At the ground exit of Pittsburgh International Airport, Xueli was sitting on a free airport moped with a single travel bag beside her.Every time the car turned a corner, it made a noisy sound.Shirley got off the car near the hotel information desk. She identified the direction of the noisy voices, and walked slowly towards the luggage claim area.A group of children screaming and playing "Baby Monkey Ball" around her soon dispersed amidst the crowd's murmurs.She hears Elton John's voice faintly in someone's earphones; a couple arguing over who owns the camera; a police radio reports an accident in a makeshift parking lot.

There was a scream, and the boxes on the luggage carousel suddenly fell to one side, followed by a stomp and someone bumping into her shoulder.She staggered and almost fell, a pair of hands about her size reached out and grabbed her just in time. "I'm so sorry, dear," one nun said with a giggle. "God bless you!" She felt a chill as the doors in the hall opened and closed.She wore a pair of black home trousers, a well-cut red wool blouse, and a pair of hard-wearing shoes. At the information desk directly opposite, a man in a long black coat with pleats was watching her.He stood there with his hands in his trouser pockets.He tried to focus on the crowd near the baggage claim, but his eyes kept wandering to her involuntarily.She is so elegant, he thought.

Near baggage claim, there were several young women who looked more like the ones he was going to pick up.One of them was the one he had imagined best.She was wearing a tan travel suit and a pair of sneakers, and her long red hair was tied into a small braid.The second guy, with light silver-gray hair, was wearing a jumpsuit and a pair of stilettos.There was another, with gray hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a purple suit and running shoes. It suddenly occurred to him that he should or ask Tonino to look up this woman's information on the Internet in advance, maybe he can find her photo on the Internet, and it would be much more convenient to print it and bring it here.However, in the past forty hours, the two of them were so busy that they only slept for less than four hours, let alone taking time to collect such information.

Baggage claim was a hustle and bustle, with people scrambling to claim their bags.He took another look at the black-haired beauty next to the information desk.A few men stopped to talk to her before, most of them seemed to want to strike up a conversation with her in the name of being helpful, but she rejected them all with that elegant smile.He also wanted to walk up to her and chat with her casually, just to see her smile at him too.However, he is a relatively shy person, so give up. The crowd dispersed in twos and threes.The lady in traveling clothes met a bearded man in a black dappled hat and left with a suitcase.The woman in the stilettos had called a porter to help her remove a large tapestry suitcase, which was big enough to fit his entire wardrobe.The woman in the purple suit joined her husband and three children.He glanced around, only seeing a single woman, checked his watch and then looked at the door.There were still two large suitcases on the luggage conveyor belt, but there was no one around who looked like he was going to pick them up.

Something ran over the side of one of his feet. He looked down and saw the back of the head of a child with messy hair. A chubby little hand was reaching from behind him, reaching for a rubber ball next to his front foot. The child face against the corner of his trousers.Could the boy, he wondered, smell death on his shoes? He changed his standing posture, then consciously raised his feet and walked across the carpet, reached into the cigarette case in his pocket with his fingers and took out a "Vitality" brand cigarette in his mouth. At this time, an obese woman was riding a downward elevator and waved vigorously in the direction where he was standing.She had blond, shaggy hair and a lot of make-up.A shopping bag hangs from one arm and a small white dog is held in the other.

"Hey," she yelled in a trembling voice. He closed his eyes and thought to himself, it couldn't be this woman, his consciousness would collapse.However, a man in a straw hat and casually dressed walked past him and ran up to the woman.With a sigh of relief, he turned to look at the information desk. Had she been delayed coming down the exit?Or did she feel unwell and went to the bathroom?Or did she wait for him on the other side of the airport?He wondered if there were other information desks here, but he had specifically asked the ground transportation department. Only the pretty girl in red was left in the hall, standing there patiently waiting for someone to come and pick her up.

