Made a Wish (Revised)
Except for some researchers, probably few people would put themselves in the shoes of babies and imagine what the world looks like from the perspective of babies before they even start to speak.
Regarding this aspect, I am also a layman with only a limited understanding.
But at least there is one thing I can be sure of. At this time, Xu Ranxing was only one month old. According to common sense, his vision should still be black and white, and his visual distance should be no more than 15 centimeters. He relied more on his sense of smell and hearing to perceive the world in front of him.
Babies at this stage have a blurred vision comparable to that of severe myopia. Their visual field is only 45 degrees, and they are unable to understand up and down, front and back, left and right.
Therefore, I really don’t know what the young me saw on that ordinary wet rag when I looked over, and what I could see clearly that led to such a drastic change.
When they looked at each other, perhaps because their muscles were tired and couldn't maintain the freeze state for too long, the two black eyes that were staring at him moved slightly, without synchronization, and there was a serious lack of coordination.
Even though I knew that this was me back then, and I knew that this was not a deformity but a normal physiological phenomenon for a newborn, the inexplicable and violent suffocation and coughing reaction at this time still caused a strange fear to sweep through my body in an instant, giving me a chill.
At the same time, my mother Zhang Can gently patted Xu Ranxing and me on the back to help us breathe smoothly. She suppressed all the reluctance and continued to try to explore. Her calmness was awe-inspiring.
I will skip the boring process here and just talk about the extremely subtle result:
Baby Xu Ranxing does not react to everything.
This is something very strange:
On the one hand, my brain was not yet fully developed when I was young, and I couldn’t even think systematically and complexly. I was more like a piece of flesh and blood that could breathe and eat, and I was completely stupid.
On the other hand, I was indifferent to sharp objects that were held close to me, and I did not show any stress of fear of injury, but I was particularly resistant to things that seemed extremely safe, such as wet rags, transparent canned water, and prepared warm milk powder, which induced pain such as suffocation, coughing, and suspected high temperature burns.
This is really illogical and there is no basic pattern to follow.
My mother Zhang Can and I couldn't help but ask ourselves: "What's the problem?"
In the confusion of the nightmare, I vaguely heard Zhang Tianyi's voice lingering in my ears, very vague, as if across the water. He asked me:
"What do you think a Blue Star Holy Child who can make his wishes come true without considering any external factors should be like?"
I was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously imagined a very bizarre picture.
If it were completely out of control, the world would be distorted by its radiation all the time.
When you are hungry, you want to eat; when you are thirsty, you want to drink; when you are sleepy, you want to sleep; and when you see overly bright colors, you will become curious or nervous.
So she did whatever she wanted, making everything around her edible and drinkable; she made the blood of all the bodies within her sight turn white and turn into breast milk; she made her father and mother who took care of her have arms and necks long enough to wrap around the entire house, so that they could coil around her like a snake, and she had distorted eyes that could stare at her without stopping.
At the same time, under this model, it seems possible that seeing flames would lead to fantasies of being burned, seeing water would lead to drowning, and being slightly pricked by a sharp object would cause large cuts and sores.
Then, because of the pain, just like a cat sometimes not understanding that its tail is part of itself, the Holy Child would simply and crudely wish that the painful and uncomfortable parts of its body would evaporate and disappear. So the complete □□ would be chopped off by an invisible force and shattered in an instant.
However, in this way, it only takes a few seconds or even a dozen seconds of distracted reverie for the Holy Infant and the people and things around him to quickly collapse and die due to distortion. Everything would be forced to come to an abrupt end.
"Yes," Zhang Tianyi sighed, "In the past, most of the Holy Infants did die tragically in this short-lived way, and serious distortion disasters occurred in the surrounding areas."
What about me?
Is the little power that the sentry box transmits to the past really enough to completely counteract the fierce pollution from the migrating rats? I always feel that good things are not that simple. I am unlucky and always have to walk on a tightrope. Can I be so lucky just once? I can't even believe it myself.
Moreover, from my experience, there is no warmth in ghost stories, and one must always be prepared and cautious with the utmost malice.
Even sentry booths, which provide protection, will constantly hint and induce the protected to unconsciously try to escape from the sentry booth and walk into danger. If you want to get the protection of the sentry booth, the first thing you have to fight is how to avoid being driven and misled by the sentry booth to actively seek death.
So, even if the booth is already playing its role, where is the pitfall this time?
My mind moved, and at this moment, through the narrow gray vision of the screen, I saw on my mother Zhang Can's face the last trace of fatigue and weakness after recovering from a serious illness.
