Chapter 17 The Story Behind Midnight Street

Special Memories A friend told me a story about a cowardly man who became a soldier and went to the battlefield. He was so frightened that he deserted and broke his leg.After this person returned to his hometown, he was despised by others, and even his family could not accept him. He dragged his disabled leg to pick up garbage for a living, and lived a life of humiliation... I can't judge the authenticity of this story, But I thought of this kind of people, that is, cowardly people. They always look at this complicated and confusing world with terrified eyes, at a loss as to what to do. Another friend told me another story about a boy who was neglected from birth. He suffered from his father’s abuse and violence since he was a child. , Moreover, when he sees those happy children, his psychology will mutate, and he wants to strangle those children... The shadow of childhood will affect a person's life, I believe!

These two stories gave me the idea to write. Those with psychological shadows, the cowardly, the devastated...they are the most pitiful people and the least understood.I try to walk into their hearts and experience the sufferings of life with them.In the process of exploring, I often burst into tears, because of compassion, because of fear, because of love. In my nightmares at night, I often see them surround me with sad expressions, crying and saying to me: "We lost our souls, and we can't get them back." My heart hurts. I cry with them. Grieve together. Their souls are lost, and I want to retrieve their souls, or those who have lost their souls are the ones who pick up their souls, so this novel is born.

In my life, I have had many different types of friends, including beggars. When I was a child, I saw a beggar fleeing famine, living in a broken grass hut in the field.Whenever it was time for meals, he would take a broken bowl and go to every household in the village to beg for food.Generous people will give him some food, but stingy people will not give him food, and some people even speak ill of each other, and even let their dogs bite him. Although the family was poor at that time, the kind grandmother would always give him something to eat when she saw him coming.My grandma said to me: "Everyone has times when they are lonely. When you can help others, you must help others. To help others is to help yourself." Grandma's Bodhisattva heart infected me.

Once, I saw him in ragged clothes was bitten by a vicious dog, and his calf was bleeding. He limped back to the cottage. Looking at his desolate back, my heart is full of sentimentality. When I got home, I asked my grandma: "Grandma, if you are bitten by a dog, will you get rabies?" Grandma thought I was bitten by a dog, so she hurriedly asked: "You were bitten by a dog? Where did you bite? Show me." I said, "I was not bitten by a dog, but the beggar was bitten by a dog." Grandma said: "Poor man!" I said, "Will he have rabies?" Grandma said, "If it wasn't for the mad dog, it wouldn't be."

I told my grandmother whose dog bit him, and my grandmother said, "Don't worry, that dog is not a mad dog, he won't get rabies." That night, I was very worried, worried that he had rabies, and even dreamed that he had rabies, his body was covered with dog hair, and he barked like a dog. Early the next morning, I got up from the bed and ran towards the grass hut in the field.I want to see if he is okay.When I approached the cottage, I was afraid: if he really got rabies, if he was bitten, it would be troublesome.I wanted to run away, but I couldn't bear to leave.I bite the bullet and walked into the cottage, I saw him wrapped in a dark quilt, humming in his mouth.I said, "What's wrong with you?" He opened his eyes and said, "I'm sick—"

I hurried home and told my grandma about it. Grandma and I went to the Caoliao again.Grandma showed him and said that he had a fever due to a cold.Grandma went home and boiled herbal medicine and sent it to him to drink.I also secretly took two eggs and brought them to him... I became friends with him.He told me many stories that I had never heard before.When he told the story, his eyes were so vivid. It was a dewy morning, and I went to look for him in the cottage again.The cottage was empty, and there was no sign of him at all.Where did he go?The old quilt was still spread on the hay. Could it be that he went to beg for food early in the morning?I sat in the cottage and waited for him to come back. After waiting for a long time, he didn't come back either.I was about to go home when I heard someone shouting from the other side of the river: "Someone has drowned!"

I went home. When the father came back, he said, "The beggar was drowned." After listening to his words, my heart felt like a knife. I don't believe he will die. I also don't know why he drowned. I hid in a deserted place and wept bitterly. At this moment, my grandma came up to me, wiped my tears, hugged me and said, "My child, everyone has their own life!" But he shouldn't die! ... I also had a friend who picked up trash in the city. His name is Wang Fuwen, from Anhui.At the beginning, he was working in a factory in Shantou. Due to a work-related injury, three of his fingers were broken by a machine.After leaving the factory, he didn't want to go home, so he picked up garbage in Shantou for a living.

