Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen When a Killer Comes to the End of His Life

shortness of breath January 30 It snowed last night, but when the curtains were opened in the morning, it was the sun.This kind of sun is fake. Although the leaves are all fallen and reflected by the snow, it looks very bright, but it can't even melt the icicles hanging from the eaves. In the north, you can feel the changes of the seasons the most, that is, you can know the slope of the sun the most.Spring, summer, autumn and winter, to put it bluntly, are all caused by the different hours and angles of sunshine. I moved Patty's jar from the bookcase to the window, where it basked in the morning sun.I can't do this in summer, because praying mantises are "worms that kill the yin", and they naturally like to hide under the leaves.And the sun shines into the glass jar, producing a "greenhouse effect", which is enough to roast Patty to death.So I only moved Patty in the afternoon, when the sun was out of the window.

The same goes for crickets, they are more of a dark and nocturnal insect. The crickets in my hands are specially cultivated by pet stores, so they can live in winter.I put them in the corner of the house, and they enjoy themselves, especially the male, who keeps barking. Sometimes I catch them to feed Patty, and cruelly put the cricket bottle next to him, watching Patty hunt and kill them. , they are not frightened, they still drink, eat, and sing.In this severe winter season, there should be no crickets. They can be born and raised, so they are killed. "If fate is like this, it will sing with the world."So what if you don't sing?

Patty is in the jar, looking at a white world.Her hometown - the peony tree has lost all its leaves, like a few dead branches, standing in the snow.The evergreen bushes in front of the window were also drooping their leaves in the cold.Many plants can adjust the slope of their leaves as the temperature changes, and the colder they are, the more they hang their heads, like humble slaves, standing in the wind and snow, waiting for fate. Insects are particularly sensitive to sunlight; bugs I've caught in the past, especially bees, and put them in Patty's jar, always shoot at the same angle, which must be the direction of the sun.Even if the typhoon rains and the darkness is as dark as a solar eclipse, they will not mistake "the sun's proper position".I also took advantage of this, and when Patty was standing in a certain corner, I pointed that corner in the direction of the sun, so that the flying insects would fly in front of Patty and be eaten.

Patty doesn't know direction, just like people, some people believe in destiny and worship ghosts and gods;The ordinary people believe in the law, abide by the law, and worship heroes; the heroes legislate and amend the law, and they believe in themselves. Patty is a hero, looking at her hometown indifferently, and looking at the sunshine on the snow indifferently.An old hero still does not believe in heaven; an old praying mantis is still a "worm that kills evil". Patty is really old, so old that she can no longer climb on the glass and can only hang on the gauze.It may also be because there are her eggs on the gauze, and she is guarding her children.What a lucky mom!When all the mother mantises were dead and covered in thick snow, she could still rock her crib.

The cricket that was left yesterday had been killed by her, and she only killed it without eating it.I threw in three more to see how she reacted. The three crickets entered the bottle, thinking they were in a paradise, the corpses everywhere, in their eyes, might be delicacies everywhere.I saw them crawling back and forth among the insect corpses.In winter, when the heating is turned on, the air is extremely dry, and the insect corpses are roasted into jerky meat. When the crickets walk by, they make a rustling sound of rotten leaves in the autumn forest. Patty didn't move, just looked back, her "double pincers" no longer raised, but stretched forward.Like an old man who has donated everything, waiting for those recipients to take care of her old age.

When a person is old and can no longer go out to buy things, or even go out, all the gold, silver and treasure are meaningless to him.It's just that it reminds me of a famous collector who has been collecting for a lifetime and can only enter and exit.When he was dying, he suddenly sold his collection.I couldn't even move my hands and feet, and I was still lying on the hospital bed bargaining with the "buyer".It is said that, taking advantage of that breath, he actually sold many antiques at high prices.It makes sense for him to do so. If he doesn't sell it, but the layman's children sell it for nothing, he will definitely die.

A praying mantis that no longer raises its pincers is like a sharpshooter who has disarmed, losing all might.Just like a bandit who was injured and fell to the ground, even women and children would go over and kick him twice.The sworn enemy of youth may become your friend when you succeed in middle age; the sworn enemy of middle age will do you double harm when you are old.New hatred and old hatred will not appear when you succeed; when you fail, they will become the "destroying" force.Just like the flesh wounds and colds suffered in youth, they will attack one by one in old age. The crickets obviously saw through Patty, first walking in the distance of her, and gradually moved to her side.One took the lead, constantly beating its wings and making a sharp sound.The other two also shuttled from left to right, as if launching a protest parade.

