Dean and Jonah return to the mall, holding Peter's picture next to the store.

"Good afternoon, Catherine, excuse me, do you know him?" Dean walked over to the ice cream counter and handed the picture of Peter to the woman, who brushed the blonde hair from her ear and shook her head, "I'm sorry, I've been back to Hawkins for a few days, and I've never seen this kid." ”

"Okay, you keep busy, we won't bother." Dean is about to take Jonathan away,

"Wait a minute," Catherine quickly scooped two cones and handed them over, smiling softly, "please be cool." ”

"Thank you." Dean unceremoniously bit off most of the cone, and grinned, "I'm the most fair person, you invite me to ice cream, and call me next time you have trouble." ”

"Giggles, your favor? I'm making a lot of money! ”

……

Next, the two visited clothes, glasses, and various shops one by one... But nothing was gained, and the staff of the store had no impression of Peter.

Until a movie peripheral store, the shop owner with an exaggerated tuxedo and a slightly chubby mustache finally gave a clue.

"Peter Seymour is a regular customer of mine," the man handed the picture back to Dean and stroked his mustache, "and for the last few years he has been visiting the store once a month to buy interesting little things, but his family is not very wealthy, so he buys bargains." ”

"What did he buy?" Dean asked,

The boss turned around and pointed to the shelves in all directions of the store, piled up with a variety of colorful goods, "His favorite is posters and small models, followed by some clothes and props from movies..."

"He's obsessed with horror, thriller, supernatural and monster movies," the boss suddenly laughed, "so the things he buys are more frightening, dentures, capes, toy claws, horned monster models." ”

Dean nodded secretly.

This is consistent with the statement of the three basketball players and Jonathan, that Peter is a true eccentric.

"And what do you think of Peter?" Dean asked again,

"A town, I've heard about some of this child's experiences," the boss smiled, shook his head and sighed, "his parents went early, he was raised by his aunt, but he didn't wander the streets like other little bastards, mess around, and honestly study in school, so he is a good boy in his bones." ”

"And I can see that he is not like other customers who buy movie peripherals just to satisfy their curiosity and pursue excitement." The boss's eyes flashed with memories, and a touch of recognition appeared on his round face, "His love for monsters comes from the heart, and he will properly collect it when he buys it home, and he appreciates it repeatedly, he is a real monster lover." ”

A true monster lover?

Dean noticed that the progress of the investigation had jumped from 15 percent to 17 percent.

"Where has Peter been this summer?"

"I don't know, I have to visit the store late every day, and I rarely ask about the lives of customers."

"Then what do you think is the reason for Peter's unconsciousness?"

"I'm not a doctor, I can only guess casually, it must be some rare strange disease." The boss said regretfully, "I hope this poor child will wake up soon, otherwise there will be one less loyal customer in the store." ”

"Well, thanks for the answer." Dean paid a few dollars to buy a Star Wars poster from the owner's shop and turned away.

"Did you find a clue?" Jonathan followed him, through the bustling mall lobby,

"There's a little," Dean put the poster into his trench coat and passed it into the fantasy space, and when he looked up, he saw a Barris bookstore in the distance, "Go check it out." ”

……

Entering the store, Dean scanned it from God's perspective as usual.

It's quiet, softly lit, and behind the rows of tall bookshelves, a few readers sit on the smooth marble floor, intently flipping through the books.

And at the front desk stood a thin young clerk who was obsessed with a chicken soup book called "How to Become a Millionaire".

Dean has always been an equal trader, so Jonathan chose a book on shooting and boxing to add to the clerk's dream.

Wow.

Dean tapped his index finger upside down on the front desk, placing two books on the table.

The clerk closed the book, rubbed his eyes with dark circles and heavy eyes, and slowly began to pack.

"Man, let me tell you something, do you know the person in the photo?"

"Impressed, Peter Seymour, a student at the town's middle school, a regular customer," the clerk nodded, looking at the picture as if he had seen a good friend who had unfortunately died, full of remembrance, "He used to come to the bookstore every few days for a while, to read some and picture books, well, Chenghui, twenty dollars." ”

Dean bared his teeth, the price of books in Lao Mei began to rise in this era, and it was not cheap to buy books, and it was difficult for ordinary students to afford them, so it was a good choice to stay in a bookstore or go to a public library.

"Do you know him well?" Dean pulled out his wallet and paid the bill, giving the packed book to Jonathan, who hugged him with surprise and gratitude.

"Average. Although there is little communication, people who like to read books have a tacit understanding of their hearts. The clerk's pale and tired face smiled more, and he pointed to the empty area behind the bookshelf on the left, "He usually likes to stand there and watch motionless for two hours." ”

Dean asked him what books he was reading, and the answers, as expected, were books related to ghosts, zombies, aliens, the world's unsolved mysteries, and so on.

"I haven't seen Peter for half a month, and I'm not used to it."

"So about his illness..."

