snapshot

The snow scene without any change for a long time will gradually make people lose the ability to perceive time. When Jian Mingcheng raised his head again and looked around, a deep layer of fatigue and powerlessness was physiologically deposited in his eyes and heart.He didn't know whether he was getting closer or further away.

Reaching for his pocket, the phone is not on his body - this was a great fear for him before - he didn't know where he was, where he came from, and where he was going Going, no direction, and completely lost the ability to think, as if I was suddenly abandoned by this world beyond the threshold of higher animals, and I can no longer find the home of the phylum, order, genera, and species.

His skin exposed to the wind and snow has completely lost the ability to feel warmth and pain. At the same time, his hearing seems to be more acute than ever.He clearly heard the sound of cold air rubbing against the inner wall of the nasal cavity, and being sucked into the lungs along the airway—this cold air lingered along the circulatory system in his body, and would take what little he had left with him. Heat, without hesitation, plunged into the silent world, and was immediately wiped out and perished.And the heart, the most important organ of the human body, is still contracting vigorously, pumping blood for the whole body conscientiously, and at the same time emitting a heavy, deafening cry.

Suddenly, in the howling wind and snow, there seemed to be a faint cry of a child, high-pitched, enthusiastic, but intermittent.At first he thought it was just his auditory hallucinations—it is true that sometimes, your body starts to deceive you, and it no longer looks like your own—but after taking two steps, he felt a sudden movement in his heart. A strange sense of anxiety made him stop and look around.

The endless snow field makes people despair, and there is a cyan gleam under the sky. The snow is smaller than before, like powder and smoke, engulfing the distance in a misty darkness.

Meanwhile, the cry grew louder—he was sure it was real.There are children here, perhaps lost.

He walked towards the direction of the sound, and everything in front of him gradually became psychedelic. The snowdrifts blown by the wind turned the plains into hills, and the hills into mountains.Finally, he saw, just behind a snowdrift, looming a red shadow, and a blue shadow that shone like light.

His heart trembled suddenly, and he couldn't help breathing heavily. After walking a few steps, his feet sank into the snowdrift, and he licked hard.The crying sound was guiding him, and as he gradually got closer, he finally saw clearly what the two shadows were.

This is not an illusion.

There were two children in the snow, a girl, about thirteen or fourteen years old, and a younger boy—he wasn't sure if he was seven or eight or five or six.One was wearing a red dress and the other was wearing a blue dress, hugging each other in the wind and snow as if they had been abandoned.

Seeing the appearance of a man like him, the girl showed excitement and fear at the same time, so that she pursed her lips tightly and said nothing, but patted the boy's back more frequently, comforting him softly.

"Don't be afraid, brother, don't cry, sister is here, father and mother will come soon. Ah-brother, don't cry..."

Jian Mingcheng walked over and knelt down in front of the boy, holding his little hand in his own - he felt like there was a layer of glass between their skins.The boy turned to see him, and finally stopped crying.Perhaps the presence of an adult finally made him feel a little at ease.

He asked the girl, "Why are you two here? Lost? Where are your parents?"

The girl's big confused and nervous eyes flashed, as if she was about to cry, but maybe she knew that if she cried, her younger brother would definitely cry too, so she blinked hard and forced her to cry. Tears were held back.Even so, Jian Mingcheng could still hear a choked sob in her voice.

"Mom and Dad are still in the ski resort, I took my brother out to play, and it snowed..."

Jian Mingcheng asked her, "Do you know how to get back?"

The girl tried her best to open her eyes wide, but did not speak.Perhaps because he noticed her silence, the boy suddenly turned his head to look at his sister, as if he understood something, he pursed his mouth as if he was about to cry again—Jian Mingcheng hurriedly pulled him a little closer, Touching his head, he asked him: "Uncle asked you, have you seen Xuetongzi?"

The two children were taken aback for a moment, looking at each other.Finally, the boy shook his head hesitantly, and said to him: "No, I don't know him, I haven't seen anything."

Jian Mingcheng smiled and said, "You don't know him, but he knows you. Snow boy knows all the children, and beside him are three snow wolves that can breathe out flames, and will protect all brave children." Get up, hold the boy with one hand, then hold the girl with the other hand, and say, "Go, uncle will take you back to find mom and dad."

