April 10th. Tuesday. Early morning, 6:29 a.m.

"You're looking for me?" Ye Xiao walked into the black hole ward and went to the window to open the curtains. A muffled voice came from the hospital bed: "Don't move the curtains!" ”

"Why?" He looked back at the hospital bed in confusion. If you don't turn on the lights, you can't see each other's faces clearly, or you may be talking to a zombie, "You were also infected by that little Japanese boy, and you can't see the sun like him?" ”

"No, I like to hide in the dark."

"After seven days and seven nights underground, you don't adapt to the living environment on the ground?"

"Maybe. I found myself like the frightened creature in Kafka's never-ending "The Cave" that lives forever underground. His voice grew deeper and deeper, down below the floor.

Ye Xiao looked at the black hospital bed and said, "Can you turn on the light?" I don't know if I'm talking to you, if you're talking around. ”

The bedside reading lamp was lit, and the faint light illuminated the top of the hospital bed, revealing the face of a man's vicissitudes. Almost unrecognizable at first glance, Ye Xiao twisted his eyebrows and approached him, only to confirm that it was his best friend in his youth-Zhou Xuan.

However, when he was first questioned yesterday morning, he was by no means what he is now. In less than twenty hours, he had a few more wrinkles on his face, a beard on his cheeks, and a lot of gray hair. What kind of suffering did you suffer this night?

"What's wrong with you?" Ye Xiao recalled that twenty years ago, the young man who dreamed of becoming the Conan Doyle of China was in his prime.

He turned to turn on the headlights in the hospital room. Zhou Xuan shouted: "Don't! I don't want too much light! ”

"Do you think you're still alive in the grave?"

"Yes."

This short and powerful word made Ye Xiao turn his head and stare at his bloodshot eyes: "What do you want to say to me?" ”

"I'm going to turn myself in."

As a policeman, these four words have been heard countless times, and they can come out of Zhou Xuan's mouth, but they make Ye Xiao very uncomfortable - he can almost pick up the second half of the sentence.

"Good." After a pause for a few seconds, Ye Xiao picked up two meaningless words.

"I am the murderer who killed Luo Haoran." Sure enough, Zhou Xuan calmly said what Ye Xiao had just guessed.

In the early morning, the gloomy ward seems to stay in the ruins of the cinema and projector room on the ninth floor of the underground Future Dream Mall. In addition to Ye Xiao and Zhou Xuan, there was another man covered in blood, and a Labrador who barked incessantly, and the man and dog looked at them desperately, begging them for something, until the man's throat was cut open by a sharp piece of broken glass, and blood splattered several meters away like champagne, coating the floor of the ward in the shadows.

"Why didn't you say it yesterday?" Ye Xiao's expression did not move.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to be caught by your own hands, those incomprehensible answers yesterday must have disappointed you."

"I know you're not telling the truth." Ye Xiao took half a step back, not daring to face his eyes again.

Zhou Xuan can still guess his thoughts, based on the fact that the two of them walked together in the school playground twenty years ago, nibbled on popsicles on the way out of school, and followed female classmates to write small notes......

"I can't believe I'll make it out alive. When I woke up yesterday, I felt like I was still underground, just dreaming in despair. I stayed up all night, thinking back to what had happened underground for seven days and seven nights, and it felt like it was a nightmare. ”

"I don't know if I'm a guest in my dream?" Ye Xiao secretly scolded himself: Why did you become as sour as Zhou Xuan?

"Yes, do you notice how much older I seem to have overnight? I was the uninvited guest in this dream. You asked me why I stayed at the five-star Future Dream Hotel for one night, and I replied that it was for inspiration to write a novel. ”

"Obviously lying."

"That's right. How could I, a poor third-rate writer, afford to live in a five-star hotel? It's just an overdraft credit card. ”

"Even you say you're a third-rate writer?"

"What do you think? Do you think I'm going to survive so many years of hard work and finally become the most famous mystery novelist in China? That's not my life, it's just an illusion. ”

The more Ye Xiao listened, the more desolate he felt, so he interrupted his self-deprecation: "You haven't said the reason why you stayed in the Future Dream Hotel. ”

"I'm here to kill."