Patty didn't move, just looked at them coldly.One jumped on her back, but she didn't respond.The cricket was even more rampant, even clinging to her side, pushing her hard, especially the one in the lead, rushing back and forth, like a witch boy possessed by divine power. Suddenly, two crickets jumped away, bouncing up many fragments of dead insects.The lead one stopped screaming because it was already clamped by Patty.Patty kept moving her four feet, probably hoping to stand still.The caught cricket kept kicking, thinking it could break free from the old guy's palm.Unexpectedly, the thorns on the old guy's pliers are still so sharp.The more it struggles, the deeper the thorn penetrates.Patty lowered her head to bite, and the strength of her mouth had obviously weakened, and it took a long time to bite off one wing.Bite the neck again, the cricket's neck is thick, and it took a long time to bite off half of it.Somehow, the half-dead cricket jumped out of Patty's grasp.

Patty stopped chasing her and tilted her head to lick her pincers.Unexpectedly, she was too old to move, and she still wanted to kiss her weapon.Of course, there may be cricket gravy left on it, what a fat taste!For an old "vampire", the dried blood on the blade can still make him intoxicated. The escaped cricket is no longer a leader, but a forgotten martyr.The remaining two crickets began to dance again. I thought "Petty won't live long," so I put the other three crickets that were left in the bottle into the jar, creating a scene of six crickets surrounding Patty.

I want to see when the strongman grows old, whether his former enemies will avenge their old enemies first, or seize power first.When a revolution occurs and the original ruler is overthrown, all the prisoners in the prison, including murderers, rapers, and embezzlers, can transform themselves into supporters of revolutionary actions.They were all guilty no more, for they cried "Judg him! Convict him!" louder than all the others.They used to be "persecuted", and of course they have the priority to collect debts.And all chess pieces must be rearranged, and all forces must be drawn over by the new leader.

