Chapter 23 23. Grim Wonderland (caves, leeches, towers)

"Where is the earthquake," said the fat girl, "much worse than the earthquake." "For example?" For a moment, she took a deep breath, as if she wanted to tell me.But immediately gave up, shook his head and said: "I don't have time to explain now. Anyway, just go forward. There is no other way out. I think the wound on your belly hurts a little, but it's better than death, right?" "perhaps." We still tied the bodies of both parties with ropes, and ran forward along the tunnel with all our strength.The flashlight in her hand swayed wildly up and down with her pace, drawing dog-toothed curves on the straight and towering walls on both sides of the tunnel, and the things in the backpack on my back rattled and swayed back and forth.There are cans, jugs and bottles of whiskey, and so on.If possible, I really want to keep only the essential parts and get rid of the rest.But I was not allowed to stop, so I could only keep running behind her, and I couldn't even think about the pain in my abdomen.Since the bodies of the two were tied at both ends by ropes, it was impossible for me to slow down unilaterally.The sound of her breathing and the shaking of my backpack echoed rhythmically in the slender darkness.Soon, the sound of the earthquake was loud and loud as if joining in the fun.

The farther we go, the louder and clearer the sound is, as we approach the sound source directly, and the volume itself gradually increases.At first it sounded as if it came from deep in the ground, like the movement when a large amount of gas expelled from the lungs becomes a silent sound in the throat.Coincidentally, the solid rock plate also groaned continuously, and the ground began to tremble irregularly.It's not clear what it is, but an ominous mutation is taking place under our feet, and we are swallowed up by poverty. I was really reluctant to continue running towards the source of the sound, but the girl had already identified that direction, so I couldn't help but pick and choose.I had no choice but to put all my eggs in one basket and run away.

Fortunately, the tunnel has no turns and no obstacles, and it is as flat as an airstrip.We were able to run non-stop with confidence and boldness. The groan gradually shortened the gap, as if shaking the darkness of the ground sharply, rushing all the way towards the unchosen goal.From time to time, there was the sound of huge rocks squeezing and rubbing against each other with overwhelming force, as if all the forces enclosed in the darkness were desperately struggling to pry open a crack. The sound stopped abruptly after a while.Immediately, the surroundings were filled with wonderful noises as if thousands of old people gathered together and breathed in through their teeth.In addition, no sound was heard.No matter the sound of the ground shaking, the sound of panting, the sound of rocks rubbing against each other, or the sound of groaning from the rock plate, they all held their breath.Only the piercing sound of the air echoed in the darkness.It sounds like the excited breath of a ferocious beast waiting for its prey to approach step by step, and it also sounds like the creepy body of countless caterpillars wriggling like an accordion driven by a certain premonition.In any case, it was a terrible sound full of strong malice that I had never heard before.

What made the sound so horrific to me was that it seemed to me to be waving — not rejecting — us.They know we are approaching, and the evil heart trembles with excitement.Thinking of this, I was so frightened that my spine seemed to be frozen.Indeed, it is far from being comparable to an earthquake.As she said, it was even more terrifying than an earthquake.And I can't even guess what it is.The development of the situation has long been beyond the scope of my imagination, or has reached the edge of consciousness.I can't imagine at all, and I can only drive my body to the maximum, jumping over the bottomless chasm between imagination and the situation one after another.

After all, it is a hundred times better to keep doing something than to do nothing. I think we've been running for quite a long time.I can't figure out exactly, it seems like three or four minutes, and it seems like thirty or forty minutes.The horror and the resulting disorientation paralyzed the inner sense of normal time.No matter how hard he ran, he didn't feel tired, and the pain from the abdominal wound had been pushed out of his consciousness.I just felt that my two elbows were extremely sore and stiff, and this was the only physical feeling I felt while running.It’s fair to say that I didn’t even realize I was running.The feet strode forward extremely mechanically, hitting the ground.It's almost like a thick mass of air is pushing me from behind, forcing me to move forward without stopping.

I didn't realize at the time that the soreness in my elbows was actually derived from my ears.Because I inadvertently strained the muscles of my ears so as not to pay attention to the terrible sound of the air, the tension spread from my shoulders to my elbows.And I became aware of this when I slammed into the girl's shoulder knocking her to the ground and fell flying in front of her.She bellowed a warning, but my ears couldn't make it out.Yes, it seemed to hear something, but since I had capped the connection between the physical sound that my ears could discern and the resulting ability to decipher its meaning, I couldn't take her warning as a warning to grasp.

