Looking back

The fire light slipped from the fingers, the red shadow flashed, and it was short-lived.

I saw the white skulls all over the place screaming in silence, the broken cocoons in the deep nest, no life will break out of the chrysalis, and the pale flower buds in the dark mud, which will never wait for the moment to bloom.

The weak flame struggled feebly for a moment, and was finally swallowed by the dark ground.Once the fire is extinguished, darkness descends from above the head like the wings of death, and the singing of the dead is mixed with familiar and unfamiliar songs:

"The rain is cold, but the tears are hot

The tip of a needle is made of iron, but the human heart is made of flesh"*1

The singing echoed and circled in my mind, ravaging like the wind, surging like the tide, sweeping away the dust of sealed memories like a dry and destructive way, and suddenly turned into water dripping from the eaves, mold spreading at the foot of the wall, one layer after another Searching in vain in the maze of memories.

The singing swayed, and gradually solidified into a slightly hunched back.In the morning wind, I was sitting on the horseback as a small child, and I was so frightened that my whole body was stiff. I grabbed the edge of the saddle tightly and stared nervously at the figure of the old man who led the horse.

Grandpa Harang was striding forward, humming an unknown melody, and holding the rein tightly with his big hands as old as bark.The horse took brisk little steps along with the singing, and soon I liked the bumps, relaxed my hands and feet, and hummed along with the rhythm of the horse's hooves.

I was riding a white mare named Chaganhala. When I selected her from a distance, she was pacing gracefully on the green short grass. The morning glow set her white outline with soft golden edges.When I walked in front of her, she was gnawing young grass with her head down, so I saw my eager but trembling figure reflected in her big amber eyes.

Grandpa Harang laughed and said to me, "She likes you."

So he lifted me onto the horse's back with his big hands, and after I sat firmly, he led the horse and walked towards the lake.The breeze scratched the ends of my hair and messed up the unruly mane. I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes. The lake in the distance was also rippling by the wind, and the tall grass on the bank swayed towards me. wave.

At some point, Grandpa Harang had let go of the rein, and his singing came from behind:

"The lightly tapped raindrops

make the flowers happy

little rascal with a belly

make people laugh and make people love

Little Lark

let the wind be so brisk

elf, naughty

It's so cute that the flowers are blooming"*2

Grandpa Harang's singing has the magical power to make people laugh and cry. His voice is a little hoarse, but he can sing endless long twists and turns. The casualness naturally makes people ignore the skills in it. Of course, I think he is not I haven't pursued any skills, it's just an emotion that I have to express. I can't stop wandering in the vastness of the world, knocking on the earth, flying to the sky, and finally I have to float to the horizon along the wind, seeking the resonance that can never be obtained.Most of the songs on the prairie are distant and bleak, and they express the tune freely, but with indescribable sadness. It is the howling wind between the clouds, the dew dripping on the tip of the grass, the loneliness of looking thousands of miles away, the The love that has nowhere to say is a cry from the depths of life, but it can never be heard clearly.

Of course, there are also many songs that are cheerful, such as the little rascal sung by Grandpa Harang just now.

The round pebbles under the lake were shining brightly, and the horse waded into the swaying shallow water, buried its head in a long drink, and its graceful neck drooped, almost slipping me into the water.She gulped down the clear water, and I could even hear the gurgling water flowing down her neck. After an unknown amount of time, she finally raised her head and let out a contented neigh.Grandpa Harang changed the song:

"It's still a yearling, so you put on the saddle

Just a two-year-old horse, you are like a flying arrow”*3

Chaganhala seemed to understand that this was Grandpa Harang's compliment to her. She raised her head proudly and walked back to the shore with the splash of water.Grandpa Harang carried me off the saddle, and he let go of the bridle, allowing the horse to chew the tender soda on the bank freely.

It is said that Grandpa Harang was a defeated slave. No one remembers his tribe and surname for a long time. However, when everyone sees him, they will respectfully salute and call him an old man.He spent half his life in the tribe raising horses, washing them, trimming their manes. He loved those swift and loyal horses, and so did those beautiful and unruly creatures.Like most Mongolian old people, he has very little expression, and his eyes always seem to be staring into the distance, except just now, his eyes followed me closely, for fear that I would fall off the horse.

I didn't see him for the last time, however, and his body was found among a pile of rocks.Outside the terribly quiet crowd, my mother hugged Torre, and my third sister hugged me, preventing us from investigating.I saw the six Jiangnan monsters who had just stayed in the tribe exchanged a few words with a serious expression, shook their heads, and finally said nothing.

At the funeral, the old shaman solemnly recited an ancient proverb that has been circulating for an unknown amount of time: "Born in the soil, feed on the soil, and eventually be eaten by the soil." The old shaman declared that the old man Harang was favored by the wolf god. Yes, the claw hole on the top of the head is the mark it left behind.

His body was sent to a sky burial on a hill infested by wild wolves.

That night in the Gobi, there were endless howls of wolves, and the mothers hugged the children who had woken up from the fright, murmuring the names of the gods in their mouths.Grandma came to see me after putting my little brother to sleep. I closed my eyes tightly and pretended to be in deep sleep. Her warm and rough hands brushed over my forehead, covering my eyes, and finally, gently brushed the roe skin covering my body. Was raised.

