Everything seems to be a little less alive in winter: the mountains are depressed, the flowers and trees are withering, the birds are not flying, the birds are not heard, and everything in the world seems to be sealed in a painting, a lifeless and dark gray picture.

Xu Chong leaned against the wall, chewing tobacco while watching his mother weave straw sandals, his slender eyes hiding a color that was difficult for others to read.

"Why didn't you go to the Yamen today?" Seeing Xu Chong in civilian clothes, Mrs. Xu put down the work in her hand, and picked up the grass roots tied to her clothes, and said, "You have always been diligent, are you not feeling well today, so you took leave?" ”

Xu Chong smiled at his mother, revealing two rows of snow-white teeth, "It's okay, I'm just a little tired, and there are no urgent cases in the house, so I want to rest for a day." Besides, I don't have a public office, so I don't have to stay in the yamen every day. ”

"I heard you talk in your dreams for several nights in a row, why did you sleep so unsteadily?" Old Mrs. Xu stood up and walked to her son's side, stretched out her hand and touched his forehead, "No fever, what's wrong?" ”

"Mother, don't think about it," Xu Chong spat out the residue of tobacco to the ground, "I'm in good health, but I've been caught by nightmares." At this point, he paused slightly, looked through the courtyard gate, fell on the ruins and broken tiles opposite, and said to himself, "After so many years, that case has not been solved." ”

Mrs. Xu began to weave straw shoes again, and her calloused fingers flexibly shuttled between the grass roots, "How to break?" I didn't have a clue back then, but now that so many years have passed, how can it be broken? She raised her head, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes piling up a smile, "I see, even if you are a hot hand, you can't solve this case." ”

In the face of his mother's kind teasing, Xu Chong lowered his head and smiled, the smile condensed at the corner of his mouth, there was no warmth, but Mrs. Xu was concentrating on weaving straw shoes, so she didn't find it.

"Twitter...... ......"The voice seemed to sound in his ears again, the voice in the dream, Xu Chong's chest suddenly chilled, and he looked up at the courtyard on the opposite side that could no longer be called a courtyard.

There was nothing, except waist-high weeds and broken bricks and tiles ravaged by wind and rain, but twenty-eight years ago, it was a completely different scene, although there were no pavilions and rockeries, but the houses of Wanjia were the best on the whole street. The courtyard with two entrances and two exits, with high walls and thick tiles, is many times better than Xu Chong's house. Xu Chong remembered that Wanjia's furniture was new and exquisite, especially the openwork porcelain painting bed in the master room, the crochet hollow wood, all kinds of carvings, small and chic tables and chairs, gathered on an object in the bed, meticulous.

The passionflower carved at the head of the bed resembles a peony, but it is a Western flower, with smooth pattern lines, with a flower as the center to stretch branches and leaves around, and the top and bottom are symmetrical. The branches and leaves are circular, and the decorations on each side are cleverly connected, and it is difficult to distinguish the beginning and the end.

Wan Zuhong and his wife died on this beautifully carved wooden couch, and the blood stained the passionflower red, making it look like a real blooming flower.

However, it does not seem appropriate to say that the Wan couple died, to be precise, they must have disappeared, because the officials did not find their bodies, although the whole bed was soaked with blood, and even the bedding was full of blood, turning a crimson that was close to black.

There is only one person who knows that Wan Zuhong and his wife are really dead, and that person is Xu Chong.

Because that night, he saw it, he saw the real murderer, and he also saw how the couple were killed. But he never told anyone about it, for even he could not tell whether it was a dream or a real fact, though it had crept into his dreams from time to time over the years, as he had met in his dreams many times these days.

He knew that when he saw the Wan couple, they were already dead, because there was no trace of life in the eyes of the two people, no, not simply lifeless, their eyeballs had withered, and the whites of their eyes had turned into a white membrane, hanging on the black eyeballs, like two cobwebs.

However, Wan Zuhong's body was still moving, a slow rhythmic rhythm, although there was a gap in his stomach, and his intestines flowed out.

"Twitter...... Twitter......"

There seemed to be a sound under the bed, and although his legs were already shaking uncontrollably, the eight-year-old Xu Chong still cast his eyes under the bed: there was a shadow hidden there, and the candlelight could not shine through, and he couldn't see what it looked like, but he clearly saw a slender tube-like thing sticking out of the dark shadow under the bed, and the other end was deeply inserted into Wan Zuhong's stomach.

"Twitter...... Twitter......"

It was sucking, sucking Wan Zuhong's blood and organs, so the corpse was brought to move, one at a time, as if it would never stop.

A gust of wind came from behind, penetrated into the window where Xu Chong peeped, and blew out the candle on the table. The candle shook violently a few times before it went out, and Xu Chong saw the thing under the bed, but he didn't know what it was, glowing red, like a raised mirror.

Xu Chong didn't know how he left, he just remembered that as soon as he walked into the house, he fainted and couldn't get out of bed for three whole days. In the past three days, he had many dreams, in which the tube turned into hands of different shapes, and grabbed him from all directions, and he wanted to run, but his feet were as soft as cotton, and his back seemed to be carrying a thousand pounds of boulders, so he could not take a step, so he could only let those hands grasp him, and they thrust their sharp fingertips into his stomach and pulled out all his internal organs.

Three days later, he woke up to the sound of his mother's cries, and saw his father, who had always been strict, squatting beside the bed and secretly wiping his tears. Only then did he know that he had burned for three days, the high fever did not go away, and the sweat soaked through several quilts.

The first thing Xu Chong said when he woke up was to ask Wanjia, but he was gagged by his mother.

"Something happened to Wanjia." The horror in her mother's eyes Xu Chong still remembers that although she tried to hide her fear after being glared at by her father reproachfully, Xu Chong still saw it in her eyes unmistakably.

"Where's Xiaowan?"

It was a long time before he squeezed the words out between his teeth, but when he said them, he regretted it, he was afraid of the answer, he was terribly afraid.

"The family of three is missing, don't ask about this in the future."

The father put a towel on Xu Chong's forehead and blocked all the words that filled Xu Chong's stomach.