The phone was still buzzing, and you can imagine that my mother still had a long tirade that didn't vomit or be unhappy, and after pressing the red hang up button three times in a row, I fell on the couch in a distraught, and a fluffy little thing deftly jumped up and curled up next to my thigh.

I pinched its armpits and held it up in front of me, and it didn't resist at all, its two round brass eyes showing a dementia-like bewilderment.

I remembered my mother's cynicism, "Could it be that you are counting on the big raccoon dog you raised to repay you?! After the founding of the country, you can't become a refiner!"

"Quick, show me a person." I said to it, "Then teach me how to cook, mop the floor, wipe the table, and when I'm seventy or eighty, I'm going to be given a pension for the rest of my life, you know?"

It still looked at me with a demented look, and I sighed, put it on my lap, and scratched its chin.

"Forget it, I'll give you a pension and send you to the end."

Fortune may follow a law of conservation in the dark, and although I haven't been able to find a girlfriend who is like glue and swears, I met a pretty, cute, smart, sensible cat.

I came across it on a night after a night of self-study, this little thing is so small that it can be raised with one hand, and it screams downstairs with a broken gong throat - but its appearance and voice are completely inversely proportional, which can be called "Zhou Xun among cats". It is a black tanuki cat with four white gloves and a white saliva pocket on its chest, long hair, which at first glance looks like a lion cub with round yellow eyes.

I abducted it home with a corn sausage, and after two days of posting a notice confirming that it was an ownerless stray cat, I named it Sesame. Sesame is a good child, it won't drink water from the toilet, it won't push the cup off the table, it won't defecate anywhere, and it won't bite the succulents I raise, if you really want to find a mistake, it's probably like to lick people, the cat's tongue is prickly, licking people is like scraping, every time it gets close to me, it hurts and is happy.

The next day, Sunday, I was waiting outside the operating room when a familiar feeling of vertigo hits me, the pen at the reception desk slipped off the table without anyone touching it, the chandelier above my head shook twice, and the quartz clock on the wall fell off the nail and slammed on the ground with a clatter—all of which signaled an earthquake.

My eyelids jumped, and I opened my phone to take a look. A terrifying magnitude 8 earthquake struck the province next door, shattering mountains and rivers and causing heavy casualties.

Although the earthquake did not cause much damage to the city I was in because of the distance, I still decided to tell my mother that she was safe - since my father died, we would tell each other about everything, like what drug dealers disguised *** as stickers, traffickers would kidnap women in the name of catching juniors, and students would record the teacher's slightly harsher words out of context and post them on the Internet...... In short, if we feel that this incident will cast a shadow on our lives, even if there is only a 1 in 10,000 chance, we will talk to each other.

My mother didn't answer, and the gentle female voice told me to dial later.

….

I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, because my mother had gone on vacation to the beach with her high school classmates five days ago, and it was not surprising that they might have been splashing in the water on the crowded beach.

That night, I brushed up on the news of the "Mt. Fuji eruption", it is said that the volcanic ash rushed for hundreds of miles, seriously affecting the surrounding towns, the more I looked at it, the more alarming I became - although I don't have a good impression of little Japan, but the damage caused by this natural disaster is too serious, the most bizarre thing is that the exploration bureau did not find anything abnormal before this, otherwise it would have been evacuated a long time ago, and there would not have been so many deaths at all!

But for those things that are thousands of miles away, people often stop caring after being amazed, and then continue to be busy with the things at hand, and I still have to visit my home - it was the third year of junior high school, and they were very worried that their children would not be admitted to key high schools, so they often hoped that I, the head teacher, would give one or two constructive suggestions, and some would really use a notebook to write down what I said, and I even had the illusion that I was dictating martial arts cheats.

After saying goodbye to the students and parents, and returning to the teacher's apartment, I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but suddenly realized that my mother had not called me back and did not reply, and the sesame seeds were worn

Elizabeth was writhing in the air—it had been five hours before she had given up taking the thing off her neck.

Are they having too much fun? Are you busy eating a seafood feast or chatting hotly?

I turned on my computer, took out my report card, prepared for tomorrow's monthly exam analysis meeting, and went to bed after putting the things I needed for work into my briefcase.

At five o'clock in the morning, an unfamiliar number called, I subconsciously thought it was a harassing call, but the number of the harassing call usually has a "note that xx people have blocked", and this number is not, so I finally pressed the answer button.

"Hey?"

"Is this Mr. Meng Bomeng?" Across from it was the voice of a strange man.

