I knew it was the same nightmare again, the same dark corridor, like a subway track or a tunnel that had long since fallen out of disrepair, so long that there was no end in sight, surrounded by rumbling sounds, like waves crashing against islands and reefs, like thunder rolling in thick clouds, enveloping the whole perimeter, so close but yet untouchable.

When people are in a dream, they can often understand that this is a dream, but even so, you can't control yourself to wake up, or even control your words and deeds in the dream, you can only remind yourself in the little remaining consciousness that "this is a dream!" And such a reminder can't tell whether it belongs to one of the episodes in the dream, or whether it is an external intervention from another layer of waking world. That's all.

Just like the dreams that have recurred for so many years, I still walk in the dark in this tunnel, saying that it is a tunnel, but in fact it is wider than an ordinary tunnel, how big it is indescribable, but from the echo of footsteps, you can estimate that the surroundings are quite empty, maybe 50 meters? 100 meters? ……

Wait, today's dream seems to be a little different from the past! Yes, I stopped and looked around, of course I couldn't see anything in the dark, not even a finger could be seen with the palm in front of me, and I kept scolding myself countless times in my dreams, why didn't I bring a flashlight or a lighter or something, even a mobile phone. Of course, this is actually out of my own hands, so these props don't appear in my dreams every time, and I understand it.

What's the difference? I held my breath and tried to listen, turning my head to try to get my ears closer to different directions, to discern the subtle differences between this time and the previous times, I closed my eyes (of course, it didn't really make any sense), and I could clearly hear my own rapid heartbeat, as if I was about to discover it......

"Smack!" I was woken up by the crisp thud of a book slamming on the table. I looked up and saw Leng Bingbing standing across from me, and from the hazy sleepiness I noticed that she seemed to be a little angry.

"Zang Daozen! It's only been two o'clock in the afternoon, and everyone outside is busy helping you earn money. Why do you still have the face to sleep on the table!? ”

Her name is "Leng Bingbing", and she is the daughter of an old friend whom her father met in Qingyuan, Guangdong, and she is 6 years younger than me. When her mother died in elementary school, her father became a Taoist monk, and once when he went out on a tour, he came to Shencheng and sent her to my house for a few days, saying that he would come to pick her up soon.

After this walk, I watched her go from a primary school student, to a junior high school student, a high school student, and was admitted to the Department of Network Engineering of the University of Science and Technology, and then graduated from the undergraduate last year...... Her dad never showed up again.

Fortunately, my family's economy is also quite well-off, so her expenses such as food, clothing, and miscellaneous expenses are treated the same as my sister and me, and they are not bad at all. Our three children's pocket money has always been financially advantageous among their age. After growing up together for so many years, she has also become a part of our family, and my sister and I have spoiled her as if she were our own sister.

After graduating from college, she went to a game company to work for half a year, because of the loose personality can not stand the kind of system that requires overtime, so she resigned, and I opened a Buddha bead shop on the Internet is also developing well, at the end of last year in the urban area to find this more than 300 square meters of duplex façade room, she came over is also her own family, you can help look at the store, manage the daily operation.

"I drank too much at KTV last night and didn't sleep well." I got up and rubbed my face and stretched out.

"I said that you are also a runner, why are you still like a second-rate person who hasn't had enough fun, messing around with those half-baked gangsters all day long, and I haven't seen you negotiate any big orders and come back. Don't hurry up to find a wife, don't keep fooling around with a group of guys until midnight, you know that you are making friends, and those who don't know think that your sexual orientation is different~"

"Gotta get it, don't say I'm so energetic, if you have the ability, you can help me find one...... My own men are flying in the sky, and I'm embarrassed to say that I ......."

She sneered, lifted her shoulder-length straight bangs with one hand, revealed her smooth forehead, and came to me with a very unbeaten and said, "I'm not in a hurry, I'm much younger than you~"

I was about to refute her man's thirty-one flowers or something, when my aunt downstairs called and said that lunch was ready, and I asked her to send it upstairs, and it had become my habit to have lunch at this time.

"Bingbing, what kind of food did you buy today?"

"I won't see it!" She looks like she hasn't had a good time. My sister doesn't look petite and delicate, but she is born with a pungent personality, "knife mouth tofu heart", I remember the first time I saw this word in a book, the first image that popped up in front of my eyes was her.

Open the lid and add four dishes to the porridge, minced tofu and minced meat, edamame winter melon, white-cut pork belly, and tomato scrambled eggs.