It was late at night, on my way back to the army, I saw several people beating a person.I quickly asked the driver to stop the car.I got out of the car and ran over to the beating people and said, "Stop!" When those people saw that I was a soldier, they stopped.I asked, "How do you beat people? So many people bully one person, sorry!" Those people justified, saying that the person who was beaten stole their things.The person who was beaten was short, and he said softly, "I didn't steal from them. I picked up garbage here, but they wouldn't let me pick it up. They said it was their territory, so they beat me." I said to those people, "You It's too bullying!" Those people ran away.

After those people left, I said to him: "You hurry up, I'll be gone in a while, what if they come back and beat you?" He said, "Let them beat me to death. Anyway, it's not the first time I've been bullied. I'm used to it." His words were very soft, but I heard his helplessness and sadness. I left him my cell phone number and told him that he can call me if he has any difficulties. As long as I can help him, I will definitely help him!He put the note with my cell phone number in his pocket and looked at me suspiciously.I smiled and said, "I'm not joking with you, I will really help you!"

About half a month later, I suddenly received a call. I asked who he was, and he said his name was Wang Fuwen. I said, "Who is Wang Fuwen?" "It's the trash picker who was beaten that night," he said. I remembered and immediately said, "What's the matter? Can I help you with anything?" He said: "I don't have anything to ask for your help, I just want to treat you to a meal, I don't know if you can appreciate it." I said, "No problem." That night, we ate at a food stall on Haibin Road.He asked me for two bottles of beer, but he didn't drink it himself.I asked him why he didn't drink and he said he didn't know how to drink.I poured him a glass and said, "Just have a drink." He hesitated a little.I raised the glass and said, "Drink." I drank the glass of beer in one gulp, and he just took a sip before putting down the glass.

