Text: Episode 3

1.

I've had a messy life over the years - none of the things I've written for many years have been published under my name "Tao Qiwu", and my girlfriend who has been with me has finally left me.

Also, I indirectly killed my colleagues.

This is who I am now: no job, no lover, no money, no garage.

Since more than a month ago, I suddenly discovered the fact that strange things always happen around me. I've had a weirder feeling lately – as if someone was trying to kill me.

This feeling started when I dreamed of my colleague Da Liu a few days ago.

That night I received a call from Cao Chengrui, who came back from Beijing the next day and asked me to pick him up.

I set the alarm, but it didn't go off the next day.

Woken up by Cao Chengrui's phone, I accidentally knocked over the water cup on the bedside table in my frustration, and there was a household socket where the water was spilled, but fortunately it was not connected to the power.

On the evening of Cao Chengrui's return, we were eating hot pot and chatting about his affairs in Beijing, when Tan Chang (the master of charcoal burning at the hot pot restaurant) held the pot in both hands and nearly tripped over our table.

In just a few days, all kinds of accidents began to occur around me, but I was fine, and I was lucky. But I always felt that there must be a day when this luck would not last again.

2.

15:31。

I didn't go home, I just sat on the edge of the flower bed in the community and looked up at the seventh floor.

I don't know when the sky starts to get gloomy.

When I noticed, there was lightning and thunder, followed by the sound of the "whistling" wind, and a few seconds later it was pouring down.

Reacting, I immediately rushed to the door of the building. At this moment, there was no other thought, instinctively looking for a place to shelter from the rain.

"You want to die!"

There was a dry remark in the dark hallway. I immediately understood something, and the voice was the voice of the two little boys on the rooftop! I don't know if they've been hiding in the house and keeping an eye on me. Seeing that I was drenched in soup, they gloated and came out to mock me.

I held my left hand against the wall, wiped my face with my right hand, and began to walk up the sound. 1st, 2nd, 3rd floors...... I didn't know where they were hiding, but I listened with my ears sideways as I walked up, and there was no sound except the wind and rain. If they open the door and hide in the house, they will make a noise more or less, but they don't.

About the sixth and seventh floors, a thunderclap suddenly sounded outside the building. I looked back out the window and stopped.

The resident on the left side of the sixth floor opened the door and walked a little girl who looked like she was fourteen or fifteen years old, with loose hair, wearing a white vest and black shorts, and her newly developed body exuded youthful vitality.

She put the garbage bag in the garbage recycling area in the hallway, and when she turned back to the house, she saw me standing between the sixth and seventh floors. At first, he let out an "ah" in fright, and then slowly walked over to meet my gaze. Her eyes were always looking into mine. She was unguarded, and the sound of footsteps in slippers echoed in the hallway.

"Are you the brother who just shouted and scolded downstairs?" The little girl looked up and said proudly, "You won't be looking for those two children, will you?" You're like a child. ”

The little girl laughed like a silver bell.

I can imagine how embarrassed my expression would be now.

"No, no." I hurriedly waved my hand and made up an excuse and said, "I'm here to find Zhao, who lives on the seventh floor." ”

"Classmate Zhao?"

"That's right, Mr. Zhao."

"Oh, you're talking about Sister Shu Tong, right?"

"Hmm." I let out an ambiguous "um", thinking that this little girl had better go home as soon as possible, so that I could get out of here. Even if it's raining outside.

"She's studying in Songbai, and she only comes back on vacation."

"Oh, that's right."

The little girl had no intention of going home.

"Little sister, are you at home by yourself?" I asked.

"yes."

The little girl nodded expressionlessly.

"Go home, it's not safe to rain outside."

I walked down a step and she took a step back.

"Okay, you go home early, it's not safe to rain outside."

She smiled and closed the door as I did.

The little girl was right, I was going to pack up and go home and put my phone in the back layer of my backpack. As soon as I opened the zipper of my backpack, I found a note inside, which said, "You just want to die!" ”。 There was no name written on the note, and the handwriting was not neat. I couldn't figure out how these two little bastards had put the note in my backpack, and I was so angry that I didn't know if it was angry with the two kids or their parents or the bald man.

"You want to die!"

This time, I could clearly tell that the voice was coming from the seventh floor. I rushed up to the seventh floor in three steps and two steps, and when I looked up, my body was cold, and the girl named Zhao Shutong was standing at the door of her house and looking at me.

She stood against the door, her face facing me.

"You, you are?"

She nodded without changing her expression.

I tried to turn around, but I couldn't.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

Zhao Shutong turned a deaf ear: "I want to trouble you to do me a favor." She stretched out her right hand and handed over a piece of ordinary printer paper.

"What is this?"

"See for yourself."

I glanced at the entire sheet of paper, and there was only one huge book title number, and the word "Untitled" was written in the book title.

3.