Announcements began to play over the speakers: Unattended cars in the exit lanes would be towed away, as would bags that had not been picked up on the luggage carousel.He hesitated and walked towards her, with an uncertain expression on his face and a little embarrassment.She stood tall, her arms straight at her sides. He approached her and saw her head turn slightly, obviously she was aware of his approach. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said apologetically, his face already burning, and he asked carefully, "are you . . . Miss Moore?" "It's me, my name is Shirley," she replied, holding out her hand generously, holding a red and white cane in the other. "Officer Capovich?"

He looked at the cane in Xueli's hand in surprise, stepped back involuntarily, and covered his mouth with his hand.He did not expect that the person standing in front of him turned out to be a blind man, and it was a young and beautiful blind woman.Her chestnut-colored curly hair hung thickly over her shoulders.The crimson color of her rounded lips matched her top just right.She was tall, with full breasts, and she was charmingly sexy.With the hand that held the cane, she smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, and then rested the cane on the ground. He took her hand quickly, and it was warm. "Just call me Edward," he said, thinking that her beauty and misfortune seemed so incongruous, and the appeal was a little disturbing.He put his hand on her hand a little selflessly, and patted it gently.She must have been thirty, he guessed. "I'm sorry, Miss Moore, I didn't expect you to... er... to come out on the airport moped."

"It's very convenient, Edward," she said cheerfully. "So where do we go from here?" He took her small bag, and held her arm with the other arm. At this moment, he seemed to have completely forgotten the mission of this trip, stood up, and proudly led her to the glass sliding door. "Our car is right outside." "It's cold in here," she said. "It's raining," he told her, and patted her arm. "There may be a little snow on the mountain, so it's colder." "Oh." She smiled. Kapvic opened the glass sliding door, and the cold wind rushed in immediately, whizzing and hitting their faces.

A black car with a government department logo was parked on the side of the road.A prominent antenna and a white exhaust pipe stand on the body.Capovich put Shirley's bag on the back seat and helped her get into the car to sit next to it. It was much warmer in the car, and she could smell the cologne that the car's owner had put on. "Nice to meet, I'm Mike Tonino." A voice came from before her eyes, and at the same time she felt a hand stretched out in front of her. "Hi, my name is Shirley Moore," she said, smiling, and holding out her hand. Edward sat in the passenger seat, and Tonino withdrew his hand, shaking it in front of him showing off, as if his fingers were on fire. "Hands are so hot." He pouted at Edward, who gave him a blank stare.

"I'm afraid I'm not dressed for the weather," she said. "It was about sixty when I left Philadelphia." "We're leaving Erie now." Tonino lowered his head and looked at the mirror outside the car, then started the car. "It dropped another ten degrees here an hour ago. Are you in Pittsburgh tonight?" He adjusted his rearview mirror, watching her face. "I hope to get things done during the day, if I can," Shirley said. "We'll arrange plenty of time for you to return." Capovich glared at his companion.He put his hand on the seat and turned to look at her. "There will be plenty of time, Miss Moore." They drove 90 miles south, then east across the New Jersey Turnpike into East Negal and a working farm.Xueli leaned her forehead against the cold car window, while listening to the sound of rain falling outside the window and the sound of car wipers rubbing back and forth, while thinking about the nightmares she had frequently had recently.They always start out very peacefully and end in terror.The face in memory flashed in the window glass, it seemed clear but blurred, it seemed familiar but couldn't tell who it was. In her nightmares, she