Chapter 25 The story behind Nanshan, Nanshan

In June 2006, I was writing on Nanshan Mountain in Chongqing. I had been working in book publishing for more than two years before this, and I was finally able to stop and feel so relieved, like being released from prison.There is an inexplicable sense of happiness when I return to the state of free writing.In those two years, a lot of time was wasted, it can be said that it was thankless, and I also saw the darkness in many industries.Having said that, even though I lost a lot in those two years, I am still grateful for the sharpening and enlightenment brought to me by those days.Without the detours and lessons of those two years, I would not have quietly devoted myself to writing on Nanshan.It was life that brought me back the courage to write and rekindled a fire of hope. If there are high tides and low tides in life, writing made me go from low tide to high tide.

No matter from which aspect, it is my transcendence. There is a big camphor tree outside the window, and the birds chirping on the tree wakes me up every morning, and I often write that the night has passed only when the birds chirp.In any case, when I open the window in the morning, I feel refreshed by the fresh air. Those birds have become my rare good friends. You will feel the strangeness of this mountain city.Those birds also remind me of my loved ones and friends, especially on the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival. Every time I go to a different place to write alone, missing has become a habit.

On the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, I came to the top of Nanshan Mountain alone, facing the Yangtze River and the big city of Chongqing, and my heart was suddenly filled with sentimentality. The flowing river reminds me of my cousin Jinshui. He died when I was 6 years old. During the Dragon Boat Festival that year, I was hungry and cold.Because of the continuous heavy rain, the Tingjiang River surged.The adults didn't care about the holidays, nor us children, so they went to reinforce the embankment. If the embankment collapsed, it would be a great disaster.We children are with our cousin Jin Shui, who is our head.My cousin Jinshui took us to the embankment to see the flood.

Some people who saw us said: "You children, go home quickly, it's very dangerous here." Cousin Jin Shui said: "I will be optimistic about them." We stood on the embankment, looking at the muddy yellow river.The sky was cloudy and the flood was roaring, which made people feel frightened. I couldn't help holding my cousin Jin Shui's hand, and he lowered his head and said, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!" His hands were unusually warm and gave me strength. There are many floating objects washed down from the upper reaches of the river.Suddenly, we saw a few zongzi on a wooden board.What a scarce thing that is, we stared at the zongzi on the wooden board and swallowed our saliva.Jin Shui said to us: "I'll go and get the rice dumplings and give them to you to eat."

After speaking, he jumped into the turbid river.I watched with trepidation as he swam toward the fast plank.Just as he was about to get close to the plank, a big wave hit him, and he was sucked into the whirlpool, and he never came out again. Thinking of my cousin Jinshui, I feel very sad. Since then, I dare not eat zongzi. As long as I eat zongzi, my stomach will hurt like hell. I still remember that one year during the Dragon Boat Festival, my aunt dreamed of golden water on the night before the Dragon Boat Festival.Jin Shui stood in front of her in tattered clothes and said, "Mom, I'm so hungry—"

He told her in a dream that at noon on the Dragon Boat Festival, he would wait for her under the old camphor tree on the embankment, and said that if she saw a green grasshopper, it would be him. At noon on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, my aunt and I came to the old camphor tree on the embankment, waiting for the appearance of my cousin Jinshui.At noon, a green grasshopper appeared under the tree.I was dumbfounded. My aunt cried and put the zongzi in front of the grasshopper, choked up and said, "Poor son—" Then, she started burning paper money.After the paper money was burned, the green grasshopper suddenly disappeared.

After the green grasshopper disappeared, tears welled up in my eyes. I don't know if my cousin Jinshui will appear under the old camphor tree this Dragon Boat Festival. Now that my aunt has passed away, I wonder if anyone will give him rice dumplings or burn paper money for him.After his death, his body has never been found. I don't know if his wandering spirit is still floating in the wind of his hometown. I told my cousin Jin Shui that I was writing a book called far away from him, writing about the sorrow and pain of the living, and the fear from within the family... I have always been crazy about writing, it can be said that I forget to sleep and eat.

That day, I was so hungry that I went to eat at the opposite of Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications at the foot of the mountain. There was a "snack city" consisting of a large number of snack bars.I ordered a green vegetable, a small portion of beer duck and a bowl of rice, and I wolfed it down, causing a few male and female students on the table next to me to cast strange glances.After eating all the meals, it was only 13 yuan, and I was overjoyed, it was so cheap! On the way back, I passed by a construction site. My friend told me on the first day I came here that a female corpse was dug up when the foundation was dug in this place. The archaeological department identified it as a female corpse from the Qing Dynasty. The woman is a whore!I stood at the place where the female corpse of the Qing Dynasty was dug up, watched the construction workers busy there, and imagined the appearance of the Qing Dynasty brothel woman, as if I saw her playing the piano and singing in a classical hall, her frowns and smiles were So mesmerizing.

