Standard Parts
There is no doubt that the strange adult mummy found in the closet is Nian Huairen.
Although I had never met him before and this was the first time I saw his specific appearance, I confirmed his identity with just one glance.
Of course, there are many reasons. For example, although he is emaciated and unrecognizable, he still looks vaguely like my brother and the broker's wife.
For example, the vague outline I had remembered when I had a chance glimpse of it under the streetlight was quite consistent with this mummy; and there were many old fatal wounds on its body, and the distribution was exactly the same as in the nightmare.
Or rather, I can't find the slightest possibility that he could be anyone else.
—But this is where things get weird.
At this moment, Dongzai and I looked at each other in confusion. I can be sure that my instinctive certainty about his identity has nothing to do with the above reasons.
There was just an idea that inexplicably stamped itself in my mind, saying, look, remember, this is Nian Huairen.
It would be fine if I was the only one having this reaction. After all, I've just experienced great sorrow and great joy, and also experienced a close-range face-to-face explosion. The blood on my forehead has barely healed, and I may still be a little confused.
But the weird thing is that Dongzai, a serious little tabby cat, actually stared at me, looking very confused.
It was as if... as if something in the dark had forced Dongzai to introduce this lousy relative Nian Huairen to him, and the cat was completely confused.
Stop, stop, stop. What the hell is going on.
I was startled and thought, oh no, both the man and the cat have gone crazy.
He couldn't help but start to make a fuss, and said solemnly to Dongzai:
"It's over. There must be some corrosive neurotoxin in this thick fog. It will not only blow up the battery but also the brain. We are going to become idiots today."
Dongzai was stunned and looked at me. He obviously didn't understand, but he cooperated and meowed helplessly. The scene was quite humorous for a moment.
However, even though what I said was nonsense, the doubts in my heart were not false.
Although ordinary people may have hallucinations if they eat the wrong mushrooms, and some may even see Smurfs rowing in the living room, for us, a man and a cat, it felt like Nian Huairen's corpse was introducing itself, which still seemed a bit too outrageous.
It was so strange that the more I thought about it, the more puzzled I became. I leaned over to take a closer look, and in front of me was clearly an ordinary corpse. There was no lethality at all, and even the eye sockets were rotten, leaving only two dark holes, staring at me stiffly.
The throat of the mummy was basically empty, and was filled with a lot of rotten cotton wool that was tied outside.
I touched the back of my head and said, "Uh, my brother's father, how are you?"
As I said this, I covered my face and couldn't help but get goose bumps. It was a mixture of embarrassment, a bit of inexplicable horror and fun.
...What on earth am I doing? Am I expecting to have a conversation with this bastard?
As I was shaking my head, for some unknown reason my scalp suddenly felt numb and my body instinctively held its breath before I became conscious.
I felt something move slightly, and a voice came out of that pale hollow cavity and called me very clearly, saying faintly:
"Xiao Yi."
This sound rang right next to my ears, so strange and wicked that I instantly broke out in a sweat, my throat became hairy, and I jumped up and retreated directly to the door of the room, almost crawling on my back.
At this moment, Leng Yanhuo lost his grip and accidentally fell on the mummy's face. Then he fell diagonally into the huge gap in its throat, illuminating the face extremely clearly.
The dehydrated muscle fibers on it were dead white, without a single twitch, but suddenly there was another sinister sound:
"Xiao Yi, come here."
It's talking to me.
I felt cold all over, and the blood rushed to my head. What the hell is this damn thing? I yelled out reflexively:
"You got the wrong person!"
With this sound, before anyone could react, the cat next to it got its fur stood up, jumped back, and reflexively slapped the mummy in the face.
It is said that a cat's reaction is seven times that of a human. This happened so suddenly that I was stunned. I saw the shriveled face tilted and lost its support. It rolled out of the cotton pile with a click and fell to the ground.