was always sitting in a car in front of someone tearing off an oversized red fishing shirt that smelled of corpses and gasoline.Then, with a scream, a woman's face slammed into the windshield in front of her, revealing a pair of horrible green eyes, crimson blood dripping from the corner of her scratched mouth, staining around her pale cheeks. It became a blood red.Then the face twitched away, and quickly disappeared from sight, and the blood was washed away by the cold rain. This winter, the nightmares have become more terrifying: more frequent and more brutal.She has been warned by doctors more than once that she is suffering from insomnia and mental disorders caused by the sequelae of previous injuries.And the doctor also warned her that the job she is doing now will definitely have a very bad impact on her body. Tonino turned the steering wheel suddenly and carefully, in order to avoid something in the road.Her head hit the cold glass, jolting her out of her reverie.It's good to be out of the house today, she admits, it's better to let go of the nightmare and think about other things to regulate her emotions. "How's the weather?" she asked Capovich, pinching her earlobe absently. "It's starting to turn into sleet," Capovich replied. Through the car window where her forehead was resting, she heard the sound of cold raindrops on the glass. Capovich started telling her about the farm to go to.His voice is gentle and patient, and it can be seen that he is a good storyteller.She could tell he was tired, but he didn't miss any details.It reminded her of her neighbor, Mr. Brigham, who had patiently been with her and read her mail on countless lonely nights. The mountain road is steep and rugged, and the farms along the way are also very poor.Cattle and sheep are housed in knee-deep mud.Rows of faded Christmas lights still hang around dilapidated windows and hallways.She tried to picture the farm in her mind.The smell of burning wood, unmade beds, lumps of eggs and applesauce on the breakfast plate, the smell of sweat from coats hanging by the door and boots with lumps of manure stuck to them... After walking for a while, the ground started to flatten out to the foot of Mount Laurel.The farms here are all built in the green grass, surrounded by fences with delicate ribbons.The tall horse is snuggled up comfortably in the blanket of blue sky and green field.What a fertile land. The car turned suddenly, and a row of stone pillars engraved with "Oak Garden" appeared on both sides of the road.The car climbed up a winding path, and a large house appeared on the rolling plateau in the distance.In the distance, a police car with a State Police logo was parked in the driveway next to the house, and a white ambulance was parked in the grass. Tonino drove the car to the side of the police car and stopped. Capovich turned around and said to Shirley, "Miss Moore, do you need something to smell before you go in?" She shook her head, "No, I'm fine." A policeman stood inside the gate, staring curiously at Shirley as they passed. "We'll go through the living room first, then down a few steps to the kitchen," Capovich said softly, "I'll let you know when we get there. Are you ready?" "Okay," she replied. "let us start." The house reeked of mustiness and the unmistakable stench of rotting corpses. "They had been dead for at least a month before being discovered," Capovich said. "The wife of the deceased was lying in a bedroom across the hall behind us." "Have you got that text message?" "Take it," he replied. "Shall I read it to you?" "Read it, Edward." He likes to hear her call his name.He slid his hand into his coat pocket and took out a piece of paper the size of a postcard. The text on the paper was handwritten copied from the original.He took up his glasses, shook them, opened the frames, put them on, and began to read the letter. Capovich took off his glasses and put them back in his pocket. "The letter went from asking for an official cemetery for the girl to talking about what he wanted for himself and his wife, without saying where the girl's body was buried. He seemed to have