reed
There was no exaggeration in Yan Mo's words.
The next picture he sent me was a picture of the morgues being opened one by one, and not a single one was empty.
Around the platform where Huang Yazi's body was lying, there were corpses piled one after another, shoulder to shoulder, leaving almost no place to stand.
The guys in charge of carrying the things were blocked at the door and had no idea where to start. They could only wait with their necks stiffened for Yan Mo and the round-faced nurse to come out first. Each of them had a deathly white body bag on their shoulders, like some dark waiters from the underworld.
This extremely miserable and almost comical scene actually made me laugh, and then the dizziness in my brain slowly came over me.
"Can the identities of the deceased be determined?" I asked softly. Most of the bodies were unrecognizable, not as easy to identify as Huang Yazi's, but generally speaking, most of them were injured by falls and dragging, and their appearance was horrible.
"We have connected to the local system and started screening." Yan Mo said calmly, "I'll ask the guys to prioritize comparison and investigation to see if the deceased overlaps with the residents of the community evacuated today. Give me half an hour."
I nodded, took a deep breath, and tried to keep thinking: "No matter what, since there is the example of Huang Yazi, we have to consider a situation: the inversion anomaly that we originally thought only occurred in this community may be taken out; and it can still be triggered after the transfer."
Honestly, this is a pretty bad demonstration.
If the "death reversal" only occurred in this community, then perhaps it could be explained as a problem with this special land, a distortion caused by some kind of solidified environment. Then for the Zhang family, they could completely regard this place as a strange radiation zone, block it off and prevent ordinary people from approaching, and the subsequent harm could be cut off.
But if this abnormal rule can move out and get closer to some kind of contaminated lesion, and even has a long incubation period without any abnormality, it can be called a small natural disaster, and current human resources are helpless against it.
I was a little anxious. My personal strength and so-called wisdom were too insignificant in the face of the possible death disaster. Think about it, think about it, is there anything else I can do to help? I don't believe that Huang Yazi asked me to come here just to let me watch everything in vain.
Map, I said to myself, calm down, the map is the key. According to Sanyi's meaning, from now on I can understand that confusing map.
The sound of wind on the rooftop gradually picked up. I took out the map restored by the old man from my arms and unfolded the sketch he had simplified for me.
As mentioned before, the map left by Huang Yazi describes a strange complex of old buildings.
Most of the densely packed walls are incomplete, forming a shape resembling the ancient Roman Colosseum. The walls are stepped down layer by layer, like a solid vortex twisted into a knot by a huge force.
The simplified sketch the old man gave me before he fell asleep again was also a vortex. The messy black lines formed circles of ripples that spread outward, and the vertical lines representing the wall were scattered on the ripples without any pattern at all.
No matter how you compare them, you can't see any similarities between the old site of the Waterless Land and this community.
"You can't tell from this perspective."
Sanyi said, I vaguely felt that the incident in the morgue brought more than just a shock to me, and his mood seemed to be much heavier as well.
He looked at the sky. It got dark very quickly at this time of year. It seemed to take only a moment from dusk to night. The street lights in the dim community began to light up one by one. "Xu Ranxing, look across the street. Can you see a room with light?"
I looked towards the floors ahead and was surprised to find that the lights were on in the windows of many floors.
But the light was very dim, not even as bright as the night lights that children use at bedside to wake up at night, and was completely blocked by natural light during the day.
Moreover, it was not just the building right in front of me. I looked around and immediately realized that the building we were in was actually the only one that was dark and out of place.
At this moment, I was surrounded by the dim light of stars, and the reminder left by the old man on the sketch came into my sight again, "The center is here, and the wall is in the middle of the wall." My brain buzzed, and I finally understood.
Just as the old man suddenly realized, what he reminded us of was exactly what it said. Building 9 where we were was the center, and the surrounding high-rise buildings were surrounding it, forming a solidified, dead, dark vortex.
The strange wall group drawn on the map is not built on the undulating valley, but is embedded in many high-rise buildings. It is the part with lights on in the dark night.