"It's me." I tensed in the darkness and asked vigilantly, "Who are you?"

"I am a police officer from XX City, and there was a huge tsunami at nine o'clock last night, and the famous scenic spot Hailuo Bay was seriously damaged, and local residents and tourists suffered heavy casualties." The man on the other end seemed to sigh, and then said, "Your mother, Ms. Lu...... Misfortune...... Please...... I'm sorry......"

What is he saying? I was like a computer that crashed, refusing to receive, refusing to operate, refusing to think, as if it hadn't happened as long as I didn't think about it.

That's not true, is it?

In the midst of the confusion, the first thought that popped into my mind was no, what kind of tsunami could wash away a conch bay? That's a big town! That's, isn't it?

I didn't know when the phone hung up, I clicked it with my stiff fingers and typed in the words "Conch Bay", and the shocking news that popped up under it shattered my illusions.

I'm the only one left.

I became aware of this fact in the midst of oppressive darkness.

A series of natural disasters were the prelude to the collapse of the old civilization, and the life of "Meng Bai" came to an abrupt end to some extent.

The candle burned silently in the sound of the statement, and Amon would ask a few questions at first, but then he just looked at me without saying a word, and he was unusually quiet today.

….

"It's boring." I said, "It's an ordinary person's story, after all."

"You know I didn't think so." He looked at me a little annoyed, as if offended, but his brow drooped slightly.

"If I don't ask this question, you won't be upset."

"Is it obvious?"

"It's not obvious, but I know."

"Don't mind, don't worry." I motioned for Him to sit down and patted the back of His hand, "Grief is because I laughed from the bottom of my heart, and I resented because I had sincerely looked forward to it...... Either way, I'm glad I still have feelings."

It's not much, but it's good that there is.

The sky has not yet dawned, and the Requiem Festival is not over yet.

"Come with me somewhere." I stood up, "Go somewhere that's right for today."

There is a corridor with portraits on both sides of the school headquarters, and there is no end in sight, and every Requiem Day, there are many school members who visit here. Most of them, holding candlesticks or oil lamps, stood for a long time in front of a painting, their eyes full of nostalgia, and I had no intention of disturbing them, and became the ordinary bards of the Tertiary Age, and Amun walked lightly into them.

Compared with today's oil paintings, these portraits are more vivid and vivid, the characters in them will smile, they will frown, the rain will slide down their hair, the sun will flow on their skin, and some will make simple movements and gestures such as watering the flowers, turning the pages of the book, writing hard and so on - compared to real people, they are undoubtedly monotonous, but as the deceased who is no longer alive, this degree has greatly satisfied the thoughts of the living, I saw a "martial arts scholar" girl shed tears, In front of her sat a man who did not smile.

"This is the 'Corridor of Memories,'" I whispered, "There is a secret technique in the school that allows a person in a person's memory to be rubbed on a drawing paper, and as long as the spirit is regularly infused, the protagonist of the portrait can remain alive."

Along the way, I saw a lot of familiar paintings, and I also found the paintings I wanted to see.

Five-year-old Yelena sits on a carpet building blocks, the colorful castle crumbling.

Yelena, who is in her twenties, beckoned to me in a silvery white world, and a breath of white air came out of her mouth.

Yelena, who is in her sixties, snoozes in a rocking chair, the sun shining brightly on the white hair in her red hair.

I poured a little bit of spirituality into it to make her look more alive, and I thought to myself how good it would be for the people I love and the people who love me to live to the end of their lives.

"She's not that annoying compared to her father." Amon said, "But I didn't like her for a long time."

His tone is awkward, like a picky eater saying "I just don't like carrots."

I held back a smile and asked, "Why?"

"You teach her to read words, tell her stories, take her to recognize all kinds of plants in the garden, and go up the tree to pick fruits and go down to the pond to fish......" Amon paused slightly, "It's like as long as a child is entrusted by a friend, you can be so loved, in other words, it is not uncommon to be loved by you, and the person you love is not special."

….

I see, the key word is "special".

"Peace of mind." I patted Him on the cheek, "Even if 11,111 dads throw their children to me in the future, you must be the one of a kind, the only one in a million, okay?"

Some words may seem embarrassing, but as long as you don't feel embarrassed, it's someone else who is embarrassed - I understood this early on, but it took me a long time to practice it.

"As long as you don't raise children and become addicted."

He muttered, straightening the monocle that hadn't been crooked at all, and I didn't pierce the momentary confusion, but I regretted why I couldn't freeze this moment.