That was the first thing that came to my mind the moment I slumped headfirst into the hard ground.I unconsciously tuned my hearing, sort of "muffling" it, I thought.It seems that once in a desperate situation, human consciousness can perform various wonderful functions.Or I'm getting closer to evolution step by step, I don't know. Second—or at the same time, to be precise—what I felt was definitely a pain in the side of my head.It was as if the darkness was splashing in all directions before my eyes, and time stopped, and my body was severely deformed by this distorted time and space—it was such a degree of severe pain.I really thought the skull must either be cracked or missing edges, or it would have collapsed.Or the brains flew away without a trace.I myself have died from it.However, the unique consciousness is still struggling painfully like a lizard tail following the fragmented memory.

But after this moment, I still clearly realized that I was still alive, and I was still alive and breathing.As a result I could feel the pain in my head was unbearable and I could feel the tears trickling down my eyes and wet my cheeks.Tears dripped down the cheeks on the stone floor, and some trickled into the lips.It was the first time in his life that he suffered such a heavy blow to the head. I thought I would really pass out, but something kept me in the world of pain and darkness. Those are the memory fragments—the vague memory fragments of what I was working on.Yes, I was working on something, and stumbled halfway over it.I was trying to escape from something.Can't sleep here.Even though the memory is terribly hazy and fragmented, I cling to its fragments with all my strength and with both hands.I'm literally holding on to it.After a while, with the recovery of consciousness, I realized that what I was holding on to were just memory fragments.Nylon rope is firmly tied to the body.In an instant, I felt in a trance that I had become a heavy laundry swaying in the wind.Wind, gravity, and everything else were eager to knock me to the ground, and I refused to do so, trying to fulfill my role as a wash.As for why he had such an idea, he had no idea.Probably because of the habit of changing one's own environment into various tangible things for a while.

And secondly, what I feel is the fact that the state of the lower body is different from that of the upper body.To be precise, there is almost no sensation in the lower body.I can basically feel the sensations of my upper body: headache, cheek and lips pressed against the cold and hard stone ground, hands clenched tightly on the rope, stomach up to my throat, and an angular thing resting on my feet.So far, it is clear, but further down, it is completely unknown, and I don't know what the situation is. I think that the lower body is probably gone, due to the trauma of falling to the ground, the body is split in two from the wound, and the lower body is missing, including my feet (I think they are feet), my toe tips, My belly, my dick, my balls, my...but it doesn't make sense no matter what.Because, if the lower body is gone, the pain I feel should be more than this level.

I tried to analyze the situation more calmly: the lower body should still be intact, just in a state of insensitivity.I closed my eyes tightly, and ignored the wave-like headache, and concentrated my nerves on my lower body.I think this effort is somewhat similar to trying to get an erection.It's like pushing hard into a space where there is nothing.At the same time, I thought of the girl with the long hair in the library with a distended stomach.Tsk tsk, I couldn't help thinking, why does my penis refuse to stand up when I have sex with her?Everything fell out of order from then on.But you can't always worry about this point, after all, getting a penis erection is not the only purpose of life.This is also what I felt when I read Stendhal's "Pama Abbey" a long time ago.So I put the erection out of my mind.

