Midnight Bookstore

After dinner, he washed the dishes with his wife and then played a game with the children. After he had calmed them down and put them to sleep, he went back to his room.

His wife was taking a bath in the bathroom inside the room. The sound of the water was tantalizing.

He was lying in bed with his hands on his back, looking at the wedding photo on the wall.

In the photo, he was still young and his wife was in her prime.

He lay on the bed,

he squinted his eyes,

he fell asleep again.

He didn’t know how long he slept. When he woke up, it was dark all around him. He reached out in the dark and turned on the light.

The bed was still the same bed, but he was the only one lying on it.

Silently,

he sat up from the bed,

curling up his body.

A feeling of loneliness and cold was coming to him,

his mind began to keep coming up with some broken images.

Dark Clouds,

lightning,

heavy rain,

living Room,

sofa..

He felt more and more difficult to breathe, a feeling called “Despair”was enveloping him, and his body began to have goosebumps.

He did not dare to walk out of the bedroom,

he did not dare to push open the door,

he was afraid that he would not be able to hear the child’s voice,

he was afraid that he would not be able to see his wife,

he was even more afraid to walk down the stairs,

he was even more afraid to see the sofa in the living room..

“Hu… hu… hu… hu…”

The heavy breathing made his mind become increasingly blank.

Struggling, he was like a thief as he tiptoed to push open the door. He closed his eyes and covered his ears. According to his memory, he rushed into the study next door.

“Bang!”

The moment he closed the door of the study,

he felt a stone in his heart drop to the ground.

His turbid eyes looked at the fountain pen lying quietly on the desk,

as if he had found his support.

He walked over,

picked up the fountain pen,

opened the blank notebook,

took out his wife’s book, “Two-faced man,”and continued to copy.

He forgot himself,

he was addicted,

except to copy words,

he had no other thoughts, nor dared to have any.

No one urged him, but he cherished his time very much.

He wrote quickly, and his handwriting began to be illegible, for he had long been impatient in his heart.

He did not notice,

his skin had begun to wrinkle, like the dehydrated bark of an elm, and he did not notice that his eye sockets were slowly sunken, and that he, who was not yet thirty, had large patches of white hair on his head.

The ink of the pen,

was still as if it could never be used up,

it could write all the time,

it did not need to be added.

As he wrote,

he wrote until the sky turned white, and then he wrote until the sky turned dark.

The doorbell rang from the other side of the room, and he stood up abruptly, pushed open the door and went out.

Standing on the second floor,

he saw that his wife had already gone up below,

and opened the door,

there was a visitor,

it was said to be one of his wife’s hardcore female fans.

The children’s laughter came again,

they were watching cartoons on the living room sofa.

Seeing this scene,

he grinned,

and smiled.

Even though he was extremely haggard,

his chapped lips seemed to be soaked in blood.

Write,

write,

copy after copy,

he could not stop,

nor would he stop,

so that he forgot to eat and drink,

so that he forgot to sleep,

except to go out and have a look occasionally,

at his wife,

and then at his children,

and come back to write.

He was afraid that if he did not write,

he would not be able to see them.

His wife’s horror stories were all based on his family’s villa, so there was this family, her, and the children in the story.

Under the desk lamp in the study,

there was a figure at a desk copying books,

the figure was very thin,

so thin that the light of the desk lamp seemed to penetrate him.

More and more words were written, and more and more books were copied,

gradually,

the young man became thinner and more gaunt,

until one day,

he copied another book,

when he put down the pen,

his legs were as thin as chopsticks,

only a layer of skin was still stuck to his face,

his eyes could no longer be seen in his eye sockets, only two balls of ghostly light were circulating, flickering..

He pushed the door open, trembling,

and walked out,

he heard his wife’s voice,

he also heard the voices of his children.

All of this,

was So Beautiful,

so Beautiful,

it was the sound of nature,

it was his insistence and hope to live on.

He did not feel bitter, nor did he feel tired,

what was bitter, what… was tired again?

With his hand on the railing, he did not dare to go on, he just watched silently, listened silently, and enjoyed the quiet years that belonged to him.

At this time,

he vaguely heard,

his wife was crying.

His children were crying too.

He was stunned for a moment,

why?

Why did he cry?

A family,

neat and tidy,

living happily together, ah,

why did he cry?

He was a little flustered, and also a little confused. He grabbed the railing of the stairs with both hands and walked down with great difficulty, step by step.

Down the stairs,

it was also a great challenge for him at the moment.

He was afraid that he would fall down,

if he fell down,

he would directly fall into a pile of powder.

He was not afraid of falling into powder,

but he was afraid that no one would copy it,

no one would pick up a pen to write.

But he would still go down,

he would ask his wife and children,

what was going on,

why were they crying?

Finally,

he went up the stairs,

he was panting, hunched, unable to get up, and groped his way forward.

He came to the living room and saw the sofa in the middle.

The wife was sitting in the middle,

the children were on either side.

The wife was crying,

the son was crying,

the daughter was crying,

on the ground,

alaska lay prostrate, surrounded by amusement park facilities, and masks, cloaks, faces, shadows, and all sorts of horrible things hovering and flashing.

