King of Kings

"Two-timing" Brother Hei seems not to understand the meaning of this sentence.

"How did you know I was in the drama club?"

Heige's eyes rolled up slightly, staring at a point high in the sky, and he fell into memories: "I heard them gossiping in the cafeteria, saying that you and Du Ziming..."

"Yes, you heard the gossip and came to the drama club to expose Du Ziming and me, ready to confront us face to face. The one standing on the stage performing now is Du Ziming, you can see clearly."

"Then why am I standing here watching him perform a drama?" Heige muttered to himself.

This is what the Memory Master was waiting for. She couldn't wait to say, "Because the Withered Dynasty is a source of memetic pollution. It pollutes your mind and makes you ignore everything else and exist only to spread it."

Pain and confusion crept up to Heige's eyebrows. He seemed unable to understand the words of the illusionist. He could only beg for a little forgiveness and purification by mechanically reciting an unfinished prayer:

"...The mist is thick and heavy, and the flowers should not bloom. Blood flows on the floating hill, and the mourning song continues."

"Stop reading!"

It was too late. As the last word of the prayer fell, a red shadow appeared in the corner of the memory master's eye.

He saw me.

The memory master's heart seemed to be wrapped in invisible ice, the blood in his body seemed to solidify in an instant, and his heartbeat was as deafening as a drum.

Under this inexplicable, extreme fear that came from nowhere, her mind was frozen.

I saw Him too.

All her senses were infinitely magnified. The illusionist could even feel tiny beads of sweat oozing out of her pores. She clenched her fingers tightly and dug her long nails deeply into her palms.

The amplified pain brought her back a little bit of sanity, but she couldn't turn her head.

She used all her courage to move her eyes. Nothing, nothing, not the red figure she had just glimpsed.

The illusionist's muscles trembled with tension, and she realized that she couldn't look directly at it. She forced herself to roll her eyes again to distract herself.

She saw it, in the moment when her vision suddenly changed, she saw the long blood-red shadow reflected by the metal button on the speaker.

A thin and dry king, wearing a tattered robe and trapped in a blood-stained silk ribbon.

Both my hands and feet felt cold, and the blood was directed to the large muscle groups in my legs. Before my brain could react, my legs and feet developed their own will and I took big strides and rushed out the door.

With a blank mind, she ran out of the old building and bumped into someone.

A girl screamed nearby, and the illusionist growled anxiously: "Run!"

"You hit me to death, why are you running?"

"King of Kings..." The Memory Master stopped and looked back, there was no King of Kings at all.

"What? We are the New Media Center, and we are here to interview the Drama Club."

The illusionist turned his head quickly left and right like an incurable mental patient, twisting Liu Tianyi's neck so hard that it creaked. The blood-red figure was always in the corner of her eyes, staring at her from neither far nor near.

The girl who just screamed and the boy holding the DV camera looked at each other and asked cautiously: "Classmate, are you okay?"

"I mean the King of Kings, a dried corpse wrapped in red ribbons, with all the blood drained out. Can you see it?" The illusionist's brain was controlled by physiological fear.

"Are you kidding me? Today is not April Fools' Day."

"Or maybe you're just playing dumb. Even though you hit me, I didn't ask you to pay for it."

This not-so-funny joke emboldened several students to burst into laughter. They quietly moved away from the memory master, and one of them secretly turned on his cell phone, ready to call the police at any time.

The illusionist's reason returned to her brain little by little. She stepped lightly on the ground with her feet, and then she found an unclear sense of reality: "I'm sorry, but there is no time. I have to go."

The students looked at each other again, then made way for her without caring about her bumping into them.

In this situation, it was no use telling them not to go see the Withered Dynasty. The illusionist ignored the pain in his strained leg muscles and ran away again.

I have to go back to the classroom as soon as possible to learn the full story of what happened six years ago. There must be some connection between these two incidents.

The illusionist saw Wang Yue at the entrance of the comprehensive building and she slowed down.

"Why are you running again?" Wang Yue came over and took her arm affectionately. "Your exercise today is as much as in the past week, right?"

Something was wrong. The illusionist observed Wang Yue calmly from the corner of her eye. She found that she was already very good at this.

There was an eerie sense of quietness about Wang Yue, as disturbing as the corner of a dark basement. She couldn't help but turn her head to observe carefully.

There was nothing wrong. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth, all the five senses were on duty at their posts.

"What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?" Wang Yue spoke.