A thought popped up in my mind, and I suddenly asked:
"Did my mother or fetus suffer from any serious illness during pregnancy?"
Zhang Tianyi was silent for a moment, and then he sighed: "Ranzi, what do you want to say?"
"--Maybe I was born with a congenital defect, or even a mentally retarded child for a long time." I said, and I also felt it was ridiculous. "Maybe I have to be mentally retarded to survive safely."
It sounds funny, but this explanation is not impossible.
Even the healthiest people should have experienced the weakness of a high fever. At that time, people are confused and have no extra thoughts. Although they are hungry and thirsty, it is difficult to get up to eat and drink water. All desires for survival are reduced to the lowest level. The brain is blank, and even nightmares have no content, only a black and hot nothingness.
If I had a similar experience during my freshman year, or even worse, then even if I had the power to make my wishes come true, I would only be able to stare blankly, degenerating from SpongeBob SquarePants to Patrick, becoming a fool with an empty mind who can't make a wish.
And because I was so weak when I was born, I didn't know what health was. It was impossible for me to wish to get better or gain wisdom. I would only regard this stupidity as the norm of life and it would continue forever, turning it into an eternal vicious circle.
Thinking of this, I suddenly felt a little funny. The terrifying power of wish fulfillment hit me like a piece of cotton, which was like hitting a steel plate. If the mouse knew, would it also be speechless?
However, a very bad intuition told me that something seemed to be wrong here, as if a disaster was about to happen.
I was sweating a little: "... Logically speaking, if I continue to be mentally retarded and have an attack, my parents should send me to the hospital for treatment and let me get better quickly, right?"
What's worse is that at about six months old, the baby's cognition of the world will make great progress. He can even accurately capture the scent of his mother among hundreds of smells. It is no exaggeration to say that he is a little superman with one subject in mind.
At that stage, even if I was still a fool, I was already a healthy fool with wild thoughts. The harm that could be done was simply unimaginable.
"Could it be that my luck has finally turned around, and the power to move the mouse has disappeared before this?"
I asked with hope, and Zhang Tianyi probably smiled, a little gloating.
He said something that made my eyes go dark, and then he smiled and said, "Unfortunately, before the doctors can bring me back to health, some kind of power should have come uninvited to cure my weakness."
"...Sentry box?" I was stunned for a moment, then my mind came to its senses.
Shit, that's when the sentry box came to protect me, right? So that's where the pit is.
I was probably a little angry and laughed, thinking what was this? Did I need this unlucky thing to make things worse at this time?
Once I put the whole situation together, I found it ridiculous.
In other words, if my inference is correct, the power of making your wishes come true cannot last too long. I, who was originally stupid, weak and without any thoughts, could rely on this stupidity to avoid the harm of the moving rat.
But when the power from the booth came, it first kept me alive, so that I could not die and survived the weakest stage.
Then, because the guard booth will instinctively use hints, inducements, misleading, intimidation, etc. to make the protected person flee from the booth, it will stimulate the protected person's inspiration so that the other party can find out the hidden crisis earlier, making people more aware of the nature of the ghost story.
In other words, it was kind enough to cure my brain damage.
It is sending me in all directions and thoughtfully to couple with the power of making my wishes come true so that I can die quickly.
So that's how it was. I actually felt relieved. No wonder in the ghost stories, the sentry box was the only one that looked so kind and benevolent. It just caught up with me. It turned out that it had been plotting against me with its cunning eyes, and it was the most ruthless one.
Protecting people is to send them to other ghost stories more quickly and accurately. This is its true face. How can it be so immoral?
Now I looked at the injuries of Pingping and me again. In the gray vision, the only thing I could see was the large burn marks, which were glaring dark red, floating on the skin like flowers that seemed to be about to fall off. It was the only color that our current physiological functions were not supposed to distinguish.
I should have recognized it immediately: it was the grotesque frostbite that had appeared on my body as a teenager and an adult during the heavy snows of the migration.
Only then did I come around and have a completely different understanding.
"…My fear at this moment in my stupidity may not come from myself, but from the fear of the moving rats in the guard post."
I said, remembering the instinctive scream of storm warning that the comb jellyfish had left me with: "I myself should not have any imagination or knowledge of many kinds of damage at this moment, but there are two kinds of damage that even a newborn baby may have experienced."
"Fever, and possibly choking and suffocation in the amniotic fluid." Zhang Tianyi understood and continued, "With only these two memories of illness, even an unborn fetus may be unconditionally induced."
I nodded. Perhaps the first things that the sentry box could reveal to me, a fool at the moment, were these two fears. That was why as soon as I regained a little thinking ability, I would get stressed when facing warm and moist objects, thus vaguely triggering the power of wish-fulfilling wishes and materializing the harm.