"Kill whom?"

"The owner of the Future Dream Mansion - Luo Haoran." At the last three words, Zhou Xuan's lips trembled slightly.

"What was the motive for the killing?"

"Revenge."

"For whom?"

"Myself."

Ye Xiao looked at his eyes and couldn't judge whether it was true or false: "What kind of hatred did Luo Haoran have with you?" ”

"He's guilty."

"What crime?"

"Homicide."

"Whether he is guilty or not," this categorical conversation made Ye Xiao a little breathless, "It should be investigated by the police and determined by the judge." ”

"There's no need to judge, he admitted it."

"Where? Is it underground? ”

"Yes."

"So, before staying at the Future Dream Hotel and the Ground Sinking Disaster, you just suspected him of murder?"

"I don't doubt it, I'm sure of it." Zhou Xuan raised his head and faced Ye Xiao's eyes without fear.

"So, who did he kill?"

"Kill the love of my life."

"Women?"

"Will it still be a man?" He roared angrily, as if Ye Xiao had insulted his sexuality.

Ye Xiao comforted his anger with silence until he turned from a lion to a sheep, weakly calmed down in the depths of the hospital bed, and let out a pitiful voice: "I'm sorry. I'm a murderer, my hands are covered in other people's blood, and I don't have the right to yell at the police. ”

"It's okay, you can't name that woman?"

"I don't want to say it."

"Your surrender is incomplete."

"I don't want you to know my secrets, which is why I couldn't tell you the truth yesterday."

Faced with such an ironclad, Ye Xiao didn't want to use some means, so he only threw out a sentence coldly: "Okay, I will find out, if there is really such a person, there is really another murder case." ”

"Please don't use ifs, it's an insult to her."

"Well, I apologize to you. You stayed at the Future Dream Hotel just to murder Luo Haoran? ”

"I knew that he had been living in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Future Dream Hotel all year round, so I tried to live next door to him, hoping for an opportunity to kill him, such as knocking on the door by pretending to be a waiter, and then using a power cord to strangle his neck, so that he would soon be out of breath."

"Didn't you know he had a dog?"

"That dog can't bite, at most a few calls, even if it can attract the security guards, Luo Haoran will already become a corpse."

Poor Labrador Retriever was actually seen through at a glance.

"Then aren't you afraid of being caught? Whether it's the hotel's camera or the accommodation record, it's hard to escape. ”

"I'm not afraid. Since they want to kill him, they have the heart of death. ”

"Why did you kill him in a hurry until the last moment, when you were about to be rescued?" Ye Xiao closed his eyes, and the upper and lower eyelids only touched for less than a second before they separated, "If it's a few minutes late, maybe I'll bump into it." ”

"That's a good question! I originally wanted to kill Luo Haoran on the night of April 1st. But suddenly a disaster happened, and I escaped out of the guest room on the top floor out of instinct, and happened to bump into Luo Haoran and his dog in the corridor. The chaotic escape was a good time to kill, but I was not a professional killer after all, and in the situation at that time, I had no time to kill, but followed Luo Haoran down from the escape channel. ”

"What's next?"

Zhou Xuan showed a complicated expression and retracted the quilt: "Next, we spent seven days and seven nights together. I haven't forgotten why I'm here, but I'm just frustrated, because everyone thinks that the end of the world has come, that humanity outside has been completely wiped out, and that those of us who are struggling to survive underground will die sooner or later, and we can only pray for a few more days, or die a less painful and ugly death. ”

"Do you think that even if you don't do it, Luo Haoran won't be able to live for a few days?"

"Yes. That's where I'm most miserable, so what can I do if I kill him? Unless the most cruel and disgusting means are exhausted, it is only to help him get out of the sea of suffering as soon as possible. What's more, when it comes to the end of the world, everyone will be overwhelmed and don't know what to do. To me, it's just revenge and murder? Isn't there anything else you want to do? ”

"So what else do you want to do besides killing?"

