Let's start with more than two decades ago.

In 1998, the climate of China's land was abnormal. In the past three months from June to August, the main rain belt in the flood season has been seesawing and swinging up and down in the north and south of the Yangtze River basin in China, the precipitation is concentrated, and there have been eight flood peaks in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the water level in the middle and lower reaches has remained high for a long time, forming a basin-wide flood, causing huge economic losses and casualties.

In August 1998, in Wenxiu County, a subordinate city of J City, J Province, floods besieged the county seat, and the small village near the county seat had disappeared, leaving only a few branches, sticking out of the water alone.

The amiable and respectable soldiers of the People's Liberation Army drove assault boats back and forth to rescue the trapped people again and again.

Xu Liang, the amiable and respectable mayor who serves the people, sat in his simplely decorated office with a pale face, looking through the emergency reports:

At around 1 p.m. on 7 August 1998, the embankment burst 30 meters between Gate No. 4 and Gate No. 5 of the Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River.

The width of the Jiujiang breach is up to 30 meters, and with the passage of time, the breach will continue to expand, if it is not blocked in time, after the flood rushes to Jiujiang City, the 420,000 people in the city will fall into the catastrophe, and the main artery of Beijing and Kowloon will also be cut off.

The Nanjing Military Region dispatched more than 2,000 officers and men and more than 5,000 militia reservists to the scene to carry out emergency rescue with the local armed police force.

"Damn, what's going on this year? First of all, the man-made disaster of the massacre of China in Indonesia in May, and then the current flood disaster, is it that God no longer bless my China? Xu Liang let out a long sigh.

"Lao Xu, don't worry too much." The mayor's wife came over with a cup of tea, put the tea on the table, and sat on Xu Liang's lap, "You can't be blamed for these things, God loses his temper, and we mortals can only bear it." ”

"Alas, you don't understand, when this disaster is over, it's time to take off the black gauze hat on my head."

"Why? It's not your fault! The mayor's wife screamed.

"If you don't understand, forget it, anyway, our family is thick enough, so we should retire early. Hmph, anyway, when I am an official, I am not a bullshit to serve the people, and I have been pretending to be honest for so many years, but I am tired to death. ”

"But, that, Boss Zhang's money, let's ......"

"Just now, his buildings were washed down by floods, and I guess they cut corners again. But it's better to fall early, lest you die when you get it, but you can't get the money. ”

"Hehe, you dead ghost, why are you still worried about the people?"

"Anyway, everyone is, people......"

Mayor Xu Liang would not have imagined that his office was bugged by the deputy mayor. The conversation between him and his wife, which was converted from speech to text, was printed on the first page of the J City Daily.

Mayor Xu Liang would not have thought that just when he was about to pretend to go to the field to guide the rescue work, the car lost control and rushed into the river, hit his head on the roof of the car and fainted, and was skinned alive after waking up......

Next, let's delve into the heart of a criminal and delve into his horrific thoughts.

The following I will tell the story in the first person from the perspective of a perverted murderer:

There was a boy sitting in front of me.

The boy opened his mouth and said to me, "Hello, my name is Jiang Tian. ”

I looked at Jiang Tian, and Jiang Tian also looked at me. I was a little scared. I felt his gaze wandering through my mind, and my thoughts became unobstructed.

Jiang Tian continued: "The face case in Hongfeng Park, I don't know if Mr. Chen has heard of it? ”

I hesitated, nodded and said, "The newspaper saw it, and it was cruel." ”

"Eighteen years ago, General Eric of Country F mysteriously disappeared, and his face was found 18 years later in Hongfeng Park in H City, China. Judging by the interview given the day before Eric's disappearance, he was an extreme racist. ”

Damn, I know why this Jiang Tian found me.

"I used to think that the murderer killed Eric and skinned him to prove that the so-called noble and lowly bloodline was self-deception. When the discriminator is stripped of his arrogant face, he is no different from the humble discriminated against.

Yes, he guessed right, I peeled Eric's face, and I did want to prove it.

All the skins I peeled off stink; The flesh and blood under the skin are all the same, terrifying.

"I thought that these 13 people were all racists, and I thought that was why the murderer killed 13 people. But the confirmation of the identity of the mayor of J City made me understand that the murderer was not as noble as I thought, and his reason for killing was not as majestic as I imagined. ”

yes, I'm more interested in ......