But because of my excessive stupidity, the actual damage was not that serious. As soon as it happened, I was severely injured and burned back into a fool, and I was cut off from the power of making my wishes come true.
Facing me at this time, the sentry booth was like facing a half-dead wifi number that was always out of power. It would tremble and finally connect to the network, but the circuit would burn out again. It always looked so annoying.
Because I don't have a brain, I can't imagine the specific details of fever and suffocation, so in my imagination, I probably borrowed more from the various weird rules of the post. It kept telling me the filthy rules, but I was at a loss and couldn't understand.
So by accident, these strange and fake scars finally appear.
My inherent stupidity and blindness, the pollution caused by the moving rats, and the ill intentions of the guard post have reached a fragile balance that is almost black humor.
And...my younger sister Xu Ping.
In this absurd tug-of-war, most of the power to make wishes come true should have flowed through me to Pingping.
It was her existence that consumed the last bit of Yishu's remaining strength, preventing Yishu's power from being overwhelming, and making me say goodbye to Yishu's gaze before I died six months later.
"It was my illness that allowed me to wish for Pingping from the power of the moving mouse, right?"
I said softly, and my heart suddenly felt empty and sank, I didn't know what it felt like.
The scenes in the dream began to rewind, and I saw that my newborn self had strange wounds all over her body. Because she could not die on duty, she struggled and cried loudly.
I had no place to ask, no place to think, and no way to understand "hurt".
My young parents also couldn’t understand my inexplicable injury. When they were drowsy at night, the young couple would talk to each other and occasionally let out heavy sighs.
The frequent visits to the hospital, the shocking and inexplicable injuries, the unpleasant smell of the medicine, my parents' concerns, questions and denials - all of them said that I shouldn't have been injured.
It was at that moment that the brief flash of wisdom bestowed upon me by the sentry booth allowed me to come to a miraculous conclusion in my occasional lucidity: I was fine, it was a baby who looked like me who was injured.
Just like when mom and dad are fixing their clothes in front of the mirror, when they touch the mirror, an identical person in the mirror will appear there.
At that moment, when I was looking at the mirror unconsciously, my younger sister Xu Ping was born.
She reflects all my perceptions of myself, whether right or wrong, and also diverts all the harm that should have been borne by me.
She is the one and only miracle in my life that promised me that my dream would come true.
All her weirdness and inhumanity at this moment was because I, a young child, had no such thing in my knowledge system, so what I "fabricated" was just an identical skin, but I didn't know that humans have organs, blood, nerves and pores.
Just as my mother Zhang Can said, it was actually me who was out of control and had problems.
"But Pingping grew up. She had her own personality and hobbies. She was no longer my mirror, but became my sister, a little girl. Later, she also had her own friends."
I said, feeling an incredible surge of emotion and shame, "Why?"
No one spoke in the dream. I stood there in a trance, looking down at my little hand, looking at Xu Ping at this moment, and fell into an unspeakable desolation.
After a while, I realized that I was not actually having a question-and-answer conversation with Zhang Tianyi or Sanyi. I was just sorting out the clues they told me in a drowsy nightmare and making my own assumptions and deducing the past.
"Tell me, please?" I whispered, tears falling uncontrollably, "Pingping, what is the turning point? What should I do to free you from my bondage?"
Who can come and save my Pingping as soon as possible, and let her get rid of this selfish parasitic monster like me? Who can come and kill Xu Ranxing?
The next moment, in the blur of tears, incredibly, I moved slightly and used that little hand to wipe away the tears that dripped onto my cheeks.
I continued to open my arms towards my mother Zhang Can, babbling persistently. The flesh and blood of this grotesque skin underwent incomprehensible changes in the floating dark red.
She is making a wish.
A lightning-like thought hit me unexpectedly, leaving me unable to move.
Amidst the tears of his family, Xu Ping made a wish for himself. It was a very simple wish, without any resentment or doubt.
She asked Yishu for a small, dark red floral skirt, which was almost exactly the same as the one my mother Zhang Can was wearing at the time.
Mother Zhang Can was completely stunned. After a while, she lowered her head and kissed Pingping's forehead again, with a little bitterness and tenderness, without fear, and just asked softly:
"Baby, how did you do it? Why can you be like mom?"
I laughed.
"…You like your mother, so you want to be like her, right?"
What a simple answer. Without the need for others to save her, Xu Ping chose another direction for her life that she liked.
Zhang Can's tears also flowed down, and he hugged this strange little alien tightly, "Silly child... my daughter."
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