Once I understood the logic of the map, many things became clear. I quickly compared the layout of the community with the map one by one, and said excitedly:
"So that's how it is. The map left by Huang Yazi omitted all other irrelevant rooms and walls, leaving only the wall in each room that casts light. This is a bird's-eye view from a God's perspective."
I thought of Picasso's "The Bull", which was revised eleven times, from a realistic body to a bunch of simple lines, and finally only the necessary lines that made the bull a bull were kept, and the rest were discarded. If you only look at the final picture, most people would not understand what it means and would not understand what kind of painting art this is.
In Huang Yazi's vision, the entire community is a deconstructed bull, with all redundant details removed, leaving only the most core logo and original beauty.
I was wrong. This map is not that difficult to understand at all. Even a master like the old man who is obsessed with architecture and painting can see it clearly. If someone with a straightforward and simple mind like a child, he or she can probably solve the mystery quickly.
As for me, I was too conceited in my subconscious mind, and my cleverness backfired. I left the only two candidates who could interpret the map, the Old Man and Huobie, to sit on the bench in the RV downstairs.
"Brother, how did you find out?"
After hearing my question, Sanyi did not hide anything and pointed to the ground, "Do you remember that when we were coming here just now, you checked the lights in the room and couldn't turn them on."
I realized, "So, the power was not cut off?"
"No, I checked and found that the filaments in the light bulbs were damaged by someone. The method was very clever. You can't find it unless you touch the filaments yourself."
I got it, I exhaled, "Who do you think did this?"
"It could be Old Lin, or it could be Huang Yazi's trick." Sanyi said without hesitation, "After I discovered the problem with the light, I have been wondering why. The conclusion I can draw temporarily is that the light may have a special meaning and should be avoided as much as possible."
"Until just now," he paused for a moment before saying, "when Ding Jiu jumped down."
According to Sanyi, he was much more sensitive to changes in light brightness than ordinary people. At the moment Ding Jiu fell from the building, he noticed that behind Ding Jiu, there seemed to be a faint light flickering in the room on the opposite floor.
It was a very bizarre change in light, as if something had passed through the illuminated object in an instant, leaving an incomprehensible shape in the obstruction for a short period of time.
"I had a chance to stop Ding Jiu." San Yi said calmly, "But I was looking at the light and it didn't move."
"I know," I said, feeling a little sad, knowing that he was not indifferent, nor was he making excuses. A person who doesn't care about the life and death of others will not hold a grudge against him, and will not silently help me find the bloody footprints and find out the cause of Ding Jiu's death.
Even though we had been apart for many years and had become estranged from each other, at this moment I seemed to have found that familiar brother again, and felt that he had many things that he could not tell me.
Now is not the time to have a heart-to-heart talk, so I patted him on the shoulder and put away my complicated feelings.
At this moment, the sky was getting darker and darker. The guys on the rooftop could clearly see the walls marked by lights. Xu You and I discussed it and decided not to leave the shelter of Building 9 for the time being. I asked him if there was any way to observe the lit rooms.
Fortunately, the Zhang family is always well prepared when they go out to do business. Before I finished speaking, I saw most of the guys lowered their heads and actually took out hooks and nooses from their pockets.
I looked strange, and asked the guys to send a group of people to escort the old man and Huohe from the RV. Now the situation has changed, and it is safer in Building 9.
At the same time, Fang Ao volunteered and threw the hook very skillfully. The heavy hook with a metallic luster flew out with a bang and smashed a tinted glass window opposite.
I had completely forgotten that I was still being held hostage by Sanyi, and subconsciously nudged Zhang Jia, who had approached me without my knowledge, with my elbow, "Are you planning to demolish people's houses from a distance?"
Zhang Jia was startled and glared at me, "Ancestor! I'm taking this opportunity to rescue you!"
I said, yes, yes, don’t worry about these little things. The hook can break glass, but can it tear down a wall?
"Yes, but it's tiring." Zhang Jia was speechless, "But Fang Ao's grandson chose a load-bearing wall."
