The Land of Unrequited Love 4

"Forget it, forget it." Yinsui kept waving his hands to refuse.

Qin Xiao persuaded him earnestly, his words captivating like magic: "If you don't know where you are, how can you be sure whether to escape or where to escape to?"

One sentence convinced her.

The sun was hanging on the edge of the sky, about to fall, confronting the night.

"It's still early, we can still play for a while."

The girl took out a lip gloss of unknown brand from the compartment of her schoolbag. It was undoubtedly a fashionable item for little girls that she had secretly bought with her pocket money at the canteen at the school gate. She spoke in a relaxed tone, but there was an inexplicable sense of urgency in her voice as if she was about to be executed and that "time is running out".

The plastic cap was twisted open, and the brush head was pulled out with a "pop" sound. The low-quality lip gloss was caked on it, the dark red and light red looked like half-scabbed wounds, and the shiny fluid belonged to the fresh part.

Yinsui stared at the face that was becoming increasingly unfamiliar due to the shadow, his heart pounding like a drum: when she came closer, the whites of her eyes suddenly floated in the darkness, and as her pupils swayed, the white spots moved and moved.

"The color seems a little dark." Don't come over here again.

Qin Yun blinked, and a flash of black and white appeared, as if a small earthquake had occurred. "Just a little less will be enough."

There are clearly only two colors, but why does it make people dizzy when it shakes like a kaleidoscope?

Yin Sui couldn't stand it anymore and made an excuse that he wanted to see the effect after applying it on his lips, but in fact he hoped that Qin Yun would lower his eyebrows and concentrate on applying the lip gloss.

The brush applied the color again and again, and the trembling of her pupils finally subsided, allowing her to observe carefully. Soon, the truth came to light.

Why is it so uncomfortable to look at? Because the pupils are too small and there is too much white in the eyes.

After realizing this, Yin Sui, who was fidgeting, suddenly stood up. However, Qin Yun, who had just finished painting, mistakenly thought that he was impatient and stood up as well: "It just so happens that the time is almost up, follow me."

It's the age when people are growing up, so even if there is only a three-year age difference, they are almost a head taller.

Faced with this gap, I had to swallow the words "I want to go home" and keep up.

The sounds of footsteps, neither too far nor too near, echoed in the closed corridor. One floor up was the rooftop of the third floor, which was simply surrounded by a fence.

A cool breeze blew as Qin Xiao opened a can of iced carbonated drink and handed it to Yin Sui. The delicious sparkling water diluted his hidden resistance.

"Why don't you turn on the lights?" It was pitch black and you couldn't see your hand in front of you.

"They'll find us."

The door to the living room was wide open, and the pale incandescent light and the swaying red lanterns hanging high beside the door frame invaded the area below the steps. Generally speaking, there were no human figures where there was light, and no human figures could be seen outside of them. Where were the "they" that Qin Yun mentioned?

They are coming.

Men wore Mao suits in the style of old landlords, with intricate patterns emblazoned on the front; women's clothes were varied, including cheongsam tops, skirts, and skirts.

He looked like an ordinary person, and when he moved, there was no sound of footsteps. Instead, the sound of paper clothes rustling in the wind was heard.

One by one, strangers who had never met Yinsui walked out of the darkness and into the middle of the yard to join the anonymous gathering. If you had carefully looked at the photos on the tombstones during the Qingming Festival, you might have recognized one or two of them.

It was obvious that the central figure of the gathering had not yet arrived, and they were currently just whispering in groups of three or five.

Surprisingly, the central character who arrives belatedly is a living person and they all know each other.

The Qin family has a huge house, but only mother and daughter live there all year round. In order to make money from the vacant house, Aunt Qin rented two small rooms in the side house to Chen Lei, an outsider.

Chen Lei usually behaves honestly and taciturnly, and he was no exception today. When he came out of the living room, the light illuminated the tension and excitement on his face, not fear.

Standing upstairs, Yinsui only knew that they were talking but couldn't hear clearly what they were saying. Everyone's voice was muffled, as if they were squeezed out from their chest one word at a time, and the words were mixed together in a mess, making it even more unclear. Her hearing was numb, and she subconsciously scanned their lips one by one with her eyes, trying to guess what they meant.

"Ugh——" The clearest sound from beginning to end was the painful groan of Chen Lei, the only human present.

In an instant, the smiles faded rapidly, and everyone's face turned from curved upwards to a grayish-white flat surface, like thick cement suddenly solidified on it. With expressionless faces, countless heads turned at the same time, facing him, facing Chen Lei, whose face was blue and purple and he was suffocating.

The noisy and chaotic world was covered by the silence that broke into the rest.

Apart from his suppressed gasps, the air that entered his nasal cavity and throat in vain was obviously of no use in helping him to breathe again, but he still did the only thing he could to survive and continued to gasp in vain.

The rapid breathing sounds were like huge hammers hitting Yinsui's chest again and again.

The colorful gathering of the living dead goes from a peaceful and tranquil prelude to the high note of death, with white and red lights passing over eyes that have grown bigger due to excitement. It turns out that people's pupils will contract when they are excited, regardless of whether they are dead or alive.

Should we call the police? But how can a dead person call the police? So it's just us... Qin Yun beside me ignored him and took a sip of his carb drink, clearly lacking any motivation to help. Is it just me? But I don't have a phone, so if I want to call for help, I'd have to run downstairs, and I'd definitely make eye contact with them...

