Once, when Eric was young, the family was not so deserted. www.biquge.info Although his parents are still unusually busy, they will not be seen for more than ten years like now. On their days off, they might even take young Eric out to play, just like any normal family.

That was by far the time when Eric felt the most affection.

During that time, although there were still very few visitors to the house, there was only one person who visited frequently. Eric vaguely remembers being a man in his thirties who liked to smoke a low-quality cigarette that smelled smoky, and often said it would help refresh him. Eric remembers the guy had a great sense of humor and talked like he was talking about stand-up comedy. Father seems to have mentioned at some point that the guy was a colleague of his own and at the same time his best friend.

Eric couldn't remember the details about the man, but after all these years, there was only one thing he remembered. It was also the last day he saw the man and his parents.

One day when he was three years old, the doorbell at home was buzzing like crazy. When my father opened the door, the man who had just finished running a marathon appeared at the door panting, sweating as if he had been running in a downpour.

"It's awake, Doctor!" The man's face was as white as paper due to lack of oxygen, but it was clearly full of irrepressible excitement, "We have moved it to a safe place, I am here to pick you up!" ”

Eric didn't know what they were referring to, but he remembered that his father and mother seemed very excited. The two hurriedly followed the man and never returned.

Most people think that a person's memories of the age of three are very vague, and it must be very difficult to extract anything valuable from the intermittent images after so many years, but Eric is not, he remembers most of the things since he came into this world.

"His name is Matt Augustine." He and Kelly Samir were on a train to California as Eric spoke, "He was the one who called my father away, and they never came back." I looked up where he lived, and I knew his address in California, but I never went to him. ”

"Why?"

Eric pondered for a long time, and his eyes looked out of the window of the train, where the grass and trees flashed through the small window like slides.

"My parents have written many times and stressed that they should not try to go to them, and that they will come back when they are done." "Although I don't believe it, my gut tells me that if I really dig deeper, I will definitely be swept into a whole new world, and I may have to say goodbye to my hard-won ordinary life." ”

He laughed self-deprecatingly.

"I've been deceiving myself with the pretense that my father had told me to 'focus on life' in his letters, but that was just self-paralysis. I should have known...... I can't live like this ordinary forever......"

Kelly looked at him with a complicated expression and didn't speak.

Matt Augustine's home isn't hard to find, a duplex villa on the outskirts of California. The black iron gate on the perimeter was rusty and looked to be very old. The garden was overgrown with weeds, the tallest of which was waist-high, and a strong wind blew through the yard, and the sound was like an accordion song.

"Looks like he's gone." Kelly frowned, not seeming to like the eerie aura of the old villa.

"No, the newspaper box is still in use, and today's newspaper hasn't been picked up yet." "There's still people living there." ”

The black iron gate lock was broken, and Eric pushed the squeaky iron door open. The two of them crossed the path sandwiched between the weeds of Hula and came to the door of the villa.

Eric rang the doorbell for more than two minutes before the door finally opened slowly.

The man who appeared behind the door had messy hair like a chicken coop and was wearing a scruffy pajamas. Despite the marks of time on the man's face, Eric recognized him at a glance - Matt Augustine.

"Mr. Augustine......"

Eric had barely spoken, and before he could even utter a complete sentence, the man's face changed as if he had seen a ghost, and he hurried to close the door. Eric's eyes were quick, and he reached for the crack in the door with one hand and tried to hold the door panel to prevent him from closing.

"Mr. Augustine! I'm Eric Charlotte, Padraic Charlotte's son! As Eric shouted, he noticed Augustine's look of surprise, and the force coming from the door seemed to have decreased.

Seeing the other party's wavering, he raised his voice and continued to ask, "What happened that night fifteen years ago?" Where did my dad and my mom go? You know that, right!? ”

Augustine's eyes seemed to show hesitation, but at the same time they seemed to be full of deep fear.

He grabbed Eric's hand violently, stepped forward, and said loudly in a vicious tone, "Don't bother me! ”

But then, Eric heard him whisper in a voice that only he could hear, "Tonight, come by alone." ”

Eric was stunned, and in a moment of his distraction, Augustine slammed the door shut, followed by the sound of chains locking the door inside.

Neither Eric nor Kelly noticed that a street away a woman was sitting in the driver's seat of a black Rolls-Royce, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other answering her phone.

"Yes...... He found Dr. Augustine...... Well, so far it's still like in the calculations. She said, "...... Yes, she was with her...... Well, I'll stay tuned. ”

Dr. Augustine stood in front of the villa window, watching Eric and Kelly leave the villa, and the whole person collapsed on the ground as if he had been sucked out of his bones.

He clasped his head tightly in his hands, and his ten fingers dug deep into his unkempt black hair, which was already mixed with a lot of silver hair. For a man in his forties, he did look a little too old.

"Your son has come here, Dr. Charlotte." He whispered to himself in a trembling voice, "Maybe I'll die, but ...... But I had to tell him the truth. This is the only thing I can do to make it up to you...... Friend. I'm sorry......"

The scruffy middle-aged man held his head in pain, his body twitching, as if he was crying.