"Why did you remember to invite me to dinner?" "I want to thank you, but I'm afraid that you will look down on me and won't accept my invitation. I didn't expect you to agree so quickly. You are a good person!" "We are destined, we are friends!" "You consider me a friend?" "Yes, you are my friend." "For your words, I drank this glass of wine! Just this one!" Not long after he drank the glass of wine, his face was as red as a boiled shrimp, and he spoke loudly.He really didn't drink alcohol.Through the wine, he told me a lot of things he encountered while picking out trash.There are two things that impressed me the most. One is what happened to himself.One midnight, he was picking up trash on the street.When he was rummaging through the trash can, he suddenly found a plastic bag containing a human arm.Terrified, he threw his arms back into the trash can and ran.He felt that someone was chasing him behind him, and he was scared to death.Since then, he has not dared to pick up rubbish on that street. Another thing happened to someone else.He said that there was an old woman who picked up garbage, she was very ugly, and she deliberately smeared her face dirty all day long. People who picked up garbage called her old woman.Wang Fuwen knew why the old Wupo came out to pick up trash.She gave birth to a daughter, and because her husband died, she sold her daughter.After her daughter grew up, she always came back to make trouble for her. She had no other choice, so she came out to pick up trash.One night, the old black woman died in a garbage dump. She was raped by another middle-aged man who picked up garbage and committed suicide. She cut her own artery with glass and bled to death.It was a garbage dump in the suburbs. Wang Fuwen said that since the old Wupo died, he never dared to pick up garbage there. He scolded the old Wupo for fear that her ghost would haunt him. These are stories of humble little people, but they are so shocking. In the end, Wang Fuwen was not invited to that meal, and I sent him back to his residence—an old abandoned house. Since then, I have often met him and listened to his stories about people at the bottom of society. Later, when I left Shantou, I lost contact with him. I don't know if Wang Fuwen is still picking up rubbish in Shantou, and I don't know if he is still alive.Thinking of him, this scene will always appear in my mind: on the street at midnight, he walks alone, desolate and lonely... When writing, I always think of Wang Fuwen, and the image of the pony is his image. In 2005, because my friend and I set up a book company in Beijing, we often went to Beijing and lived in Beijing for a month or two. In March, I went to Beijing and was busy working during the day, making wedding clothes for others.Write your own book at night.This kind of creative state is very desperate.Writing is physical work, and it is difficult to write without putting one's life to the test, especially novels.I'm used to risking my life. In the process of writing, I was thinking about a problem, that is, how to express the fear psychology of contemporary people through novels, conduct a deep analysis, find the root of fear, and then face it squarely, so that readers can find a soul through my horror novels. export. I have always emphasized that terror exists in our daily life and is closely related to our living state and mental state.It's not that you ignore it, it's not scary anymore.Horror events that occur in daily life are actually more terrifying than demons and ghosts, they are real horrors.The "devil" in reality threatens us all the time, how should we face it?I have always tried to endow horror novels with a strong spiritual connotation, that is, horror novels are not just a sense of horror, but a spirit.If the breadth and depth of the novel are sufficient, horror novels can also cut into the soul of contemporary life.For example, the issue of abandoned babies and child trafficking in China does have complex social content behind it.I think that literature itself can reflect people's life, psychology and thought accurately and at the same time.From this point of view, I think that the horror novels I created just reflect people's lives from a special angle, which contains people's reflections on their lives and the deep-rooted sense of fear that people have had since birth. Here, the baby is a clue that runs through the whole text.Crying babies, dead babies, missing babies, newborn babies... Whenever I look back and try to understand what I did and thought as a baby, my mind is a blur. I would stand in the street at midnight, light a cigarette alone, and look at the sleeping city with my eyes dazed. I seem to hear a baby crying from some trash can. I would run over and open the lid of the trash can. If there is an abandoned baby in the trash, I will pick him or her up and bring him or her home to raise him or her.I don't know why those people abandon their children in the real world. There may be many reasons and many excuses. In any case, those reasons are not reasons, and those excuses are not excuses. No one has the right to abandon a brand new life. . A baby illuminates our soul. Facing him (her), I will be inexplicably moved and weep. Those who abandon their babies are also the ones who have lost their souls. A person without a soul, even the sun cannot illuminate his (her) soul. I have a deep distaste for these people. I also express my deep sympathy. There are no babies in the trash can.My heart is relieved.The midnight wind made me nervous again, I seemed to hear the baby's cry sounded far away, so powerful, so innocent, and so sad.I ran wildly on the street at midnight, from one place to another, opening the lids of the trash cans, hoping to find the baby crying in the middle of the night.I want to save him (her), but I can't find him (her). I confirm that he (she) must exist, not my illusion. I am in great pain. This deep pain is accompanied by fear. I suffer because I am so powerless in the face of the evil in human nature. My fear is also because of the evil in human nature. I found that my soul was also lost, at this midnight. I live like a dog, bending my waist for five buckets of rice, saying high-sounding but insincere words, chasing illusory fame and fortune, and living a life without dignity. My humble self is lost in the midnight wind like a pony in a novel. The pony is a sympathetic character who lives at the bottom of society by picking up trash.He also has a woman he loves deeply in his heart, but that woman is dead.He has low self-esteem, he is timid, and he blames himself for not saving