She imagined that all the undead turned their heads to look at her as if they were looking at the dying Chen Lei. She couldn't move her feet. Now it was clear that Qin Yun was not only here to see them, but also the dead.

It's so strange, so strange that the slow process of a living person dying becomes a scene of warm welcome by everyone.

"Bang!"

“Hahahahahahaha…”

The shaky and heavy body finally slammed heavily onto the concrete floor, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was swollen and distorted like a blown-up balloon, a bright purple color, forever frozen in this moment.

The moment he fell, the dead people around him who had just been talking and laughing with him were in an uproar and cheered and congratulated him without any prior agreement.

The rapid breathing did not stop. After finally regaining consciousness, Yinsui realized that it was her own voice. She was now out of breath and wanted to lie down. Instead of accepting the world's complete cracks and revealing a new and hideous face, it would be better to lie down and sleep for a while. At least she could deceive herself that it was just a dream.

Downstairs, the flames grew brighter and brighter, but they could not dispel the uneasiness. The cheerful and lively atmosphere froze into a block and crashed to the ground with a deafening sound.

The dry wood kept bursting and crackling under the licking of the flames, and the flames leaped high as the wood was shattered into pieces. The people below walked around and threw the firewood outside the door in, then worked together to lift the lifeless and extremely stiff body of the man and threw them on the top.

With firewood as the base and flames as the cover, the smell of cooked and roasted food wafts up.

Yin Sui, who could no longer bear it, didn't care about the wolves in front and the tigers behind. While Qin Yun was concentrating on looking down, he turned around and ran, walking through the old-fashioned stairs, the first floor, the second floor... His feet landed on the second floor, and a gloomy and narrow corridor appeared before his eyes.

Okay, let’s stop here first. If Qin Yun chases us, we will run away and not wait for another opportunity to act.

However, his expectation was broken by a dark, short and fat figure emerging from the end of the corridor.

The body was being burned by the raging fire downstairs. Chen Lei, with his hideous face still on when he died, walked past her as if nothing had happened and disappeared.

It's completely fucked up, this haunted world.

Seeing that the sky was turning from light to dark, Yinmu went to the path in front of the two houses early and paced back and forth. Several times, she almost couldn't resist the unreasonable impulse to go directly to Aunt Qin's house to pick her up, but then she thought that they usually played until this late, and even in the summer when it got dark late, they could play until after nine o'clock.

It's normal, everything is normal. It's the time to make noises about frogs. There's nothing that has to be done.

Listening to the incessant croaking of frogs, I don't know why, but no matter how I comfort myself I can't get rid of the panic that's piling up. My whole body feels as if mercury has been poured into my head, making it so heavy that I can't breathe, and my internal organs are falling down without a clear path.

Just to find peace of mind, although it would be bad to disturb Aunt Qin abruptly, she made up her mind and walked towards the neighbor's house.

Before knocking on the door, Yinsui pushed it open from the inside out, revealing a wet, tear-stained face.

"Mom, why are you here?!" "Get away! There's a bunch of crazy people in there." Yinsui, who had rarely argued with his mother before, didn't dare to get so close and speak directly. Instead, he pushed her hard, uncharacteristically.

Knowing her daughter, Yin's mother allowed herself to be pushed back onto the path.

Yin Sui gasped for breath and quickly finished the important part: "Qin Yun is crazy, and there are even crazier people coming to her house. After Chen Lei died, they roasted his body over a fire, and then Chen Lei's ghost passed by the second floor."

Upon hearing this, the first thing she felt was relief that "something really happened". She calmed herself down and decided immediately: escape, she must escape immediately!

Skipping all the steps like calling the police, they ran back home and called others to leave with them.

"Mom, where's Jilin?"

"He went to the pond to catch eels." Qiong Qing, who was watching TV and didn't understand what was going on, answered.

She didn't touch it in the morning or in the evening, but she just happened to think of touching the eel tonight, and her heart sank.

Even so, we have to escape if we can. The pond is right next to the path next to the bridge. It won’t take much time to go there and shout a notice from afar. As for the old couple... I have to send my daughter out first. At worst, I can come back and pick them up. It’s too late now, the sooner the better.

"Mom, get Dad up, grab your phone and cash, and head straight across the bridge to the main road where there are more people." With a suspicious look in her eyes, she hurriedly said, "There's no time to explain. Someone's dead outside. I'm going to call Jilin, hurry up!"

"Sui Sui, let's go find your dad first." After saying that, he picked up his daughter.

Take a shortcut from the path in front of the house, cross a pond, walk left to the asphalt road that can be used by vehicles, turn a corner and you will see Anping Bridge. As usual, many people are standing there enjoying the cool air and watching the athletes swimming in the river. Some aunts and ladies are holding palm-leaf fans, but today they are standing particularly close together, each of them stretching their necks to look down at the railings.

After a quick glance, she carried Yinsui to the more secluded path around the river at the fork in the road.

"Mom, I can walk by myself." The pace slowed down and he could keep up by himself, so Yinsui asked to get off on his own.

On the other side, shadows of trees loomed, and their slender branches spread out to support the twilight. Behind the dense forest was a pond as quiet as a silver mirror under the moonlight, cut into several pieces of broken mirror by the ridges of the fields, flashing with a cold light.

The two walked on the muddy dirt road after last night's rain, one foot deep and one foot shallow.

There was no time to go down to the pond and slowly look for her, so Yinmu sang a long tone like a folk song: "Jilin! Jilin!" She called out to her lost husband in the night in the mountain village where ghosts were rampant.