Flowerpot (II) [Correct typos]
Lao Lin's misfortune was completely beyond everyone's expectations.
It is said that when the incident happened, some residents were quarreling downstairs in this building.
The two people were arguing fiercely when, with a bang, a flowerpot on the rooftop broke, and dirt and broken tiles fell down on their heads, scaring the two residents who were quarreling.
Upon closer inspection, they saw that it was just a flower pot. The two were still in shock and started cursing at the top floor.
As a result, a smiling face suddenly appeared from upstairs. It was Lao Lin, who stared down without saying a word.
The terrace was filled with flower pots, and among the lush flowers, Lao Lin's face was almost faintly visible when he looked down, and the rest of his body was completely invisible.
The two angry residents lowered their voices, feeling uneasy in their hearts, and looked at each other and laughed dryly.
I don't know who spoke first, and said awkwardly: "...Actually, it's not a big deal. Forget it."
The other one also nodded, his legs a little weak, and said that there was no need for neighbors to quarrel, and they should just go back to their own homes.
At this moment, an amazing tacit understanding broke out between the two strangers. They turned around and walked away quickly, as if there was an evil ghost behind them, chasing them to death.
There was a light "click" sound behind me, and a rose that had been separated from the flowerpot and the soil fell to the ground with its roots and leaves.
"...Wait a minute, you mean, only spent it?"
The old man who came with us was a little confused, holding his breath and seemed to be unable to breathe, and asked with a pale face:
"What about Lao Lin? You should not get stuck at this critical moment. When did he jump? Can you give him a quick death?"
Zhang Jia's face looked very ugly: "That's the problem."
He led us into the corridor, which was noticeably colder inside. We followed him all the way to the fourth floor, where we saw a room that was wide open. There was a thick layer of dust all over the room. It must have been temporarily cleared out after the first suicide by jumping from the building.
Opposite the door is a window, which is also open, allowing you to see everything outside.
I stood in this room on the fourth floor for a while, and then I felt indescribably suffocated, uncomfortable all over, and wanted to go out. The old man had just lit the lamp and stayed up all night, and his face turned even paler. He trembled and found a chair to sit down, not caring about the dirt, and leaned against the window to let the wind blow on his chest, as if he couldn't stand it anymore.
"Isn't Lao Lin's room on the second floor?" I asked Zhang Jia, knowing that there must be a reason why he brought me up first.
Sure enough, he took a deep breath and said slowly, "Master, have you taken a look at the layout of this room?"
I nodded and said it was about the same. The layout of the house was relatively simple and the house was square in shape, so I could get a general impression of it at a glance.
He then took me downstairs and walked back to the second floor. The old man waved his hand from behind and told us to go first. The second floor sounded like a dangerous place, as if it was a place full of dangers. He was just a painter, and his last name was not Zhang. He was able to live to this age because he never went out into muddy water, so it was best not to call him if we had any problems.
I was a little worried about the situation on the second floor, so I didn't force him and let him have a good rest.
When I reached the door, I felt worried, so I asked the two guys who were guarding my room to stay with him, and told him that it would be better for him to move a chair to the corridor to rest and not to stay in the room for too long. Then I followed Zhang Jia downstairs.
This time when I returned to the second floor, I had already seen that the door on the fourth floor was wide open. Then when I looked at the tightly closed security door on the second floor, I felt something unusual.
Zhang Jia went up and knocked on the door. After a while, there seemed to be a conversation in the room. Xu You came over to open the door, and silently let me in with a somewhat cold expression.
As soon as I entered the door, there was no need for any extra explanation this time. I almost immediately felt a chill all over my body, and I found that the layout of the second floor was almost exactly the same as that of the fourth floor.
If I must say something different, the furniture in Lao Lin's room seems to be even older, with more signs of wear and tear than upstairs.
