Time passes.

He was 15 years old, his mother was dying, and she wanted to tell him something very important, but he couldn't understand what she was saying. He moved his body in his sleep, and the pain all over his body brought him from a half-asleep state to a half-awake state. He shuddered in pain.

Ah Xiu shivered under the thin blanket. His right arm was blocked from his eye, blocking the light. He didn't know if Drinkward and the others were still free, if they were all alive. He wanted them to be safe.

The silver coin in his left hand was still cold, and he could feel it there, just as it had been when he had been beaten. He wondered in a trance why the silver coin hadn't warmed up at his body temperature. He went into a half-sleep state again, half-asleep and half-unconscious. Vaguely, the silver coin, the queen, the moon, and Zoya's little sister were somehow intertwined together to form a silver band of light that stretched from the depths of the earth to the sky, and he rode the band of light to rise high, leaving the pain of his body, the pain of his soul, and the fear far away, and he was far away from the pain, and he entered the sweet dream again......

There seemed to be some sound from far away, but it was too late to ponder them, and he had already fallen asleep.

In a daze, he hoped that the people would stop coming to wake him up, and then he continued to beat him and yell at him. Then, he was pleased to find that he had really fallen asleep and no longer felt cold.

Someone was shouting for help somewhere, loud. Maybe he's dreaming, maybe not.

In his sleep, Ah Xiu turned over on the sponge latex mattress and found that there were several more painful places on his body.

Someone was shaking his shoulder.

He wanted to tell them not to wake him, to keep him asleep, not to disturb him. As a result, there was only a dream.

"Ah Xiu?" It was Laura who was talking, "You have to wake up." Hurry up, darling. ”

At that moment, he suddenly felt a sense of relief. It was as if he had just had a very strange dream about prisons, prisoners and the gods that followed, and now Laura woke him up and told him that it was time to go to work. Maybe he still has time for a cup of coffee, a kiss, or not just a kiss before he goes to work. He reached out and touched her.

Her skin was cold as ice and sticky.

Ah Xiu suddenly opened his eyes.

"Where did all this blood come from?" He asked.

"Someone else's blood," she said, "is not mine." My body was filled with formaldehyde and mixed with glycerin and lanolin. ”

"Who is the other person?" He continued.

"Guards." She said, "It's okay, I'll kill them." Get moving. I don't think anyone had time to raise the alarm and get a coat from the outside and put it on, so it wouldn't freeze. ”

"You killed them?"

She shrugged and smiled a little awkwardly. Her hand looked as if it had just been finger painted, and only one type of paint was used: crimson. Her face was stained with red patches on her clothes--- she was still wearing the same blue suit she had been buried. Asho is reminded of Vincent van Gogh. It's much more comfortable to think of Vincent van Gogh's paintings than to accept the fact that they're bloody.

"When you're dead, you'll find it easier to kill people." She told him, "I mean, after removing prejudice, death is not a big deal." ”

"It's a big deal for me." Ah Xiu said.

"You want to stay here and wait for the morning guards?" She said, "If you like it, you can stay, I thought you wanted to get out of here." ”

"They'll think I killed someone." Ah Xiu said dumbfoundedly.

"Maybe." She said, "Put on your coat, darling, or you'll freeze." ”

He walked outside into the hallway, and at the end of the hallway was the guardhouse, in which lay four corpses: three guards, and the guy who called himself Mr. Shi. His partner didn't know where he went. Judging by the long strips of blood dragged on the floor, the bodies of two of them were dragged to the guardhouse and then dumped on the ground.

His own coat hung on a hanger, his wallet was still in his pocket, and apparently no one had touched it. Laura tears open two cartons of candy.

Only now, Ah Xiu was able to take a good look at those guards. They wore dark camouflage uniforms without any official insignia on them, making it impossible to tell which government department they were working for. Just by looking at the clothes, they may be hunters who come to hunt wild ducks on weekends, and they wear camouflage clothes specially for hunting.

Lao stretched out his cold hand and grabbed Ah Xiu's hand in his palm. The gold coin that Ah Xiu gave her, she had already worn with a gold chain and hung it around her neck.

"It's beautiful." He said.

"Thank you." She smiled sweetly, beautiful and moving.

"How's the rest going?" He asked, "Drinkward and the others?" Where are they? Laura handed him a chocolate bar, which he slipped into his pocket.

"There are no one else here, just a lot of empty cells, one of which is for you. Oh, by the way, there was a guard who went to an empty cell to read a magazine** and was taken aback by me. ”

"You killed him when he was a**?"

She shrugged. "I think so." She said a little uncomfortably, "I'm afraid they're going to hurt you." Somebody has to protect you, and I said I'm going to protect you, didn't I? Here you go, take it. She handed him some hand and foot warmers that contained chemicals: thin pads that would automatically heat up and keep them warm for hours if the seals were removed. Ah Xiu put them all in his pocket.

"Protect me? Yes, you're guarding me. He said.

She held out her fingers and gently stroked the wound above his left eyebrow. "You're hurt." She said.

"I'm fine." He said.

He opened the metal door on the wall, which slowly opened, and the doorway was still four feet above the ground outside. He jumped down, feeling a layer of sand on the ground below. He grabbed Laura by the waist and took her down, as he had done in the past, without thinking about it......

The moon emerges from behind the heavy clouds and hangs low in the night sky. The moon was about to set, but the moonlight sprinkled on the snow was still bright, and the surroundings could be seen clearly.

The place where they came out turned out to be a carriage of a long string of black-painted freight trains, which had stopped or been abandoned beside a wood. Many of the carriages stretched out into the woods, beyond his sight. It turned out to be locked up in a train car, which he should have guessed a long time ago.