In fact, he doesn't know which direction is the right direction, but he always feels that only by walking can he find hope--hope, using this word seems to indirectly admit a certain kind of hope that can be called "despair" s things.

Yudouji, Yudouji, I don’t know why he suddenly thought of Yudouji—he thought it had disappeared from his memory, even if he didn’t think of it when he saw Mr. Yamada at first, even if he walked in the snow before I didn't think of it when I was in the field, but when I saw this boy, I suddenly remembered it—maybe because he happened to be wearing red clothes—he thought.

The child's steps were very small, so he had to slow down to let them keep up, but the boy accidentally fell into the snowdrift.The girl nervously circled around and helped him up from the snow. Jian Mingcheng also squatted down again to help him pat off the snow on his body. When he looked up and saw his flushed face, he rubbed it with his hands again and again. .But disappointingly, it didn't help much.The girl looked up at him, her lips trembling slightly, obviously terrified—there might be guilt in this fear.Jian Mingcheng curled his mouth, reached out and patted her face lightly, and then asked her: "I'll take my brother with me, can you keep up?" She also nodded to her, then squatted down to pick up the boy.Then he looked around, without thinking about anything, and led them to continue walking in one direction.

The wind shows no signs of blowing, and the snow shows no signs of falling, but the wind and snow show no signs of stopping.

It turned out that walking in the snow was such a tiring thing. He felt that his physical strength was losing bit by bit, but his legs seemed to be unconscious, and they just moved forward step by step mechanically.

The girl fell down, she didn't yell, and Jian Mingcheng didn't stop either, after a while, she followed up by herself, grabbing his clothes with one hand.The three continued to march in the snow.

This kind of weather is really terrible.

I don't know how long they have been walking in the snow, and I don't know how far they have walked. It seems that Jian Mingcheng's head has been squeezed into a ball of transparent cellophane-he can only describe his current feeling in this way , both clear and chaotic, both excited and powerless.

The wind whistled in his ears, and the dry snow, like dust, was rolled up on him.He also seemed to be gradually losing control over his own thinking, and some strange past events kept flashing before his eyes.Some of these past events really happened, and some seemed to be just imagined by him.

He seemed to see himself walking in a deep mountain and snowy valley, with no one around him, but there was a series of continuous footprints behind him, and a series of crooked footprints in front of him, and he didn't know who left them.He is like a part of this chain of footprints, not moving freely and unconsciously along a specific trajectory.This was a dream, or his imagination—because before he came to Harbin this time, he had never had the experience of walking in heavy snow, and he hadn't even seen real snow a few times.

But he did suddenly remember some real and long-ago things at this time.That was in middle school.He once had a roommate, to be precise, it was one of his eight roommates - a narrow student dormitory, thin bed boards, rusty iron bedsteads, white ash peeling off the walls, and blurred pictures. faces.But he still remembers this roommate only because he claims that he has believed in a premonition since he was a child-that he will die before the age of 16.But Jian Mingcheng couldn't remember how that roommate explained his strange premonition at that time, and it seemed that in the end, he was able to finish high school without any accidents.But what now?Because there has been no contact for a long time, he doesn't know either.

It is worth mentioning that, just after the roommate gave his premonition in a speech, Jian Mingcheng also had a dream one day—maybe he didn’t have a dream, but such an idea popped into his mind— —Maybe I won’t live to be 30 years old.

It was such an absurd idea that it made him feel ashamed, so even Jian Mingche never told it, and even his closest people didn't know that he had ever thought this way.So, is this a hint that fate gave him in advance?

He shook his head, feeling that he couldn't think about it any longer.See, he's hallucinating, he's seeing a group of aliens in full armor—if you ask him why he thinks he's seeing aliens—no one knows what real aliens look like.He doesn't know either.So he couldn't answer this question.

The girl also saw the aliens, she waved to them enthusiastically, let go of his clothes and ran towards them.Jian Mingcheng felt as if his throat was frozen, he couldn't speak, and couldn't stop calling her.

The boy also began to struggle in his arms, he thought, you have to abandon me too—so he squatted down and put him on the ground, watching him approach those terrifying aliens step by step, And then—then never stood up again.