Strange, that is to say, logically speaking, it was Lao Lin's room that was first arranged and used like this. If one of them imitated the other, it was the resident on the fourth floor who had long been vacant who imitated Lao Lin who moved in later. But he had moved away long ago, so how could he have the opportunity to imitate a latecomer who he had never seen before.
This doesn't seem to make sense.
Another strange thing was that on the wall near the window, there was a row of neatly arranged flower pots with large hydrangeas and roses piled together, the flowers were so lush that they looked almost weird. There was a gap in the middle, which showed that a pot was missing.
I recalled what I saw when I looked up at the rooftop from downstairs, and confirmed that this row of extra flower pots, both in terms of the choice of flower species and the order in which the pots were placed, seemed to correspond to the ones on the rooftop.
From the perspective of location, apart from the different floors, the positions of the flower pots above and below are almost overlapping.
The lights were not on in the room at this time, and the early morning light could not fully illuminate the room, and it was actually colder than the corridor.
I took two steps and saw Zhang Tianyi coming out of the bathroom. He seemed to be thinking about something, and his hands were covered with a slightly dark red mud.
When he saw it was me, he didn't delay and just gestured for me to come over.
I followed him into the somewhat cramped bathroom and was stunned for a moment.
It's called a restroom, but this room is not big, it's just a small space partitioned off from the rental house. Apart from a squat toilet in the corner, there is not even a wash basin, only a water pipe with a simple-looking faucet and a floor drain below. I guess all the washing is done with this arrangement.
But what surprised me was not the almost simple furnishings in the bathroom, but a folding bed.
Yes, it is very strange. The good bed in the room is idle, but a not very spacious space is squeezed out in the bathroom and a foldable iron bed is placed there.
The railing at the head of the bed had some paint peeling but was otherwise very smooth.
Almost immediately a picture appeared in front of my eyes. I imagined how Lao Lin lived quietly alone in this strange room, curled up on this small bed at night, leaving most of the space empty, as if he was avoiding something.
"That row of flower pots is fixed." Zhang Tianyi added, "Xu You and I just asked our guys to try to move it, but it wouldn't budge. After checking, we found that the bottom of the flower pots seemed to have been screwed with bolts and nails, and the bolts were completely fixed to the floor after expanding."
I frowned. “He doesn’t want the flower pots to be moved?”
"It seems so at present."
Zhang Tianyi motioned for me to look under the folding bed, and pulled out a small box. Inside was a few sets of clothes, folded very neatly, and apparently in a vacuum package to prevent moisture.
I rummaged inside the box and found that there was indeed a simple little machine inside that could extract the air.
Such a person who lives a meticulous life, although he lives a simple life, still seems to be in a stable and calm mood, and does not look like he is hysterical after being shocked by something.
After all, Lao Lin was here on a mission to investigate suicides, so it was reasonable for him to live a simple life. Judging from his work style, he seemed to be a very patient person who could live here for more than half a month to observe the situation and get familiar with the environment.
I closed my eyes and thought about it. If I were Lao Lin, why would I do these strange things in the house?
Zhang Tianyi didn't disturb me. He stood aside and quietly asked everyone else to move away.
Xu You looked at me and called out to the other guys who were still checking in the room to move out and make room for me.
I calmed down completely, walked to the bathroom, made a gesture to open the door, and prepared to go out. I said to myself, "I am Lao Lin, I am awake now, and I am going to start my daily routine."
The next second, I touched the door handle, turned it and felt something was wrong.
"The door is broken."
I muttered to myself, and tried to push the door. I heard a very difficult click, and the lock tongue on the door popped out, locking the door. I tried to open it again, but it took a lot of effort, and it didn't work for a while.
Zhang Tianyi didn't move outside and let me do it myself. I twisted it for a long time and my hands were almost red before I went out.
...Lao Lin doesn't want to leave the bathroom too easily?
Or does he not want something else to enter the bathroom?
I stopped and after a while I slowly walked out of the bathroom, trying to clear my mind and let my eyes look out naturally.
From this angle, it feels very subtle.