I realized that the lower body was in a state of no up and down, as if suspended in mid-air.That's right, the lower body is hanging in the hollow in front of the rock plate, and the upper body is struggling to stop the fall, so both hands are firmly grasping the rope. As soon as I opened my eyes, I found that the harsh beam of light was facing my face, and it was a fat girl shining a flashlight on me. I gritted my teeth and pulled the rope desperately to put my lower body on the rock plate. "Quick!" the girl shouted, "If you don't make a decision, both of you will die!" I tried to put my feet on the rocky ground, but couldn't, and there were no bumps to rest on.Helpless, I tried my best to throw away the rope in my hand, and firmly supported my arms on the ground in order to lift my whole body upwards by hanging.The body was surprisingly heavy, and the ground was extraordinarily slippery, as if it was covered with blood.I don't know why it's so smooth, and I don't have time to think about it.As the abdominal wound rubbed against the rock corner, it hurt like being cut open again by a knife.It seemed that someone trampled on my body with the soles of their shoes, as if they were going to crush my body, my consciousness, and my existence into powder and then quickly. Still, I roughly managed to lift my body up a little bit.I felt the belt scrape against the corner, and the nylon rope attached to the belt wanted to pull me up.In fact, however, this is not so much assisting me as stimulating the abdominal wound and hindering my concentration of consciousness. "Don't pull the rope!" I yelled in the direction of the beam. "Let me do it myself, don't pull the rope!" "Can it work?" "It doesn't matter, there is always a way." With the belt buckle still hanging on the rock corner, I used all my strength to lift one foot, and finally escaped from this inexplicable black hole.After I confirmed that I was out of danger safely, the girl came to me and touched my whole body with her hands as if checking whether all parts of my body were intact. "I'm sorry I couldn't pull you up," she said. "I clung to a rock so hard that they didn't fall together." "That's all right, but why didn't you tell me in advance that there is a hole here?" "No time, so didn't I stop and shout?" "did not hear it." "Forget it, I have to escape from here as soon as possible." The girl said, "There are many holes here, be careful on your feet, get out of here, and you will reach your destination soon. But if you don't hurry up, the blood will be sucked dry, and you will fall asleep and die." "Blood?" She shone a light on the deep hole I almost fell into just now.The hole is a tenth circle as if drawn with a compass, with a diameter of about 1 meter.As the beam swung around, I found that as far as I could see the ground was dotted with holes of the same size, reminiscent of giant beehives. The rock walls that have been rising up on both sides of the road have long since disappeared, only the ground dotted with countless caves.The ground stretched out like a flying needle between the caves.The widest part is 1 meter, and the narrowest part is only 30 centimeters, giving people a precarious feeling.But as long as you are careful, you can still pass the estimate. The problem is that the ground looks rickety, which is a very strange scene.The rock plate, which was supposed to be hard and firm, twisted around.No different from quicksand.At first I suspected that the optic nerve had malfunctioned due to the severe trauma to the head.I shone my hand with a flashlight, neither shaking nor twisting my hand, as usual.From this point of view, it is not caused by nerve damage, but the ground is indeed moving. "The leech!" said the girl, "a swarm of leeches has climbed up from the hole. If you don't hurry up, the blood will be sucked out of your body and your body will become an empty shell!" "Oops oops!" I said, "Is that what you call worse?" "No, the leech is just a harbinger, the truly terrible ones will come later, hurry up!" We still connected our bodies with ropes and stepped onto the rock plate full of leeches.The slippery feeling of stepping on countless leeches on the soles of tennis shoes climbed from the soles of the feet to the back. "Don't slip your feet! If you fall into the hole, you're doomed. It's full of leeches, a sea of ​​leeches." The girl held me by the elbow, and I held on to the hem of her jacket.It is not a child's play to pass through the rocky rocks that are only 30 cm wide and slippery and easy to fall.The sticky liquid of the crushed leeches sticks to the soles of the feet as thick as jelly, making it difficult to stand firmly.Probably the leeches that were attached to the clothes