Ning Que stretched out his hand and pushed the door open. The door slowly moved inward. A bear-like man stood at the door and looked at her. A deep voice shook out from his chest, "Come in!"
The air was filled with a pleasant fragrance. A large bamboo mat was spread on the wooden floor, and in the middle was a small table with some peanuts, melon seeds and other snacks on it, nothing else.
The door facing Ning Que was gently ajar. Standing before it was an elderly man leaning on a cane. His messy gray hair covered most of his face, revealing only thick lips. He was hunched over, dressed in a dark blue gown. The cuffs and hem were embroidered with a strange pattern of long and short straight lines, creating a furry, almost hairy look that reminded one of a furry mammal.
But the exposed skin was indeed radiant and smooth, unlike the wrinkled skin of an elderly person that looked like it was wrapped in fat earthworms. The most obvious thing was a mole on his neck, covered with wild hair that grew like weeds.
His voice was as rough as a stuck tape, and carried a sense of vicissitudes of life. "What's the matter?"
Ning Que looked at the two little boys and the white-collar man standing nearby and was stunned. She silently took a step back, carefully examined the rusted house number, and muttered, "That's right!"
Then he stepped into the room and asked, "Who is the dog head? Li Nana's money..."
Before Ning Que could finish his words, the man with the cane nodded slightly, "It's me, come in and talk!"
The six people sat down around a small table. Dazhi and Xiaozhi kept staring at Ning Que's wrist, which made Uncle Wu next to them tap their hands before they turned their eyes away.
No one spoke, and the place seemed to become a sealed space, the silence like an ant slowly gnawing at Dazhi and Xiaozhi's hearts. Although they had been separated and put in solitary confinement by their uncle before for various mistakes, this was the first time all six of them had been put in solitary confinement together.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, no one knows how much time has passed. It seems that time has turned into sand and flows through everyone's fingers, and nothing can be caught.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to have aged a lot. Ning Que's hair had turned gray, and his face was slowly covered with wrinkles. He seemed to have turned into a dry and rugged tree.
Dazhi, Xiaozhi, as well as the fourth uncle and the fifth uncle have aged visibly. The flesh on their faces has gradually become thinner and thinner, and finally stuck to the skin. Their eyeballs, covered with red and turbid bloodshot, are embedded in their faces. If you don't know them, you would think they have just crawled out of a grave.
Finally, only a few crisp cracking sounds were heard. Ning Que slowly turned around and saw that the four people had turned into four piles of yellow earth with a few bones sticking out.
Ning Que touched her loose skin, which she could stretch out like a small pancake. Suddenly, she smiled, revealing a few shaky teeth. "Bounce, bounce, bounce away the crow's feet!"
Although she was old, Ning Que felt very peaceful in her heart for some reason, just like a baby in the womb. She could clearly feel that this power had no ill will towards her.
Suddenly, Ning Que seemed to hear a muffled laugh coming from the chest of the man called Dog Head. It was obviously not his own sound. She rolled her eyes and said, "What's so funny? Come on, give me the money!"
The man snapped his fingers, and Ning Que returned to his original appearance, and the four piles of grave-like things disappeared.
He pulled up his hair in front of Ning Que. His whole face looked like it had been soaked in sulfuric acid, with pits all over it. The pink flesh inside seemed to be alive, swaying in the wind. However, his square face and Crayon Shin-chan-like eyebrows stood out particularly on this face.
Ning Que looked at this face, and the more he looked at it, the more familiar it seemed. He felt as if he had seen it somewhere before.
He maintained this posture, looking at Ning Que with a thoughtful expression.
"You, you, are the founder of that research institute!" Ning Que went over the events of the past few days in his head like turning the pages of a book, and finally remembered.
He smiled, revealing his exceptionally white teeth that were as neatly arranged as corn kernels, but his voice was still hoarse. "I am, my name is Yuan Quan."
"Aren't you a dog head?" Ning Que asked curiously.
Suddenly, a muffled laugh came from his chest again, "You're quite interesting, the dog head is me!"
Yuan Quan suddenly unbuttoned his jacket, but saw Ning Que staring at his chest intently. He suddenly said, "Why don't you move away?"
Ning Que watched him stop, somewhat puzzled, and urged him, "Hurry up and untie it! I see a man shirtless, what's the problem?"
He laughed again in his chest, and kept saying, "Interesting, interesting."
Ning Que noticed that he was moving slowly, so he helped him unbutton his shirt. As he did so, he said, "That's because your vision is too narrow. There are so many interesting things out there."
Suddenly, there was silence from inside. There was no response as Ning Que had imagined. She knew she had said something wrong and didn't know how to fix it, so she could only squeeze out a dry response, "You're quite interesting too. I'll take you out to play someday."
After a moment of silence, someone muttered, "Okay, I'll keep my word. A gentleman's word is as good as gold."
Yuan Quan finally unbuttoned her gown, revealing a dog's face underneath, like a relief sculpture on the right side of a person's chest. It had eyes, a mouth, and everything else, with ears sticking out, as if a dog's head had been cut off from the front, then slightly etched onto a person's body before being sewn back on.
Yuan Quan pointed at it and said, "This is the dog's head. Then listen to our story!"
I had just graduated that year, full of ambition and ambition, eager to achieve great things in my beloved field of biology. I stayed at the university's graduate school, working on research projects with my senior and a younger student who was also studying there. Time passed slowly, running experiments and writing reports.