Only then did I vaguely understand why some of the furnishings in the house were arranged like this, because after coming out of the bathroom, you can basically see the placement of all the objects at a glance, and there is no obstruction between each other.
The distances between the furniture are strange, and the number of steps to reach each other seems to be about the same. This makes the already narrow room even more crowded. This arrangement that sacrifices comfort makes people feel that the owner of the house must have done it deliberately.
So it may sound a bit far-fetched to say this, but my first reaction was: except for the small space where Lao Lin lives, the other parts of the house seem to be specially separated by him for supervision and comparison.
The bathroom door is a very strong psychological hint, enough to make him clearly identify where he should be, consciously or unconsciously.
Looking at those fixed flower pots, I walked over step by step without controlling my pace and speed, and I felt a slight chill in the bend of my legs. It turned out that I had walked to the windowsill unconsciously and was blocked by the row of very tall flower pots.
Yes, the way to go.
I looked at the wall and windowsill in front of me. The cool breeze outside made my heart feel cold.
"I have two guesses."
I said, "The first possibility is that the furniture and even the flower pots in the house might move in some way. Lao Lin didn't want the flower pots to move, so he fixed them."
Zhang Tianyi thought for a moment and said seriously, "The second possibility is, are you trying to say that the flower pot is also a reminder of the boundary, just like the bathroom door?"
I looked at him helplessly, thinking that this guy and Xu You and a group of people had been whispering in the room for a long time. They probably had similar ideas a long time ago, but these bastards always had to confirm it with me, as if my words counted.
I'm not a god. What if I lead them into a ditch?
The thought of complaining only lasted for a moment. I knew I was a little nervous, so I shook my head and continued walking. This time I walked along the corners of the room until I reached the door.
The more I walked through the house, the more I was certain that every detail in this simple, almost shabby room must have been arranged for a reason.
Especially when I walked back to the bathroom door again, when I turned around and walked towards the flower pot again, for a moment, I was sure that I understood Lao Lin's warning.
The number of steps between furniture is really consistent.
Through these arrangements, he is reminding those who come after him not to go inside the wall or outside the wall.
Whether it is furniture or flower pots, they are used to divide similar distances, so that people can judge their position no matter where they go.
Or... to judge the distance between yourself and something?
——What will happen if you lose control and forget this warning?
I closed my eyes again, turned around, and took a step forward.
Will fall down.
My brain's conditioned reflex stung for a moment, and it answered me in a horrified alert that if I continued to move forward without restriction, I would fall, just like Lao Lin, who "committed suicide by jumping off a building."
I felt a slight pain in my arm. I opened my eyes and found that Zhang Tianyi was holding my arm tightly with a cold face.
A cool breeze carrying the fragrance of flowers and plants blew on my face. I looked down and saw that I had climbed onto the windowsill without knowing when, and there was no obstacle in front of me.
Looking down, there were two deep footprints in the grass below the window sill. The lawn was messy, as if someone had just stepped on it. But if you look closely, the two footprints seemed to have been carved over and over again, indicating that stepping on it often happened.
"Fortunately, this is the second floor." Xu You said, but his face did not look relieved, but rather full of sternness.
I felt something and my eyelids started twitching a little.
"Look, it's just like this." He pointed at a guy who had just followed him out of the house. I noticed that the soles of the guy's shoes were a little wet, as if he had just stepped on dew. "We were caught off guard when we first came in, and he was the first one to be hit. He jumped straight out the window. He didn't react until we pulled him up from the ground. It was like he was possessed by a ghost."
"It's a good thing that Lao Lin rented the second floor, and the kid just fell on his butt. Otherwise, we would have capsized in the gutter and would be too embarrassed to go back and see people."
I rubbed my face and said, "Yeah... this is only the second floor. How did Lao Lin die?"
The room was quiet for a moment. Team leader Zhang Jia hesitated for a moment and asked me reluctantly, "Is it possible that Lao Lin went to the fourth floor for some reason and mistook it for the second floor? By the time the incident happened, it was too late to save himself because of the height of the fourth floor."