forgotten about it before he died. gone." "I think it's because he has a lot of mental pressure." "Exactly," Capovich said. "He's really under a lot of pressure. And, Miss Moore, there's a hundred and fifty acres of wilderness behind here. It's going to be very difficult to find her body." "Have you tried using an infrared detection device to help find it?" "The distance on the ground is too long to use this method." He replied. "Then have you confirmed her identity?" "Karin Coontz was reported missing in 1973, two years after Donovan bought the farm. According to a good friend of Karin's, they had known each other for several months. She is Wes A waitress at the Tmorland County Airport, where he was learning to fly, so they probably met there. The restaurant called Karin's friend one day and told her that Karin hadn't been in for a few days She went to work, but she still had her salary. She called the doctor, but the call never got through. Later, she became a little suspicious, so she told the police about his situation. The police later regarded Karin as a missing person They did not think of searching the doctor's farm at that time, but it was weeks before they came and got the doctor's permission to look around the farm." "And no one saw her after that?" "No, Miss Moore. The State put the case on hold shortly after. You can imagine how difficult it was to dig up here with such little clues. The girl's sister was the last of the family, but Died a few years ago too. Since the doctor is dead now, there would be no one to sue if we found her. In other words, it doesn't matter if she's here or not now." "It's just a useless nuisance you're taking on, isn't it, Edward?" said Shirley quietly. Capovich coughed a few times, moved his feet a little awkwardly, and said, "In the past thirty years, I have received a lot of praise, Miss Moore. Today I am also out of responsibility for the case. It is an honor to have you here. Whether she has family or not, we would not like to see her abandoned in this wilderness." "Well," she took the words, and said gently to the old man, "did Donovan die with his hands exposed, Edward?" "His right hand was hanging on the arm of the chair. The pistol he used to kill himself fell to the floor." "Can you put a chair next to him?" "He...is deeply rotted, Miss Moore." "Yes," she said, "I can imagine that." "okay then." "Well, it's nothing," she said. "We might as well start now." Capovich opened the door, and the stench of corpses filled his nostrils.The walls were painted a dull crimson.The room was furnished with heavy, old-fashioned furniture of cracked dark wood and leather.Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.Xueli heard the strange creaking sound when the window was opened, and the cold air rushing in from outside did not weaken the stench of the corpse at all. "The corpse is ten steps away from you," Kapovitch told her, and then he dragged a chair and placed it beside the corpse, helped her to sit down, and then retreated to the door, "I'm standing outside the door. If Call me if you need it." Capovich stood outside the door, watching her through the crack of the window, wondering what she would do.After a while, he saw Shirley's head tilted to one side, and he seemed to hear a small whisper coming from her mouth.Capovich knew that until he died he would never forget what he saw: the hand of this beautiful blind girl holding the rotting hand.It's just so surreal. Shirley washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then dried them with paper towels. "I'd like to take a walk outside the ranch if I can." "Of course," he replied immediately, and helped her past Tonino and the policeman to the door. Capovich stretched out his finger and made a successful gesture before closing the door, and Tonino nodded knowingly. "You look cold," he said, reaching for her hand and putting his glove on hers. "Thank you, Inspector, but don't you have no gloves yourself?" she asked. He patted her on the arm lightly and said, "It's okay. The pasture starts behind the house and runs down the hill. The nearest neighbors can't see