behold!The tyrant is dying!The oppressed people finally rose up.A group of crickets actually started fighting in the pile of corpses. One danced on Patty's back, and the other rode on Patty's long legs, and slid down with the legs, then hugged Patty's feet, and started to fight. Lick and start biting. I quickly took Patty out, but one of her toes had been bitten off, leaving the empty shin standing on my hand like a thin toothpick. She is no longer cruel to me, and her eyes are not as bright as before.The neck is still flexible, still looking around.I found that she had changed, into a kindly old woman.She stopped scratching and biting, and the two pliers landed gently on my fingertips, as soft as a caress.Once upon a time, her weapon had become a gentle adornment. Daughter is eating.I handed Patty to my daughter: "Petty is getting gentler and gentler. The crickets are bullying her, so we put her outside and raise her well." Stiff Neck January 31 Patty spent last night in her pink room.I don't know how it feels for a dying woman to return to the place where she fell in love when she was young. Although she made love to her lover in this room, she also killed her lover there.But just like the dying Wu Zetian, who almost broke the Tang Dynasty, but left a blank stone tablet, waiting for the inscription and judgment of future generations. "I have to, and if you were me, so would you." In the court in the past, how many women tried their best to kill as if they had lost their conscience.Why?In order for her son to be enthroned.They kill, they are ruthless, not out of hatred, but out of love. Didn't Patty eat her husband just to love her children? Early in the morning, I took Patty out.First feed her two tubes of "duckbill pen" water, then hold a cricket with tweezers and bring it to her mouth. I sent the cricket's softest belly, Patty bit into it, his mouth couldn't stop moving, but he didn't eat it.I pulled the tweezers back and as Patty bit the cricket's butt it snapped, ripping out quite a bit of guts. She then ate the offal, and quickly.I let her bite the cricket again and then pull it away; she bit off another piece and swallowed it. I've found that feeding mantises requires a "bite and pull" method.Just like Patty usually catches the prey, he bites and pushes his arms away.The mantis' ability is to bite tightly on its mouth and push its arms away.It can also be said that they use the "bite and tear" method to tear their prey into small pieces and swallow them down. In fact, the "eating" of every animal is the relationship between "mouth" and "hand".The "double pincers" of lobsters are always one big and one small, because their mouths are very weak, and one pincer must be used to hold the food, and the other pincers are used to tear it open and then put it into the mouth.Eagles are different. They have hooked "beaks", and while pressing the food tightly with their talons, they use "hooks" to tear the food.Although parrots have hooked beaks, they are only used for climbing.When eating, it relies on flexible claws to turn the food around, turn it to a favorable position, and then bite.Human beings are the most clever, they can not only tear them with hands, but also bite them with their mouths. Now the tweezers in my right hand are equivalent to Patty's pliers; I grab her back with my left hand to create the force to tear apart.If I don't grab her, just let her bite and pull her out, her whole body will be pulled away, and she will have no strength to "serve". "Bite" does not mean everything, you must "bite" and then "tear apart" to cause great damage.Whether destroying food or destroying the enemy, you have to "bite him" first, and then "make things bigger".But in the process of feeding Patty, I also discovered how strong her neck is, how hard I tried to tear the cricket apart, and she was able to hold on to it, and I felt like I would almost break her thin neck. neck. An animal must have a "hard neck" before it can be torn.This is another new discovery of mine. In the past, Patty was "as long as the worm is dead, don't eat it".I guessed that when the cricket's legs stopped struggling, she wouldn't eat it either.But obviously "old age" can even change personality. When Patty ate up the whole cricket, I tried to find the dry carcass in the jar and feed her, and she ate it happily.Is this because of "old and greedy"?Or is it because she knows she has no strength to "kill" again, so she is willing to eat this immobile "jerky"? It's like seeing a former hero begging for food at the end of his life, begging for a bowl of rice, and squatting in front of the door to eat.Where did her former heroism go?I still vividly remember the pain of the spikes digging into my fingers when she grabbed me.I also remember how she swung the pair of pincers back, hooked my hand, and turned back to bite. Right now, I'm grabbing her upper body with my thumb and forefinger, holding her in the air, this is the most insecure situation, why isn't she struggling? How clever!If a man can bend and stretch, she can also be regarded as a man.I think of Sima Qian writing Wu Zixu, saying that Wu Neng "abandoned his small righteousness, shamed him, and his name will go down to future generations." He also said that when Wu Zixu was in trouble by the Yangtze River, he even begged for food on the road, but he never forgot his revenge for killing his father.It's really "so forbearance is for fame, how can a non-marty husband achieve this?" Is Wu Zixu really written by Sima Qian?I'm afraid he also wrote himself! "A person can disregard loyalty and be praised as a man in order to avenge his shame and make his name known to future generations." How much influence does this concept have on Chinese scholars?Sima Qian survived the hatred of being castrated, why?It is to keep a sigh of relief, and to express his grievances through historical figures. But why does my Patty give up her heroic image in her life, just to keep this breath?mother love february 1st Today I decided to show Patty around. Many elderly people love to travel. On the one hand, because their children have grown up and no longer need to take care of them, the elderly have freedom; In this way, while you can walk, walk more to make your life more fulfilling.In addition, there is another reason that the old people hope to revisit the old places and evoke some good memories of their youth. In the past six years, I have twice returned to my hometown in Peiping and Taipei with my octogenarian mother.We visited every place she lived, and heard her nostalgia for good friends from the past, and heard her complain about the relatives who bullied her when she was young. I often think that