Suddenly that afternoon, my advisor was so excited that he gave each of us a 2,000 yuan red envelope and gave us half a day off. Hahaha, considering how stingy my advisor is, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Finally, I learned from my senior that the project we were working on had been acquired by a multinational company, and they offered a large sum of money.
After a while, the tutor brought a leader over, took a tour around our laboratory, and asked us many questions.
Six months later, after we finished our current project, the same person came back and offered to provide us with a space, a monthly salary, and, most importantly, unlimited funding. Our advisor stood by, nodding approvingly.
The three of us began a routine of going back and forth between the lab, the company, and the classroom. Although it was busy and tiring, it was very fulfilling. I can say that that period was the happiest time of my university life to this day.
After graduation, I unsurprisingly chose to stay in the company. When the three of us moved into the apartment arranged by the company with our packed luggage, we were told that our ID cards and other documents we had submitted had been withheld.
Ning Que looked at the still yawning dog head and asked, "Then come back and call the police immediately!"
Yuan Quan smiled bitterly, the muscles on her face squeezed together like a flesh-colored sponge, making her look even more hideous. "How can it be so easy? Our freedom of life has been restricted since that day, and we can't leave at all."
He narrowed his eyes again and fell into deep thought.
"From that day on, we couldn't go out anywhere, and even our phone calls were monitored. We were not allowed to communicate in any way except with our family.
In our research project, which involved combining human and animal genes, we were already conducting research for less than a week when batches of people were being sent in. How should I put it? It was like transporting batches of pigs to a slaughterhouse.
The leader told us, "We must make achievements that will attract worldwide attention. What can truly benefit mankind is a groundbreaking invention..."
He spoke at length, his face flushed and his emotions surging, as if we were destined to become the saviors of humanity. At the time, I was completely captivated by the grand vision he described, so I signed a letter of commitment, and my two fellow practitioners also signed. His words seemed to have a magical power, and looking back now, it feels like a dream.
At this time, the dog head yawned, and saliva dripped from its open tongue, soaking his clothes. "You have said this a hundred or eighty times."
Yuan Quan frowned and asked, "Didn't I say it at the same time? How come it's the hundred or eighty times?"
The dog-head frowned slightly, as if thinking about something. "But I feel like you've said it several times, and I've heard it several times."
Yuan Quan touched the dog's head and quickened the pace of her storytelling, "Anyway, during that period, when scientific research results on animals were almost complete and there were no adverse rejection reactions, we would conduct experiments on humans.
You must be asking me why. Because they forced us to either experiment on these subjects or choose to let our families die. Human nature is like that, and you're not surprised by my choice.
Ning Que remained silent. After all, if she were put in any situation, she would definitely choose her family members with whom she had a closer relationship.
"We were in the lab like workers in a coal mine, and a month before I escaped, they brought in children between the ages of five and 15, both boys and girls.
The most special one is this child. I heard he had done basic drug resistance experiments in other laboratories and came here to see if we could conduct deeper genetic research."
Ning Que asked, "So you took action?"
He smiled bitterly, "Of course. But you should have seen the senior brother who came here to study. His ears are super big. We all say his ears are wind ears, but he insists that his ears are money ears. It's very interesting.
He secretly approached my senior brother and me to plot our escape. He said he had found a test subject of similar size to us, and that after setting the fire, we would sneak out. The three of us agreed, but I never expected anything later.
I remember that day clearly: it was 8:00 PM on September 1st. At that moment, the entire institute erupted in crackling explosions. To increase our chances of escape, we released all the subjects. Nearly half of the security personnel had gone home on holiday on the 1st. I was confident we could escape during this chaotic period, especially since some of the subjects were, in some ways, no longer ordinary people.
Ning Que had a bad feeling when he heard this, "What happened in the end?"
He suddenly twitched the corners of his mouth, and big tears slid down his face, wetting the dog hair on his right chest.
Doghead continued, "Then that night I found him and his big-eared senior brother. I had just hidden him and was about to bring him over when I noticed the security guards were already there. He slipped a jade pendant into my hand and told me to go to a Gouhu Village, somewhere on the Yu-Gui Plateau or something. I definitely can't tell you the details."
Ning Que nodded in understanding.
The dog-headed man continued, "On the way there, I died. When I woke up again, I found myself growing on his body."
Doghead had Yuan Quan take out a card and handed it to Ning Que. "Since Li Nana wants money from me, it means she must have met with misfortune. The password is written on the back. That child has a miserable life, having such parents. His father is from this place. I've even seen that child before."
Ning Que took the bank card without hesitation and saw a piece of paper stuck to the back with a string of numbers written on it. "I'm telling you, I don't even know anyone named Li Nana."
Yuan Quan laughed again, and Ning Que discovered that he actually liked to laugh. He said, "If you were telling a lie, you wouldn't be standing here talking to me right now. Goodbye, I won't see you off."
The surroundings returned to their original state, and the four people were lying on the ground, sleeping.
Ning Que thought about the ending and pointed at his clothes. "Oh, by the way, there's a hospital built above that research institute, and the director is your senior brother."
Yuan Quan nodded to indicate that she understood.
Ning Que skipped out, leaving behind a sentence, "I'm his daughter-in-law, did you know that?"
Yuan Quan was left with his eyes wide open. After a long while, he seemed to remember something. When he went out, Ning Que had already left the village.
"Oh, it seems I have to go back." Yuan Quan said softly.
The whole village was as quiet as a coffin buried in the ground, sleeping soundly, leaving only Yuan Quan's lonely back.
Finally, Ning Que took his bank card and walked step by step to the correct place where he parked his electric bike, and found a small electric scooter parked on the side of the road.
Gone.
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