"I know you poured too much last night, eat lighter today, nourish your stomach!" She sat cross-legged on the swivel chair opposite me and watched me eat, while continuing: "Now it is more and more inconvenient to buy seasonal vegetables, the supermarket is full of greenhouses grown, the country aunt who delivered vegetables before has recently been sick, and her son refuses to send it, so I ran a long way this morning to find these fresh goods. ”

"Well, with my golden tongue, I know it's a seasonal dish as soon as I eat it." I took a chopstick dish and replied while eating.

"Cut ......"

Our family has a strange rule, all vegetables and fruits must be bought in season, and can not be pesticides and fertilizers to produce, must be planted in the mud, manure irrigation, and can not be protected by greenhouses, as for chickens, ducks and fish meat, etc., they also need to be naturally fed, not hormones. I don't know what the truth is, in short, from the beginning of the memory, this is the rule of the family, which was relatively easy to do in the past, but now such things are becoming more and more difficult to buy, even going to the restaurant to eat has become a problem, due to the habit of developing all year round, the body has become resistant to the food that does not grow naturally, but if you eat something that should not be eaten, you often have to pull a good stomach, cold homemade diarrhea medicine has become my personal must-have.

Speaking of which, Leng Bingbing is a family of traditional Chinese medicine, although he was sent to my house at the age of eight or nine, but it seems to be talented, so young from the beginning of the like to go into my study to read all kinds of medical books, her father also left a lot of them when he left, all of which she read one after another. Other people's little girls have bedrooms full of plush toys and Barbie dolls, while she, since she was a child, has been piled up in the room with bottles and cans, filled with all kinds of colorful flowers and plants, small insects and the like. If you have nothing to do, you will lock yourself in the hut and pound and cook it, making the room smell of medicine.

I remember when I was in college, I had a fracture and went home for vacation, I almost didn't go to the hospital in that month, she was only in the third year of junior high school at that time, and she helped me boil medicine before school every day, and when I got out of school, I always bought a bunch of Chinese medicine from nowhere, and helped me change the medicine after making various prescriptions, and my mother was worried that she would make a mistake, and my father said, "Don't worry, as far as her current ability is concerned, it is more reliable than going to a third-class hospital." Thanks to her, the whole family has not been to the hospital for more than ten years.

This is why she did not study in medical school, but went to study computer science and other unbelievable questions, because she was already familiar with the courses of the University of Chinese Medicine before junior high school, and medical skills have become a part of her life, there is no reason to go to school to repeat the study, not to mention that the level of university professors may not be better than her.

Putting down the dishes and chopsticks, Bingbing helped me clean up the mess, I picked up half a pack of Zhongnanhai from the table, took out a stick, and walked slowly to the balcony.

My façade room has two floors, the first floor facing south along the road is a store that sells Buddhist beads, amulets and the like, and the back half is the handmade processing area and kitchen and toilet for these jewelry. Upstairs, there are three small rooms, two north-facing rooms, one for me with a toilet (and occasionally for the night), and a storehouse for the statues of the gods, for some precious jewelry, safes, and so on. The south-facing room is my studio and VIP reception area.

The balcony is just outside the south-facing one, standing on the balcony you can see the road in front of the door downstairs, this area is the recently developed Shikumen Lane renovated commercial area, although it is an urban area, but it is also hidden behind the bustling unpopular corner, so the rent is barely affordable, and the landlord signed a 10-year contract when the price of the emerging area is not high.

The shops on the street are some of the more petty bourgeois clothing stores, nail salons, flower shops, coffee libraries, etc., and the road is quite narrow, so you can accommodate two cars side by side at most. Most of the people who come here are small white-collar workers and literary youths, and there are also many foreigners because there are several business buildings, a creative park and several high-end residential areas nearby.

Half of the cigarette has been smoked, there are not many people on the street in the afternoon, there are few taxis passing by, and occasionally a few nearby residents walking around with their pet dogs, I fiddled with a pot of mint on the balcony, picked a piece and crumpled it and put it on the tip of my nose, a cool breath slowly followed the breath into my heart and spleen, completely dispelled the tiredness, I began to continue to recall the previous dream.

What went wrong, this dream has been following me for at least 3 years, and I visit almost every month from time to time like an electricity bill. I'm already so familiar with it, but why does it feel so weird today?

Think back to it, the same place, the same darkness, the same endless empty corridor, the same footsteps, the same audible heartbeat...... Wait, the heartbeat! …… It dawned on me, yes, it's a heartbeat, not just my heartbeat! So, that is, there is a person who has never appeared before who came to my dream? Who is TA!?