As the mouth opened and closed, the illusionist's sight was glued to Wang Yue's face by some strange force. She suddenly realized that Wang Yue's eyes and mouth had all been rotated 180 degrees.

She felt a little nauseous, but not afraid. Perhaps she was numb. "Nothing. I just saw that your skin has been looking good recently. What did you apply?"

Wang Yue laughed loudly, the corners of her inverted mouth turned downwards, and she opened and closed again, making a sound: "Nothing is painted on, you are naturally beautiful. Do you know where you put your things?"

"The package is in the classroom upstairs."

"It's not that." Wang Yue said mysteriously, "You know what I'm talking about."

This fake person didn't seem to be the same species as the one she had seen at noon. The illusionist followed Professor Shen's instructions and even though she had no idea what it was talking about, she responded vaguely: "That one, it's also upstairs."

A human and a fake human, like a pair of real old friends, went up to the second floor hand in hand.

Entering the classroom, Wang Yue saw the pink notebook on the podium and asked: "Is this the thing?"

“That should be it.”

The illusionist pretended to be interested in the dirty express packaging bag on the ground and found an opportunity to pull his arm out of the fake man's arm.

She kicked the black bag with her foot, walked naturally towards the blackboard, took out a piece of chalk and hid it in her sleeve.

No, are ordinary packaging bags so thick? The Memory Master turned his head quickly like a thief and glanced at Wang Yue, who was concentrating on flipping through the notebook.

She stood on tiptoe, squatted down lightly, and rubbed the packaging bag with her thumb and index finger. The packaging bag was a double-layer waterproof and breakable design, and there was indeed something inside.

After tearing open the package, a handwritten express note fell out. It was clearly written by Liu Tianyi. The handwriting was neat and serious, as if he was saying goodbye to something.

Sender: Liu Tianyi, Room 511, Dormitory Building No. 6, Danjiang Normal University, No. 121, Xiqiao Road, Xiashao District, Danjiang City.

Recipient: Zhao Wanting, Room 511, Dormitory Building No. 6, Danjiang Normal University, No. 121, Xiqiao Road, Xiashao District, Danjiang City.

Number of pieces: 1

Weight:48KG

Deliveryman: [blacked out]

A vague and incredible thought quickly flashed through the memory artist's mind. She flipped over the express delivery slip and saw a line of small words on it.

Although it is ridiculous, this is Liu Tianyi's suicide note, a suicide note with only one sentence.

[Wanting, I firmly believe that there are ghosts in this world, so I can see you. ]

The illusionist held up the express delivery slip to the light, and through the light he saw the word "fake person" faintly visible on the blackened "delivery person" column.

Liu Tianyi even arranged her own funeral, and handed over her 48-kilogram body and a notebook to a fake person. It is hard to say that this is not suicide, but why suicide failed to affect her.

A shadow spread up from the bottom of the paper, quietly covering the blackened characters, and the illusionist tensed his leg muscles.

"What are you looking at?" Wang Yue, with his eyes and mouth inverted, came behind her at some point and snatched the express delivery slip from her hand.

The illusionist pushed his legs hard, jumped up from a squatting position, stretched his body into a curved arc, and pounced towards the blackboard.

The moment she jumped into the air, she felt a huge force holding the back of her collar. The not-so-soft fabric of her windbreaker was stretched tight around her neck, causing a brief feeling of suffocation.

She was thrown onto the blackboard, her cheek pressed against the cold, hard graphite.

"You've already discovered it," Wang Yue's tone was icy cold. "Where is it?"

"What are you looking for?" the Memory Master said weakly.

She endured the stinging pain in her forehead, stretched her right hand to the back of her neck and struggled in vain, trying to free her hands from the collar that were tightly grasping her neck, and with her left hand she secretly reached out the piece of chalk hidden in her sleeve.

"I don't know, and you don't know either. No one can know."

As if telling a riddle, what exactly are they looking for? The illusionist was flat on the blackboard, and he struggled to control his left hand to write crookedly in the blind spot of Wang Yue's vision.

December 25, 2004, the date on the card has now become her lifeline. She uttered something unclear, signaling Wang Yue to go easy on her.

Wang Yue indeed loosened his collar slightly, leaving her room to speak.

The illusionist fumbled to write down the last number on the blackboard and smiled viciously at Wang Yue. Her smile concealed a gloomy and unspeakable intention, as if foreshadowing that something ominous was about to happen.