"I don't know—" Zhou Xuan closed his eyes and thought for about a minute, "a lot...... A lot...... I want to do too much, in this special environment of the closed underground, in this special time of the end of the world, among these twenty or so special people around. But every one of my ideas failed, just like my writing and my life. Perhaps, I was born to be a doomed person. ”

"Then in these seven days and seven nights, you and Luo Haoran will coexist peacefully?"

"That's pretty much, I didn't show any intention to kill him, and I didn't let him know my hatred. I'm even on his side of many of the events that happened underground. Although, once in a while, I would be full of murderous intentions towards him, wanting to quietly take a nylon rope and tighten his neck from behind until he died, or fantasize that his throat would be cut open and covered in blood...... But in the underground environment, although I may face cruel death every day, and even be insensitive to corpses, I still don't have the courage to kill Luo Haoran. ”

"Have you ever thought that, in fact, you have let go of hatred and you have forgiven him."

"No, I will never forgive this man!" Zhou Xuan was a little excited, and clenched the corner of the quilt with both hands, "Because he took away the most precious thing in my life." ”

"Love?"

"No, it's my hope, my only hope in this dark world." He stared at the lamp at the head of the bed, the only light source in the room.

"Why, and finally killed him again?"

"I thought that at the end of the world, there would be no more humans as animals, no more pain and troubles, and I could put aside my murder plan for the time being. But when the last day came, on the evening of April 8, the dome above the movie theater on the ninth floor shook incessantly – I realized that either the dome was about to collapse or someone came to our rescue! For seven days and seven nights, the delusions about the end of the world were suddenly abandoned, and I strongly believed that the world was not destroyed, and that most of humanity was safe and sound, and that every effort was being made to save us. ”

"That's right, from ten o'clock in the evening on April 1st, I watched the Future Dream Building sink into the ground, and watched them drill and rescue on the ground, and the whole world was watching you."

"It's not my fault." Zhou Xuan said lightly, picked up his cup and took a big sip of water, "Anyway, in the end, I encouraged everyone to flee upstairs and get as close to the dome on the ninth floor as possible. ”

"Have you ever thought that this is also the most dangerous?"

"At that time, there was only the survival instinct left, how could you expect so much? Everyone ran away, Luo Haoran and the dog were in the front, and I followed closely behind, with only one thought in my heart - whether I could escape or not, I had to kill him first! ”

"Are you afraid that instead of escaping, you let him be rescued?"

"Yes. Even if he and I were both rescued, how could I have a chance to kill in plain sight? In the future, he will definitely move somewhere else, and I will not have a chance to kill him. At that time, it was my best and last chance to kill him. ”

"Understandable."

The ceiling of the cinema began to crumble, and Luo Haoran and his dog fled into the projector room. But I heard a loud noise in the projector room, followed by the barking of dogs. After half a minute, I cautiously climbed in and found that Luo Haoran had been crushed in the rubble - this was God's arrangement, and I must kill him with my own hands. ”

"What did he say?"

"Didn't say anything! I picked up the broken glass on the floor, crawled behind his back, put my hands around his neck, and slit his throat - so that the blood he spurted wouldn't get on me. ”

Ye Xiao held his chin and stared into his eyes: "You said so calmly. ”

"Yes, the more times like this, the more calm I become. When I slit his neck, I didn't even shake my hands. It seems that I didn't want to be a professional killer, and I chose the unpromising career of being a writer, which is really the wrong business. ”

"And you escaped from the projector room?"

"Yes, I ran desperately to the end of the passage until the four walls fell and crushed me under the rubble - I don't know how long it took for someone to dig me out, and then I took your hand."

"Enough. You'll have to save some energy and say it again when you're writing. ”

Zhou Xuan turned from excitement to satisfaction and relaxation, and said with relief: "Now you can put me in the detention center." ”

"No, the truth hasn't been revealed yet, and you're not allowed to go anywhere."

"What about the other survivors?"

"Gotta stay here. There are still too many questions to figure out! ”

"Ye Xiao, they are innocent, don't doubt it." Zhou Xuan straightened up and stared into his eyes, "If, I tell you, for seven days and seven nights underground, all the people who died were killed by me, do you believe it or not?" ”

His face was expressionless, but his heart was stormy. Ye Xiao's eyes were cold, and he said to his former best friend-

"I don't believe it."