In the flickering light of the cold flame, the head rolled to my feet. I felt a chill in my heart, and at this moment, I was holding back my anger. I said, "Strike first, and then you'll be strong." I gritted my teeth and stabbed it with the knife in my hand, nailing it to the ground, and clenched my fist to prevent it from suddenly jumping up.
But at this moment, I couldn't help but be stunned again in shock.
Because the weird thing is, I suddenly realized that this thing seemed to be just an ordinary dead object when facing my attack, without any counterattack or mutation at all.
And because the knife I used for self-defense was very sharp, half of the mummy's face was silently peeled off, and it fell to the ground with most of its chin, and its contents were scattered all over the floor in a mess.
At this time, I shone a cold light source at close range, reflecting the mirror-like blade of the knife, and the ground was covered with yellow and white. Things were going too smoothly, as if I was the one who was going crazy.
My mind is confused and I really don't understand what this is all about.
Am I going hysterical? Why does this mummy seem to be completely defenseless? It should bite if it moves.
At this time, Dongzai also came to his senses. He was stunned by his own heroic act and quickly shrank behind my legs.
What puzzled me even more was that this time the mummy was very quiet and did not make those terrifying cries again, as if he had to respond twice out of politeness just because I greeted him.
...Like he was still an ordinary living person?
I was startled by the thought that flashed through my mind, and tentatively called out, "Nian Huairen?"
The mummy's broken face remained motionless, but I could hear a faint sigh in my ears, as sinister as a ghost:
"...Xiao Yi, where are you? Come here."
I stood still, cold sweat running from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. Then I heard the sound suddenly repeated several times in rapid succession, becoming more rapid. Then the headless ball of rotten cotton wool on the ground began to move and crawled straight towards the corner.
Right at my feet, I watched the mummy crawl past me, rustling along the floor, all the way to the child's bed, and then crawl under the bed.
I may have stood there for a long time, and finally bent down stiffly to look at the half-dried corpse, my back completely soaked with cold sweat.
In the dim vision, it was actually lying on its back facing the bed, with its empty neck raised high, clinging to the bed like a headless snake, with only a little attachment left to the ground.
I found myself making a huge mistake. The one who often lay under the bed was not the young Sanyi, but this thing.
A picture emerged, it was late at night, Nian Huairen wandering around the house, trying to find Sanyi. But he seemed to be dead, and he didn't know that his movements were trapped on the floor. When he came to the child's bed, he couldn't climb onto the bed, so he squeezed straight under the bed and stared upwards.
One can imagine that when that shriveled face was pressed against the bed, just like what I just heard, Nian Huairen would whisper in the sleeping Sanyi's ear across the bed: "Xiaoyi... come here..."
This action must have been repeated countless nights.
No, that’s not right. Since when has Nian Huairen become a dead man? What changes have taken place in him?
If the mummy under the bed is Nian Huairen, then what was that person who just came out from behind the door and followed me in the thick fog? I saw those faces that looked like those of officials, and they must be Nian Huairen.
I felt dizzy, and that strange feeling came back, as if a voice was saying with absolute certainty, one, two, both are Nian Huairen. Nian Huairen is like this, don't deny it, don't doubt it.
——There is nothing wrong with “Nian Huairen”.
"Meow——?" Dongzai called out softly in confusion.
No, I was shocked and woke up with a start, and immediately burst out with a curse. It was too weird, what the hell was I thinking just now?
For a moment, I even felt that Nian Huairen was very "standard", without any flaws or deviations. If I were to doubt its authenticity or right or wrong, then the one who was wrong and had problems must be me.
What is this forced brainwashing?
I vaguely grasped a certain thread, and felt that if I didn't wake up, I would gradually sink deeper and deeper into the concept of "Nian Huairen", and perhaps I would slowly ignore its abnormalities, and instead believe that all its abnormalities were what Nian Huairen should have.
At that time, would I still think that what I saw was a dead corpse?
As soon as the thought came to my mind, I shivered several times in the cold night fog.
I seemed to understand a little bit, what was going on in Sanyi's eyes that year. But this answer was a little too shocking, and I couldn't believe it for a while.