We looked at each other in bewilderment, and finally Xu You waved his hand with a wicked heart and said that there was no need to worry about it and that we should quickly tear down a hole about one-fourth of the size, which would be enough for us to see the situation inside the house clearly.
We can't demolish other houses. This is the room with the most lights on, so there's no need to worry.
They worked right away. The guys with grappling hooks started working, swinging them in the air like meteor hammers.
After silently chanting "Hammer Eighty" for about ten minutes, the fight and the still sleeping old man were successfully handled, fortunately nothing went wrong; a large hole that was trimmed quite neatly appeared on the opposite side, and several very dangerous cracks were spreading upstairs and downstairs.
"Who will compensate if the building collapses?" Someone couldn't help but ask in a low voice. We all started coughing and pretended not to hear. We tacitly avoided this topic that could bankrupt us.
Without the obstruction, the light in the room became more obvious. We were not blind, so we looked over together and saw the room clearly.
Unexpectedly, no, nothing.
Normal home furnishings and normal cleanliness. There is no excessive dust in the rooms of Building 9, and there are no ominous flower pots or ornaments.
There was indeed a light on the ceiling, but the room was clearly visible and there was nothing hanging, so there was no reason for the light to flicker.
After all, it was a light bulb connected to electricity, not an ancient candle, so it should not be blown by the wind.
"Wait a little longer?" I asked. Zhang Jia handed me a biscuit to fill my stomach. I hadn't eaten anything before and was indeed hungry again. I broke the biscuit into pieces and nibbled on it, and at the same time broke off a little bit to give to the dozing child in my arms.
This little fat cat was shocked when the bodies of the two young lovers were found, and it has been hiding deep in my clothes and refused to move. I didn't want it to face such a cruel scene, so I covered it in my coat. To be honest, a series of events happened so quickly that I forgot about its existence.
I unbuttoned my coat and poked the sleepy cat. Dongzi opened his eyes dazedly and whimpered in grievance. After eating some biscuit crumbs, I stuffed the cat to Zhang Jia. Dongzi gradually woke up, looked around in confusion, and his ears stood up, looking at the opposite side in confusion.
As if it didn't understand what it saw, the little fat cat looked at me again and made a short cry for help.
...So, it also felt that there was something in the light.
I looked at the room with the "door wide open" again. The light was dim and it was very hard on the eyes. I blinked to avoid tears from looking at it for too long. Maybe it was psychological factors. The next second, it seemed that there was an extremely faint shadow floating in my peripheral vision.
I stood still, sweat slowly forming on my back.
If I'm not mistaken, it seems to be a real shadow, a shadow with its body reversed and misplaced.
It was as if... it was as if... in the past or in the future, there was a man hanged in the light, his long and twisted body swaying slowly in the light, and his shadow was projected onto the wall behind, making people outside the house inadvertently attracted by the light that was flickering between light and dark.
But the body was gone.
In the empty room, even the body of the deceased had disappeared, but his remaining shadow still existed, trapped in the dim light of the night and on the wall.
I had never seen that very strange body shape before. It was a person who had just been found in the morgue.
Even though it was just an outline, and even though the facial features of most of the dead in the morgue could not be identified, as long as one saw this shadow slowly crawling across the wall, one could get the answer with absolute certainty.
Because it is hanging upside down, twisted, and stretched out, and due to the collapse and cracking of the chest and abdomen, it shows a certain hollowness, like a strangely shaped slender reed.
The evening breeze blew by again, and it fluttered lightly.
My whole body stiffened and I took a step back, watching as the dots of light that filled the neighborhood suddenly began to shake. Shadows fell through the rigid windows one by one, accompanied by an illusory creaking sound.
Everyone suddenly fell into silence. The sound of the wind became extremely long. The hot evening breeze turned this dead area into an endless reed marsh. Human-shaped reeds swayed, tightly holding on to the flickering lights.
Above the sky, equally dim stars slowly emerged in the night.
Night has arrived, and the flickering lights above and below, the zenith and the ground, celestial bodies and man-made objects, intersect and merge, and finally become indistinguishable. The universe flickers indifferently.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