when I fell just now were crawling around the neck and ears and sucking continuously.Even though I can clearly feel it, I can't knock it off.Because I held the flashlight in my left hand and the girl's skirt in my right hand, I couldn't relax both hands.While walking with a flashlight to confirm the feet, I had to watch the leech swarm.The number is simply dizzying. Moreover, it is still crawling out of the black hole. "Surely the night-ghosts have gone and thrown their victims down their burrows, haven't they?" I asked the girl. "Yes, you really understand." "There's always something to show for it," I said. "The leech is regarded as the messenger of some kind of fish, that is, the minion of the fish. So the night ghost offers sacrifices to the leeches at the same time as offering sacrifices to the fish. They are living victims of flesh and blood! Usually Where did they capture the living human from the ground?" "Is this custom gone now?" "Well, it must be. Grandpa said that human flesh is eaten by themselves, and the head is only cut off as a symbol of sacrifice to be offered to fish and leeches. At least after this place has become a sanctuary, no one has come in again." We passed through several holes, and there were estimated to be tens of thousands of slippery leeches crushed on the soles of our shoes.Whether it was me or the girl, there were several times when we nearly slipped, and each time we braced each other's bodies and narrowly escaped disaster. That nasty airy sound that seems to be coming from the bottom of the black hole.It disturbs like a tree at night stretching out its tentacles from the bottom of the hole, surrounding us in the middle, listening to it, it is indeed a hissing sound, like a crowd of decapitated people screaming their grievances with their throats open in all directions. "The water is coming," she said. "The leech is just a sign. When the leech is gone, the water will follow. Immediately, all the caves will be sprayed with water, and the whole area will become a swamp. The leech knows this, so No more mobilization. In any case, get to the altar before the water comes." "Don't you know the truth?" I said. "Why didn't you tell me in the first place?" "To be honest, I don't know very well. The water is not sprayed every day, but only once or twice a month. I didn't expect to catch up with it today." "Misfortunes never come singly!" I uttered the words that had been in my head since early in the morning. We proceeded cautiously between the edges of the burrow.But no matter how you walk, you can't get out of the caves, and you can't even know the end of the ground.The soles of the shoes were so full of dead leeches that they almost lost the feeling of landing on their feet.In this way, every step I take, my nerves are tense, and my head can't help but feel dizzy.The balance of the body is gradually difficult to maintain.Although the physical function is often performed supernormally at the critical moment, the mental concentration is much more limited than I expected.No matter how urgent the situation is, if the same situation goes on endlessly, concentration will inevitably start to decline.The longer the time dragged on, the more sluggish the specific judgment to deal with the crisis and the imagination of death, and the obvious blankness appeared in the consciousness. "Hurry up, hurry up," the girl greeted, "we will be in a safe place soon." I was too lazy to speak, so I nodded silently.After nodding, I realized that nodding in the dark was meaningless. "Listen clearly? Is it okay?" "It's okay. It's just a little gross." The nausea has been going on for a long time.The leeches on the ground, the smell they release, their sticky body fluids, the horrible sound of the air, the thick darkness, the fatigue of the body and the longing for sleep - all these things are combined into one , tightening my stomach like a hoop, causing the disgustingly foul-smelling gastric juices to flow up to the base of my tongue.Nerve concentration seems to be approaching the limit.I feel as if I'm playing a piano that has only three scales and hasn't been tuned in five years.How many hours am I going to walk in this darkness?What time is it outside in the world?Has the sky turned white?Has the morning newspaper been distributed yet? It was impossible to even glance at the watch.Just using the flashlight to shine on the ground and move my feet a little bit has made me have no time to care.I really want to see the gradually whitening sky at dawn, I want to drink steaming milk, I want to smell the fragrance of trees in the morning, and I want to turn the page of the morning newspaper.The dark leech burrow has already made me intolerable.All the