Three-part contract, the man in the wall
In the suddenly quiet ward, Zhang Tianyi's words completely froze me.
His expression became strange, and he seemed to be resisting the recollection of the past.
Perhaps because of my understanding over the years, I can feel that he chose to tell this at this time because he must have discovered some particularly sad truth.
There was an unusually long pause of two or three seconds before I realized that I was shaking and almost slipping off the chair.
Someone immediately pressed my shoulders and told me to keep breathing. I saw stars and couldn't tell who it was. I just felt my chest beating violently and my hands and feet instantly went numb.
Because I immediately realized what he hadn't finished saying and realized something very scary.
In the past, Pingping's condition had been getting better and worse, until one morning, we could hardly detect her breathing.
In panic, Pingping took a long time to open her eyes, her lips were purple. She looked around at everyone in the family and seemed to have made a decision: "Send me to the hospital."
At that time I thought she was asking for help.
But if Zhang Tianyi's judgment is correct, it means that as a prey marked in advance by the sentry post, Pingping has actually been receiving mandatory protection from the rules at home.
This power to a certain extent blocked the death knell of the disease and kept her breathing alive.
I have personally experienced countless times what it means to leave the "post".
"...So, is there some unknown strange story that happened later, causing harm to Pingping?"
I said, the truth was so cruel, it made me feel unprecedentedly ridiculous and ironic, "We sent her away from this world with our own hands."
The sentry didn't have time to hunt her, and those lunatics didn't have time to touch her.
It's so funny. The truly terrifying moment was when we carried her out of the house in panic.
At that moment, across the vast distance of time, the power that the sentry box exerted on us in our childhood was so weak that it collapsed and disappeared in an instant.
From then on, all the times she struggled and slept in the hospital ward, we never took her home, and prayed to God in vain, not knowing that this would be her final death warrant.
Until today, more than ten years later, the post asked me to pay the price that had been advanced long ago, because I was formed, but I thought it was the beginning of a journey.
I suddenly thought of San Yi and his pure hatred for me. At this moment, I felt the same way.
A terrible thought popped up in my mind, and I asked me coldly: Who is Sanyi?
Who is that person who looks exactly like my brother Zhang Tianyi, who once showed kindness and protection to me, but suddenly changed his attitude and became so hateful that he wanted me dead?
I was sweating all over, and the huge doubts almost made me completely collapse.
And, "Why were Pingping and I the only ones chosen by the post? Brother, at the end of this story... why wasn't you there?"
Zhang Tianyi looked up at me, seeming relieved.
My heart stopped and I immediately felt a strong sense of foreboding.
I am very familiar with that expression. It is the relaxation when a person who has kept an unspeakable secret for a long time can finally entrust it to others.
What is he going to say to me?
In his opinion, is there anything that he would consider to be a good preparation for me to endure only after I have gone through so much?
Is there anything... more terrifying than the story just now?
"——Sanyi was my name before my mother brought me home. It was given to me by the scumbag who was determined to take my custody away, but after the divorce, he became an alcoholic and ignored me."
I was stunned, my mind buzzed, and I walked over and grabbed his collar hard.
Was it suspicion or fear without any reason, I didn't know. But Zhang Tianyi patted my shoulder, pressed hard on the back of my neck, and looked at me patiently. I couldn't get rid of his sight, but I knew my face must have been extremely pale.
"…That day, my mother said that she had never forgotten me for a single day and that she had finally won. From now on, I would just be her child. She asked me if I was willing to go home with her and meet another father. She asked me what name I wanted to change to. I thought about it for a long time and wondered if my stepfather and you would accept me.
So I chose a name for myself, called "Tianyi".
I admit that this name was largely meant to please my stepfather. I wanted my stepfather to know that I was not aggressive and would not hurt anyone. I just wanted to be a member of the family.
But my father is a good man. When he heard my name, his eyes turned red and he hugged me and started crying. I told him that I would protect Ranran and Pingping in the future. If they betrayed me, he would let me go back to that scumbag and bear the responsibilities and punishments that I had escaped from.
Zhang Tianyi said softly. I froze in place. I saw him smile as if he was immersed in some warm memories, and then he lowered his head and gestured:
"You and Pingping were still young at that time. Dad asked me to hug you. When I reached out my hands, I found they were so light. I was so scared that I started crying. I thought I had done something bad and didn't know how to explain it. Mom came running over from the balcony. She was watering the flowers when she spilled the water. She smiled as soon as she saw it and hugged us and Dad together."
I looked at him and he looked at me.
I slowly calmed down and asked in a low voice: "Which three? Which easy?"
"The Taoists say that immutability, changeability and simplicity are the three Yi. Lianshan, Guizang and Zhouyi are also the three Yi together. But this name is too big, I can't bear it, so when I decided on it, I chose a homonym, the three from Santongqi."
I took a deep breath and my forehead started throbbing.
