Water lanterns and dreams in 1 nights

Do not move.I took two steps forward, opened the half door wider and looked inside.

A piece of wild grass overgrown.

In the originally neatly manicured courtyard, all the flowers on the flower racks had died for a long time, and the weeds grew wildly to reach the calf, and the slender leaves trembled in the wind.The branch of the cherry tree I planted broke off and rotted in the dirt.

The facts are clear at a glance, and Xiuyi and I are very clear: this is an empty house.

34. Bad boy 20

Xiuyi and I went to the police station to inquire immediately, but due to a well-known but secret reason, the number of missing and dead people was beyond estimate, and basically none of them were registered. We asked, but what we got was only perfunctory In desperation, I took Liangzi's photo and went to the corpse collection team in the city. There were mountains of corpses and seas of corpses, and it was just a dream to remind them of a woman.

After returning from the corpse collection team, Xiuyi and I visited the nearby residents separately. As expected, they either disappeared or changed faces. Few of the familiar people were left. We asked them if they had seen Tan Liangzi, and they all said no. seen.

We ran for a whole day and searched every place we could think of. When the last road was blocked, we had to admit that finding Ryoko would not be successful overnight, but would require a long and unremitting search. As long as she did not leave the city, perhaps It's just a matter of time.

When we returned to the old place, the furniture in the room was still there, just turned over and over, like defeated soldiers who had been chopped down one by one, crumbled and dusty, beyond recognition. Looking at them, it inevitably reminded me of Liangzi returning home. How well organized it was back then, everything was properly placed in its proper place, in its proper place, shining brightly in the comfortable atmosphere of sound and aroma from the kitchen.We simply straightened them up, put them back in place, removed the dust, and returned the house to as habitable a condition as possible.

After finishing the difficult cleaning, we found a place to sit in the study together. I closed the blinds behind me to block the light from the outside. In the dark room, I sat behind the desk. Xiuyi sat in the armchair opposite the desk and opened the desk. Then he fiddled with the kaleidoscope he had found -- an old toy he dug out from under the bed when he was tidying up his room.

A rare private moment.

There was only the slight clicking sound when Xiuyi turned the kaleidoscope.Click, the colored beads rotate, and the portrait changes.Click, I was the first to ask a question, questioning what he had said to me about giving respect and choice to the so-called "business partners". At this time, I remembered that he was more inclined to a narrative than a guarantee, and did not guarantee me This will not happen in the future.

"If I say it's a last resort, maybe you will doubt it." Xiuyi avoided answering from the point of view of exacting words, and didn't need to defend himself for my omissions, "They saw my face."

Logical, unethical.

"You were arrested by them." My question was unambiguous, and I thought of his injuries, the strangle marks on his wrist. "You were in an ambush, and the second night after you escaped, you had to silence them before you had to go out."

"If you don't kill them, what choice do you want me to make?" Xiuyi said, without pity or fear, "let them go, let myself be caught and killed; or leave them alive, just pull out their tongues, blind their eyes, Piercing the eardrums, destroying the vocal cords, cutting off the limbs that could write, so that they would not be able to identify them. I chose the merciful way, at least they all died quickly."

"Which way you go, there will be consequences corresponding to it."

"Aren't I okay in the end?" Xiuyi held up the kaleidoscope, closed one eye and looked inside, "If there really was such a thing as retribution, my bones would have rotted to the ground by now, and no one cares about me, but I Now alive and panting, the scum of the world is alive and well as I am, eating the flesh of innocents, getting fatter and bigger. They've grown too big and disgusting, if you think, We can regard this as a self-interested and altruistic public welfare undertaking, cut off the snow-white, greasy fat from their bodies, refine it into oil, and distribute it to the skinny animals."

Beautify motivation.

In front of Xiuyi, why am I always preaching and objecting? I completely feel that this conversation is meaningless.I don't care about those people. Their life and death have nothing to do with me. Since I don't want to be restrained by others, why do I choose to play the role of a restrainer to restrict Xiuyi and accuse him so that he will not go off the rails.My body seemed to have a will of its own, and I spontaneously explained, "You were only seeking benefits for us, and you don't need to beautify it too much. You know it doesn't mean much to us."

