Chapter 299: Two Lantern Ghosts
"Short Story 1: Cinderella"
1
Xia Ting looks average, but has a pair of very perfect feet, tight and soft, with five toes from long to short, and the rounded fingertips are arranged in a touching arc.
One day when the company held a party, she took out a new pair of high heels, and as soon as her foot reached in, a pain came, and a shallow blood mark of two or three centimeters was scraped on the instep.
She looked at the bright red blood stain, it didn't itch or hurt, but she felt very uncomfortable, her feet were the most beautiful parts of her body, and there should be no flaws.
"It's all your fault, otherwise you might meet a handsome guy who admires you at the party." She threw her shoes out in hatred, and the shoes slipped on the floor for some distance, and finally hid under the curtain by the wall, alas... The party can't go.
She took out a tissue, sat on the edge of the bed, buried her head in wiping the blood on her feet, and the more she wiped it, the more aggrieved she became. The shoe store came to mind again, it was very high-end, the shoes were very expensive, and I wanted to go in and buy shoes countless times, but I couldn't bear it. Forget it, she threw the bloody tissue into the trash, took her bank card, and walked towards the store.
It was a European-style shoe store, and every time she saw the owner, one word came to her mind - neat.
A neat suit, neat hair, a neat shoe store, is the kind of perverted neatness that there is not a single wrinkle on the clothes, there is not a single mess of hair on the head, and there is not a single speck of dust in the store.
She looked at her shoes in front of the store, they were clean, but there was still a slight fear that dust would be brought into the store.
"Miss, please come in." The owner's voice is not loud but clear.
She walked in, and all the shoes were so beautiful that they seemed to exist for her feet, except that she only had enough money to buy one pair.
She picked out a pair of black ballet flats in size 36, paid for them, and got up to leave.
"Miss, do you want to try these crystal slippers?"
She turned around, and the boss added, "It's exactly thirty-six yards." ”
As the boss spoke, he looked at her feet, leaning slightly, and pointing at the shoes with one hand with a "please" gesture.
She looked at the boss's hand, it was a pair of blue crystal shoes, the blue was very pure, and in the dim light, it seemed to emit a faint blue light, but there was no price marked.
She didn't answer, the price of these shoes in this store is naturally unaffordable.
The boss slowly and gently brought the shoes in front of her, squatted down, held the shoes in his hands, and was reluctant to put them on the ground, "Try it." ”
She lifted her foot, her fingers bent downward, her instep slightly arched, and she reached for her shoe.
"Miss, stockings..."
The boss looked at her feet with a sad face.
I was afraid that her socks would stain her shoes.
"I'm sorry..."
Yes, how can you try this kind of shoes with socks.
She took off her stockings and gently put her foot into her shoe, perfect crystal slipper, perfect foot.
The fingertips of each toe have just touched the inner wall of the toe, and the body of the shoe fits perfectly to the curve of the ball of the foot, as if this shoe is another layer of skin on her foot, as if this shoe exists for her.
"Miss..."
She came to her senses and took off her shoes, "Well, I like these shoes very much, but I don't have the money to buy them right now, sorry."
She walked out of the store and disappeared around a corner. The boss held the crystal slipper and put it on his face, showing an intoxicated expression.
2
Xia Ting kept the newly purchased pair of black ballet flats on her bedside table so that she could see them every day when she opened her eyes. And she doesn't plan to wear these shoes now, because, her feet are also... Not perfect.
She had to wait for the blood on her instep to scab over and fall off until it was gone.
Then put on those shoes.
She believed that in this way, she would be able to meet her own prince.
Xia Ting thought about it like this, and fell asleep, in the dream, the prince saw the blood marks on her feet, and said distressedly: "Oh my God, my princess, your feet... How much it hurts." After speaking, the prince leaned over and kissed her instep, the blood stains disappeared, and a huge sense of happiness hit her, Xia Ting's heart couldn't hold so much happiness, and happiness overflowed, turning into an endless rose that surrounded them in the middle of the sea of flowers.
The next day, she woke up to a faint smell of potions, emanating from that trail of blood. She clearly remembers that she did not buy medicine.
She looked at the blood stain, which had already scabbed, as if it had become a little shorter, and it looked like it was about to heal. She looked thoughtfully at the pair of black ballet flats, were the shoes the same as the snail girl, while she was asleep, she became a prince and secretly drugged herself?
"Xia Ting, don't be a nymphomaniac, it's too much pressure and hallucinations." She said to herself
During the day, in order to verify whether the smell of medicine she smelled was a hallucination, she deliberately called her best friend to the toilet.