the baby girl.When he was most desperate, he got another woman, and when he regained his confidence in life, that woman disappeared again.His final outcome was to be the victim of a murder. Some people may think that I am too cruel and have written ponies too cruelly. But is the pony's fate not our own? If one day, you were reduced to a situation like a pony, what would you do? I want to confirm one thing. That is what the shadows of childhood can do to our growth. Let me tell you about my own experience.When I was a child, several older children took me to a cemetery.A brave boy found a skull from nowhere, picked it up with a bamboo pole, and shook it in front of us to scare us. The timid children screamed and fled in all directions. But he laughed and held up the skull triumphantly, like a flag. Only I didn't go, just stood there motionless. He looked at me and stopped smiling: "Aren't you afraid?" I didn't speak, but I was extremely nervous. He thought I was really not afraid, so he put the skull in front of me.I clearly saw a black ant crawling out of the skull's eyes.I closed my eyes.He threw the skull at my feet and said, "It's not fun, you're not afraid!" After speaking, he also ran away.I opened my eyes, glanced at the skull on the ground, spread my legs, and ran home frantically. That night, I had a nightmare, dreaming that my body was covered with ants. Those black ants were biting me, biting me to pieces, dripping with blood, and the skull was laughing wildly at me. I woke up from a coma and found myself completely powerless. Grandma sat on the bed, looked at me anxiously and said, "Are you awake? You scared us to death." I said, "What's wrong with me?" Grandma said, "You have a fever and have been talking nonsense all night." Since then, I have been particularly afraid of ants. Even now, I get goosebumps when I see ants. Judging from this incident, ants have left an indelible shadow on my heart since childhood, and this shadow has never been lingering.I often think that if someone had given me psychotherapy at that time, maybe I would be much better.The problem is that no one cares about how I feel, and no one really cares about my heart.This is a serious problem. Even now, few people care about the psychological problems of others, including their own relatives and friends. I thought of the story about the old black woman that Wang Fuwen told me back then.Why did she run away from home and go to other places to pick up garbage for a living?It is because she sold her daughter when she was young.Her daughter must have been so traumatized that she was filled with hatred for her mother.It is conceivable that when the daughter grows up, her revenge on the old woman is also very cruel, otherwise she would not leave home.The old black woman created a disaster for herself, which changed her fate and caused a catastrophic psychological trauma to her daughter, which may cause her daughter to suffer for a lifetime.I don't know the living conditions of the old Wu Po's daughter, but what is certain is that as long as she thinks of her mother and all the sufferings she has experienced, her heart will be filled with hatred. Hatred is an incurable disease! The pony in the book is full of fear in the face of the world because of the spiritual injury caused by his childhood. His timid character made his life rough and he died in the end.The other protagonist, Song Zhengwen, is also due to the shadow of his childhood, causing him to become abnormal, doing all incredible things until his final destruction. People who have traumatized their minds in childhood, if their minds are not well adjusted and treated, are like a time bomb, which may explode at any time, endangering the lives of others while hurting themselves.Like a Hitchcock movie.If the family is eating and there is a bomb under the table and it explodes, it is not scary.However, if the audience knows that there is a bomb under the table, and only the family does not know, and they still sit at the table and eat leisurely, that is the real fear. This is a very frightening and cruel thing. Now, I have a daughter, Li Xiaobai. I want her to grow up happily. I will take care of her as she grows up.Care is not doting, but to effectively protect her heart and prevent her young heart from being hurt when she encounters problems.And let her be free, don't impose the will of adults on her.Every time I see her innocent smile, my heart is touched.Once, I took Xiaobai to a restaurant for dinner, and accidentally burned my arm.Looking at the blisters on her little arms, I feel very distressed.Instead of making a fuss, I encouraged her to be brave.When she showed bravery, I affirmed her and asked her to come out of the shadow of burns as soon as possible.I let her know that this burn was just a small thing in her life, a common experience in her growing up, something as simple as a cold. Write fast. It was also painful to write. Because, when writing, I put my heart and soul into it.The fate of the characters in the book is closely related to me.Sometimes as I write, my eyes fill with tears.When I felt compassion for the characters in the book, I was also full of compassion for the world.Sometimes I also feel chills down my spine, fear gripping my heart and suffocating me!My fear of writing is also my fear of the world.I don't know how many people have lived their lives with fear like my characters. Man is alone. Need to be warm. Warmth comes from your own inner feelings. It also comes from the love of others. I think that in real society, if we extend more warm hands to those in need, there will be fewer tragedies in this world.Many shocking and cruel things happen because of our indifference and inaction.God is only on a high place to guide us.As for us humble people, what we need more is mutual care, mutual warmth, and mutual encouragement... so as to generate enough strength to resist the unpredictable life and natural disasters. After writing, it was midnight. The weather is changing from warm to cold. With a long sigh, I walked out of the room and into the street. I looked at the lights of the city, and my heart was filled with emotion. I don't want to hear the cries of abandoned babies at midnight like this, and I don't want to see the desolate backs of scavengers, and I don't even want to see ghost-like psychopaths appear...I hope this world can be truly peaceful, People can live happily.This is just my innocent wish, because, after dawn, we all have to face the life of dog fuck. Standing on the street at midnight, I can only say to the world: "Let's be braver, braver..."