organs and cells in my body are pursuing the light, and they all want to see the real light that is not the light of a flashlight, no matter how tiny it is, or how fragmented it is. The thought of light made my stomach constrict as if being grabbed by something, filling my mouth with a nasty stench like rotten salami. "Get out of here and let you vomit enough, and bear with it for a while." The girl said, tightly grasping my elbow. "No." I said with a groan. "Believe me," she said, "everything will pass. It may be true that misfortunes never come singly, but it will pass, and it won't last forever." "Yes." I replied. However, the burrow is still going on and on, and I even feel that I am always going in circles.I thought again of the morning paper that had just come out.The morning paper was so new that the ink could almost be printed on the pad of a finger.There is an advertisement in the middle seam, and it is extremely thick.The morning paper covers everything, covering all the activities of life on earth.Prime Minister's wake-up times, stock quotes, family suicides, recipes for late-night supper, skirt lengths, record reviews, real estate ads, you name it. The problem is that I don't have a newspaper subscription.Quit the newspaper reading habit about 3 years ago.As for why I no longer read newspapers, I can't say why, anyway, I no longer read newspapers.Probably because the scope of my life has nothing to do with news reports and TV shows.My connection to society is limited to when I crumble the given data into other forms in my head.The rest of the time, I just read outdated novels alone, watched old Hollywood movies on a VCR, and drank beer and whiskey to pass the time.So there is no need to read newspapers and magazines. However, in this inexplicable darkness with no light, surrounded by countless leeches in countless holes, I eagerly wanted to read newspapers.I want to sit in a sunny place and read the newspaper up and down, left and right, like a cat licking a milk bowl.Then inhale the various fragments of life developed by the world under the sun, and moisten every cell. "The altar appears!" she said. I just wanted to raise my eyes, but my foot slipped and I couldn't raise my face.No matter what color or shape the altar is, you can only discuss it when you get close to it.I finally mobilized my attention and moved forward step by step. "There are still 10 meters left." The girl said. Just as she said those words, the hissing sound of the air from the depths of the crypt died away.It disappeared abruptly and unnaturally, as if someone swung a sharp knife underground and cut off the source of the sound in one fell swoop.There was no sign of it, and there was no aftertaste. The piercing sound of air gushing out from the ground and pressing down on the ground for a long time disappeared in an instant.Rather than disappearing, it seems as if the space itself containing the sound was completely destroyed.Because the disappearance was too unexpected, my body almost lost its balance and slipped in an instant. Silence—a silence that almost hurts the ears fell around.Sudden silence in the dark is more inauspicious than any unpleasant and frightening sound.In the presence of voices—whatever they are—we can maintain a relative position.But silence is zero, nothing.It surrounds us but it doesn't exist, looking for a faint oppressive feeling similar to when the air pressure changes.The muscles of the ear are not well adapted to sudden changes and thus try to be more efficient at picking up a certain signal in silence. But the silence was an out-and-out silence.The sound disappeared and never appeared again.She and I kept our original positions and listened in silence.In order to relieve the pressure on my ears, I swallowed my saliva.But it has no effect, only the unnatural exaggerated sound similar to when the stylus hits the corner of the turntable in the ear. "Will the water recede?" I tried to ask. "Water only sprays downwards," the girl said. "The sound of air just now is the sound of the air in the winding channel being pushed out by the water pressure. After everything is drained, there is nothing to stop the water flow." The girl took my hand and walked through the last few holes.Maybe it's a mental effect, and it seems that there are slightly fewer leeches wriggling on the slate.After passing through five or six caves, we came to the open plains again.There are no caves and no leeches here, and the leeches seem to have fled in the opposite direction from us.I finally got out of the dangerous zone.It would be much better to drown and die here than to die in a leech hole. I reached out my hand almost subconsciously, trying to tear off the leech