Chapter 1: The Grimace Mask (I)
Someone is talking!
Zhang Bin heard someone talking in his ear. It's like chatting, and it's like babbling. Sometimes the voice was close at hand, sometimes it drifted into the distance.
The voices that spoke could not distinguish between men and women, as if someone was talking about something next door to the house. It's a bit like when I was a kid when my parents talked in the living room every morning, loud but distant and indistinct.
There was no light, and the room was pitch black, and I couldn't see my fingers.
The moment Zhang Bin became conscious, his voice stopped abruptly. It was as if the person who was talking was aware of something and deliberately stopped talking so that he would not hear it. Suddenly, the whole world fell into a dead silence, as if time stood still, and even the slightest sound could not be heard.
Lying on the bed, the weight of the bedding, the touch of the body, and the feeling of the wooden plank under the bed are all very real. It's so real that it's almost hard to believe it's in a dream.
It's a dream!
A dream that has been repeated many times for several days!
Zhang Bin didn't know that "himself" had been in the same dream for several days in a row! In his memory, this was the fifth day!
This is a strange dream, compared with ordinary dreams, here he is very conscious, thinking is not affected at all, Zhang Bin once tried to recite the "Pythagorean theorem", "three perpendicular line theorem", "differential median value theorem" here and even took out a very brain-burning "primary school student geometry" in his memory, and found that his memory was not affected, and his logical thinking was not affected. The breathing is normal, and the touch of the quilt is normal. The surroundings were dark, pitch black, without a trace of light, if it weren't for the fact that he could clearly "see" the surrounding environment in the dark, Zhang Bin would not be able to tell whether he woke up in the middle of the night or was in a dream.
Zhang Bin clearly "saw" that in the house, his body was lying on a wooden bed made of several boards, covered with a shabby thin quilt, motionless, not even breathing, like a cold puppet.
The quilt is very worn, obviously it hasn't been dismantled and washed for a while, and the corners of the quilt are blackened and even a little shiny. The furnishings around are the same as those in my real room, but the original position of the wall of the room cannot "see" the wall, and what can be "seen" is far beyond the ordinary darkness.
You should not be able to see anything at all in the dark, and in your dreams, the scene in the room unfolds in front of your eyes in a form that does not seem to be logical. That's why he knew he was in a dream for the first time. When the mind is clear, logic is still relatively credible.
Zhang Bin didn't have the heart to think about the environment, he concentrated on "looking" at the door, not with his eyes, but with the illogical, unique perspective of God in his dreams.
Sure enough, the eerie smiley mask reappeared. It was a miserable white mask, with no hair, no body, and a long, pointed nose like a puppet.
This mask floats in the air!
It looked at Zhang Bin with bad intentions, and small black insects kept gushing out from its eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth. The bugs slowly rose from their smiling faces like smoke, fading more and more, and eventually escaping into the darkness.
Spooky and eerie!
Zhang Bin vaguely felt that this smiling face was observing him, with bad intentions.
Why this intuition?
Zhang Bin wanted to get up and take a look, but in the dream, his body couldn't move, as if he was pressed by a boulder, a bit like a ghost pressing the bed. The body was completely immobile, only the consciousness was surging wildly.
The black smoke rose and spread, and Zhang Bincha felt that what he "saw" was becoming more and more blurry. He was vaguely aware that if he couldn't "see" the things in his dreams at all, something very bad might happen. Maybe I'll die then.
It can't be like this!
You have to find a way!
People are different! Some people will panic, be confused, and be hysterical and overwhelmed when faced with sudden things, while some people will calm down in a panic and use their own minds to analyze and solve problems. The latter is the so-called: a person who has a thunderous heart and a face like a peaceful lake, and can be a great general.
Zhang Bin has a straightforward personality, and even sometimes compares the middle two, has low emotional intelligence, and does not give people the means to give people a spring breeze in various social occasions. The difference from ordinary people is that Zhang Bin has two very obvious advantages: persistence and calmness.
That's talent!
Zhang Bin has a persistence that others cannot understand, for example, he has insisted on memorizing since junior high school, starting from memorizing texts, to memorizing ancient texts, memorizing physical theorems, memorizing chemical equations all the way to college.
Since college, Zhang Bin still insisted on his habits, and began to memorize the Lagrange median value theorem, Cauchy median value theorem, Arrhenius theorem, and so on.
In the era of developed Internet, Zhang Bin's behavior seems to be stupid, is it worth spending so much time memorizing anything that can be found on the Internet?
Value!
Zhang Bin thinks it's worth it.
From this habit, Zhang Bin gained a lot! Mastering knowledge is one thing, and never forgetting is the second aspect! His habit of persisting in forcibly memorizing has brought with him the ability to remember without forgetting.
Yes, the ability to memorize is attainable.
"I said, Are you looking for the wrong person, Brother Mask?" Zhang Bin said silently in his heart, "I don't know what kind of ghost you are!" You say--why are you coming to me? I'm such a poor boy, I'm not handsome, and I don't have any money, what's the use of you hurting me? It's not worth a lot of money to sell me, right?" The bad situation didn't make him decadent and anxious, and he even joked about his situation optimistically.
The smiley mask in the dark seemed to hear Zhang Bin's heart, and he didn't know if it was an illusion, he could clearly feel that the corners of the grimace's mouth were upturned by three points, and there was more mockery in the smile.
Zhang Bin suddenly realized that perhaps the reasons he listed were exactly the reasons why this weird smiling mask wanted to murder him. Single, no money, not handsome, no ability, very low sense of existence, no one will pay attention to his life or death.
This smiley face has clearly succeeded. Last night, the original soul of this body has clearly dissipated, and he, an unexpected visitor, occupies the other party's body, and inherits the memory of this young man, maybe from now on Zhang Bin should start to adapt to a new identity.
Maybe the smiley mask didn't know that the body had changed owners. It's still murdering with eerie dreams—yes!
"Brother, Bello is dead, why don't you let me go?" Zhang Bin poured out a thought in a consultative tone. "Give me a way out, okay?"
Bello is the name of the body's original owner. Zhang Bin inherited all of Bello's legacy. Bello, a twelve-year-old boy, has been erased from this world.
The weird smiley mask did not respond to Zhang Bin's thoughts, and the corners of his lips turned up more and more, revealing a strong sense of mockery. The black bugs floating out of his eyes, nose, and mouth became more and more intense, hot, and as these black bugs drifted away, Belo felt that his body was like a fly entangled in spider webs, and the heaviness on his body became heavier and heavier.
Calm down!
Zhang Bin didn't expect that he would be able to impress this smiley mask by chatting, since the other party could kill Belo once, it was possible to kill Belo a second time.
Calm down!
Gotta be calm!