At eleven o'clock on Monday morning, Qi Luoling received a call from Xu Xiaoya, saying that she was free at noon today and wanted to ask Qi Luoling to have a meal together. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Qi Luoling thought about it, since she moved to that cramped house, the two of them almost relied on phone calls, and they hadn't gotten together for a long time. Thinking that she had nothing else to arrange during the day today, she readily agreed to Xu Xiaoya.

Thirty minutes later, Qi Luoling came to the downstairs of the building where Xu Xiaoya worked, she looked at the time, and felt that it was still early.

She decided to take a walk near the building where Xu Xiaoya worked, and waited for Xu Xiaoya to get off work. The road is quiet and there are not many pedestrians passing by. The clear blue sky is crisp and clear. The sun is clear and beautiful. There was no sound around, and even though I was in a big city, I felt unusually quiet at this moment.

Not far away, there was a newsstand, and she decided to buy a newspaper to pass the time.

The boxy newsstand is filled with a variety of magazines and a variety of newspapers.

"I want to buy a newspaper." She smiled at the stall owner in the newsstand. The stall owner is an elderly man in his sixties, with gray hair and reading glasses.

"What do you want?"

"Grab me a copy of what's yours. I'm passing the time. “

"Then I'll get you a morning news, today's headline is a homicide news." The old man glanced at her, his glasses low at the base of his nose, as if they would fall off if he was not careful.

"What homicide news?"

"Last night a young man was stabbed to death by gangsters at home. For more information, take a look at the morning news. Hey," the old man said regretfully, "It's really bad to have public security now, it's a pity to be involved in this matter at such a young age, I heard that he is still a professor." ”

She took out a dollar from her bag, handed it to the old man, and took a copy of the morning newspaper, reading it as she walked.

The headline on the front page of the news morning newspaper was that yesterday evening, a burglary and murder case occurred in the XX district of Shanghai, a man in his thirties was murdered and died that night. It was learned that the man was a professor at a university in the city. The public security organs are making every effort to investigate the case based on clues.

The photo is of a male corpse facing the sky on his back, with a large amount of blood flowing from his chest, a sweater on his upper body that is rolled up to reveal almost his entire abdomen and stained with a large amount of blood, and blue-gray pants underneath. But the deceased's appearance was revealed, a face she was familiar with.

She frowned, isn't it Professor Chen who told her about the effect of music on people's thinking and emotions two days ago?

At this time, Xu Xiaoya walked over from a distance.

"What's wrong with you? The face is so ugly? Is it uncomfortable? Xu Xiaoya looked at her pale face.

"No..... nothing, I'm just thinking about someone." She came back to her senses and said.

"Thinking about your birth mother?"

"No, it's someone else."

While eating, Qi Luoling suddenly asked, "Xiaoya, don't you think I'm an ominous person?" ”

"Why do you say that?" Xu Xiaoya looked at her in surprise.

"I find it as if the men I've been in contact with are at great risk of dying." She muttered to herself.

"What?" Xu Xiaoya didn't seem to understand her words.

"Nothing." She lowered her head and continued her meal.

After lunch, Qi Luoling left in a hurry.

When she returned to her home, she immediately called Cheng Yuping.

"Today, I saw the news in the newspaper that Professor Chen was killed."

"Yes." Cheng Yuping was very calm, as if he was not surprised at all.

There were a few seconds of blank silence on the phone.

"How could such a thing happen?" Qi Luoling couldn't help but ask.

"It is said that his killing was linked to a fanatical cult."

"He joins a cult?"

"No, according to the police investigation, his murder seems to have something to do with the subject he studied."

"What is the subject of the study?"

"Yes, that's what he told you the other day, about the impact of music on people's minds and emotions."

"Why?"

Cheng Yuping on the other end of the phone was silent again, as if he was thinking about whether to say or not.

"Why, exactly?" Qi Luoling hurriedly asked.

"According to one of his most effective students, he seems to have mastered the art of using music to control people's minds."

Qi Luoling tried to recall the conversation between the two of them, and he did hint at this kind of information.

"And then?"

"I heard that the cult organization had sent people to ask him to hand over this research report."

"Do you mean that the cult wants to use his research to control people's minds? And then he refused, so he was killed? ”

"That's what it says."

After hanging up the phone, she sat on the sofa and looked out the window at the clouds in the blue sky. The sky was so blue, so blue that it could not be expanded again, squeezing and destroying the world inside her. She almost ran out of breath.

At seven o'clock in the evening, she packed her things and went to the bar on time to perform. In the bar, she played a song called "Exodus" to commemorate the passing of Professor Chen. The magnificent sadness of the song permeates the entire space, and also soaks her lonely soul.