it here." He sneezed, took out his handkerchief, blew his nose vigorously, and said, "There's a grove about a hundred feet ahead. You'll pass a concrete trough for drinking water for the cattle. It hasn't been here in years. The animals have been fed, but the footprints of the animals are still visible." Shirley felt the front. "Take me to the grove, Edward." "Grass is thick, Miss Moore. You'll be covered with grass-seeds." "It's okay." She said as she walked forward, Kapvic took two steps to keep up with her, holding her arm to prevent her from falling on the uneven ground.It was indeed awkward to walk in the knee-deep grass. Shirley's cane was covered with a large piece of turf, and her boots were also covered with grass clippings and hay seeds. "What does the house look like now?" she asked. "You say it has been neglected for a long time?" "It looked like it hadn't been lived in for five years. Donovan had just resigned from the hospital at the time and then sold all the livestock cheaply. I heard from neighbors that they have been living alone since then. Loneliness. Not even the postman sees them for months. Dust and rubbish in every room. Cobblestones on the roof to keep them from being blown up by the wind. Cracks in yards and puddles Weeds are growing everywhere. It's a desolation inside and outside the house." A gust of wind hit them in the face with icy snowflakes.They stopped for a while with their backs to the wind.Then she walked forward again, thanks to the pair of gloves on her hands, Xueli's hands were not scratched. "Take me down to the tree, please," she said, "if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone here for a while." "What a perfect woman." Tonino walked to Capovich and sighed. "In fact, it should be said, a very beautiful woman." Capovich responded.He held on to the door frame and stopped, the uphill road just now made him a little out of breath.His hands were cold and he stuffed them into his pockets. "Yes, sorry, what a beautiful woman. Any idea what clues she saw in the body?" Capovich glanced at him and said, "I didn't ask her." From a distance they saw her tapping her cane and stamping her foot on the ground.After a while, she leaned against a tree and seemed to be gazing at something.Suddenly her body slid down, and Capovich jumped up nervously before noticing that she was just squatting on the ground.He glanced at his companion with some embarrassment, but Tonino pretended not to notice his rash behavior just now. "Then what did she do in the house just now?" Tonino asked. "She held the dead man's hand." Capovich replied calmly. Tonino looked at him. "You're kidding." Capovich shook his head seriously. "That's it? She didn't say anything when she came out?" "No." Tonino looked at Shirley suspiciously and said, "What is she doing there now?" "She said she wanted to be alone under a tree for a while," Capovich said.Snowflakes continued to drift over the slopes of Mount Laurel to their east, falling on their heads and shoulders, and melting slowly. "Bring us the umbrella, Mike." Tonino nodded and walked over to the car. Xueli squatted on the ground, feeling her heart still pounding.She was so cold that she had runny nose, but she still seemed to be able to smell the stench of the rotting corpse in her nose, and even seemed to be able to lick the stench of the corpse in her mouth.She pulled one hand out of the glove and groped for the roots of the oak tree behind her.The image she saw just now made her a little puzzled. She wanted to be alone for a while and clear her mind. Capovich said that the water trough was for cows, not sheep.But just now when she was holding the doctor's hand, a flock of sheep clearly appeared in front of her eyes, and she could smell the smell of sheep.So why was the sheep such a significant presence in the last few seconds of his life? She held on to the trunk and supported herself to stand up. One leg was cramping from the cold, and my fingers were icy cold.She flexed her fingers vigorously, then pulled on the gloves.At this moment, she heard Capovich gasping. "This way," he said, holding her