"How the hell did you find me?" He asked his dead wife.

She shook her head slowly, as if she thought the question was ridiculous. "You shine like a beacon in a dark world." She told him, "It's not hard to find you. Alright, let's hurry up. Go as far as you can, as fast as possible. As long as you don't use a credit card, nothing should happen. ”

"Where should I go?"

She slipped a hand into her tangled hair, pulling a strand of hair away from her eyes. "The highway is in that direction," she told him, "just do what you have to do, don't have any scruples." If you can, steal the car. Head south. ”

"Laura," he hesitated, "do you know what is going on?" Do you know who these people are? Who did you kill? ”

"Yes," she said, "I think I know all about it." ”

"I owe you a favor." "If it weren't for you, I'd still be locked up here." I don't think they have any good plans for me. ”

"Yes," said Laura, "they won't have any good ideas for you." ”

As they left the empty train car, Ashu remembered the other trains he had seen, unmarked, windowless, whistle blaring, alone through the night. His finger touched the Queen's silver coin in his pocket---- and he remembered Zoya's little sister and the way she stared at him in the moonlight. Did you ask her what she wanted? Asking questions of the dead is the wisest option, and sometimes they will tell you the truth.

Laura...... What do you want? He finally asked.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, tell me."

Laura looked up and stared at him with a pair of dead blue eyes. "I want to come back to life." "It's not this half-dead state," she said. I want to be truly alive. I want to feel my heart beating in my chest again, I want to feel the blood flowing through my veins—warm, salty, real blood. You may feel weird and feel impossible to feel the flow of blood. Trust me, you'll see what I mean when your blood stops flowing. She rubbed her eyes, and the blood on her hands stained her face. You know, it's hard to be a dead person. Do you know why the dead only come out at night, Ah Xiu? Because in the dark, they are more likely to be seen as living by others. I don't want to be mistaken for a living person only, I want to be truly alive. ”

"I don't understand what you want me to do."

"Let me come alive, dear. You're going to figure it out, I know you will. ”

"Well," he said, "I'll do my best." If I do figure it out, how can I find you? ”

But she was gone, and the woods were empty, nothing. A faint layer of gray-white on the horizon reminded him that it was the direction of the rising sun. There were a few lonely cries in the cold wind of December, perhaps the night bird that slept the latest, or the morning bird that woke up the earliest.

Ashur turned his face to the south and walked forward---- perhaps the resurrection from the dead is not the most unacceptable, after all, it is very clear in the Bible that not only will Jesus rise from the dead, but on the day of judgment, everyone must wake up from the dark sweet death and accept the final judgment.

Ah Xiu sadly found that he had accepted all kinds of unreasonableness, and when he heard the words "magic" and "wizard", he no longer seemed to feel puzzled and curious--- Gatler Drinkward was right, he began to get used to it.

The so-called "eternal life" of the Hindu gods is very unique and different from other gods. They will be born and die, and they will experience most of the sufferings of mortals. They often differ from mortals only in some minutiae. The difference between gods and demons is even more insignificant. Still, to Indians, the gods are very different from mortals. They are a symbol of the sublime, and mortal life, no matter how great, can never reach such heights. Their worldly nature is just a play for us. In the play, through their god masks, we see our own faces.

Heading south, or the direction he hoped, south, Ashu walked for hours. He walked along a narrow forest path in the woods that didn't know where to start or where to sign. As for where the woods themselves are located, he reckons to be south of Birmingham. Several off-road vehicles drove behind him, their headlights flickering. He hurriedly hid in the bushes, and the car drove away before coming out and returning to the road. The early morning fog was thick and thick, and the white mist reached his waist. Those dirt bikes were all black.

Then, about thirty minutes later, the roar of helicopters could be heard in the distance to the west. He immediately fled the road used to transport timber and hurried into the depths of the woods. There are two helicopters in total. He curled up, crouched in a shallow pit behind a fallen tree, and listened to the helicopter fly overhead. After the helicopter left, he checked the movement, glanced up at the gray winter sky, and was satisfied to see a black smoke ribbon left by the helicopter in the air. He continued to hide under the trunk for a while until the sound of the helicopter died down completely.

There is not a lot of snow under the trees, and it creaks under your feet. He was grateful for the chemical warm pads for his hands and feet, but fortunately his hands and feet did not freeze completely. But outside of his hands and feet, he was numb from the cold: his heart was numb, his mind was numb, and even his soul was numb. He knew that numbness would stay with him for a long time.

What do I want? He asked himself. He couldn't answer the question, so he had to keep walking, one step at a time, step by step through the woods. All the trees look exactly the same, and all the scenery is familiar. Could he have been circling in the woods? Maybe he's going to keep going on like this until the thermal pads and chocolate bars are gone, and then he sits down exhausted and never gets up again.

He walked over to a large stream and decided to go down the stream. Streams flow into rivers, which flow towards the Atlantic Ocean. As long as he keeps walking, maybe he can steal a boat on the way, or build a raft of his own, and finally reach the warm and pleasant seashore. Warm and pleasant - the idea both pleased him and made him feel that it was impossible to achieve.

There were no more helicopters to track him. He had a feeling that the two helicopters flying over his head were cleaning up the mess in the van, not chasing him. Otherwise, they will definitely turn back, and there will be police dogs, shrill sirens, and a whole set of tracking scenarios. However, there is nothing here.

What exactly does he want? Don't get caught, don't take the death of those in the van on your own. "I didn't do it," he said, as if hearing himself, "my dead wife did it." He could imagine the look on the face of the law enforcement officer. He'll be pushed into the electric chair, and people will debate whether he's really crazy or not......