In 2010, it was a late autumn night.

On the weekend, Yin Yu came to the door of Siwang's house, still wearing a blue tracksuit, riding on a sports bike, and his short hair looked like a man. The fifteen-year-old ran downstairs and was already bigger than her.

"Wow, you kid, you're starting to grow a beard, and you're looking more and more like an adult!"

A punch slammed into Si Wang's chest, he was ready to straighten his chest, and he actually took it hard.

Two years ago, Yin Yu was admitted to Nanming High School. She was the first in the school in every exam, and she didn't even give the principal face, and the teachers were not friendly to her. She liked the school library the most, and once touched the mysterious little attic and found many old books. She had heard that it had been the scene of a murder, and that a girl had been poisoned with oleander juice, and that the killer had not yet been caught. Her math teacher is *Song, Yin Yu discovered all kinds of quirks in him, such as his love of reading bizarre books, semiotics and history, various European, American and Japanese mystery novels, and he is also a crazy zombie movie lover.

Si Wang asked her to help find a person - Lu Zhongyue.

He showed the photo on the wanted warrant of the Public Security Bureau, Yin Yu looked at the text at the bottom and said, "Hey, this guy has at least two lives on his back, he must have run away a long time ago, how can he still be near our school?" ”

"Intuition."

His expression was extremely serious, and those eyes seemed to burn, and Yin Yu agreed to this request.

At this moment, she showed a weird smile: "Can you accompany me to a place?" ”

The two rode their bikes and turned into a quiet alley. Facing the brick wall covered with fences, through the black iron gate, you can vaguely see the old-fashioned bungalows. They locked the car under the wall, rang the doorbell and the door opened automatically.

Inside the gate was a narrow yard full of all kinds of plants and golden leaves. The house is only two floors, quite decadent in the autumn wind, only the steps and sculptures at the entrance can see the dignity and delicacy of the year.

Si Wang pulled the corner of Yin Yu's clothes and said, "What kind of place is this?" ”

But the tomboy didn't speak, and walked into a cold foyer, with mosaics under his feet, mottled and peeling walls, and generally clean, with no dust or cobwebs to be seen. Walking into the gloomy hallway on the ground floor, I smelled a rotting smell, not the stench of corpses, but like orange peels that had been there for many years. A ray of light came through the half-open door, and the two of them entered lightly, a room of three-sided bookshelves, floor-to-ceiling full of books, the thick spine of which was ancient, from which the smell emanated.

And a woman.

It is difficult to associate her with the word woman, just like every time I see Yin Yu, I think she is a man.

She was curled up in a thick scarf, her hair was not thin but like snow, and her skin was whiter than that of ordinary people, but crisscrossed with wrinkles, and it smelled like orange peel no matter what she looked like. Although the corners of his eyes are drooping, he can see that he was once a pair of beautiful eyes. Probably because of the loss of teeth, the corners of the mouth are obviously deflated inward, and there are several layers of skin hanging from the thin chin, and it is completely impossible to judge the age.

She can only be described as an old lady.

Yin Yu was already familiar with the way, and the old lady didn't treat her as an outsider, but she was a little surprised when she saw Si Wang, and her cloudy eyes flickered.

"Don't be afraid!" Yin Yu walked behind the old man and massaged his shoulder, "He is my good brother, who used to be in the same junior high school." ”

"Oh, hello! My name is Si Wang, the commander's Si Wang, and I am now in the third year of junior high school. ”

"Si Wang, good name, you can just call me Miss Cao."

She replied in Mandarin, vague because she had no teeth, her voice was dry and hoarse, and her speech was much slower than that of ordinary people, as if she had been squeezed out of the bottom of a deep well.

Cao ...... Miss Cao......"

Calling an old woman "Miss" is not natural anyway.

"After so many years, you finally have friends." The old lady turned her neck slightly, not knowing if she could see Yin Yu behind her, "It's so good, I'm happy for you." ”

Yin Yu is still massaging the blood veins for the old man: "Okay, I hope you can like him too!" Don't look at this kid stupid, in fact, he is not simple! ”

The old lady stretched out a root-like hand from the large scarf, reminiscent of a vampire zombie or a mummy, and put it tremblingly on her shoulder, pressing it on Yin Yu's hand, who was massaging her. One hand is already dying, and the other hand is young, and the moment they are held together, they are as soft as water and mud, like two hands of the same person.

"Kid, you're a storyteller, aren't you?"

The old lady turned her head to look at Si Wang's eyes, and there was a demonic aura in her cloudy eyes, saying that she was two hundred years old.