I felt a little uncomfortable, knowing that Zhang Jia had something else to say.
The footprints outside the windowsill were definitely not accumulated from one or two times. There is a high possibility that before our people checked today, Lao Lin himself had repeated this action several times.
He fixed the furnishings in the room and made warnings. The first time he got hit, maybe it was because he hadn't figured out the pattern yet, but the subsequent times should have been because he was consciously trying.
I don't know what drives him to do this. Maybe there is some mandatory triggering requirement in this matter itself, and someone must "pull the trigger" here again and again, and limit the uncontrolled spread of the incident by firing a blank shot.
It may also be that Lao Lin was not sure about the danger of the matter. Out of personal responsibility, he chose to step on the mines himself to check for risks before handing the matter over. He tested the safety boundaries by getting hit many times within a controllable range.
The person is no longer alive, and there is probably no conclusion to this.
I tried to control my emotions and asked:
"Were there any witnesses to Lao Lin's final jump? Did anyone see him on which floor? Where is his body now?"
What did his appearance on the rooftop mean? If he didn't jump at that time, what happened afterwards?
Whatever the reason, if the witness was not lying, then the smile that Lao Lin showed at the end might have been because he was relaxed and thought nothing unexpected would happen.
This scene was so similar to the wanderer back then, except that one was crazy and the other was gentle and calm. I felt more and more that the two things were inextricably linked, and I felt mixed emotions at the moment.
But after I asked the question, it seemed very difficult to answer, and everyone in the room turned their eyes to me.
"That's why we've already deduced so much, and we've called you here. Padawan, something's not right."
Xu You bit his back teeth viciously, obviously because he was very unwilling to accept Lao Lin's death. "First, there were witnesses when Lao Lin died, and we have confirmed that there were two witnesses downstairs at the time."
“Second, his body had been deposited there a long time ago. We just don’t know who sent it there.
When our guys went there, the person in charge said that someone had called several times to make an appointment, asking if they could check on the body of the deceased, but for some reason the signal seemed to be not so good, and they were always unable to make the appointment. I asked about the specific time of the call, and the person in charge actually said it was a month ago.
I was stunned, and my head suddenly buzzed.
I seemed to understand what Xu You meant, but it became more and more unbelievable, and for the first time in a long time I felt a sense of fear and retreat.
Is he saying...the cases of jumping from buildings that Lao Lin had gone through so much trouble to investigate, the cases in which he was extremely patient but could never find any key information or clues and could only report them for help...happened to Lao Lin himself?
That corpse, the unknown dead person at the beginning, was Lao Lin himself?
This seems to be an unexpected, but reasonable answer. Only someone like Lao Lin, who came from the Zhang family and used a fake identity to carry out the mission, could cause such a horrific suicide case and make it impossible to find his origins and whereabouts, making the matter an unsolved case that becomes more and more mysterious.
But I really don't want to accept this possibility, because it seems to mean that all of Lao Lin's efforts to control the situation have turned into a way to kill himself.
Also, why did things turn out like this?
Even a comb jellyfish that can travel across time can only change the course of events in different time periods, and time itself still flows continuously. What happened here seemed to completely disrupt and mix up time and cause and effect.
This is no longer a problem that can be simply explained by a closed loop.
All signs clearly indicate that the abnormality here seems to be related to the "wall", but there has never been such an exception among people who have come into contact with the wall in the past.
The wall is just so fucked up that it had to create a special situation to kill Lao Lin. This bullshit reason is not only for Xu You, but also for me.
Just at this moment, there was a sudden shout from upstairs.
The scream was almost shrill, and was followed by a bang, the sound of a heavy object falling from a great height.
I was startled and ran out immediately.
In the corridor, the old man was holding his chest, his forehead was covered with sweat, and he staggered down the stairs. When he saw me, his face turned pale, and he made two hoarse sounds in his throat, as if he had something important to tell me immediately.
