midnight ten

The silence is like the deep sea, and even the floor lamps are stained with a gloomy blue.

Nan Ge lay down on the desk, tilted her head, and looked up slightly. The empty mid-air was like a curtain, and the years of the dungeon were silently projected on it. Only she could see it. It was a black and white silent film.

Zheng Luozhu was silent for a long time.

He couldn't imagine how Nan Ge survived those days, let alone that Nan Ge would tell him about it.

It will be painful when the wound is opened, even the skin and flesh are dripping with blood.

Finally, he breathed out silently, as if he was relieving the complexity in his heart, and he seemed to have made some kind of decision: "Nan Ge, you may not know, but in the wishing room, the boss and I have a chance to leave completely. ..."

It took several seconds for Nan Ge to understand what he meant. He stood up straight, his eyes full of disbelief: "Impossible. I also made a wish in the wishing room and left, but it said that my wish did not meet the conditions."

"It's not a normal wish," Zheng Luozhu explained, "It's using a bug to make a hidden option, and then you can choose to 'leave completely'."

Nan Ge: "BUG?"

Zheng Luozhu: "I can't tell the specifics. Anyway, my boss bought the information at a high price. The person who sold the information left early by this trick."

Nan Ge was slightly startled.

Only then did Zheng Luozhu realize something, he was busy and relieved: "Don't think too much, there might not be a bug when you entered the wishing room, it's not considered a miss."

Passing by freedom is more painful than being trapped forever, Zheng Luozhu really convinced himself, thought carefully, and considered the worst possible beginning.

"You think too much." Nan Ge smiled and shook his head, "I'm not that fragile. You also said that your boss bought the information at a huge price. I didn't have the money to buy the information. No matter how close this opportunity is, It doesn't belong to me either."

Her eyes are beautiful, and the faint floor light reflects in, like yellow leaves blowing down in autumn, there is desolation, and there is also the calmness of accepting fate calmly.

"And then," she asked Zheng Luozhu, "since there was a chance to leave, why didn't you leave?"

"If you leave, you can't make a wish," Zheng Luozhu said jokingly, pretending to be relaxed, "Both of us are reluctant to part with that wish."

Nan Ge remembered that when he was fighting against Tyre, Tang Lin once said that he was brought in by a wish.

Is it possible...

"Fan Peiyang's wish is to bring Tang Rin in?" Intuition told Nan Ge that she guessed right, but reason said aside, this is simply ridiculous.

With Fan Peiyang's nervousness towards Tang Rin, it's too late for him to protect Tang Rin. Why did he give up the chance to leave and pull people into this ghost place instead?

Until Zheng Luozhu nodded frankly.

"But this is the boss's private matter," Zheng Xian, a model employee, stated his position step by step, "Don't ask why, if you ask, you have no comment."

"..." Nan Ge wanted to send him a requiem song.

But she didn't believe that Zheng Luozhu said this just to whet her appetite.

Their eyes met and they were silent for a while.

Zheng Luozhu couldn't help it anymore: "Why don't you ask me what wish I made?"

Nan Ge sighed: "You've been laying the groundwork for so long, and you've only laid out two wishes in total, and you have nothing to say about your boss's..."

Zheng Luozhu raised his hand, tactfully signaling that there is no need to talk about it later.

He's going to cut to the chase now.

"My wish is to find someone." He answered neatly, but he didn't realize that his speaking speed was unusually fast.

The more you care, the more you want to pretend not to care.

Nan Ge asked in a low voice, "Who are you looking for?"

"A friend." Zheng Luozhu leaned back, sank into the sofa, staring at the ceiling in ecstasy, "If you're not sleepy, I'll tell you about me..."

Nan Ge was slightly taken aback, looking at his obscure side face, and followed his gaze to the ceiling.

Nothing at all.

It was a curtain that only belonged to Zheng Luozhu, showing the past that only he could see.

"When I was a child, I always thought that I was picked up. Although my parents insisted that I was my own, I didn't believe it," he said, and he was very happy. What about me..."