"I-no."

"Someone who can be friends with Miss Yin can't have a story, can he? I'm almost ninety years old, what kind of people haven't I seen? ”

"Forget it, let's not embarrass this kid."

Yin Yu picked up a wooden comb from the window, like some kind of antique, and combed the gray-haired Miss Cao's hair while speaking a long list of French. The old lady also replied in fluent French - just looking at the appearance of the two, they looked more like grandchildren of more than four generations, but as long as they heard them talk, they realized that they had been close friends for many years.

The old lady closed her eyes and enjoyed it, and the ancient comb teeth slid across her scalp, pouring three thousand long hair like snow: "For many years, every week at this moment, you will come to comb my hair, and when I die, you will comb someone else's hair." ”

"Don't worry, you will live for at least twenty years, and by that time, I will be almost old."

Yin Yu's answer made her smile peacefully, and the old lady looked at Si Wang again and said, "Little friend, Yin Yu is a good person, don't be scared by her." If you really think of her as a friend, she will definitely help you if you have any problems. ”

"Okay, Miss Cao, this is the secret between us."

"For me, there are no secrets in this world."

She spoke unusually calmly, the whole person was like a vast mountain, Si Wang was just a child chopping wood, and he had not even found a hiking trail.

Yin Yu boiled hot water for her, put dozens of tablets in the drawer, and took out fresh vegetables from the heavy schoolbag and put them in the refrigerator. She turned on the gas stove and began to cook vegetables, and actually made a table of sumptuous dishes, but it was mainly vegetables, and there were almost no meat dishes, which was very suitable for the elderly.

"Hey, please eat."

She still called Si Wang.

Yin Yu, Si Wang, and Miss Cao are sitting in the restaurant as a family, and the background is still the picture from many years ago, as if they have returned to the old movies.

The old lady picked up the chopsticks and said, "Oh, it's a pity that the teeth are gone, so I miss the eight treasures hot sauce in Rongshun Pavilion." ”

After eating this unique dinner, Yin Yu got up and said, "We're going back, you're good alone!" ”

"Don't worry, I won't die here alone!"

"What do you say?"

Yin Yu took the old lady's hand and shook it tightly, but she was reluctant to put it down.

"Let's go back." Miss Cao also glanced at Si Wang, "Children, even if the water released from the water pipe eventually flows into the surging river and is filtered by the waterworks, it is no longer the water that flows through your hands." ”

"Oh?"

"You'll understand sooner or later."

Looking at the old lady's weird smile, Yin Yu dragged Si Wang out of the room, and only the courtyard leaves were left in front of him.

At night, walking out of this deep house compound, the two of them had just ridden their bicycles, but there were raindrops above their heads.

"Shall we go back to shelter from the rain?"

"Now that they're all out, don't go back and bother her."

Although, Yin Yu said so simply, he actually wanted to go back again.

Fifteen-year-olds, eighteen-year-olds, sit quietly on bicycles, sheltering from the rain in the shadow of the fence wall, and occasionally a light raindrop drifts on their faces, cold as a pinprick.

"Actually, you're a man."

Si Wang broke the silence, and she was noncommittal in the darkness.

"Why don't you speak? Is it because of Miss Cao? ”

"She's the last woman I like."

Yin Yu said this sentence like an old man.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Well, since we're best friends, there's no need to hide it from you—I still have memories of my past life after I die. It's just that my past life was too long, so long that the day I died, how happy and relieved I was. ”

The boy looked back at the treetops in the fence wall and said, "At least, you're lucky that she's still alive and you'll be able to see her." ”

"Actually, I have had many women, in the last life, until everyone left me, and I was like the last Don Quixote. Only, she's still there. ”

"Is she your wife?"

"I used to wish she wasn't, but then I wished she was."

"I don't understand."

Yin Yu looked up to the sky and smiled bitterly, becoming extremely sad: "In another twenty years, you will understand." Men and women, separated and separated, waited and waited, after all, it was too late. You don't know, soon after I met her, I was sent to the depths of the desert in the Qaidam Basin, for thirty years. By the time I got back to the city, I was too old to walk. ”

"It turned out to be a tragedy."

"Every life is a tragedy."

She reached out and touched the raindrops outside, put on the hood of her jacket, and rode out of the alley on the pedals of her bicycle.

On a rainy night, the road is extremely quiet, with wheels running over a field of golden ginkgo leaves, splashing a few drops of rain, and the roadside sign reads "Rest Road".

He followed behind and asked loudly, "Are you familiar with this street?" ”

"Well, the last twenty years of my last life were spent on the road of rest."