When she got home, she washed hastily and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, she suddenly woke up, her eyes wide open in the dark, even though she could not see anything. After waking up, she felt no sleep, and her consciousness suddenly became unusually awake, and she began to think hard about Professor Chen's death again.

Suddenly, she had a terrible instinct that there was more than her in the room, there should be another person. The other party was in the dark, silent, but she caught his breath in the dark, even if it was very faint, so she could feel that he was in the room, and that he was now watching her deeply.

Where did he come from? Maybe he came before she went to bed, maybe he came while she was asleep, or maybe he came into her room when she was awake.

The breeze blew through the thin light gauze curtains in front of the window, and the moonlight shone through, and she vaguely saw the rocking chair in front of the desk in front of the window swaying slightly, obviously the breeze was not enough to have such great power. And there was a black shadow on the rocking chair, and he was shaking it.

Qi Luoling's heart tightened, and fear hit her like a mountain and a sea.

She longed for the light, so she trembled to turn on the lamp in front of her bed. But for some reason, I turned it on several times in a row, but the lamp didn't come on.

"What? Do you want to turn on the lights? The shadow in the darkness suddenly spoke, and his voice was ethereal, like a gust of wind blowing.

She nodded.

The lamp in front of the bed suddenly turned on, and an orange light enveloped the room. She mustered her courage and couldn't help but look into the chair.

Despite the light, there was still a shadow in the chair, and the light seemed to be unable to penetrate the shadow, but the light seemed to be reflected by the shadow, and suddenly the room was unusually bright. The shadow was different from ordinary shadows, it stretched and contracted freely in every place, as if a person was expressing his body movements.

"Actually, I also longed for a glimmer of light, even though I rarely saw it." The dark shadow said.

"Who are you?" She asked subconsciously.

"Who am I?" Darkness chuckled, "Didn't you notice that the way I was speaking wasn't human language?" ”

After he said this, she suddenly realized that he was not speaking Chinese, nor Korean, nor English, but a chaotic and direct message. Chaos is because the form of his expression is vague and she cannot define. Directly because the information he transmits can be directly covered in her brain consciousness, and there is no need for the conversion and processing of the language center at all.

"Don't think about it, he's dead."

"Who are you talking about?"

"The professor of philosophy, of course. Death was his only relief. ”

"How do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Of course, human consciousness is transparent in front of me. Including your consciousness. ”

"And who the hell are you?"

"How so? I have many names, Demon, Satan, Death, Ghost, I don't know which one do you like? ”

She was silent and did not speak.

"Don't be afraid, God and Satan are one, just as good and evil are concentrated in one person. Don't you humans always want to be close to Satan when you live, but you want to see God when you die? ”

"What do you mean by that last sentence?"

"You human beings want pleasure, covetousness, possession while you live, and these evils are given by Satan, but after you die you want to see God. Isn't that the duality of your human nature? ”

She was silent for a long time and asked, "Do you, the devil, or God, really exist?" ”

"Everything in the universe exists, not only for you humans, but also for the Creator whom you cannot perceive."

"I don't believe it, I'd rather believe that the demon God lives only in faith."

"Of course I understand your thoughts, because human knowledge of the mechanism of the universe is not enough to give a definitive answer to the real world, which is the limitation of human beings. Didn't one of you human beings named Kant also said that the essence of all objective things is unknowable. So you attribute this limitation to agnosticism. “

"Why do you say that Professor Chen will be liberated when he dies?"

"Do you believe that there is no rest of life after death?"

"Of course. This is a materialist point of view. “

"This is a hypothesis that you cannot prove. Everything in the universe is circulated in the form of an infinite cycle of life. That is to say, everything that exists, or has existed, or will exist. “

"You're here today to tell me about the philosophical topic of being and consciousness or life and death?"

"Of course, no, I'm here today to tell you about the existence of demons, and likewise, the existence of demon music."

"Why should I go looking for demonic music?"

"Of course, because ......" he suddenly stopped talking, as if remembering something.

"Because?"

"You probably know your great-grandfather as a Pole."

"Yes. What does this have to do with him? “

"It's because of the demonic contract."

"Demonic Pact?"

"Yes, it's the reason for the demon contract, in fact, to be precise, the demon contract is actually a love contract." His voice suddenly became lonely.

For a long time afterward, neither of them spoke.

"Alright, I'm leaving. Remember, if you follow love, you follow the music. ”

After saying that, she noticed that the dark shadow on the chair had disappeared. The soft light of the lamp sprinkled throughout the room, the breeze still gently blew the curtains, and the only change was that the chairs no longer shook and stood quietly in front of the window.