Beihai, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City or Wangfujing Street in her eyes must be different from what I see.For example, Taipei New Park, although it is still there, and many buildings have not been demolished, but in my eyes it is different from young people.That is in memory, and only I can make a knowing smile or faint sadness. He took Patty out of the pink box and held it in the palm of his hand. He first went to each window to look out, and then went to each room to circle around.It wasn't until today, when she was about to die, that she realized that she had even taken her to the beach, but she hadn't taken her to see every place in the house.Of course, maybe one day, when I am about to die, I will realize that I have traveled half the world, but I can't even walk through the many small alleys next to my home. The snow outside hadn't thawed yet, but there were small pits on the ground.Because the temperature of the earth is not uniform, some places are hotter, some places are colder, some snow is covered with grass, and some are covered with land.The speed at which the snow melts is also different.Looking at Patty and looking at the snow outside reminds me of the movie "The Call of the Wild".It's probably an old movie from twenty years ago!But I always remember that loyal wild wolf, fighting with other wild wolves in order to protect its master. In the eyes of people, it is a loyal dog.In the eyes of wolves, it may be a traitor.In order to follow people and get good shelter and good food, they betrayed their own ethnic group. It also reminds me of the "Memoirs of the Sino-Japanese War" program I watched before.An anti-Japanese hero pointed to a person in the photo and said, "This is a Japanese who later surrendered and joined our side. He shot his machine gun very accurately and killed many Japanese devils." From our point of view, this Japanese is a righteous person who "tells right from wrong".From the Japanese point of view? (Down with devils!!) A hawk can be trained to catch a hawk; a dog can be trained to catch a dog; a praying mantis can be trained to catch a praying mantis. No!I should say the praying mantises are an exception, they are loners by nature and cannot stand the presence of any other praying mantises around them.Even if the person sleeping next to him is a husband or a lover, he must be killed. But, I put Patty on the window sill and watched her peering out through the window sill.I thought, if there is still a praying mantis that has not frozen to death, I can see her in the room and me behind her.What would that praying mantis think?Will it say: "A praying mantis raised in captivity since childhood, no matter how good its killing skills are, and no matter how long it lives, it is still not a mantis." I moved Patty away from the window, convinced that it was no longer the hometown she knew outside.Her hometown has changed color, and the real hometown is already my study. With her in his arms, he walked to the front of the TV and watched the "soap opera".Then put her on the "U.S. Capitol" model that my father-in-law and daughter jointly assembled.Let it stand on the dome of the "mansion" and take two more pictures of her. How like a tourist!It's more like "Mothra", making a scene in the US capital and breaking into the US Congress.If the ratio of Patty and the building is like this, it's really scary!Isn't it bigger than an eighty-ton SAUROPODOMORPHA dinosaur?No wonder Americans call the praying mantis "the dinosaur in the garden." It suddenly occurred to my daughter that there were a few small toys of dinosaurs, which happened to be the same size as Patty, so I asked my daughter to find them and put Patty next to the toys to take pictures.Patty actually aimed at one of the green ones and slammed it hard. The daughter then introduced Patty to her model store, and insisted that Patty enter her Bistro restaurant as a "guest".I asked her why? "Because Patty loves steak, my restaurant specializes in steak, and Patty will be happy." The daughter said seriously. Finally, I brought Patty to the front of the "flower window".This is the happiest place in the house.Because it faces south and has a glass roof on it, the sunshine of all seasons can shine in.The plants inside are also confused, and the four seasons are lost.For example, an epiphyllum should bloom in summer and autumn, but now it has buds and is about to bloom. I put Patty on an epiphyllum leaf and she fell off in no time.Because the leaves were too smooth, Patty's mucus-secreting toes were bitten off by crickets, so he couldn't stand up. Looking up, I saw the hanging "passion fruit" vines, which were given by my daughter's piano teacher.Passion fruit is native to Africa, but can be found everywhere in Taiwan.It is said that during the Second World War, the U.S. military planned to parachute into the mountains of Taiwan to fight jungle warfare. They were afraid that there would be nothing to eat, so they scattered passion fruit seeds that were easy to grow and rich in vitamins from the air.How wonderful!The original trick has become the blessing of the future career.In fact, every fisherman casts bait, as long as the fish is not caught, that bait can be regarded as a kind of grace.On the contrary, those who think that "releasing life" is a blessing, but release piranhas in the reservoir, cause ecological imbalance and become killings. Passion fruit has a lot of leaves, it should be a good place, so I put Patty on it. Patty, who was supposed to live among the flowers and plants, spent most of her life locked in plastic and glass jars. Now she is old and dying, and should return to the space between heaven and earth. Westerners who always believe that "man can conquer nature".At the funeral, it will say "Ashestashes, dust to dust." It means that a person dies and returns to nature, and of course a little praying mantis should be like this. I thought of what a Feng Shui master said-when a person dies, no matter whether he uses a coffin or is cremated and puts it in an urn, he should always be close to the land.Therefore, it is best to use stone, ceramic or wooden materials for the urn, and put it in a soil, cement or stone tomb, so that the deceased can communicate with the spirit of the earth.Produce the effect of harmonizing Feng Shui. Isn't this also "ash to ashes, dust to dust"? Sure enough, Patty was very happy and began to climb on the passion fruit vine.Climb all the way down, into the pot. The flower pot looks like a small white pavilion.There is a pointed top on it, and a string of iron rings on the top, just hanging on the flower window. Patty actually continued to climb to the top of the "kiosk", turned around again, and