The Book of the Same Origin is a classic from the Eastern Han Dynasty, which talks about alchemy and internal cultivation. In other words, it involves cauldrons, fire, techniques, and... medicine.
This is not a name that ordinary people would use to name their children. Whether it is Sanyi or Sanyi, it doesn't sound like a name, but more like a functional code.
"...I remember that you had a pretty good relationship with the master's wife. You worked well together from the beginning."
"yes."
"You can come and go freely in the Snow Mountain Town that the Zhang family has taken over for many years, and you seem to know the Mouse Palace very well."
"yes."
"You are very sensitive to drugs and have an extraordinary vigilance towards those crazy people. When you were young, you could tell whether Xu You was lost or not, and you seemed to have an innate knowledge of ghost stories."
I spoke in one breath, my speech speed getting faster and faster, and I felt a chill in my bones. "You even know Shilin very well, and you know the existence of fake people. You can gain the trust of Nian Ziqing in the hide-and-seek game, and Taizi, who is crazy, actually believes in you. Even when you were a child, you changed your name to sound exactly like "Tianyi"... You also have a responsibility to the miners, and you can get the secrets they left behind."
"——Who are you? Zhang Tianyi?"
He smiled. I've seen him smile many times, but this time it was different.
"My biological father's surname is Nian. According to seniority, he is Ms. Broker's cousin."
That's right.
I don’t know why, but when I got the answer, my first reaction was a feeling of exhaustion, which was no surprise.
So, after Pingping passed away that year, he exiled himself immediately, far away from home and our relatives, because at that time the guard post did not exist in the world, and he did not know the truth about Pingping's death.
Zhang Tianyi, who was still a teenager at that time, would intuitively believe that it was the fate of the Nian family, from which he had escaped, that brought disaster to his family.
He regarded himself as the executioner, and was also worried that he would continue to hurt the rest of his family, so he left his hometown and developed a demon in his heart, constantly looking for evidence that Pingping might have encountered strange stories.
This was his judgment on himself, and also because he had sworn to my father that he would protect me and Pingping. He thought he had failed in his duty, so he swore to fulfill his duty and accept the punishment of fate.
It was not until I was involved in the strange story that he gradually realized that there might be another answer, and he witnessed the specific rules of the booth from me.
It was precisely because of the painful experience that he had learned from the past that he would be critical of me from the very beginning, always making sure that I had not been contaminated and replaced by anything, that Xu Ranxing was still Xu Ranxing, and not some distorted product after being lost, nor a person in disguise who had been assimilated and manipulated by the prophet.
"So, who are you?"
I asked again, my tone almost aggressively. "Which one is my brother, Sanyi or you?"
"Until San Yi disappeared this time, you never let me make public our previous blood relationship. I originally thought that you were worried about the possible misunderstandings and grudges with the Zhang family. Now it seems... once the Zhang family knew about our connection, they would definitely investigate and find that there were two of my brothers active in this world at the same time, right?"
"After my brother went into self-exile, he changed his name and returned to Sanyi as promised, and he never came back. The only time I met him was in a hide-and-seek team.
He didn't accompany me through those strange stories, didn't know about the post, and had misunderstandings about the past, so he definitely wouldn't take the initiative to appear in front of me and recognize me."
"…So, which Zhang Tianyi are you?"
The red dots of snipers aimed at Zhang Tianyi disappeared one by one. The broker sighed, signaled all the guys in the dark to stop, and stood up.
"Xiao Ran, let me speak this time."
This elder whom I respect very much was called over by me at the last minute, and she was covered in dust. I had a fleeting thought that she might have just been busy with something.
Now she has given me the answer.
The broker went to the abandoned site of the hospital in Foghorn and brought back a lot of medical records and test records, as well as some very vague and crazy graffiti that seemed like a fool's dream.
Among them is a message about [getting lost].
The prophet of the mine showed me a piece of past events, in which Wang Yongfu told Wang Ping with greed and fear that the gutless miners in the mine appeared out of thin air. From his tone, he seemed to regard the gutless miners as some kind of strange mineral, just like living jade figures in stone.
Now I know that it is just a deformed organ transformed by the prophet, which appears intermittently as its function is functioning. Wang Yongfu's fantasy is just a misjudgment of life and death.
The broker mentioned this and added that the people behind Wang Yongfu's group of thieves were indeed looking for someone who could appear out of thin air. But Wang Yongfu was just an executor and had a big misunderstanding of the order.
Those crazy people are to be found, and they are actually the ones who are [lost].
I couldn't help but frown when I heard this: "The people in the Zhang family are all trying their best to avoid getting lost."
"Yes, but those people are just the opposite. They keep trying to disprove [the disappearance] because of fear and unwillingness to accept it."
As the broker said this, she asked the guy who came back with her to bring up a stack of dusty records.