But before he could open his mouth, he staggered and fell down.
The guys around him rushed over, some began counting down to give him first aid, and some flipped his eyelids over and looked at his pupils before breathing a sigh of relief: "There's still hope."
I felt a chill all over my body and my heart skipped a beat, knowing that things were going to be troublesome.
"Look in his clothes pockets, there should be quick-acting heart pills there." Zhang Tianyi said.
The guy exclaimed and immediately went to search the old man's pockets.
We looked at each other, and finally I spoke.
“…heart attack,” I said, my throat dry. “Fourth floor, the last witness is here.”
＊
At 10:05 am, the old man woke up in my RV.
I sat patiently beside his bed and watched his eyelids tremble. When he opened his eyes, his pupils were still a little dilated, as if he was still stuck in a nightmare and hadn't come back to his senses for a long time.
Because we were not sure whether those of us who were in the building when the incident happened had been contaminated in some way, and in order to prevent the impact of this "closed loop" from expanding, we did not contact too many people. We just made a phone call to ask the firefighters to drive the RV downstairs, and asked the guys in the convoy who did not come in to evacuate the residents of the community and provide unified resettlement and care.
There are so many complicated things to deal with, but there is no better way at this time. I can only say sorry to the broker's wife in my heart. I know that she has to worry about all the internal and external communications, and I believe she is already busy with this matter.
Fortunately, the car was equipped with a medical kit and other things, and the old man also brought some heart pills. It was mainly because he was overworked and too tense in the past two days, and the shock was too great for a while, and he almost didn't recover.
Seeing that I was right beside the bed, the old man curled up his fingers in confusion, as if his mind was frightened by something and he couldn't speak for a while.
I comforted him with a few words and told him not to worry, told him roughly our idea, and asked him in a low voice if he saw someone jumping off the building when he was resting on the fourth floor, and passed by him face to face.
As soon as the old man closed his eyes, tears welled up in his eyes.
I sighed in my heart, feeling somewhat guilty.
After all, he was an outsider. If he hadn't been involved this time, the old man would still be at home studying ancient architecture. Even if the Zhang family had something to ask for advice on weekdays, they probably wouldn't bring him into danger, so there would be no such trouble.
But the current situation is unusual. I am not sure whether the situation will deteriorate further or whether someone will go the same way as Lao Lin. I can only steel my heart and continue to ask:
"Did you see what that person looked like?"
The old man nodded with difficulty, then moved his fingers, motioning for me to hand him the paper and pen.
A line of words was scratched out on the paper, a little sad: "Am I paralyzed?"
I was stunned for a moment. I couldn't tell whether I wanted to laugh or not. I opened my mouth and laughed angrily: "What are you thinking about? You are so healthy, you just got stressed out. Have you ever seen an eagle catching a rabbit? When the rabbit is anxious, it will pretend to be dead."
The old man's face relaxed, and his shoulders immediately slumped. This time he was much more stable. He rustled on the paper again, wrote a sentence, and attached a sketch that was almost wrinkled and folded together because it was difficult to use the pen.
I took it and told him to rest in peace. The old man tried to write something, but he fell asleep due to his sleepiness. When I saw him fall asleep, I turned around and told Huo Bing not to follow me and just stay and take good care of him.
This is also a helpless move. Originally, I brought Huobing with me for Huang Yazi, but now the situation has changed. Huobing didn't go upstairs with us, and he is a backup human-shaped living map. It is not reasonable for me to let him get involved.
He didn't have any objection. When I asked him to take the trouble, he took it very seriously and promised me that he would do it.
I took the sketch that the old man had drawn for me, and went out to get some fresh air. I opened the paper and saw what was inside. I was a little surprised, and I stood up straight unconsciously.
That sentence is simple.
What he said was: "I simplified the map. The center is here. The wall is in the middle of the wall."