"Don't look at me as a strong man now. When I was a child, I was rooted with bean sprouts. I couldn't get enough to eat. I also saw Tian'er being beaten. I didn't have a piece of good meat on my body. I didn't dare to wear short sleeves in summer. When I wore them, the teacher would Ask, ask the parents, and I will be beaten when I go back after looking for the parents..."

"It's not that a child's naughty parents hit him twice," he said to himself, with bitter teasing, "It's the kind of thing that can go on the social news and be asked about moral distortion or human nature..."

starved, beaten.

Nan Ge's childhood was too far away from these, unimaginable.

"Actually, my parents are quite a good match. One is a gambler, the other is an alcoholic, and both have terrible luck. My father always loses every gamble, and my mother loses money in every business, and she doesn't like to work for others..."

"The two of them are living a depressed life, and they can't find anyone to vent their anger on, so they all greet me. My father beats me when he loses money, and my mother beats me when she drinks too much. If they quarrel, well, mixed doubles..."

"One time my dad kicked me and broke my bone. I howled so loudly that the whole corridor could hear me. Later, the neighbors kept knocking on the door, and they took me to the hospital. I was afraid of being beaten again, so I lied to the neighbors and the doctor, saying yes I fell myself..."

"Nan Ge," Zheng Luozhu called softly, raised his arms and put them on his forehead, his eyes were completely hidden in the shadows, "it is said that children have short memories, I don't think so, they can't remember because they are not so It hurt."

Nan Ge's heart trembled uncontrollably.

She couldn't connect these with Zheng Luozhu. At this moment, she only had the shadow of a child in her mind, thin and helpless, running forward desperately, but was still swallowed by the chasing darkness.

She was trapped in the dungeon, but she could still see life.

But the only thing a child can rely on is their parents, so desperate.

She didn't want to continue listening, unless there was a divine twist and a savior in the following story, otherwise she couldn't bear it...

Wait a moment.

【Who are you looking for? 】

【a friend. 】

"Don't get me wrong, I said these are not to sell you badly," Zheng Luozhu suddenly looked over, and changed his light tone, "It's still foreshadowing, I always seem to be laying out longer..."

Nan Ge had a vague premonition that that friend would be next.

"All in all, apart from beating me, they basically didn't care about me. When I was hungry, I went to the neighbor's house to grab a meal. I grew up eating other people's food. Then, the neighbor's house also had a child who was the same age as me. The two of us Counting as a child, kindergarten, primary and junior high school are all in the same class..."

"My children don't know about the situation in my house, and the adults are very clear about it. They don't let their children play with me. He is the only one who can't stay. The kindergarten is behind my ass, and the elementary school knows to bring me food from home. , Junior high school is even more terrible, I took pocket money and didn’t spend it, saved it for me, let me buy stationery and food, I cried when I didn’t want him, with snot and tears..."

"Are you complaining or showing off?" Nan Ge's stuffed heart gradually disappeared in the continuous "accusation", "Don't think that you are the only one who is young."

Zheng Luozhu asked very seriously: "Your girlfriends are also like this?"

"Uh, I've never met someone who cried and shouted that they had to send money." Nan Ge thought for a while, then added rigorously, "Maybe I'm not attractive enough."

"Anyway, I can't understand his brain circuit," Zheng Luozhu twitched the corner of his mouth, "but I'm not a white-eyed wolf. You have to show something when he treats you like that?"

Nan Ge was curious: "How do you say that?"

"Cover him." Talking about the glory days, Zheng Luozhu straightened his back, "I started to grow up in the first grade of junior high school, and with my rich experience in actual combat, I swept the whole school in fights. At that time, my parents didn't dare If they touch me, if they dare to hit me, I will dare to take a kitchen knife, no matter how ruthless they are, I will die..."

Nan Ge rested his chin with one hand again, and relaxed.

Maybe even Zheng Luozhu didn't realize that when he talked about his friends, he came alive, full of vigor, like a little tiger.

That friend is like a ray of light, shining from the past to the present, dispelling the darkness for the young Zheng Luozhu, and supporting the present Zheng Luozhu not to be afraid of old wounds.