stuck to my neck.The girl grabbed my hand to stop it. "Don't worry about that, go up the tower first, so as not to drown." As he said, he grabbed my wrist and hurried forward. "Five or six leeches can't kill a person, and if you pull them hard, your skin will be ripped off too. Don't know?" "I don't know." I said.I'm as dark and dumb as a heavy weight under a beacon light. After walking 20 or 30 steps, the girl grabbed me and used the large flashlight in her hand to illuminate the huge "tower" standing in front of our eyes. The "tower" is in the shape of a bare cylinder, stretching straight towards the darkness overhead, just like a lighthouse, tapering from the base upwards.I don't know how high it actually is.Because it is too large to grasp its entire structure by shining it up and down with a flashlight, and we don't have enough time.The girl only swayed towards the tower, and then ran up to her without making a sound, and climbed up the steps on the side of the tower.Of course I hurried to follow. Seen from a little distance with a light beam of light, this "tower" looks like a delicate and magnificent monument built by people with long years and amazing skills.However, when I touched it with my hand, it turned out that it was just a huge rock with uneven uneven shape, an accidental product of natural erosion. The night ghosts chiseled a screw mountain-like spiral staircase around the boulder.As a ladder, it is too rough and sloppy, irregular and irregular, wide and narrow enough to fit a foot, and from time to time a step is missing.The missing parts can be placed with the help of nearby raised stone edges.But since we had to hold the stones with both hands to support our bodies to prevent falling, we couldn't confirm the next stone steps one by one with a flashlight, and our raised feet hung in the air several times, almost falling.Night ghosts who can see everything in the dark are nothing but troublesome inconveniences to us.The two cling to the stone wall, moving like a lizard step by step, not daring to be negligent. Ascending to level 36—I ​​have already suffered from the problem of several steps—there was a sudden sound in the darkness under my feet, as if someone threw a huge roast beef hard on the flat wall, the sound was flat and damp, well And it contains a strong will that cannot be explained.Then there was a moment of silence, just like a drumbeat that was about to fall suddenly stopped and deliberately left a beat.It was an intermission of an exceptionally repulsive silence.I firmly grasped the stone edge with both hands, clinging to the stone wall, waiting for the accident to happen. Then there was the real sound of water, the sound of water spurting in unison from the countless caves we had passed through.The amount of water is unusual.I remembered the scene of the reservoir opening celebration that I saw in newsreels when I was in elementary school.A man in a hard hat who looked like a governor pressed the button, and the gate opened, and a thick water column gushed out accompanied by hookah and rumble, straight to Xiaohan.That was back in the days of newsreels and cartoons in cinemas.While watching the documentary footage, I imagined what would happen to me if for some reason I was placed under such a turbulent reservoir, my young heart shuddered.But in the next quarter of a century, in fact, I never imagined that I would be in this situation.Children are accustomed to believe that there is a divine power that will finally save them from almost all kinds of disasters that may occur in the world.At least that's how I was as a child. "How high is the water going to go?" I asked the girl two or three steps above me. "Quite a bit," she replied curtly. "If you want to live, you have to go up a little bit. The water never goes up to the top. That's all I know." "How many levels are left to the top?" "Quite a lot," she replied.The answer is ingenious and can appeal to the imagination. We climbed the helical "tower" as fast as we could.Judging from the sound of the water, the "tower" where the two of them were clinging to each other probably stood in the middle of the open flat ground, surrounded by dark leech caves.If so, we climbed to the top on this decorative column that happened to be built in the middle of countless giant blowholes.If the girl is right, then this square-like empty space must be full of water, and only this "tower" is an isolated island protruding from the water. The flashlight slung across the girl's body swings irregularly around her waist, and the light beam draws messy circles in the darkness.I aim at this light and keep climbing.I can't count how many steps I have climbed on the way, but it is only between 150 