arm.She felt an extra umbrella over her head, and leaned towards him to warm her body. "Can we go over to the sink and have a look?" she asked. Capovich nodded and led her to the sink.She leaned forward, her thighs against the cold, rough concrete walls. "It feels high," she said. "Sheep don't seem to be able to reach such a high place to drink water, can they?" "That's right," he said, looking at her strangely, "I don't think sheep can drink from such a high trough." He didn't understand why Shirley suddenly mentioned the sheep. She stood upright, her eyes fixed on the mountains ahead of her, as if she could actually see them. "I think I know where she's buried," Shirley said after a while. In March, the airport here looks very crowded.In the pedestrian passageway at Exit C, they walked into a restaurant called "Friday".Tonino ordered a beer, Capovich ordered a ginger mocktail, and Sherry ordered a margarita. "You two really don't have to wait for me," she said. "I walk through the aisle by myself and board the plane." "There's nothing else we can do for you, Miss Moore," said Capovich. "Just wanted to thank you again for going out of your way to do us a favor." "You're welcome, but please don't give me credit too soon," she said calmly. Nothing." "Even so, we appreciate you," Capovich said with a smile. "I've read some articles about your miraculous performance in the Norwich case," Tonino said. Capovich is an experienced old policeman who handles cases. He noticed a slight change in the corner of Xueli's mouth, and understood that this topic made her uncomfortable. "Can you tell us a little bit about how you did it?" Tonino pressed. Capovich was about to interrupt his question, but Shirley leaned over and seemed to happily accept the topic. "Okay then, I'll tell you what the doctor told me." She folded her hands in front of her face. "When I was a kid, I got a brain injury, a trauma to my head that caused my cortex to fail, which meant my optic nerves were fine, but my cortex prevented them from functioning properly, so I can't see anything. I also suffer from amnesia, which means that I completely forget what happened before the injury. The clinical manifestations of a cortical injury are similar to the abnormal behavior of an epileptic patient. Although I have not yet had a seizure like that, But my brain has begun to show signs of abnormality." Her smile is so comforting, Capovich thought ecstatically, she doesn't have a bit of the lifeless personality of a blind man.Her eyes were clear, sensitive, and looked so normal behind the tinted lenses.Her facial expressions match her movements perfectly, and she loves to gesture while speaking. "When I was very young, I accidentally held the hand of a dead little girl in the funeral home one day, and then some vivid images that I had never experienced appeared before my eyes. A similar incident happened a few years later. I 'saw' a murder through the eyes of the deceased. The police were involved in the investigation, and the results of the investigation were exactly as I described. After that, many people began to ask me for help. Scientifically speaking , I enter the instant memory of the deceased." "Oh?" Tonino said, stuffing a biscuit into his mouth. Shirley went on to say, "The frontal cortex of the brain stores information for instant memory. Every time you distinguish the logo on the food box at the grocery store, you pull some information from your memory bank and put it in a temporary place." Instantaneous memory, which you can refer to when making decisions. Instantaneous memory only holds what you are thinking about at this moment, which is about eighteen seconds. So, for example, if you are distinguishing food box labels When you have a sudden heart attack, you may have a fleeting moment of remembering what you saw while running or doing knee bends with someone before you managed to call for help. You may even recall a close friend of yours. your friend or your family doctor. If you were shot instead of having a heart attack, the focus of your memory would be on the face of the shooter. If you recalled For