aimed his butt at the tip of the kiosk.Then, it stopped moving. I ignored her.I thought to myself, maybe because she is a "worm that kills the yin", she feels safer hiding in the pavilion.Or maybe she was dying and decided to choose such a beautiful place to breathe her last. In the evening, while I was writing, my daughter suddenly knocked on the door outside the study and yelled. Opening the door, the little girl said out of breath: "Pie, Patty, live, live, lay eggs. She's laying eggs again!" Running to the flower window, she saw Patty using her shins, which had lost her toes, to cling on to the kiosk and twist. Her limbs were probably trembling due to exertion, her buttocks were constantly shrinking, and a lot of mucus was actually squeezed out from the not so full stomach. I suddenly understood.A great killer like Patty should die with honor.The reason why she endured humiliation and lingered on begging for food was because of her love for her children. How can gauze tied to the mouth of a glass jar be a good place for hatching?So even though she laid eggs on the gauze, she felt uneasy.So secretly leave some eggs waiting day by day. Until today, when she climbed the passion fruit, as if returning to the flowers outside, she found a hidden place to hide "her love". I discovered that I was dealing not with an erstwhile killer, or a dying old woman, but with a great mother.Tranquility February 2 He didn't send Patty back to the pink house last night, but left her in the passion fruit pot.I think this is more to her liking, like a mother who has just given birth, holding the baby in front of her chest, letting the baby listen to her familiar heart sounds, making the breathing and rising and falling of the mother's chest still rippling like amniotic fluid, and letting this Mother and child communicate again in the heart. Then, the child will grow up day by day and stay away day by day. There are a few children who don't take the initiative to leave their parents and go out to create their own home; there are also a few parents who don't leave their children first and go to another country. Life is originally divided and combined, life and death. When I saw Patty in the morning, she was no longer hanging upside down, but standing quietly in the flower pot.She climbed on the edge of the flower pot and looked at me, like a woman leaning on the railing of the balcony, waiting for her lover. Her face is indeed old, no longer as full as it was when she was young.But the eyes became kind, as if they had another kind of brilliance, a kind of laziness, a kind of tenderness. It reminds me of when my wife gave birth to her daughter at the age of 40. She didn't wear eye shadow or foundation on her face. The original freckles appeared, but she looked bright.She was pale from blood loss during childbirth, but in that pallor there was another kind of joy. I took Patty down and fed her.She took a bite, stopped, turned her head away, and stared out the window. The morning light came in and shone on a Christmas red tree by the window.Because of the slanting backlight, the red looks extraordinarily gorgeous. Most of the old people like red, probably the firepower is gone, red can bring a warm feeling.It may also be that I love the red joy and hope to live a few more years. I put Patty gently on the Christmas red petals. The Christmas red bought for Thanksgiving last year actually lasted until February, and it was still very lush. The wide petals just supported Patty, like a large red brocade mattress, on which a dying woman fell asleep. This woman was originally a commoner who fell into a rich family by chance and left her Sangzhang homeland, and never went back. She only watched from a distance, watching her hometown gradually wither and disappear, disappearing into the depths of snowflakes. The snow outside the window is just beginning to fall, thinly, like powder, drifting slowly and silently. Dying Patty, I don't know if it was reflected in the light, and she actually started to comb, just like when she was young, she "tried the clouds at the window".After washing her face, she licked her pliers again. The thorns were still sharp, but the muscles had shrunk.Like a dying old man, his mind is still clear and he can barely sit up, but the tips of his hands and feet have gradually turned black. This is "tranquility care".There is no excitement, no sad goodbye, just quietly, let the dying face the approaching death peacefully, and say goodbye to the past life lightly. The past is all over.All the merits and demerits, all the ups and downs, and even all the losses and regrets have become the past, which can only be recollected, and there is no need to lament. Patty's face was facing out of the window, and the warm winter sun was shining on her.Gradually she lowered her arms and let her head hang between them. Her eyes gradually darkened, from transparent to black. The snow was falling more densely.I said to my daughter next to me, "Petty is dead!" She suddenly covered her face and began to cry. What a vicious pet, in the eyes of its owner, is a kind of perfection. I went to find an ink box.The outside is covered with autumn-colored woven cotton, and the inside is covered with red silk cloth.The place where the ink used to be placed in the middle is recessed, just for Patty to lie in it. The daughter cried, and put the coffin on the carpet, and went to pick some jasmine, orange blossom, Christmas red and baby's breath, and put it around Patty.I cut a star out of silver foil.Put it on Patty's chest, expressing her honor.Please don't blame me!May I ask, which outstanding killer in this world will not receive a medal after death? Patty's hands are spread out to the left and right.I don't want her to hug her chest, because she has prayed and coveted her whole life in the way of hugging her chest.I want her to drop everything, come empty, go empty. Since it comes from nature, let's return to nature! I opened the back door.The snow outside has stopped, the land is flat, without any bird or animal footprints, not even the wind. I put Patty's coffin on the snow and took one last picture of her. Looking out from the lens of the camera, it seems that the whole white land is rushing towards her.The shadow of the evergreen tree moves slowly in the afternoon sun, past Patty's "slough", and then the red sunset glow. It's so quiet, you can't hear any birds chirping, or the sound of cars passing by. Only occasionally came the chirping of a few sharp crickets. In Patty's original glass jar, the remaining four crickets were happier.They are constantly chasing, playing, fighting, and feeding on Patty's remaining carcasses, and each one grows fat and big...