"Xia Ting, why did you bring me to the toilet?" Best friend Xiaohong asked.
"Uh... You crouch down..."
Xiaohong squatted down, Xia Ting took off her shoes and socks, and stretched her feet in front of Xiaohong, "That... Smell it for me..."
"You're sick." Xiaohong left angrily.
"Does it smell like medicine..."
"No, it doesn't smell anything but the smell." Little Red said as she walked.
Ah, I'm so stupid, the toilet stinks, why do you want to come to the toilet???
In this way, she spent the day in chagrin.
3
On the third day, Xia Ting still woke up with the faint smell of potion, the black scabs on the instep had all fallen off, and the blood marks had become exactly the same as the surrounding skin, only a little lighter in color.
"Can't wait, right? One more day, tomorrow... I'll definitely wear yours. She said to the shoes on the bedside table.
What she didn't notice was that the position of the shoes was a little different.
She spent the day dreaming that tomorrow she would meet the man she loved in those shoes, and as soon as she got off work, she ran home, took a bath, and lay beautifully on the bed. In the dream, she put on those shoes and walked down the road, and everyone looked back at her. But she didn't look at anyone, and just walked like that. "Mademoiselle", she was called, she turned around, and a handsome man rode towards her on a white horse, it was her prince.
"Miss, Miss..."
She opened her eyes, "Is that you?" ”
The shoe store owner picked her up, and she wanted to resist, but her whole body was limp and she didn't have any strength. She looked around, and it was the shoe store, not her home.
"Let's go, I'll take you to see the most beautiful things in the world." The boss pushes open a cupboard, revealing a dark room.
The top of the darkroom was covered with shoes, and in the center was a stone platform that could just lay down a person, and he placed her on the stone platform and fixed her hands and feet with the iron rings on the edge of the stone platform.
"Look". He pointed to the innermost row of crystal cabinets in the darkroom.
Xia Ting turned her head to look over, and there was a pair of feet wearing crystal shoes in each crystal cupboard, and the feet were neatly cut off from below the knees. I don't know how he preserved them, but those feet were fresh as if they hadn't left the human body.
Underneath each crystal cabinet is a number, 25, 26, 27... 35…。
Xia Ting looked at the feet in the crystal cabinet that were as fair, as tight, and as perfect as the curves, they were different... Only size.
She seemed to understand the meaning of the numbers below.
"Isn't it beautiful?" The man asked her
"The blood marks on my feet, are you the medicine you helped me wipe on?"
The man didn't answer, and injected her with anesthetic.
"It'll be fine soon, it won't hurt." The scalpel in his hand flashed a little cold light, and Xia Ting closed her eyes in pain.
"You don't have to be so bad, you should like your feet too, right? Think about it, when you are forty years old, your feet will become fluffy and lose their luster; By the time you are sixty years old, your feet will be full of wrinkles and yellow. You don't want that, do you? Now it won't, your feet, it's... It will always be kept in the most perfect appearance. "When the man spoke, his hand did not stop.
Soon, the man kissed her forehead and said gently: "It's all right, open your eyes, it's all over." ”
She opened her eyes and saw the man take her foot in the potion to wash the blood, then put the blue slippers on it.
Beautiful, beautiful shoes, beautiful feet.
The man kissed the white instep lightly, and gently placed it in the crystal cupboard, the number under the cupboard was thirty-six, and she guessed correctly.
The man stared blankly at those feet, for a long time... For a long time.... Xia Ting felt that she was about to die, and her two broken legs kept bleeding out. The man came back to his senses, did not look at her, picked up a piece of pure crystal, and carefully carved it in the light, she became weaker and weaker, the man began to blur, and the crystal turned into a light blue spot of light, swaying quietly.
4
On a new day, the sun rises as usual. Clouds, still the same white. For most people, today, another good day.
The streets begin to come alive with a police car whizzing towards a river, and I heard... A footless female corpse was found.
In a European-style shoe store, a neat man puts a pair of size 37 crystal slippers in a window cupboard, and then lies on a chaise longue, squinting and smiling, quietly looking at the pedestrians on the street.
I don't know, which girl will wear these crystal slippers?
……
Short Story 2: The Flying Pig
(a)
Has the trajectory of each life been depicted by God at birth?
And we can only die on this trajectory by effort or decadence.
When I came into this world on January 1, 2012, my mother told me that I only had 365 days to live, and all I had to do was eat and sleep......
Mom's children are all well-behaved children, they only eat and sleep every day, and do nothing.
