The Sick Beauty in the Republic of China

The night will eventually pass, and the dawn will usher in a new day. The morning bell is ringing on the steeple, and the black crow is performing the duty of the white dove, and it spreads its wings and flies from the cave under the eaves.

Wang Luan stood by the narrow window, looking at the wet grass outside the church, as well as the occasional two or three figures walking by on the grass.

They did not leave the Skoll Church last night, but under Wang Mingsheng's arrangement, they stayed in a guest room in order to further investigate the matter of Canary.

There was a heavy sound from the wooden door behind him, Wang Luan turned his head, but it was Qi Chensheng who came over with breakfast.

"Does Ninth Brother's knee still hurt? Don't stand for too long," Qi Chensheng put the things in his hands on the small round table by the wall, and then moved the table directly to the bed: "There is nothing to eat, I will let you eat later." He Chengdong will send some more..."

"No need," Wang Luan walked back to the bed and sat down, looking at the three or four pieces of dry and hard bread, dirty green pickled cucumbers, and two bowls of steaming hot soup in the tray , It really doesn't look very delicious, but still shook his head and said: "It's just a few meals, just eat whatever you want."

"Brother Jiu doesn't dislike it, I don't want you to eat these." Qi Chensheng sat next to him, picked up the bowl and tasted the taste of the soup, and then handed it to Wang Luan: "Put the cushion first, He Chengdong It will be there in a while."

Wang Luan took the soup with a smile, tore the dry bread into small pieces and soaked it, and the entrance was not so unacceptable.

The two walked out of the room after eating briefly. Wang Luan was unconscious when he came here yesterday, so he never saw the outside of the room.

What I saw was a long corridor in front of me. Every distance, there would be a very small window, which could barely let in some light, but the whole corridor was still dark and damp.

"Yesterday, I sent someone to find the map here." Qi Chensheng took out a piece of kraft paper that looked a little fragile from the front pocket of his coat. After unfolding, it was only the size of two palms, and the plane of the church was simply drawn on it.

Wang Luan stretched out his hand along the faded ink lines on it, muttering in a low voice: "It looks like we should be here..."

The entire church is in an irregular square shape. The spacious main hall is conveniently located at the front, and narrow corridors extend to the rear on both sides. There are several rooms beside the corridors, and they live in them.

Further back, you can see several rows of flat objects that seem to be used as storerooms, and the cemetery behind.

This picture is really simple, and you can't see too much from it alone, so you have to go around it if you think about it.

"Ninth brother, call the canary out." Qi Chensheng squinted at the dark corridor in front of him, and said while supporting Wang Luan's shoulder: "Since it happened here back then, even if you don't know who the enemy is, you can What to remember."

Naturally, Wang Luan also agrees. After losing the bondage of the black cage, he can clearly feel that the connection between himself and Canary has deepened. It is just a slight movement of his thoughts, and he sees the light of flowing gold condensing from the darkness , gradually converging into the appearance of a small sparrow, standing on his shoulder.

Wang Luan stretched out his hand, and the canary jumped onto his hand again, nodding slightly and pecking at the soft feathers on his chest.

It didn't seem to care about the affairs of its own life at all, and it didn't respond to the church it was in. Its small pea-sized eyes were dark and pitch-black, and it couldn't perceive any emotions like a human being.

Wang Luan frowned. He tried to communicate with Canary in his heart, but it was still useless.She had no choice but to turn her head and look at Qi Chensheng beside her.

Qi Chensheng also noticed Canary's situation. After thinking for a while, he raised his right hand a little, and the slender gentleman's stick appeared in his hand, and also appeared the goshawk standing on the top of the stick.

After seeing the goshawk, the canary sparrow seemed to be a little more joyful, and called two or three times with a clear voice, and the goshawk also responded with a deep voice.

"Ask it, how many things do you remember?" Seeing that Goshawk and Xiaoque could talk, Qi Chensheng ordered it to lead Xiaoque to think.

Wang Luan couldn't understand the hawk-to-sparrow communication, but he looked carefully at the canary, and found that after the goshawk asked the question, the canary was obviously really thinking.

Sure enough, another moment passed, and the little canary suddenly spread its wings, and the sunlight from the narrow window also fell on it, giving off a brilliant golden halo.

Then, unexpectedly, the canary really flew up, and in that dim environment, it radiated this brilliance all the way.

Wang Luan and Qi Chensheng looked at each other, and the goshawk took the lead in chasing after Canary, and flew with it through the long corridor.It seems to have brought a different kind of vitality to this dull and rigid church.