We walked on, and finally stopped between a young woman combing her hair and an old woman rocking a spinning wheel, and I reached between the two portraits, and the dark walls disappeared, and a dark road was revealed, while the people around us were still immersed in the remembrance of family and friends, and no one noticed us.

"I'm back."

Like the quiet years before the age of nineteen, I spoke briskly into the darkness, and the lights gradually came on, illuminating the paintings on the walls. I would return here on this day every year, but it was the first time I had brought someone here, and I quietly observed Amun's reaction and realized that he had been drawn to a painting.

Following his gaze, a man was writing calligraphy, his expression was calm, and his words were like swimming dragons.

"You're like him."

"A lot of people say that."

I walked over to the painting and let Him compare it, and Amon looked at us very seriously for a while, and then said with a sense of concern, "You should be more like him when you read or write—you are more like her in terms of appearance."

He raised his chin, and I looked at the woman holding her laptop, her legs crossed, frowning thoughtfully—every time she showed that expression, there was a jumble of candlestick charts on the screen, and she should be wondering if she should get rid of the stock immediately or wait two more days.

Amon looked at me and at her, and finally came to the conclusion, "Your eyes and noses are exactly the same."

"It's rarely mentioned."

We walked among the paintings of various sizes. Sometimes my father stared and pondered, sketching out the doubts in the work materials with a pencil, sometimes he was napping in his nightgown, his eyes were about to slide down the bridge of his nose without helping him, sometimes he peeled out beans at the dining table, threw the pods into the trash can at his feet, and sometimes held up his mobile phone and lightly patted a sparrow perched on a branch...... In my impression, his expression is always very peaceful, not that he won't be angry, but when he is angry, he will not be as earth-shattering as a volcanic eruption, and even rarely curse.

My mother would sometimes do stretching exercises on the yoga mat, which was a new hobby she developed after I went to college, and sometimes she would admire her newly made nails in the light to keep those beautiful colors and shiny beads longer

Deliberately bought a dishwasher, sometimes talking on the phone with a subordinate who is not doing things well, her eyebrows are almost flying to the sky, sometimes wearing a mask on the sofa to close her eyes and recuperate, and every dry winter, the frequency of her mask will increase significantly...... In my memory, she was a very strong, resolute woman, and even if I didn't say it, Amon could see it.

….

Because of her shesses, she did not tolerate slacking off, and even during the winter and summer vacations, I never got up after eight o'clock, nor slept after eleven, nor did I have the opportunity to eat anything with a lot of sugar, a lot of oil, a lot of salt—at least until I was eighteen.

Although my father always felt that she was too demanding of me in terms of academics, I reached a consensus with her on my living habits. At that time, I felt that I was really embarrassed compared to my peers, but fortunately they didn't indulge me too much, because healthy lifestyle habits are indeed beneficial for a lifetime.

I somehow laughed out loud as I looked at my mother's angry brows, and Amon asked me what I was laughing at.

"Actually, I've always been a little afraid of her."

"Oh?"

"Then it occurred to me that the last thing she told me was to tell me to hurry up and get married, and not to delay any longer." I said with mixed feelings, "If she knew that not only did I not marry a beautiful, virtuous, sensible, housekeeper wife, but also got involved with the son of an elder who was like a brother and a father, and had the grace of recreation, I am afraid she would not have broken my leg."

"Mythical creatures have no clear gender, I just become 'Mona Lisa, just do that.'"

"I know, but it's not that problem." I came closer, close enough to see His eyelashes the same color as his eyes, "That image is very beautiful, and it must have amazed her, but when she listened to me, when she accompanied me to buy candles, when she spent long nights with me, when she went to the forsaken land together all these years...... You're not like that when you're doing all sorts of things with me."

"Even if the scolded dog is bloody, even if a leg is broken, I want my mother to know what the person who has been with me through so many things is like, and what the eyebrows and eyes that make me extremely relieved are like."

"Then I'll tell her that even if I don't do what she wants, I'm still doing well, and she shouldn't worry too much."

Even if civilization collapses and my home is gone, I am not alone.

This is what I want to tell her, to tell her and my father.

But they couldn't hear it anymore, and I had nowhere to speak.

In the end, I don't know who leaned towards whom first.

A small piece of warm touch fell on my eyebrows like a little water, slowly moving over the corners of my forehead, the bridge of my nose, my cheeks, and the corners of my lips, as if I was afraid of bursting the foam.

./hariot