In the dark,

you could still hear the wailing, crying, and roaring of countless dead souls!

All of this,

was the character, the scene, the prop from the wife’s horror novel.

He didn’t think it was strange, or that it was a big deal.

He opened his mouth to ask his wife, to ask the children,

you,

what are you crying about?

We’re alive, we’re together,

it’s beautiful,

isn’t it?

But he could only make a hoarse voice, like a mosquito, unable to speak at all.

Blood began to drip from his wife’s eyes,

the children’s eyes were the same,

this scene..,

terrified him.

His wife and children climbed down from the sofa together,

they crawled towards him.

He saw his wife’s hands grabbing his legs. She was pleading, praying, and crying bitterly,

he saw that his two children were the same.

“Darling, let me go. Let Me Go. I Can’t take it anymore. I Can’t take this torture anymore. Let Me Go. Please, Darling, let me go. Let Me Go…”

“Dad, please let us go… This place is too scary, every day is so painful, Nan Nan is so scared…”

“Dad, please let us go, my sister and I can’t take it anymore, we really can’t take it anymore…”

Looking down at his body,

his wife and children’s faces were distorted due to the pain,

in that instant, a series of explosions sounded in his mind,

he began to stagger backward,

shaking his head,

full of disbelief.

Why,

why,

how could this be,

no,

impossible,

impossible!

The cold reality,

after being covered by a beautiful veil, gave people a beautiful illusion.

Illusion, after all, is an illusion.

He prostrated on the ground,

with his hands on his head.

All these days, he had been transcribing words in his study, never leaving the house.

But in the outside world,

he still appeared in front of people every day, directing workers in the factory to complete orders, and even after the last housekeeper had problems, he found a new housekeeper.

All of this,

was his doing,

but he didn’t know,

he didn’t know.

He only knew,

that when his wife and children begged for mercy in front of him,

he broke down completely,

and fell into a kind of confusion.

His vision, too, became somewhat blurred,

in this blurred vision,

when he saw the new housekeeper come to the door, and saw the corpses of his wife and children on the sofa, he let out a scream, and there was still on the coffee table a “Suicide note”written by his wife, which was what she said when she begged him for mercy, and he wrote it down, as if by instinct, like he was transcribing his wife’s published book, in black and white.

And this, together with the bruises on his wife and children from a long time ago, became evidence of his conviction for domestic abuse.

The entanglement of reality and virtuality,

collapsed in his mind time and time again, and was reconstructed again and again, and in prison, he had a lot of time to think, to reorganize his thoughts.

So,

he was very grateful,

to the prison environment.

It was a kind of heartfelt gratitude.

..

The gaze of memory slowly disappeared,

the corners of his mouth gradually outlined a curve,

he tried to have a life again, but he found a surprising reality,

he exists,

but does not exist,

the people around him can see him, can talk to him, the prison leadership also praised him, his writing can be published and won awards.

But he,

did he really exist?

He felt as if he had become a real ghost,

not a ghost like a ghost,

but when everyone knew you,

and you,

didn’t exist,

it was a paradox, and also a kind of torture.

It took him more than four years in prison to figure these things out.

Looking at the terrified woman in front of him,

he opened his mouth,

he made a “Shh”movement with his lips,

then..,

he said slowly,

“Perhaps, I know what method to use this pen.”

“What… What is it…”

The woman from the bridge of helplessness looked at the man in front of her with genuine fear.

“That is to make yourself a character in the story and not… a living person.”

The prisoner took a deep breath,

he leaned back against the chair,

“So, why did things go so smoothly? You came out of Hell and immediately found me,

so smoothly..,

it was like a plot that had been arranged,

was It?”

The woman nodded,

yes,

it went too smoothly.

“Hehe…”

The prisoner laughed,

“I’m sorry to tell you that I’m not capable enough for this story. I’ve already collapsed..

“I’m sorry,

“I’ve implicated you,

“And me,

“Disappear together.”

… ..

In the bedroom on the second floor of the study room,

lawyer an, who had just untied the old Daoist, was sitting by the bed. The old Daoist ran down to wipe his safflower oil. Zhang Yanfeng fell into a coma after being stopped by lawyer an.

However, his breathing had already stabilized, and his heartbeat had also appeared. After a nap, he would probably be able to truly wake up. Everything was developing in a good direction.

Lawyer an felt that this was a little miraculous. To actually be able to bring back the soul of a recently deceased ordinary soul through a corpse, it was actually done.

While wiping the water droplets on his hair with a towel, he picked up the “Prison Storm”magazine.

He casually flipped through it,

the first half of the magazine was filled with speeches and propaganda by the prison leaders,

the second half was filled with the insights and insights written by the prisoners in the prison,

looks like fun, too.

Watch, watch, watch,

turning to the last page,

uh-huh?

Lawyer an froze for a moment,

it’s the last page,

but something’s missing,

like there should have been an article here, I seem to have read it, AH,

and it’s gone.

It’s me,

wrong Memory?

—— —