"I said just now that he is stupid, even in junior high school, a standard nerd who only knows how to study, and whoever comes over can pinch him twice. If I don't watch him for a day, he can be bullied. Either he was beaten on the way to school, or I was blocked on the way from school, and I don't know why he is so attractive to delinquent boys..."

Nan Ge looked at the "former bad boy" who dared to hold a kitchen knife in junior high school, and decided not to say anything.

"I'm not afraid of your jokes. I didn't finish junior high school." Zheng Luozhu smiled bitterly, and his voice lowered, "My mother was seriously ill in the third year of junior high school. My father borrowed money from relatives, and finally ran away with the money. My mother died in the For the hospital, the cremation is still funded by relatives, and it is unlucky for me to be a relative of my family..."

"You stopped reading afterward?"

"No money, food is a problem, how do you read it." Zheng Luozhu looked quietly out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the quiet deep sea, without end, "I started to mix in the society at that time, fortunately, my relatives didn't kill them all, and left that small dilapidated house behind. Give it to me, and I'll just mess around like this every day..."

Nan Ge: "Where's your friend?"

Zheng Luozhu: "Continue to study, his brain can't do anything else, he can study well, he will return to the first place in the grade, and every teacher treats him as a treasure. When I was still studying, the class teacher talked to him again and again, hoping that he would stay away from me. This bad friend..."

I'm afraid it's not just the teacher who treats him like a treasure, Nan Ge thought as he looked at his smugness.

"Don't read it anymore, are you afraid that he will be bullied again?"

"No, before I left school, I educated those who were ready to move individually one by one, and they were all very good afterward."

"..." Nan Ge, who was educated, didn't ask in detail.

A deep-sea fish swims to the floor-to-ceiling window. It is strangely shaped and inexplicably ugly.

Zheng Luozhu looked at it lightly, and his voice slowed down: "There is nothing to say later, he was in high school, and I was mixed, and he was in college, and I was mixed, but his family never moved. If you look down and don't see you, you can only meet a few times during the winter and summer vacations in college..."

"He took the initiative to alienate you?" Nan Ge didn't believe it, at least in Zheng Luozhu's description, what she saw was a sincere and almost lovable person.

"If others don't tell you, don't you have a little self-knowledge?" Zheng Luozhu glanced over, as if to say why you are so naive, "You have friends from high school, and you have friends from college. You can't stand still, just Insisting others to always look back at you is boring and delays others."

Zheng Luozhu spoke clearly and freely, but Nan Ge heard it sadly.

That person will meet new friends in high school and college. This is inevitable. His life path is moving forward, and there are new scenery anytime, anywhere.

But for Zheng Luozhu who was at the same place, he might only have this one friend forever, but because he was worried about stumbling his footsteps, he pushed his life away.

"But I regret it now," Zheng Luozhu turned his head and said word by word, "Nan Ge, I really regret it."

It was only then that Nan Ge remembered that Zheng Luozhu's desire to "find someone" was instantly connected: "He disappeared?"

"Well, in my senior year," Zheng Luozhu lowered his eyes and his shoulders slumped, "he came to see me during the winter vacation and asked me to go to his house for the New Year, but I didn't go, and then he went back to school. News came from the school that the person was missing."

Nan Ge: "Did you get involved here?"

"I didn't know at that time," Zheng Luozhu smiled, but his eyes were astringent, "I just thought of a big living person, how could he disappear without leaving any traces, so I secretly followed his father Mom went to his school, his parents were in the open, and I was in the dark, both soft and hard. I asked everyone I could find and asked, and I searched all the places I could check. Nothing was found. It really disappeared from the world... ..."

"Then his parents..." Nan Ge wanted to ask how his parents were doing, but he choked up halfway through the question.

The neighbor couple who kindly gave Zheng Luozhu a mouthful of hot food lost their son for no reason.

Not her own parents.

For so many years, she didn't dare to think about how her parents were doing...

"I searched for three years, and then I stopped looking," Zheng Luozhu said, "His parents are old-fashioned, and they are over 60 now. , sad again and again."