"That's true." Xiuyi readily admitted, "From the point of view of the purpose. But from the result, I have done some good things. People who receive my money think that I am really a good person. Although the big Some of them were taken home by me. What I told you at the beginning was serious. I gave each of them a choice, life or his most precious thing. They all thought that what I wanted was their most valuable, I admit I want money, but I just feel bored watching them cover their heads with a black cloth, beg for forgiveness without hesitation, cry bitterly, and promise me how much gold and silver they will give me before the crisis of death. I never told One of their implicit rules was that if one of them actually had something that was dear to them, I would let him go home, untouch him, and take nothing from him. But no, not a single thing."

An unreasonable sense of superiority.

"What about you, what is most precious to you?" I asked, "What kind of world do you see from the kaleidoscope?"

"Chaotic, good-looking, illogical."

"False at the same time. You're looking out of a special mirror that blinds your senses." I said, "Superiority is an unnecessary thing that numbs you. You don't bother to see them live numb and mediocre, In other words, if you grew up in such an environment, everyone flattered and flattered you, and everything you wanted was at your fingertips, but you can still be humble and enterprising and maintain yourself? Not everyone has your conditions, and suffering is also a kind of Conditions, when you try to be condescending from the perspective of the judge, remember that the only person you have the right to judge is yourself, you can even sentence yourself to death, but any interference with others is ultra vires."

"Why are others so important to you?" Xiuyi asked in confusion. "I'm still alive, okay?"

"What matters to me is not other people, but the rules themselves."

"What if this rule is broken?"

"There will be no more peace," I replied slowly, thinking about the reasons for my actions.

"If there are no rules for killing people, there is no such thing as morality or law, as long as the motive is reasonable and does not disturb the existing life, you don't think it is wrong. In other words, I can understand it this way," Xiuyi said slowly, " You are worried about me, so you are unwilling to break the rules, because the vortex that will be triggered afterwards may take me away."

Could it be the reason why it looks so romantic?

If I cared about others, when I lost contact with Yoshiko, when I came home to find no one there, I should panic, and I had to have an emotional wave to prove it.Xiuyi and I searched in a hurry, and expressed anger and disappointment at the right time. Did I really express the emotion of "worried"?If so, who am I worried about.

"Of course I care about you." My body made such a voice, and my brain continued to meditate until I found an answer, or Xiuyi interrupted.

"If you had to choose between your life and the most important thing, what would you do?" Xiuyi threw a question, expecting my answer.

I have no answer.

"To change the question, what is your most precious thing?"

I also questioned myself, trying to get an acceptable result, but what I got was meaningless.

——I hope to return to the previous state, and the three of them can maintain a stable life.

This is even more arrogant than Xiuyi, he only wants to get a little benefit from others, but I want to control life.Furthermore, is that life precious to me?What price am I willing to pay for it.I thought about it and thought about it, but I couldn't find any emotion that was too nostalgic and couldn't let go.After all, what I miss is that kind of life, or that kind of state.It was a time when everything was smooth and smooth. I walked forward step by step along the track, knowing that it would lead me to the end, and at the same time, I was quite sure about my life. I thought that as long as I followed the steps, I would not get off the track, but where is Ryoko now? , What is Xiuyi doing again?It wasn't until this moment that I suddenly realized that maybe what I missed was not the old life, but the peace of being able to grasp my own direction in that life.

Because of my long silence, Xiuyi shrugged, "It's fine if you don't want to say it." He said, standing the kaleidoscope on the desk, staring at it for a while, "Aunt Tan gave it to me before."

"We will find her." I told Xiuyi, "There will always be a result."

Xiuyi nodded silently.

"I reiterate to you again, don't do the previous business again."

"Otherwise?"

I smiled and said, "Unless you don't want to see me again."

Then I knew that he would comply, as would all my previous formal requests.

35. Bad boy 21

In the process of tidying up the room, I kept stuffing unnecessary things into the big snakeskin bag, planning to throw them away together later.After the cleaning is over, I will soon join Xiuyi in his actions. He went out early to inquire about Liangzi.We have our own assigned areas, for example, I go east and west, he goes north and south, we split up and tell each other which alleys we should go to today before leaving.Our search is carried out in such a crude way as to use