She took out one of them and handed it to me. My pupils shrank when I saw that it was covered with black, old bloodstains.
Written on the record sheet in an almost insane handwriting was the following: "Who can prove that after a person gets lost, they will really go to another world, another fate?"
"If there is, there must be someone lost here from another world!"
"If someone can appear out of thin air in this world, why can't we control them, control this power, and choose to travel to the world and destiny we want? Kings, princes, generals, power and wealth, I can do whatever I want and escape all worldly sanctions without looking back!"
At the end of the note, there was a dense burst of laughter, as if the person writing it could not restrain the crazy joy and ambition and had to write it down. The handwriting, which had become almost unrecognizable, was twisted and scratched on the paper. There were a few large words covered in blood:
“This is the real wish come true!”
I stared at the record sheet and asked coldly, "Did he succeed?"
"No, just a clown."
The broker pointed at Zhang Tianyi and said, "So far, the only confirmed example is here. They don't know that they have missed the opportunity a long time ago."
My expression was blank for a moment, and then Zhang Tian opened the bottle of warm mineral water in his hand and handed it to me.
I took a sip and couldn't taste anything. My cheeks were still numb, so I forced a smile and asked him:
"So, that day you appeared in front of me with a lantern, pretending to be yourself in this world. The reason why you were able to sneak into the hide-and-seek game was because there was already another you in the hide-and-seek game. You just needed to take his place when he was not around, and be careful not to let others notice the difference."
"Every time you help someone, you leave in a hurry. Where do you go? Is it to reduce your presence so that no one can discover your true identity?"
Zhang Tianyi thought for a moment and said, "I have confessed this to you from the beginning. Because of the Prophet's interference, I have been ignored many times."
I shook my head and looked him in the eye: "You know that's not what I'm asking."
He laughed dumbly, "Inside the wall."
What?
"Like I said, I am the man in the wall."
“If the world and fate are compared to a room, the [lost] people are the ones who have touched the gradually weakening walls due to the pollution of ghost stories, causing them to accidentally walk into another room and not be able to find the door to return.”
As a member of the Nian family, Yishu was a natural alternative for sacrifice. He had discovered early on that members of the Nian family could easily get lost.
It's as if the migrating mice need wider pastures, and therefore throw them out without hesitation, as fish hooks that penetrate the barriers of the world, waiting for more prey to be anchored.
But unlike other lost people, Zhang Tianyi came to our house and witnessed the moment when Pingping and I were marked by the booth rules.
Just when my parents were staying up all night, wary of those lunatics coming again, the [missing] Zhang Tianyi appeared outside our door.
The footsteps of those who had been here and then left hesitantly and hurriedly were caused by the strange child sitting at the entrance of the corridor with a terrifying blue-black iron mask on his face.
Zhang Tianyi, he was indeed not a prey marked by the rules of the sentry box, because he became a guard just like my parents.
In the sentry box, the guards would drive away dangerous vagrants for the owners. Even those crazy people could not disobey the iron law of the rules.
Zhang Tianyi, who should have been constantly driven away by the moving rats and fate, and kept wandering and getting lost, was captured by the future post and was forced to be involved here, unable to leave completely.
He was often pushed into darkness by the power of the moving rat, but in the suffocation and emptiness, the sentry box still pulled him tightly, so that the farthest he could be expelled was into the gap between the two worlds, and as time passed, he was dragged back to this world little by little.
From then on, Zhang Tianyi became a person trapped in the "wall" for a long time.
Sanyi had met him and had a brief conversation with him, and sometimes allowed him to enter his home and use his identity.
Zhang Tianyi did not hide anything from him and told him that in his original destiny, he had not had the chance to wait for his mother, but was pushed into the amniotic fluid of the underground palace by that scumbag, hoping that he could create a being similar to "Nian Ziqing" in this way.
"As a guard, I must protect you and Pingping according to the rules. You are the cornerstone of my identity. Because of your existence, this contract of asylum has been maintained, allowing me to return from the wall."
"To some extent, I am no different from a fake person. I am just a ghost controlled by the sentry box and the moving mouse. Therefore, I can stand aside and watch other strange stories, and almost avoid their distortion and contamination to the greatest extent. It is also because of this that once I intervene, especially when it comes to you, I will be expelled and return to the wall very quickly."
I felt like I was falling into an icy cave. "But you designed to get rid of Mizo and let the prophet eat all the fake people... Sanyi is also missing. Did you kill him?"
The tenderness and warmth he had just recalled were not his experiences at all; they belonged to Sanyi.
After that day, he began to share the same identity from time to time and became Pingping's and my brother.
The person in front of me has accompanied me all the way. He is completely immersed in the identity of "Zhang Tianyi" and even bears all the emotions, pain and self-torture that belong to Zhang Tianyi.
I thought it was a long-awaited reunion, but it turned out that I had mistaken you from the very beginning.
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