other things, like your lover's face, you'll erase part of the previous memory." She took a sip of her drink, then wiped her mouth with a tissue. "So," Tonino said, "that is, the human brain is like RAM in a computer." Xueli nodded: "In essence, almost." "So what exactly happened when your body came into contact with the dead?" "In terms of feeling, I have completed a circuit docking process." She shook her finger. "I feel an electric current rushing into my body. It feels like you are actually being charged. There are millions of nerve endings in our body from fingertips to toes. When you touch something, the nerve endings go off. Immediately transmit the signal to the neuron. The neuron then transmits the signal to the brain and is responsible for interpreting the transmitted signal. Then your brain tells you whether the object you encountered is hot or cold, blunt or sharp Yes, etc. Everything we touch, like the Braille I usually read, is sensed and interpreted in real time by various functional organs in our brains in a very short period of time." She took a deep breath and continued, "When the nerve endings in my skin touch the nerve endings in the dead person's body, the system in my body that senses the stimulus, my central nervous system, connects to the dead person's. The circuits of the central nervous system. I am also connected to the brains of the deceased through their nerve centers." A woman at another table turned and stared at them curiously. Tonino approached her, lowered his voice and asked, "What does the other person remember, Miss Moore?" She shrugged and turned her head to one side: "It's like a home video, but everyone's memory is very different. At one point, I saw nothing but a few pages of text in a book. That person's last Eighteen seconds of total immersion in a novel. Most of the time, when people get into overwhelm, their minds jump from one thing to another without warning, even though you know exactly what It’s what’s actually happening right now, and it’s just the content of memories. But sometimes, the people or things that happened may be very clear in your memory, as if this thing happened right in front of your eyes. What’s not easy to deal with is to To explain these differences, to analyze the facts and the historical memory preserved in the brain of the deceased." She put her palm down on the table: "This image is constantly changing, one second is here, two seconds is there, until the eighteen seconds are exhausted. Overall, eighteen seconds is still a relatively long period of time." Time." She rubbed her hands together, and then said, "Just imagine what you'll think of in the last eighteen seconds, and then imagine how it would look in the movie. No doubt you'll be thinking about what I just said If so, my face may be in your memory, but there must be something else in your mind?" She smiled and said, "You may be thinking of a beautiful airport attendant who just passed by, and her face Or a certain part of the body will stay in your memory." Tonyo laughed too. “If your mind wanders to an appointment with the dentist tomorrow, you might picture the dentist’s chair or his face. Or your mind might go to your appointment last night, etc. I’m going to tell you The thing is, not all the images I see are absolutely what was happening at the time. Can you imagine going out of context to explain these images? Say you were shot in the back. I can see me in your images The airport attendant just mentioned, but finding out who she is wouldn't necessarily help the case, and it's impossible for me to know if she was the one who shot you, unless I actually saw her shoot you. Of course, these are simple examples. When death befalls a person, there are still many unknown related images in the last few seconds. Before dying, people often don’t think about the scene, but It’s about starting to think about old friends, family, lost love, etc. It all comes to mind, sometimes stuff that no one else ever knows about.” "You keep referring to images. You can't read a person's mind, but just see images?" Tonino asked. She nodded and smiled: "Are