was writing, so he stocked up a lot of food in the refrigerator. Not knowing what Sui Yue liked to eat, he could only take some chocolate and potato chips that children liked, and poured her a cup of hot milk.
"looking at what?"
Meng Zhoushan handed the milk to Sui Yue, but was afraid that Sui Yue would be cold, so he turned on the air conditioner. After all, this city was not warm.
Sui Yue took the cup with both hands and whispered thank you. The temperature of the milk was just right, not too hot, nor too cold, and it warmed up her cold fingertips. She rubbed them for a while, then looked up at Meng Zhoushan: "Are you a writer?"
Meng Zhoushan took off his suit jacket, casually draped it over the sofa, and sat down behind the desk. He was only wearing a white shirt, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose made him look gentle and refined.
He took off the cap of the pen and hummed, "Amateur writer."
Sui Yue smiled and said, "No wonder you don't go out much..."
Meng Zhoushan didn't hear what was being said, and continued to edit his old manuscript and correct the typos. When his thoughts were blocked, he would smoke, and today was no exception. However, when the cigarette was half burned, he suddenly realized that there was a child in his room.
Meng Zhoushan paused, then put out the cigarette. Raising his hand to disperse the smoke, Sui Yue apologized, "I'm sorry, I choked you."
Sui Yue had the tablet that Meng Zhoushan handed to her on her knees. She had no chance to play with these electronic products, and she didn't even have a mobile phone. Chen Pingchuan and his wife wouldn't buy her any. Hearing this, she raised her head and said, "It doesn't matter."
Unlike the cheap cigarettes that cost only a few yuan in Chen Pingchuan's hand, the cigarettes that Meng Zhoushan smoked were not pungent, but had a mellow taste. He held the cigarette between his fingertips and lowered his head to write the manuscript, and his serious look made it impossible to look away.
Sui Yue asked, "What story are you writing?"
your.
Meng Zhoushan took a look, swallowed the two words, and then smiled and shook his head: "What I wrote is not suitable for children to read."
It's too bloody.
Sui Yue asked back: "Isn't it appropriate for me?"
Meng Zhoushan paused, not knowing how to respond. He capped his pen and put away the manuscript, saying helplessly, "Child, the word 'not suitable for children' should not be used 'randomly'."
He walked to the coffee table and made himself a cup of coffee. When he passed Sui Yue, he saw that she was watching the horror movie he had saved on the tablet. He leaned over and tapped the screen twice, switching it to an animation.
Sui Yue looked up, her soft hair brushed across Meng Zhou's chin, tickling him slightly, her eyes were puzzled: "Uncle?"
Meng Zhoushan's cologne smelled like tobacco, and his voice was deep and magnetic. In contrast to his elegant and handsome appearance, his ideas were a bit old-fashioned: "Children should watch cartoons."
Sui Yue was about to say something when she heard a muffled sound outside the window, like something hitting something.
Meng Zhoushan also noticed something was wrong, frowned unconsciously, walked to the window and pulled open the curtains. The glass window reflected the old building in front of him, and the wind whistled outside, but there was nothing unusual.
“Boom—”
The dull sound rang out again, and was keenly caught by Meng Zhoushan. He adjusted his glasses and looked up, only to see a black shadow resembling a silk thread appearing above the window, floating gently in the wind.
Meng Zhoushan had a bad instinct and was about to reach out to open the window, but before he could move, he saw the black line suddenly slowly fall, revealing a pair of terrified eyes outside the window, followed by a nose, a mouth, and then the entire head -
The female corpse hanging upside down outside the window.
She was tied with ropes around her ankles and hung outside. Her thin figure swayed back and forth like a weak weed in the night wind, and then hit the glass window of Meng Zhoushan's house heavily, leaving a winding bloodstain.
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
Her body hit the glass window, and her distorted and terrifying face moved in and out, making people tremble with fear in the night. A red silk scarf was tied around her neck, entwined and fluttering, soaked in blood, and the red was dazzling.
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
She banged on the window in the outer room, harder and harder, until one could hardly help but suspect that the glass would shatter in a second.
Meng Zhoushan consciously took a step back, his expression slightly changed.
Sui Yue also turned off the tablet, quietly grabbed the corner of Meng Zhoushan's clothes, and unconsciously leaned towards the man.