If it were in the past, I would be completely baffled when seeing this sentence and would definitely complain about the old man's riddle.
But what happened today left such a deep impression on me that I read it carefully twice and still understood its meaning.
To make it easier to understand, let’s start from when the old man fell into a coma.
After feeding the old man a quick-acting heart-saving pill, my friends and I went up to the fourth floor to check and found that the two guys I left with the old man were missing, and there were no signs of entanglement or struggle in the room.
In the thick dust in the room, there were only a few clear footprints left by us entering and leaving.
We went up to the rooftop again and found it was locked. A guy found a thin wire and opened the iron door at the entrance of the corridor for us. When we went upstairs, we were immediately shocked by the scene in front of us.
It may sound a little strange, but the rooftop was covered with large patches of dark brownish red, which looked like blood clots that had solidified and turned into scabs and pink.
The guys reacted in unison. They immediately sent a small team to go up and test it out, while the others dispersed to stand guard. They also left three people to guard behind us.
I noticed a faint cold light on the cuffs of the guy closest to me. I didn't know if he was wearing brass knuckles or something.
When I looked again, the damn Zhang Tianyi had run to the edge of the roof and was squatting in front of a flower pot looking at something.
I shook my head secretly, thinking that I couldn't count on this big brother. If a monster came at this time, it would be easy to twist my head. I retreated behind Xu You and Zhang Jia with confidence.
But Zhang Tianyi turned around and waved, calling the two reliable bodyguards away. Now the three of them squatted in a row and didn't move for a long time.
The worse the situation is, the more lively and out of tune I become. If I'm really in a life-and-death situation and too scared, I might even tell a joke.
Seeing them playing tricks, I couldn't help myself. No matter how nervous and worried I was, my curiosity overwhelmed me and I came closer to see what fun stuff was going on.
As a result, my face turned green when I saw it. There were flowers and green leaves in the flowerpot, nothing unusual. But on the edge of the flowerpot and on the ground, there was a series of deep and shallow bloody footprints.
The bloody footprints were almost the same size, but due to the different drying and coagulation of the blood, they showed different degrees of color.
I raised my foot and gestured in the air, and exclaimed in amazement: "How many steps has the same person taken?" This is what a ghost wall is like.
Before I finished speaking, the three of them looked at me, and the team leader asked strangely, "How do you know it's the same person?"
I was a little confused, thinking, what's going on? Isn't this obvious? The footprints are all the same.
If one person didn't see it, it was just a coincidence that he was thinking in the wrong direction. But isn't it a bit too much if all three of them were dumbfounded?
But seeing that they didn't look fake, I became a little suspicious and felt guilty for some reason.
If it’s not, then it’s not. Just tell me what it is.
I was getting so itchy that my ears perked up, and then I saw Zhang Tianyi waved his hand at me calmly and pointed two fingers in his sleeves.
I don't understand what this is. Two? Yeah? Rock-paper-scissors? Lingxi's finger-snapping magic?
No, I suddenly understood everything. I was shocked and thought to myself that this was asking me to put a chain around my mouth and seal it so that I couldn't speak.
The man became alert and looked around with his peripheral vision.
The strange thing is that there was nothing special except the guys on guard behind me. I secretly watched and confirmed that none of the guys were about to transform into little monsters. They were all safe and sound.
There is no problem behind me, and in front of me is the end of the rooftop with nothing but empty space.
What's the difference? I winked at Zhang Tian, who was still puzzled when I saw someone downstairs rushing out of the RV to get some fresh air.
He squatted at the door for less than two minutes before he went back to watch over the baby diligently. He looked up inadvertently and, probably because he saw us hidden among the flower pots, he seemed to be frightened by something and his eyes widened as if he was about to scream.
Even from this distance, I could still see how strange his expression was, and a thought suddenly occurred to me:
"You can see this clearly? Could it be that we are not far away?"
In a flash, my head felt dizzy, my vision was blurry, and I fell forward headfirst like a head-over-heels onion.
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