you talking ironically? Do you want to say that a blind man can see images? Are you kidding me?" Tonino smiled and looked up at the ceiling.Then he shook his head back and forth, as if trying to clear his head. "No, it's not like that," he said, "it's absolutely incredible." Shirley took off her glasses, pressed a finger on the lens, and held it up to their eyes. "Two hundred years ago, who would have believed that a person's identity could be identified based on the fingerprints left on his glasses? Who would have believed that after the black-and-white photos we dropped in cooking oil were discovered fifty years ago, Can you still extract the fingerprints left on it?" She put down her glasses and put her hands together: "If a smarter computer can be designed, I dare say that we don't need a tenth of its capabilities. As long as the right conditions are given, we can access other people's bodies." It will be a very simple task for the computer to read the information in his brain. It will be a breeze to solve the case." "You're saying your brain works like an EEG scanner, except you're seeing images instead of electrical waves?" "I don't know if it's that complicated, but it's actually like this." She nodded, "Some things happen naturally like this, and I can't say why." She knocked on the table and said: "I believe that when our bodies are dead, our brains can still imprint everything we have experienced. These images are imprinted in our brains. For example, we It is the same reason to clear the excessive data in the computer hard disk to the recycle bin, but the data information will still remain on the hard disk. If I follow this explanation, I can see that the memory of the few seconds before death is not enough at all. It's strange." "Then why don't you see such an image every time you shake hands with others? I mean the living people." Tonino still didn't understand and asked. "Think about it," she said, shaking her hand. "If a vital nervous system is stimulated by the outside world, it will be conditioned and forced to resist immediately. Its main function is instinctive self-defense, and it completes this process in a closed system.换句话说，机体的本能不会允许它这么做。”她摆开一根手指，说，“但是关闭电源，入侵的入口就打开了。” “会不会产生副效应？我的意思是说，这种记忆最后是怎么消亡的？”托尼诺追问。 雪丽把手指圈成一个圆圈。她笑了一下，两条腿在桌子下面换来换去。 又一个她不喜欢被问到的问题，卡普维奇心想。 “副效应？”她重复一句。 雪丽把胳膊肘架在桌子上，合拢双手，似乎在沉思这个问题。 它们怎么消失的？确实是个非常不错的问题。当你被活埋的时候，你究竟怎样忘记泥土投入到墓穴里的声音的？你又怎能忘记口中被插入的塑料管子的味道，飞机急速地坠落，或是正对着你的枪口喷出得火光？你能够永远忘掉犯下的一个以生命为代价的错误吗？ “说实话，没有什么副效应。”她说。 即使是现在她还在挑战着医生的诊断，“雪丽，你身上有一种恐惧感在侵扰着你，我说的没错吧？”那个医生一直都不喜欢她现在做的事情，认为做这样的事对她无论从哪方面来说都是很不好的，也没有人会理解她做这样的事。曾经有人告诉她，她所做的工作是在和自然法则背道而驰，她虽然是眼睛瞎了，但是那并不意味着她就不会再摊上更糟糕的事。 她知道医生所指的是什么，嘴角肌肉时不时的神经性痉挛，可怕的噩梦还有那些妄想。这些恐怕都是前兆。 “受到严重刺激后精神压力紊乱可能会导致各种形式的精神性疾病，雪丽。你必须慎重对待这些后遗症。” 一直以来，人们都在试图应对各种精神疾病。警察，急救人员，军人……他们都在脑子里留下过很恐怖的记忆片断。因此，她所通过受害人眼睛里看到的画面与事实的真相并不完全是一致的。这其实只是一段记忆而已，不能武断的将记忆中的画面与死亡的真相划等号。 她也有过放弃做这种工作的想法，不过这种想法让她顿时觉得很恐慌。当她还是个孩子在孤儿院的时候，她就梦想着成为一个重要人物，一个既不同凡响又令人人都仰慕的女人，成为课本中的女医生或者女警官，或者是女宇航员。她想去上大学以学到更多的新知识，她想以一种不同寻常的有意义的方式对社会有所贡献。 然而梦想毕竟是梦想。她只是现实世界中一个贫困的孤儿。她还不仅仅是一个孤儿，而且是一个没有任何过去记忆的盲人孤儿。这一切突然降临到她的身上，其他的童伴们来来去去的玩，没有一个人愿意接受她这样一个没有经历的女孩儿。她也明白，失去了只有父母才能慷慨给予得经济上的帮助，她很难实现自己的梦想。 非常讽刺的是，只有到了今天，当雪丽成了一个小有名气的人物之后，她已经有了足够多的钱去上大学。而此时一些有名气的大学全都殷勤的向她敞开大门，医生和科学家们也都聚集起来一起研究和培养她，还想通过她的配合来帮她治疗。 不，绝不能放弃。她完全靠自己的努力已经走了这么远。她心中装满了梦想，决不能有回头的想法，她不希望生活在一片黑暗里或是在恐惧中渡过一生。她会正视生活，哪怕是用自己的心生健康作筹码。 托尼诺不断的点头，似乎被他脸上专注的表情所带动。 “会不会做梦？”卡普维奇问道。他的声音又轻又温柔，声音小的几乎听不到。 她笑着把脸朝向别处。“我们每个人都会做梦的，爱德华。你会梦到你工作中所看到的一切，我也会梦到我所看到的一切。还有我们的受害人，他们也会做梦的。多诺万医生在他生命的最后一刻还在回想那个混凝土水槽，一定是因为他在最后的三十年里每天都会用很多的时间想到它。还有羊。我知道你说过这个农场养得是牛，爱德华，但是我在我的脚下看到得就是羊。” “是羊？”托尼诺惊讶地重复她的话说道。 她喝完杯中的饮料。“没错。我想，会不会是这样？养牛的目的就是为了掩饰这个水槽，而修建这个水槽的目的又是为了遮掩一座坟墓呢？根据估计，他应该花费了相当多的物力在那个地方建的那个饮水槽。” “可是为什么要搞这么麻烦？”托尼诺问。“为什么不直接把她埋到林子边上去？” 卡普维奇把一只手搭到托尼诺的胳膊上，觉得在照着别人的话说，让他有些不自然，“因为他不知道什么时候警察会露面，而且他想他们应该只会去查那些被挖动过的地面。” “完全正确，”雪丽说。“水槽看上去自然而然，因为水溢出来，周围的泥土被踩踏出完全理所当然的样子。您完全可以想象一下，当这些警察在周围的建筑物和野地里，还有站在水槽那个地方的时候，仅仅离房子五十英尺的地方是一群牛，水槽四周是齐脚深的粪泥，就像已经很多年都是这个样子了。谁又会想到这里头会有别的蹊跷呢？” “那跟羊到底有什么联系呢？”托尼诺追问。 “我猜测，”雪丽接着说，“在凶手住这儿之前这养的是一群羊。我想在他记忆中有杀人之后的这么一段印象：他站在羊群中，考虑着怎么来处置卡琳的尸体。最后他决定在坟地上面用混凝土建一个大水槽，一个足够大足够重的水槽，那样的话，如果不用机器，没有人能挪的动它。但这些羊个儿太小了，没法在这样高的水槽里喝水，所以他就把羊群卖掉了，然后养了些牛。”