Think about it carefully, I said to myself, think about it carefully from beginning to end.
First of all, the words engraved under the bed are very childish, definitely written by a child. This message must have a very important purpose.
What is strange is why Sanyi had to go under the bed and leave a message in this very risky place.
If Nian Huairen often peeked and called out from under the bed, what would I do if I were the young Sanyi?
The first reaction should be to escape from this monster. If you can, destroy it, which is what Sanyi has done before.
But at that time, it seemed that for some reason, he continued to get along with Nian Huairen, maintaining a kind of paradoxical balance and tranquility.
But the problem is that not long ago in the car, Sanyi's retelling of his childhood memories was almost unreserved, and this part of the information was not mentioned at all.
I believe that at this point, neither Sanyi nor Zhang Tianyi have any reason to hide anything from me, it must be that they themselves really don't remember.
...Just like the pseudo-people can never know that they are just the human skin clothes of the Prophet. Some cognition has been distorted and erased, including the file bag about the young man and the hunting plan in this room.
Similarly, when my mother Zhang Can saw the body in the snakeskin bag, she remained silent for the same reason about Nian Huairen's unusually tragic death, as if she was not dealing with a body but some ordinary debris.
Is it because... Nian Huairen is "normal"?
I murmured, instantly terrified.
Just at this moment, I heard another quick and confused cat's cry. I suddenly opened my eyes and found something extremely strange.
It turned out that I had crawled back under the bed without knowing when, and was holding the wrist of the mummy tightly in my hand, and supporting its broken neck, pressing it against the bed.
After a moment of trance, I looked outside and saw a long drag mark.
It was too crowded under the bed. I tried to move, but it was very difficult because there was the dried corpse of Nian Huairen next to me, and I was stuck and could hardly move.
The little fat cat was anxiously standing by the bed, rubbing my head and biting my hair. It seemed that it had no idea what I was doing and was in great confusion.
I was stunned and slowly asked Dongzai:
"Actually... this body hasn't moved, and hasn't said anything, right?"
Suddenly, a picture flashed through my mind. I was dragging the mummy with an expressionless face, crawling under the bed, pretending that it was moving on its own, ignoring Dongzai's stunned questions.
Further ahead, I stared at the mummy’s face, my mouth moved, and suddenly I pinched my throat, imitating the voice that I imagined Nian Huairen should have, and kept shouting:
"Xiao Yi, come here..."
I was the one who created all the abnormalities. I was pretending that Nian Huairen was still alive and trying my best to maintain Nian Huairen's "normality".
…It was as if he were coming back from the dead.
The boundary between life and death is indeed a one-way ticket. Once crossed, there is no possibility of resurrection. Nian Huairen's "immortality" is a huge misunderstanding.
He did die an ordinary death, but for some reason, all the people who witnessed his corpse seemed to have distorted cognition and began to spontaneously perform many actions to create the illusion of a "living" Nian Huairen.
At the age of seven, Sanyi was performing a ridiculous one-man show amidst the pollution. On one hand, he was trying his best to kill a corpse that could not resist, on the other hand, he was repeatedly creating traces, and he was horrified to "discover" that Nian Huairen was constantly resurrecting.
That's why he asked himself in such a despair: Why can't I kill Nian Huairen?
Going back further, in many late nights, Sanyi dragged Nian Huairen's body and stuffed him under his bed, just like me now, calling his own name in a very childish voice, thinking that he was still sleeping soundly in bed, having a nightmare that was playing on repeat by himself alone.
Perhaps at some point, he woke up briefly and saw himself lying with a broken corpse, and doubts began to arise in his mind.
So in the fleeting Qingming Festival like dew, I hurriedly carved a line of words on the top of my head with my fingernails, hoping that it would remind me to break free from the nightmare next time.
"...Two, one, me?"
I silently pondered, sighed deeply, and completed this vague question, "There are two bodies in the room, but only one living person? I am actually the only one taking action?"
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