"I heard about it, and I deduced that he had a serious psychological problem, depression or something, and then the corresponding somatization symptoms formed." The clerk lifted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and said a bunch of technical terms, "I have seen him standing in the corner of the bookshelf several times, holding the book while covering his mouth, shaking his shoulders and sobbing quietly, and he has a lot of sad things in his heart." ”

The clerk described the meal in a literary and artistic way, and said in a matter-of-fact manner, "If a person is too sad, his body will be damaged." ”

Dean couldn't help but interrupt, "Then do you know the reason for his sadness?" ”

"There was a time when I was so curious that I couldn't help but break the rule of not interfering with customers and went over to talk to him." The clerk paused for a moment, looked at the chandelier on the ceiling and sighed melancholy, "He is very bad at communication, and his emotional intelligence is also worrying." Talking all the time leads to horrible and even disgusting monsters, so his peers treat him as a weirdo, taunt him, laugh at him, except for Jonathan, who is next to you, of course. ”

"So, he's very lonely."

"I once advised him to imitate his classmates and learn to become a little more normal, but he stubbornly kept silent." The clerk said helplessly, "It's really a headache child." ”

"It's not that serious!" Jonathan retorted with a stiff neck, "Peter just doesn't communicate very well, but he's a good person." ”

"No matter how beautiful your soul is, it's useless if you don't know how to express yourself." The clerk crossed his hands on his chest and retorted indifferently, "Even a wise and gentle person like me can't bear to communicate with him." He's not destined to make a few friends,"

"He didn't have any friends, and he didn't want to share and communicate with his family, and as negative emotions accumulated, he became lonely, restless, depressed, and finally had a strange illness."

After such an analysis by the clerk, Dean was surprised to find that the progress of the system had slowly increased to 20 percent.

So Peter is a lonely eccentric, a very important clue?

"So did Peter ever get into a conflict with someone in the library?"

"You say this stuffy gourd? No. ”

"Has he been outside of bookstores and cinemas?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so busy reading a book that I don't have time to pay too much attention to a customer."

"Well, I wish you a millionaire soon." Dean glanced at the clerk's open pages, and the dense notes made people dizzy.

With a wave of his hand, he turned to leave the bookstore and sighed to the people around him, "Peter is better suited to listen to that 'Space Monster' than we are." ”

Jonathan clutched his book and camera, nodding silently.

"Man, don't you have anything to say?" Dean looked into his eyes, "As Peter's best friend, you know him best, and you should know best that he may have some psychological problems, why didn't you tell me before?" ”

"Did he behave in any unusual ways before the accident, or say anything strange?"

Jonathan's head hung lower, and his taut pale side face revealed a stubbornness,

Seeing this, Dean was sure that this guy was hiding something,

"You don't want to save Peter, do you?" Dean looked up at the sunset in the sky, his eyes were melancholy, and he did not hide the disappointment in his tone, "You want him to die in a lonely coma, maybe today." ”

"Don't talk nonsense! I want to save him! Jonathan suddenly yelled, glaring angrily at Dean and struggling in his tone, "I promised to keep it a secret for him." ”

"What's the secret?" Dean stepped closer and asked, but Jonathan pursed his lips and didn't speak.

"It's good morals to keep your promises, but what do you think would happen if you killed your best friend because of your secrecy?"

Jonathan licked his dry lips, a flash of panic on his face.

"I'll tell you," Dean continued, "you'll wake up in nightmares every day after that, and you'll be living in remorse for the rest of your life, and you'll never forget that bad decision... Is such secrecy necessary? ”

Jonathan's face turned pale and he took two steps back and sat down on the steps, and after a moment he sighed and covered his face in pain.

"Don't say it, I'll tell you everything."

"Peter came to my house two days before the accident, and he kept smiling on his face, as if he had encountered some great joy, and when I asked him, he didn't say anything, but just listened to music with me in the room for a long time... Before leaving, he suddenly said something unusual to me. ”

"What?"

"He asked me if I would miss him if he was gone one day. I asked him what was going on, and he joked and told me not to say it. ”

Di An'an was taken aback, how could this kind of thing sound a little unthinkable.

Like some kind of goodbye?

Dean's mind flashed back to the previous movie theater manager's account that Peter volunteered to take a huge risk to participate in the Monica Magic Show with a human body triple and an extreme blindfold magic trick, which was completely inconsistent with his shy personality.

Now it seems that there is only one plausible explanation, and Peter is faintly hoping that something will happen to the magic show.

Expect the unexpected.

Combined with the words of the bookstore clerk, Peter was under tremendous psychological pressure, was depressed and often wiped his tears alone, and was likely to have a certain tendency to commit suicide.

Dean's thoughts were like electricity, and the progress of the incident jumped to 25 percent.

"Could it be that Peter's illness was not the result of poisoning by outsiders, but of his own suicide?"

Dean made this inference, but this time there was still no change in the progress, and the evidence was not enough.

So it's just that there is a tendency to commit suicide, but I am not sure whether it is suicide or not.

Jonathan shook his head resolutely when he heard this,

"After so many years, Peter has long adapted to his current life, and it is impossible for him to suddenly not think about being excluded because of loneliness."

"And he's just an ordinary high school student, he can't afford to let himself contract this terrible strange disease!"

Jonathan seemed very sober and rational at this moment, and obviously had thought a lot in private.

"You're right, whether Peter committed suicide or not, and why, I can't draw conclusions now," Dean couldn't help but nod, and the crying woman in the hospital room flashed in front of her, she was hiding too much information, "But his aunt Lucia should know better than we do, go, go and ask." ”

(End of chapter)