Chapter 1
When Jiang Qi returned to the room, the last segment on the white screen had come to an end.
Jiang Wanwan was already crying as she wiped her tears with a handful of tissues, dubbing a silent movie with her sobs. Jiang Qi's return did not alarm her, and when Qin Can moved aside to let Jiang Qi pass, Jiang Qi noticed that there were also two tear marks on Qin Can's face, and the tears had smudged his eyeliner, which was particularly obvious when viewed from a close distance.
Sure enough, there are only a few people like Jiang Wanwan who have particularly developed tear glands and a very low tear point. They have been crying since childhood and are used to crying. They can cry at any time without any scruples.
It is normal for Qin Can to cry silently.
The screening ended and the room returned to darkness.
"Wow, it's so tragic, everyone is so miserable." Jiang Wanwan sobbed, "Brother, you are so miserable, you finally ran back but died so young, wuwuwuwu."
Jiang Qi: ...
Jiang Qi, who didn't watch his own plot, expressed mixed emotions.
Gao Qin agreed with Jiang Wanwan's crying and wiped away the tears from her eyes with her fingertips: "It's so tragic. It feels like everyone has had a hard time."
Liu Chang stretched his body in his original position, twisted his neck to stretch his muscles, and stood up as if to leave: "The plot is too tragic. Only one of the six people has a happy ending. What was the screenwriter thinking?"
Gao Qin was puzzled when she saw her boyfriend getting up to leave: "What are you going to do?"
"Hasn't the movie finished yet? Let's go back." Liu Chang was also a little puzzled.
Gao Qin: "…We are playing a script-killing game, and the script hasn't even been sent out yet, why are you going back? Go back!"
Liu Chang seemed to be in another world: "Ah, oh yes..."
Just then, the door opened.
Liu Lan walked in expressionlessly, holding a booklet he had found from somewhere.
Liu Lan did not turn on the lights. All the light in the room came from the faint light at the door. With half of his body illuminated by the light, Liu Lan was undoubtedly the most dazzling person in the whole room.
"Jiang Erzhu, Chen Wan, Su Qinghe, Liu Xueting, Wang Erya, Chu Ting." Liu Lan glanced at everyone and confirmed that everything was correct. He nodded, "Welcome to the Time Cinema. I'm Xiao Liu, a staff member here."
Without giving people a chance to ask questions, Liu Lan continued, "Wang Erya was from Xiahe Village. She was born in 1896 and died in 1912 at the age of 16."
"Jiang Erzhu was from Huaimin Village. He was born in 1927 and died in 1967 at the age of 40."
"Su Qinghe, from Xingcheng. Born in 1919, died in 2009 at the age of 90."
"Chu Ting, a native of Chen County, was born in 1917 and died in 1942 at the age of 25."
"Liu Xueting, a native of Feng County, was born in 1911 and died in 1935 at the age of 24."
"Chen Wan, from Yaogou Village, was born in 1910 and died in 1992 at the age of 82."
"Although the past is all in the past, if you want to be reborn, you still have to remember the past, so." Liu Lan paused and did not continue speaking. He turned the light to the dimmest level and distributed everyone's book to everyone.
Jiang Qi took the book from Jiang Erzhu and counted the pages first. It was very short, only 4 pages.
The same is true for the others. Liu Chang's Su Qinghe has slightly more pages, 6 pages. After all, he lived longer and was the only one of the six characters who lived into the 21st century.
Jiang Qi began to read his script.
Jiang Erzhu's experience was much more difficult than Wang Erya's. He was drafted into the army when he was a teenager and was thousands of miles away from home. Later, the army was disbanded. Jiang Erzhu chose to go home between staying in a foreign land to make a living and returning home penniless.
Because he had no money, Jiang Erzhu could not afford a ticket and had to walk. It took Jiang Erzhu two years to walk more than a thousand kilometers, and he survived by begging, stealing, and doing odd jobs along the way. During the two years, he almost starved to death, froze to death, was caught stealing and almost beaten to death, met kind people, and was robbed of his food by other beggars.
After Jiang Erzhu returned to his hometown with untold hardships, he found that his original village was destroyed in the war. With no hope, Jiang Erzhu stayed in the town to beg for food and lived from day to day in a daze.
Fortunately, when Jiang Erzhu was begging on the street one day, he actually saw his biological mother who came to the town to attend the market. Jiang's mother did not recognize her son who had become a beggar after being away from home for nearly ten years. Her three sons were all drafted and none of them came back. Jiang's mother had long given up hope.