and 200 steps.At first, it hit the stone wall under the feet and screamed the water falling from the air, and soon it turned into a sound like falling into a pool, and then turned into a muffled gurgling sound, as if it had been sealed.The water level rose steadily.I can't see where I'm going, and I don't know where the water reaches.But I don't think it's surprising that even cold water washes down the ankles immediately. It's all like a bad dream when I'm in a bad mood. Something is chasing me, but my legs can't move freely. As a dream, it is also a hopeless dream, but if it is a living reality, it is naturally more serious.I don't care about any stairs anymore, just grasp the stone edge with both hands, and lift my body up in the air. Suddenly a plan came to mind: What if you wait for the water to rise and take advantage of the water to swim to the top?This is effortless and there is no risk of falling. It seems that there is nothing wrong with estimating in your head for a long time, as an original plan. But when she told the girl, she immediately asserted that it would not work. "Under the surface of the water, the current is very strong, and there are whirlpools. Once you get caught in it, you can't even talk about swimming. You can't even float up. Even if you come up by chance, it's so dark, you can't swim anywhere." In a word, no matter how anxious you are, you can only climb step by step.The sound of the water is like a slowing motor, the scale is lowered by a quarter, and finally turns into a heavy moan.The water level continued to rise without stopping.If only there were real light, I thought.No matter how weak it is.As long as there is real light, it is no problem to climb such a stone wall, and you can also confirm where the water is.In short, you can avoid the terrible torture of not knowing when your ankle will be caught.I hate the dark stuff.It wasn't the water that was suffocating me, but the darkness that lay between the water and my ankles.It was the darkness that poured the terror of Liangqinqin's ignorance into my body. Newsreels are still switching in my head.The great arched reservoir on the screen drained forever towards the mortar-shaped stone bottom before my eyes.The camera persistently captures this scene from various angles.The lens is aimed at the rushing and splashing water from above, from the front or from the side, like a lick all over.The shadow of the water flowing on the cement dam wall is clearly visible.The shadows of the water danced and shadowed on the flat white concrete like the water itself.Between the gazes, the water shadow actually became my own figure.It was my figure jumping endlessly on the bulging reservoir dam wall.I sat in a cinema chair and watched my own image intently.It was immediately obvious that it was me, but as a spectator in the cinema, I didn't know how to act accordingly.I was a 9 or 10 year old teenager.Maybe I should run up to the screen and take the shadow back, or rush into the projection room and grab the film.As to whether this is the right thing to do, I have no way of judging.In this way, I had no choice but to continue to watch my own shadow without moving. The figure leaps endlessly in front of my eyes, like a distant view swaying irregularly in the confusing earth atmosphere.Shadow doesn't seem to be able to speak or express anything with gestures.He did, however, want to confide in me.Shadow knows perfectly well that I sit here looking at his image.It's a pity that he is as weak and powerless as I am. After all, he is just a shadow. Except for me, no one in the audience seemed to realize that the shadow of the water flowing on the wall of the reservoir was actually my shadow.My brother was sitting next to me, and he was also indifferent.Otherwise, definitely whisper it to me.Because my brother always whispers tirelessly when watching movies. I also had no intention of telling others that it was my shadow.I guess they won't believe it.Looking at the scene, the shadow just wants to convey a certain message to me alone.He told me what he said to me through the medium of the movie screen at an inappropriate place and at an inappropriate time. On the bulging concrete wall, my shadow was all alone, ignored by anyone.I don't know how he came to the dam wall, nor his future plans.Presumably he will disappear with the nightfall before long.He may well have been swept out to sea by the rough current, where he continued to perform his duties as my shadow.Thinking of this, I can't help feeling sad. Soon, the reservoir news was over, and the scene changed to the scene of the coronation ceremony of the king of a certain country: several horses with head decorations pulled a beautiful carriage