"Wake up."

"Huh?"

"Hey! Wake up! ”

Tao Qiwu felt a heart-pounding pain and slowly opened his eyes.

"Are you alright? Lao Zhao, don't say it, this trick is really clever in pinching people!"

He blinked vigorously to dispel the feeling of dizziness.

"Why don't you look at it? I didn't even stop you from shouting. ”

"Huh?" Tao Qiwu came back to his senses and found that he was lying on the ground, next to the thick half of the branch at the mouth of the bowl, and he could clearly see the traces of insect bites on the leaves.

"How many times did you say I shouted you! Don't you see the pruning of the east of the road? Hurry up and shout that you're still going here! Thank you for not being hit by a big tree fork! It's too hanging! This is going to be smashed, you can talk about it! You have to watch the road! How hanging! I'm so scared that I'm sweating! See if you can sit up? Slow down, don't be violent! Come and see me! It was swept by a branch, and it was nothing! It's not broken! It's a big bag! What a hanging! I'll tell you, if you sue, you have to go to the bureau to sue, we're all temporary workers! Hey, it's not easy! Can you get up and walk? If you can go, let's go to the front clinic and let the doctor take a look! ”

14:35, a clinic on Huaxing Road.

The temporary worker next to Tao Qiwu was "chattering" again, talking about the difficulty and hardship of his work.

"I'm fine, if something happens, I definitely can't look for you, brother, don't worry." Tao Qiwu hurriedly said a relenting word.

The part-time worker grinned.

Tao Qiwu walked out of the clinic, holding the phone number left on the medicine box by the temporary worker brother.

"If you're still uncomfortable after that, you'll make this call."

Tao Qiwu nodded and said goodbye to the temporary worker, and walked in the direction of home with the medicine bag.

4.

15:29。

When I got home, I had just stepped in the door with my front foot when thunder and rain began to pour down outside the window. Thankfully, it's fast.

There was no one in the house, and neither of my parents was home.

On the way back, I saw two naughty bags on the rooftop throwing bottles downstairs. Today's children are really hard to manage. Thanks to the development of science and technology, they can easily access things that we could not have access to before.

I rubbed the big bag on my head, feeling dazed. I just want to get some sleep in my bed right now.

5.

After the rain, 18:01.

The sky was still overcast.

I rubbed my head and sat at the table with my parents.

"You have to be careful when you walk."

When my parents spoke, I answered. After thinking about it, he didn't tell them what happened during this time, but just mentioned the breakup with Ma Ting lightly.

When they saw me like this, they thought it was caused by a broken love, and they chattered about what kind of girl to marry.

Although there was a sound on my lips, there was always a lingering thought in my heart: Someone was going to kill me.

"I'm stunned when I eat, and I doubt my life?"

I quickly smiled and ate with vegetables.

After eating, I sat on the couch with a swelling pain in my head. Recently, I really don't have insomnia anymore, but I start to have all kinds of weird dreams. The content of the dream was so real, it was like a part of my real life. For a moment I even felt like I had a mental problem. Could it be a side effect of taking tranquilizers? Quite possibly, I thought I could try to stop taking the medication.

The rain began again, 19:11.

"The ambition of the bird is thousands of miles......" The mobile phone rings, and it is the number of Da Liu's daughter-in-law.

"Sister-in-law? Can I help you? ”

"Can you come to my house, I have something to tell you face to face!"

Da Liu's daughter-in-law's tone was calm, and she couldn't hear the clues.

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

I looked at the time.

"Sister-in-law, it's too late today, right? And I'm not in Songbai. ”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

The other party hung up the phone.

6.

Tao Qiwu called back twice, but Liu's daughter-in-law didn't answer the phone.

At midnight, it rained outside again, and he couldn't sleep, thinking that he would go back to Songbai early tomorrow morning to go to Da Liu's house.

7.

Coming out of the passenger station, I called a car on the side of the road and rushed to Da Liu's house.

9:33。

The sky was still overcast.

I was standing in front of Da Liu's house.

He raised his hand and knocked on the door, paused for a moment, and then knocked twice. I knocked like this for a long time, but no one answered me. During the process, the neighbors who went upstairs and downstairs would look at me when they passed by, and this feeling was very uncomfortable. I finally gave up calling the door, took out my mobile phone and dialed Da Liu's daughter-in-law again.

No one answered.

I knocked again suspiciously, and it was one last attempt.

When I walked downstairs and looked at the window of Da Liu's house, I naturally couldn't see the situation in the house.

What the hell is she going to tell me? Do you have to say it to your face?

It rained intermittently for a day and a night, and the heat was dispelled a lot.

I was thinking about what to do next when I received a call from Cao Chengrui: "Where are you now?" Can you come back now? ”

"What's wrong?"

"I think it's a little strange in your house, there seems to be someone in this house."

Text: Episode 3 -End-