In such a huge world, with so many cities, people go missing every day.

Their disappearance is as small as a grain of dust to the vast sea of ​​people, but to those who love them, it is the collapse of doomsday.

Nan Ge's last sliver of luck was also annihilated: "Isn't the owl able to tamper with people's memories? When I broke through the previous checkpoint, I was sucked in in front of someone I knew, and she didn't even remember it when I went out." .”

"Perhaps only those who saw us being sucked into the purple vortex will have their memories altered? Or maybe the owl started the repair when he felt that there was a risk of exposure?" Zheng Luozhu shrugged helplessly, "To be honest, I don't know either. "

There are too many mysteries in this world.

Nan Ge suppressed his bitterness, and tried his best to get his thoughts back to the original topic: "That friend of yours, he's here."

She was already sure, because she saw light in Zheng Luozhu's eyes.

Zheng Luozhu nodded: "From the first day I was involved, I knew he was here."

Nan Ge blinked blankly, what is this, a man's sixth sense?

"It's not that mysterious," Zheng Luozhu explained, anticipating Nan Ge's thoughts, "When I went to his school to ask questions, his classmates said that in March and April, he didn't show up at school very often. Speaking of traveling outside, he had already been recommended to graduate students at that time, and he didn't need to find a job, nor did he need a part-time internship, so the students didn't think much about it..."

"He was breaking through at that time." Nan Ge understood.The previous level is not like a dungeon, you can’t get out once you enter it, but it is open from [-]:[-] to [-]:[-] a.m. every day, and you can return to reality as soon as the time is up, but the location of each level is different. run.

"It's been five years since I disappeared." Zheng Luozhu smiled, from the corner of his mouth to the bottom of his eyes, "I still found him... Uh, at least I know the scope."

Nan Ge asked with concern: "Which level is he in?"

Zheng Luozhu said: "I don't know."

Nan Ge was surprised: "I don't know?"

Zheng Luozhu spread his hands: "In the last ten levels, to be alive - all the answers given to me by the Wishing House."

Nan Ge: "..."

In this level-breaking world, even people's memories can be tampered with. If you give more clues, you will die!

"But it should not be in the dungeon." Zheng Luozhu said, "I have asked almost all the shops and information points in the dungeon, but I have never seen him."

Five years in reality, ten years in the dungeon, the passerby has changed several times, and his friend has most likely gone to a later level.

Nan Ge sighed inwardly.

She is an "old man" in the dungeon, but when Zheng Luozhu's friend came in, she was already paralyzed, and she was blank about the outside situation. I'm afraid she didn't know as much information as Zheng Luozhu.

But just in case, she still asked: "Do you have a picture of him?"

Zheng Luozhu was stunned for a moment, and almost quickly took out his mobile phone to open the photo album, and handed it to her.

It wasn't a group photo, it was a solo photo of that boy, taken in front of the main entrance of the university, full of youth, with a gentle and bright smile, warm and sweet.

Where to stay, Nan Ge thought, he looks much smarter than Zheng Luozhu.

Before Zheng Luozhu could ask, Nan Ge had already shook his head slightly.

Indeed never seen.

Zheng Luozhu was not surprised. He counted the time. By then, Nan Ge had already been injured, so he must no longer be familiar with the flow of people in the dungeon.

Putting away his mobile phone, he was full of confidence: "As long as I am here, I can find people. If I can't find them in this level, I will go to the next level to find them."

Nan Ge sincerely hoped that he could find it, and was about to say some words of blessing when he heard Zheng Luozhu call his name.

"Nan Ge," he said with a self-deprecating smile in his eyes, "when he came to me during the winter vacation, do you know what I said, I said that we are not the same way at all, we can't be friends, don't come to me .”

Nan Ge pursed her lips, feeling sorry for Zheng Luozhu.

He was afraid of being abandoned, so he pushed the other party away first.

"But now, I know how stupid I am." Zheng Luozhu looked at her firmly, "If you are afraid of losing, you have to hold on to it. If you can't hold on this time, you have to hold on tighter next time."