After the mother and son recognized each other, Jiang's mother took Jiang Erzhu back home. Jiang Erzhu lived a relatively happy life. He got married, had children, and worked as a laborer to earn money to support his family.
But luck was only temporary. Jiang Erzhu's wife had a difficult delivery when she gave birth to her fourth child. Jiang Erzhu spent all his family property but failed to save his wife's life. In order to feed his children, Jiang Erzhu got up early and went to bed late every day, pulling a cart of 100 kilograms of stones to earn only one cent. This life lasted for ten years until Jiang Erzhu contracted dysentery at the age of 40 and died.
Before he died, he was still complaining that he had not saved enough dowry for his second daughter, and asked his eldest son to find a good family for his second daughter.
The story is very tragic, but maybe because Jiang Qi has not watched the villain movie, Jiang Erzhu's story is not as touching as Wang Erya's story.
When Jiang Qi finished reading, Jiang Wanwan asked Liu Lan in a hoarse voice with swollen eyes: "Xiao Liu, can I read Erzhu's story?"
Liu Lan nodded: "Of course."
Jiang Wanwan and Jiang Qi exchanged books and started reading again.
Just as Jiang Wanwan said while crying before, everyone is miserable.
Chen Wan was the daughter of a hunter, and her family was well off. When she was 7 years old, her father went into the mountains to hunt and injured his leg. He was rescued by other hunters but died of infection. Chen Wan was lucky. The villagers were all good people and did not bully her and her mother because she was an orphan. When Chen Wan was 16 years old, she married a young man in the village and gave birth to 7 children. Her life was plain, hard, and happy.
Then the war spread to their village. Chen Wan's sons were conscripted and died on the battlefield. Her husband went into the mountains to hunt rabbits for his newly born daughter and never came out again. Some of her daughters died of illness, some died of dystocia, and her only grandson died of infection from a broken leg.
Chen Wan lived to be 82 years old. She witnessed the death of all her relatives and spent the last few decades of her life in loneliness.
Su Qinghe, the only one who had a happy ending among all people, also had a life filled with suffering for most of his life.
Su Qinghe was a young man from a wealthy family. When he went to Peking to attend university, Peking fell. He and his classmates fled all the way. On the way, they met many abandoned children. They could not bear to see these children die on the road, so they could only pick up children while fleeing. Gradually, they got separated from the main group, and Su Qinghe also lost contact with his family.
At first, they could buy enough food with money. As more and more refugees came, the price of food became more and more expensive. Su Qinghe and his classmates could not afford to feed so many children. They could only beg while traveling. They were displaced along the way and their lives were in danger several times. All the classmates who picked up children with Su Qinghe died. Su Qinghe took care of these children alone. After the war, he settled in a small village and became a teacher, and stayed there for the rest of his life.
Soon, everyone finished reading all the books.
Liu Chang looked at his own copy and compared it with others. He suddenly felt that he was actually doing okay, at least he had lived to the 21st century.
"I suddenly felt that I wasn't that miserable, and it was a good ending."
Gao Qin glanced at her boyfriend resentfully: "Of course you have a good end. Among the five of us, you are the landlord. If you don't have a good end, who will?"
Just then, Liu Lan turned off the lights and the projector began to project the final clip.
Six grids, six little people, each of them stayed in the cinema and looked at the staff in front of them.
"Am I dead?"
“Is this the underworld?”
"Where is this?"
"this……"
Six different voices rang out.
"This is the Time Cinema, the third branch of the Underworld Office. Souls like you who have lost their memories after staying in the human world for too long will come here to regain their memories. Now that everyone has regained their memories, it's time to leave."
"Do you have anything else you want to ask? If not, follow me."
"Will I still be a human being in my next life? I don't want to be a human being anymore. I want to be a dog kept by a landlord and eat meat every meal."
"I want to see my second daughter. I haven't saved enough dowry for her. I'm afraid she will be bullied by her in-laws."
"Can you please ask the gods to let my seven children be reborn into good families in the next life, so that they don't have to suffer with me anymore?"
"So he's dead. I've lived a fulfilled life. Now I can come down and give everyone an explanation."
“…”
The projection ended and everything went dark.
Liu Lan quietly opened the door and said to the six people, "This is the Time Cinema, the last stop of the journey of life. Everyone, it's time to leave."
“Wuwuwuwu…”
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