"Murderer." Jiang Tian looked into my eyes and said, "He wants to collect different faces." ”

This Jiang Tian understands me quite well.

The greedy face, the conceited face, the hypocritical face, are all I want.

A greedy woman scolds her husband all day long, scolding him for not being able to give himself a luxurious life. So the woman kicked away the bicycle that symbolized the beautiful campus love of the bullshit years, threw down the crystallization of love less than a year old that would only cry and make people upset, tore away the cowardly and incompetent husband's holding hand, and didn't look back, got into the BMW of the big boss with a net worth of tens of millions, and in the luxury car that I thought about day and night, I stripped off the face of never being satisfied.

The conceited novelist always thinks that he has no talent, and comments on some unbearable words under the hot books of major fiction websites, believing that only his own works deserve the honor of being popular and sought after by the whole people. He submitted to me again and again, blowing himself up to the sky, and did not listen to my advice at all. I hated his disgusting conceit and snatched it away.

Hypocritical officials pretend to be wealthy that should not belong to him, but they decorate themselves with incorruptibility and buy people's hearts. Heaven could not bear it, so I rushed him before me with great water, and appeased the wrath of Heaven with his dying pleading......

"Originally, this case was very tricky, the deceased had been killed for many years, and there was very little evidence and clues left. But the identification of the two deceased brought to the surface a person who had crossed paths with both deceased at the same time. And the sentence left on the person's face made me determine who the murderer was. ”

"The reporter who interviewed Eric 18 years ago was the same reporter who reported on the scandal of Xu Liang, the mayor of J City. Light. At the same time, I compared Chen. The handwriting of the manuscript and the words on the face of the person confirm that it is the same person's handwriting. Jiang Tian leaned closer to me, looked at me and said, "Reporter, editor, and two-time Chen Tian. Light, you are the face peeler. ”

I'm a former journalist and now an editor at a fiction publishing house.

When I was a journalist, I traveled to the city, to the countryside, and even to the battlefield.

I'm also collecting the faces of different human natures.

I killed a lot of people, the last one was 12 years ago.

Why did I stop, you ask? Because a young policeman named Li Yu stopped me.

I was baking and preserving the 14th face when he bumped into me, and during the fight, he set fire to my face-making factory.

Li Yu thought I was burned to death, but in fact I hid in the formalin pool and survived.

I left China and only came back many years later.

Don't ask me if I killed the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth abroad...... Personally, I don't remember exactly.

But I remember the first 13 faces.

I returned to China this year and learned about the case of the Skinner.

I didn't blame Li Yu, on the contrary, I was very happy that I had a successor.

Sadly, they are all dead.

"So, you take your 13 cheeks, your treasures, and sacrifice them." Jiang Tian sighed after listening to my words.

My breathing started to rapid.

I like Jiang Tian's face so much.

Kind, wise, calm, this is a face I have never seen before.

It's too rare.

"You want my face, don't you?" Jiang Tian seemed to see through my inner thoughts at a glance.

I was stunned and didn't know how to answer.

"I once told Li Yu a story called "Painted Skin", in fact, that story was originally called "Changing Face", and I adapted it. Now, would you like to hear me tell me about the original story "Changing Face"? Jiang Tian said to me.

I smiled and nodded, glad to hear him tell the story.

Jiang Tian took out the handcuffs and put them on my hands.

"According to legend, in ancient times, there was a demon who could take on a human form, but his face was hateful and extremely ugly. Take the face of a beauty, put it above yourself, make up for it with human blood, and start with human reality. However, as soon as the human face is formed, it will be shaped like a withered and turned into powder. This demon is unwilling, looking for the face of others, so following the past, harming countless people. ”

"What does this story mean?"

"It comes from the heart. You don't know, in fact, you are not collecting faces, but collecting people's hearts. ”

I see......

The demon has been looking for a face that can make him beautiful, but he doesn't understand that the relationship is born from his heart.

The ugliness of the heart gives birth to unbearable faces.

And the person who pleases comes from a kind heart.

How can we be freed from those sins?

It's not a face-changing.

It's about changing hearts......