Her voice was so soft that it was almost inaudible, and Wang Yue had to move closer to listen.

"goodbye."

The familiar feeling of dizziness came like a savior, but what came into view was not the Christmas of six years ago.

The scene of Wanting's death briefly appeared on the retina of the illusionist.

It was as if I was standing on a tall building and looking down, I saw Wanting lying face down on the ground, with bright red blood and yellow-white brain matter slowly overflowing. Her limbs were placed unnaturally on both sides of her body, and one of her legs seemed to be broken and twisted strangely.

In a trance, the illusionist had a strange sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen a similar scene before.

The distorted face of death flashed by, and before his eyes appeared the healthy and lively Wanting and the bustling and noisy street scene.

The streets are decorated with festive decorations, and every inch of them is filled with a cheerful Christmas atmosphere. A huge Christmas tree stands in front of the shopping mall, and neon lights hang on the treetops like bright stars.

In this cheerful atmosphere carefully created by merchants, the joy of the festival infects everyone. People don't care what festival it is or why they celebrate it, they only care about the happiness of this day and being able to recall the happiness over and over again.

Young boys Liu Tianyi and Wanting were both enjoying this pure happiness. Wanting, wearing a skirt and with her hair loose, looked pretty and cute, with no trace of the white-framed glasses she wore in school.

Sitting on the railing of the overpass, Liu Tianyi swung her legs and said, "My mom always said that it would be easy once I got into college, but I don't think it's that easy."

"University," Wanting laughed softly. She looked past the bustling crowd and towards a luxuriously decorated barber shop under the overpass. "I'm going to dye my hair like that after the exam."

The mannequin in the window is wearing a hidden dye wig. In order to show the hidden dye, the original hair color part of the wig is pinned on the top of the head with a large hairpin, revealing the blue and pink gradient hair, which looks like it is dyed with neon light under the lighting of the window.

"What's so good about it? You can't see anything unless you lift up your hair. It looks the same whether you dyed it or not."

Wanting didn't take it seriously and continued to look forward to her distant university life:

"I have to study hard and never pass the exam. I will start taking English exams in my sophomore year. Even if I can't go abroad in the future, I will leave Yanqu City and work in a big city."

Realizing that her friend was just fantasizing about college life, Liu Tianyi stopped pouring cold water on her friend and asked casually: "Which city are you going to?"

"Let's go to the river."

“Why Danjiang City?”

"I heard that there are many people with super powers, and everyone is used to them." Wanting leaned against Liu Tianyi, holding the railing.

“You like people with super powers.”

Wanting smiled shyly: "It's not that I like it, I just want to go to a big city to have a look."

"Hehe." Liu Tianyi deliberately lowered his voice, "Then I want to be admitted to the same city as you, so don't even think about running away."

"I also want to learn makeup and fall in love."

"Yes, I want to have a relationship, a relationship that will make singles jealous!"

“I also need to chase stars, watch concerts, and visit comic conventions!”

"Then you are not allowed to have a relationship. If you do, you will definitely only bring your boyfriend and not me."

Facing the wind, Wanting smiled happily: "Okay! We won't fall in love, we'll play together for the rest of our lives!"

The two people laughed so hard at their wild fantasies about the future that they couldn't even stand up straight.

Liu Tianyi laughed so hard that her voice became unsteady. "To be honest, when they spread rumors that you and Zhao Jianyu from Class 8 were a couple, I was afraid that you would immediately swear to heaven and earth that you would never fall in love again in your life."

Wanting stopped smiling, and neither did Liu Tianyi: "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned this."

The illusionist noticed that when the young Liu Tianyi and Wanting were together, she was very considerate of each other's thoughts. It could even be said that she cared too much about Wanting's feelings and became a little unlike herself.

Admittedly, Liu Tianyi has some shortcomings. She has a unique kind of straightforwardness, which is only a thin line away from willfulness, and also indirectly leads to her lack of tact and consideration in dealing with things.

But when she was with Wanting, every time she said something without thinking, she would look at Wanting's face and then reflect on herself.

It was a cruel skill for a 12-year-old, one she had learned after experiencing bullying and exclusion to maintain her only friendship.

And Wanting is indeed a good child. She explained patiently and straightforwardly:

"I'm not upset because of those rumors. I just don't want to hear you mention Zhao Jianyu. Don't talk about him in school, and don't try to contact him."

"Why"

"He is a terrible person." Wanting looked serious, her face pale, and she pursed her lips as she lost herself in memories.