through the stone square.I searched for myself on the ground, but there were only shadows of horses, carriages, and buildings. My recollection ends here.But I can't tell if this has actually happened to me.Because I have never pushed this fact out of my mind as a memory of the past before it suddenly occurred to me here just now.Or it could be a mental image I've drawn on a whim while listening to the sound of water in the unearthly darkness.I have read a description of such psychological effects in a psychology book before.According to the psychologist, when people fall into extremely difficult situations, they often picture daydream scenes in their minds to protect themselves from the harsh reality.But if it is called a whim-like conceptual image, the scene that emerges in front of my eyes is too vivid and vivid, and it is too closely related to my existence itself.I can vividly remember the smells and sounds that surrounded me, and I can feel the confusion, panic, and unspeakable horror that I felt when I was 9 or 10 years old.No matter what anyone says, that really happened to me.Although it had been sealed in the depths of consciousness by some force, its seal had been broken by my desperation, allowing it to rise to the surface.some kind of force? Definitely a result of brain surgery performed to acquire ambiguity.They pushed my memory up the wall of consciousness, they took it from me for a long time. Thinking about it this way, I gradually became angry.No one has the right to deprive me of my memory.That is my own memory! Depriving others of their memories is tantamount to plundering their years.As the anger rose, I felt that there was nothing terrible about it. Anyway, I'm going to live anyway, and I'm determined to live.I must come out of this insanely dark world alive, to regain the memory that was taken from me.Whether the world is finished or not, it's none of my business!I must be regenerated as my full self! "Rope!" cried the girl suddenly. "rope?" "Hey, come on, there's a rope hanging down." I stepped up three or four steps hurriedly, went to her side and touched the stone wall with the palm of my hand. Sure enough, there was a rope. The rope was used for climbing, not too thick, but very strong.The end of the rope is hanging down to my chest.I grabbed it in my hand and carefully pulled slightly harder.According to the feel, it should be firmly fastened to something. "It must be the grandfather," said the girl, "who hung the rope for us." "Just to be prudent, let's climb around again." I said. We couldn't wait to find the next foot, and climbed around this spiral "tower" for a week.The rope is still hanging in the same position.The rope is tied with a knot every 30 cm so that we can build our feet.We could save a lot of time if the rope really went all the way to the top of the "tower". "Grandfather, no doubt about it. He's very careful." "Sure enough," I said, "Can you climb a rope?" "Of course," the girl said, "I've been very good at climbing ropes since I was a child. Never climbed before?" "Then you climb first." I said, "Climb to the top and shake the flashlight down, and then I will start climbing." "Then the water will flood up, it's better to climb together, isn't it?" “爬山时原则上一条绳子一个人。因为绳子强度有问题，再说两人一起爬不容易，时间也花得多。况且就算淹上来，只要抓住绳子也总可以爬上去。” “真看不出你这人倒挺勇敢的。”女郎说。 我猜想她可能再吻我一下，在黑暗中静静等着。不料她没有理睬，已开始迅速上爬。我双手抓住岩角，仰望她随着胡乱摇晃的电简光束往上爬去。那光景恰似酩酊大醉的魂灵踉踉跄跄地返回天空。凝望之间，我很想喝一口威士忌。但威士忌装在背部的背包中，无论如何也不可能在如此摇摇欲坠的状态下扭过身体卸下背包从中取出威士忌瓶子。于是打消这个念头，而代之以在脑海中想象自己喝威士忌的情景。整洁幽静的酒吧，装着核桃的大碗，低声流出的MJQ 的《旺多姆》旋律，60ML大杯冰镇威士忌。我把酒杯置于台面，袖手注视良久。威士忌这东西一开始是要静静观赏的，观赏够了才喝，同对待漂亮女孩一样。想到这里，我发觉自己没有西服和轻便风衣。我所拥有的像样西服全被那两个神经病用刀子割得体无完肤。Oops!该穿什么衣服去呢？去酒吧之前需要先解决西服。我打定主意：做一套藏青色苏格兰呢料西装好了。青色要格调高雅，纽扣三个，肩部要浑然天成，腋下要不收紧的传统样式，就是60年代初乔治·佩帕德穿的那种货色。衬衫要蓝色的，蓝得沉稳而略带漂白之感。质地为厚实的牛津布，领口色调则尽可能普通正规。领带双色条纹即可。红与绿。红为锗红，绿则如怒涛翻腾的大海，或者蓝也未尝不可。我要去一家时髦的男士用品店购置齐全，穿戴好再走进一间酒吧，要一大杯苏格兰冰镇威士忌。蚂蝗也好夜鬼也好带爪鱼也好，任凭它们在地下世界横行霸道。我可要在地上世界身穿藏青色苏格兰呢料西装，品味苏格兰进口的威士忌。 蓦地注意到时，水声已经停了。大概洞穴已不再喷水。或许水位过高而听不到水声。但对于我，似乎怎么都无所谓。我已下定决心，无论如何要活下去，并使记忆失而复得。任何人都再也别想随心所欲地操纵我。我恨不得对全世界高喊，任何人都再也别想随心所欲地操纵我！ 可是，在这黑洞洞的地底下体附岩石之时，随即高喊也全无效用。于是我并不喊，而歪头向上打量。女郎爬得比我想的高得多，不知已拉开几米距离，若以商店楼层计算，怕有三四层了——已到女服柜台或和服专场。我无可奈何地想，这石山究竟有多高呢？我和她已经爬过的那部分都已有相当的高度，而若继续扶摇直上，其整个高度必然十分了得。我曾一度兴之所至地步行上过26层高楼，但这次登攀似乎还不止那个高度。 不管怎样，黑漆漆望不见下面反倒不失为好事。虽说我是登山老手，但若在没有任何装备的情况下只穿普通网球鞋危危乎爬到如此高处，也必定吓得不敢俯视。这无异于在摩天楼正中不借助安全绳和吊车来擦拭玻璃。什么也不思不想地一个劲向上攀登当中倒还算好，而一旦停住脚步，不容我不为这高度而渐感心神不安。 我再次歪头仰望。看样子她还在奋力攀援，电筒光同样摇来晃去。较之刚才，位置已高出许多。她的确善于爬绳，如她本人所说，但也实在高得可观，高得近乎荒谬。归根结蒂，那老头儿何苦逃窜到这等神乎其神的场所。如能挑一个简便易行的地方静等我们到来，我们也大可不必遭此劫难。 如此呆呆思考之间，头上好像传来人的语声。抬头一看，但见小小的黄色光点如飞机尾灯缓缓闪烁。估计她总算到顶。我一只手抓绳，一只手拉过电筒，朝上边送出同样的信号。 又顺便往下照了照，想看看水面升到多高。但电筒光很弱，几乎什么也看不清。黑暗过于浓重，除非相当靠近，否则根本看不出究竟。手表指在凌晨4 时12分。天还未亮，晨报尚未派发，电车尚未启动。地上的人们应当还在酣然大睡。 我双手攥紧绳索，深深吸了口气，慢慢向上攀援。