"With Miss Cao?"

"No, she lives at the east end of the road, and I live at the west end, four hundred meters apart. I'll show you there. ”

A minute later, riding in the autumn rain, I rode in front of a large mansion, the lights of the three-story windows were on, and there were many residents inside. There is a half-section of window near the ground, presumably a vent in the basement.

"I live on the ground floor."

Yin Yu pointed forward, and the dialogue of the Hunan Satellite TV TV series came from the curtain.

He looked at the air window in the basement on the side of the road: "You shouldn't have a family member from the previous life, right?" ”

"How do you know?" She sighed as she rode her bike, "Perhaps, there won't be one in this life." ”

"A trip to the mountain, a trip to the water, the body to the side of Yuguan, a thousand tent lights in the middle of the night. The wind is changing, the snow is changing, the dream of the broken hometown cannot be realized, and there is no sound in the old garden. ”

"Nalan Xingde's "Sauvignon Blanc", why do you think of this?"

He didn't answer, and when he turned around on his bike, he saw a house across the road, standing gloomily in the rainy night, with the roof tiles falling off, the walls mottled, and the yellow weeds growing between the windowsills.

She almost put her head to the back of Si Wang's head and said: "This is a murderous mansion, it has been many years, and no one has lived in it anymore because the property rights are not clear." ”

"Murderous house?"

"Let me think about it - everything is clear when you are young, but it is a little vague when you are old...... Yes, it was 1983, and on an autumn night like now, it was drizzling and there was a murder. The owner turned out to be a famous translator who hanged himself in the house in the 70s of the 20th century, and the whole house was occupied by a rebel leader. Later, instead of being eliminated, this bastard was promoted to a certain agency as a director. In 1983, he mysteriously died at home, reportedly having his throat cut by broken glass. At that time, there was much speculation, some people said that he was killed by the ghost of the original owner of the house, and others said that he did a lot of evil, attracting the victim's family to come to the door to retaliate and kill. The police investigated for a long time, but in the end there was no result. ”

Si Wang pushed his bicycle up the steps, reaching out and touching the house, from the locked rusty iron door, to the almost rotten wooden mailbox, and the nearly falling door number.

19 Sabbath Road.

His fingers slid over the black iron sheet, and Yin Yu gave birth to a feeling that was quickly transmitted to the neurons - this murderous mansion had some kind of relationship with this young man.

Si Wang's hand flicked off like an electric shock, and he fled the road of rest on his bicycle.

The autumn rain came down densely, and Yin Yu rode a bicycle to follow until he was under the big locust tree at home.

"Go home!"

"Wait a minute, I have something to tell you."

Hiding in the doorway downstairs, he looked around nervously, probably worried that his mother or neighbors would find out, for fear of mistaking him for a relationship with this tomboy?

"Si Wang, didn't you ask me to find a fugitive named Lu Zhongyue? Last month, I made a new discovery! Your instincts are accurate - it's still on Nanming Road, in the newly built shopping area, there is a very small video store. I've been there a few times when the store is closed, and finally one time it opened, selling all kinds of old films, including Hong Kong martial arts films, Qiong Yao films from the 80s of the 20th century, and old translated films from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The owner was a man in his forties, and he couldn't tell what the facial features were, but it was a plain face that could easily drown out in the crowd, but there was a shallow mark on his forehead. I bought a set of "The Battle of Moscow" from him, and he didn't have much money, so he gave me change at will. He smoked from start to finish, and in just a few minutes, he smoked at least two. He had a huge ashtray with dense cigarette butts. ”

In the cold and rainy night, Si Wang couldn't help but sneeze, and she continued completely disregarded: "Everyone is used to listening to music and watching movies on the Internet, and few people come to patronize his video store, and I don't know why it can still operate to this day. One night, it was pouring rain, and I was walking around the wilderness alone in my raincoat, and you know the boys were not as daring as me. Nanming Road was empty, but I saw one coming out of the video store, holding a huge black umbrella, walking across the road towards the old factory. I followed curiously, and the rain obscured my voice and tracks. This man is the mysterious shopkeeper, he is very familiar with the terrain, he did not get lost in the rainy night, and soon arrived at the so-called witch area, and quickly burrowed into the tunnel. I hid outside and observed, and for an hour, he never appeared again, as if he had traveled to the Qing Dynasty through the underground. When I was tired and hungry, I had to go back to my dormitory to sleep. ”

"Did he find you?"

"Probably not." Yin Yu fell into the shadows, "I know how to stealth, do you believe it?" Good bye. ”

It rained all the time.