The sound of Grandma’s footsteps when she left was slightly paused by another howling wolf. In the short gap, I seemed to hear the sound of fangs and claws biting flesh and blood, but it was not from the distant Gobi, but from the From my heart.

There are a pair of invisible hands in the chest, pinching, squeezing and ravaging wantonly. For the first time, I know that besides beating, the heart can also hurt.When the pain became numb, the hands moved from the heart to the cheeks at some point, and the sharp and cold nails moved gently, as if waiting for the next moment of bloodstains to bloom.

I sat up suddenly, gasping for breath, dripping with cold sweat.Obviously not asleep, but there is an illusion of waking up from a nightmare.

I know whose hand it is.Those hands brushed across my facial features just this morning, maybe at that time, there was still Grandpa Harang's blood on them.

I was looking at her, and I knew she could kill me with a lift of a finger, so I was afraid to take a step forward, and I was freed from the guilt of letting her go, yes, even if she was dying, I would Still can't hurt her at all.I also know that she has hurt countless people, but seeing her miserable state, I can't help but feel pity in my heart.

Oh, maybe I will continue to pity her, maybe I will persuade others to give up seeking revenge on her, maybe I will shed two innocuous tears when she died protecting Huang Yaoshi.Oh, people are so narrow-minded, I will be tolerant of a murderous person, as long as she kills someone who has nothing to do with me.

A thorny cane strangling the heart is not hatred.We are all the same, hunter and prey, murderer and victim.Do wolves hate hunters?Do gazelles hate wolves?Does tender grass hate gazelle?

The world is not benevolent, and all things are regarded as dogs, born humble, and died silently.The gap between life and death is too narrow. Only the things I have done between life and death can prove that I was alive.

My stature and strength have grown rapidly, the scimitar is becoming lighter and lighter in my hand, and the longbow that I once couldn't draw can be stretched like a full moon.I can't remember.Of course, I have also killed people. That person pinched my neck with both hands and tried to strangle me, so I am very glad that my knife is faster than his hand, but when the blood flowed down my hand stickily along the knife, I was still fluttering in the flowers, throwing up all my viscera in convulsions.

I don't know if the buzzing sound in my head is the vibration of the eardrum or the flying insects among the flowers. I brace myself against the empty shell and pull out the knife from the stiff corpse.

The blood must have solidified, not a drop of blood flew along the drawn knife.

I struggled to climb to the river, cleaned the knife, sheathed it, washed my hands, and poured cool water on my parched face.The river was flowing happily under the sun, and the scattered blood stains were fleeting, and it was clear and clear again in a blink of an eye.

It may not be long before I even need such an excuse for self-defense.

So I feel that killing people seems to be very simple. As long as you find an excuse and use the right method, the life to death is only a moment.The head and abdomen cannot be broken, the mouth and nose cannot be covered, the heart cannot touch gold and stone, and the blood cannot flow three liters. The human body is very fragile, and it may not be much stronger than a howling sheep.

But she is different.

She is invulnerable to swords and guns when practicing kung fu, she constantly takes arsenic to force her to practice kung fu, she can even resist Ke Zhen'e's poisonous water chestnut, unless she has the strength of Xidu, she can be seriously injured to death, but I'm afraid she won't survive I have When that strength.

I knew she would die a miserable death, she died under the hands of Ouyang Feng in order to save Huang Yaoshi.However, the poisonous insects in my heart are biting, and the venom is surging, that's not enough, it's not enough for me!Even if he could witness her tragic death with his own eyes, that would not be enough!Even if she died in the despair of not being able to return to the teacher's school, that's not enough!

I want to see all that is left of her disappear into ashes. She has betrayed her master and lost her husband. The only thing left is her tyrannical martial arts and her enemies all over the world.Then I want her to lose the martial arts that she used to act recklessly, and I want her to realize how hopeless and helpless the lives that were pinched and ravaged by her in the palm of her hand were once!I know she will not repent, nor will she plead, but at least let her experience the powerlessness of life and death being arbitrarily decided by others.

I have imagined and traced the details of that scene in my mind countless times, and I have found solace and more pain in it.

It's not for karma, and it's not for God's will, no, it's not those things that have already made me sneer, it's a purely selfish desire, it's a crazy and cold, venomous and sweet reverie, it's what makes me The thorn that I can't sit still is also the drug that soothes my manic nerves, it is an addiction that I can't extricate myself from, and it is also the catalyst that makes my loose life compact. I even foresee that one day, when the fantasy comes true, How at a loss I would be.

It's just that the hands groping on my face became a lingering nightmare.

And when the nightmare turned into reality, I was surprisingly calm.

The author has something to say: Notes on the lyrics:

*1, "The tip of a needle is made of iron, but the human heart is made of flesh" from the Chinese translation of Ingmar's Mongolian nursery rhyme "Judinanna"

*2. Modified from the Chinese version of Ingmar's song "Little Rascal with Stout Belly"

*3. From Zhang Chengzhi's novel "Black Steed", a Mongolian ballad called "Aluo Nur" sung by the male protagonist

This chapter was posted before, just after Hua Zheng and the others discovered the skull in the tunnel.Now move to the end of the paper...I admit that I am obsessive compulsive disorder don't despise me