"Brother Jiu, let's go and have a look." Qi Chensheng was worried about Wang Luan's knee, leaned over and picked him up, and walked forward with Canary and Goshawk.

Not long after, they came to the end of the corridor, where there was a staircase that went up and down around the colonnade, the lower part led to the church hall, and the upper part, according to the map, should be able to connect with the bell tower.

Canary stayed by the stairs for a while, but finally it chose to fly upwards.

Seeing this, Qi Chensheng carried Wang Luan up the steps as well, but who knew that they hadn't walked very far along the winding stairs, when suddenly a golden light appeared in front of them, and everything seemed to be melted in that gentle light.

Wang Luan narrowed his eyes a little, and finally saw that slender figure again.

He seemed to be a teenager, not tall, even a little thin.As the picture became clearer, Wang Luan could tell that he seemed to have extremely beautiful blond hair, but the clothes on his body were very old.

The young man was squatting on the steps, looking up from time to time thinking about something, holding a thick notebook in his hand.

Qi Chensheng took his steps lightly, even though he knew that this should be an illusion, he didn't want to cause too much influence.He hugged Wang Luan, and slowly approached behind the young man. From the angle of looking down, he could see clearly the words written on the notebook.

At first, it was scattered English, and then there were serious but awkward Chinese characters.

"Today, he came to teach me how to play the organ again, and praised my voice."

"I really want to stay with him everywhere, if only I could stay by his side every day."

"Luther told me...he likes Sister Triss, does that mean he likes him...do I like him too?"

The boy's narration stopped here, and the pale golden light around him gradually faded away, and the boy's figure became blurred again.

After a long time, only the messy corridors and steps were left in front of me. Occasionally, moldy walls would fall off the walls, and crows could even be heard in my ears.

The canary landed in the illusion just now, where the boy was squatting, turning his little head thoughtfully, but the little reddish beak was quiet, without making a sound.

After a while, it flew up again, still calling the goshawk to fly up with it, Qi Chensheng didn't say anything, and continued to walk up the steps with Wang Luan in his arms.

The tower was actually not that high, and after a short while they climbed the last steps and came to the top of the tower with hollows on all sides.The view here is excellent, you can directly see the busy Jinyuewan port to the east, and you can have a panoramic view of the entire church arrangement by turning sideways.

In the center of the tower, there is an old copper bell, but upon closer inspection, it does not look like a Western style. Instead, it looks like it was dismantled from some temple and used directly after polishing.

Under the bronze bell is a short stone platform. When Wang Luan looked closely, he saw a lot of small characters on it.

These handwritings are arranged irregularly, and they don't look like they were written by the same person. They are more like they were carved out by many people or randomly on them with some sharp things.

Wang Luan patted Qi Chensheng's hand and asked him to put himself down. Qi Chensheng didn't refuse, but he still supported Wang Luan's arm, letting him use his strength to lean over to look at the stone platform carefully.

"Is this...the place where they made their wish?" Probably because of the age, many handwritings are a little hard to read, of course, maybe because the writing itself is not very clear.

"...a new pair of shoes." Wang Luan read out softly, which was more like a child's wish.

Further down, there is a slightly more mature but still messy handwriting, such as loveforever, it doesn't look like it could be written by an adult at first glance.

"Have orphans ever been taken in here?" Wang Luan couldn't help turning his head and asked Qi Chensheng who was supporting him.

"It has been taken in." Before Qi Chensheng came, He Chengdong had already checked the church in detail: "To be precise, there have always been orphans taken in here, but since five or six years ago, the last batch of children After I was sent to middle school, I gradually stopped doing it.”

"So," Wang Luan looked at his subordinates, the words on the stone platform, "these were left by the orphans who were here back then. Canary should also be orphans who lived in the church. Will there be any His words?"

Following this line of thought, the two compared what they had just seen, the handwriting written by the young man on the notebook, with the many messy handwriting on the stone platform.

Unexpectedly, the most similar thing they could find was not Chinese, but a line of English engraved extremely deeply.

"Forgiveme, Lord."

He is confessing to God, judging from the handwriting, he should have used a lot of effort when engraving.

Wang Luan recalled what he had just seen, the content written in the boy's diary, in which the obvious word - "he".

It is true that in the old usage of the past, "he" can refer to both men and women, but since a certain cultural movement ten years ago, people began to use "she" to refer to women specifically.

Taking a few steps back, since the boy can so frankly describe that his companion likes nuns, it means that in his eyes, this is not a serious matter at all.

Then... the one who can make him pray for God's forgiveness like this, I'm afraid that "he" really refers to a man.