I don't like to sleep, I like to watch the sun outside during the day, and at night the sun doesn't get so bright, and a sun has a life of only thirty days, and it grows slowly, and it grows round and fat, and then it dies.
On the night the first sun died
I asked my mom if I would die too?
Mom said: We are all going to die
When the mother said this, her sons fell asleep as if they were dead......
Is Minecraft a pigsty?
When you go out, it's not
Have you ever been out?
Not...
I'm going out
Go ahead
The night without the sun was particularly dark, so I just walked away, and when I jumped out of the pigsty, I saw my mother smiling.
(b)
Do all lives have to live the same day over and over again?
And we can only choose to go on in a cycle of happiness or pain.
The outside world is huge, and there is a black, horned animal that is also big. He was threaded through his nose with a rope and the other end of the rope tied to a tree.
What's your name?
cattle
Let's go outside and have a look
I was tied with a rope and couldn't get out of this circle for the rest of my life
You exert yourself, and the rope can't tie you
It hurts......
When I left, Niu said helplessly: I have heard that there is a thing called the sea in the outside world, which is much bigger than a pond, and even the sky is not as big as it. You can help me go and see it once.
I agreed
The cow began to lower its head and graze again, and no one saw the cow's tears dripping on the grass and then eating it into its stomach again.
(c)
Will there be thousands of lives that can be substituted for each other, and no one will grieve even if they die?
And we can only choose to continue or give up this weak existence.
The sun is always bright during the day, and it replaces the dead sun. They're exactly the same, and no one cares who they are. I don't care, as long as there is the sun, it's warm, how nice. I was running in the sun when I was suddenly stabbed by something.
Stinky pig, you've stepped on my house
A small, but angry voice said to me. I rubbed my eyes for a long time before I realized her, a little bug flying in the sky.
I said, "What's your name?"
bee
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on your house
Hee-hee, it's fine
Why do you want to make a house?
Raising children
Come with me to see the sea?
No, I'm going to raise a child
Then I left, and I promised to help the cow watch the sea
Whining... It's a name you have to remember
What's your name?
Bees (bees said angrily)
Then I left, and my mother said that I would only live for 365 days, and I would not be able to walk to the sea until I was done
When I left, the bees were busy making the house again. Maybe she can only be busy raising children for the rest of her life.
(iv)
Will there always be some people who will leave indelible memories in our lives and then quietly leave?
And we can only choose to recall or escape those sad memories.
I was about to go to the garbage dump to get something to eat, when I saw a two-legged, standing and walking animal walking towards the garbage dump with a black bag in his hand. The animal dropped the bag and left, and I rushed over to see if there was anything to eat.
"Meow...", a sad voice came from the bag.
What are you?
I'm a cat
What happened to you?
When my son grew up, I was discarded, and the owner didn't need two cats
Then come with us to see the sea
All right
At a time when you have nothing, probably, you are at the crossroads of fate, keep moving forward, and you will get a different life.
While finding his companion, the second sun died......
(iv)
Does every life begin to be lost from birth until it becomes something else?
And we can only choose to continue to be strange or end our lives.
Why did you go to see the sea?
Because I promised the cow
Isn't it lonely to walk alone for so long?
I think of the comfortable life in the pigsty, and my mother must be lying quietly on the ground with my siblings at this moment, breathing evenly and long, enjoying the quiet time after dinner.
Not alone
And just like that, we kept walking, and kept walking...
Until, when the sixth sun died, when the sun had just died, it was very dark, and I was sleeping on the grass with the cat.
Has anyone ever seen the sea?
I don't know
Will there be no sea?
I don't know
So why do you have to go forward?
Because, I promised the cow
At dawn, the cat said it was leaving, and the moment it turned around, I saw helplessness and loneliness.
(5)
Do all lives have a purpose in life, for them to chase for the rest of their lives?
And we can only choose to keep moving closer or give up on that meaningless dream.
By the time the tenth sun died, I didn't know why I was going to see the sea.
Promised the cow, that's just a reason. But do you want to return? My life is coming to an end, go back, where can I go?
When I walked to the beach, it was dusk, the sun was very colorful, it fell on the sea, the colorful sea water rushed towards me, I lay quietly on the beach, everything was unreal.
Slowly, slowly, the sky began to darken, and the twelfth sun died.
Mom said... We only have three hundred and sixty-five days to live.
In the darkness, I walked towards the equally dark sea, my body undulating with the waves, gradually moving away, and slowly disappearing into this world.
All the questions have been answered, and the answer is, whatever, just die. Take a hundred plating, and read the latest chapter of "Onmyoji-style God Don't Cry Claw Book House" for free for the first time.