I was so obsessed with her that I stood there for a long time. As I walked up the hill, I kept looking back all the way, as if she was following me. To reach the place where I live, I have to go through a concrete road, because the mountain is a scenic area, and there are many cars coming and going. I just stepped onto the road from the steps, and a three-wheeled motorcycle soliciting hit me, and I said in my heart : "It's over—" For a split second, I felt someone push me hard from behind, and the three-wheeled motorcycle rushed past me. I heard a crackling sound, and my right arm was still scratched, a layer of skin was scratched, and blood flowed out.There is no danger, if there is no sudden push from behind, the consequences will be disastrous.Who pushed me?I was puzzled.Could it be that the brothel woman from the Qing Dynasty really followed me?She saved my life?If this is the case, why did she save me when I met her by chance?I'm a little scared, and a little scared.

When people walk on any road, they will always encounter some things that make you feel incredible. It was late at night, and the singing of various insects came from the mountains outside the window.Amidst the chants of insects, is there a person standing outside the window listening to my writing, and that person is the Qing Dynasty brothel woman who rescued me during the day? I opened the window, and it was pitch black outside the window, and I couldn't see anything. There was a wind blowing through the forest, making a rustling sound.I wondered if I disturbed her when I opened the window, and she got into the woods and ran away.I suddenly felt a kind of sentimentality in my heart, for those old friends who disappeared in the wind.Maybe in my previous life, I was the lover of the brothel woman in the Qing Dynasty, and I had a promise of rebirth. Now, she came to me, but I forgot the promise of my previous life.

Facing the dark window, I whispered, "I'm sorry—" As soon as I finished saying this, the sky suddenly rained densely. That should be her tears. I feel like I'm a heartless person. I gently closed the windows and doors, drew the curtains, and re-enclosed myself in the room. At this moment, the protagonist in my novel is having a nightmare, and I feel cold all over when I write about the protagonist’s nightmare.At this time, as long as there is a random loud noise, it will probably startle me.I am not afraid of the Qing Dynasty brothel woman, but afraid of real life.My novels also express people's fear in reality. I, like all living people in this world, are experiencing suffering. Suffering has nothing to do with matter, it is a matter of the soul.The hidden and ongoing dangers of mediocrity in the present weigh down on our souls as much as our bodies. As the poet silently says: I think that in my novels, I should express the most specific fears of these contemporary people in their daily lives, and let everyone clearly understand the physical and spiritual difficulties we face. Perhaps this difficulty is unprecedented, because we have no Lost ideals, no beliefs, lost the support of life.Only by knowing the crux of fear can we better save ourselves and overcome fear. I consider my writing to be writing with a conscience. With a serious creative attitude, I told myself that only in this way can I make a difference and reduce the evil that survival brings to me. Therefore, I thought of a problem in the process of writing-the depth of horror novels.The depth of writing means the difficulty of writing.Indeed, few people think about this issue.Now many authors are eager for quick success, and many booksellers are also eager for quick success, which has given birth to many freaks with incomplete limbs or brains in horror novels.Insisting on the in-depth writing of novels is what I pursue. Its difficulty is a great challenge for me. This is what distinguishes me from other horror writers. Horror is just a layer of clothing, and the core of my novels should be strong. In the book, I wrote about a family. Everyone in this family is experiencing their own unprecedented difficulties. Their expressions are related to their own wounded hearts, so everyone has their own stories that cannot be told to others. These things eventually lead everyone in this family to a desperate situation... The mutual distrust, indifference and indifference between relatives, the cold violence in the family, lead to hatred among the family, and the family suffers in society. All kinds of encounters, and the irreparable spiritual trauma caused by this materialistic society finally brought the family to collapse.I think this is not a simple horror novel, it expresses the unsafe living conditions of people in this society and the heavy price paid by contemporary people in seeking spiritual self-help.People's fear of the real society is the greatest fear, and this is a major problem that each of us faces: to be or not to be! When I was writing in Nanshan, Chongqing, there happened to be the World Cup. I was tired from writing at night, and I was afraid of writing, so I just lay on the sofa and watched the game.That worked for me as a rest as well.One morning, after watching the World Cup, I couldn't fall asleep, so I took a walk to the top of the mountain.Standing on the top of the mountain, I yelled at the Yangtze River a few times, and after the yelling, I felt completely transparent and very comfortable.Yelling is a way for me to decompress. It has been like this since I was a child. Maybe because of this, I speak loudly. People who don’t understand me think that I have something against him and get angry at him. After roaring, I am ready to go down the mountain. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a police car siren. I don't know why, every time I hear such a voice, my heart thumps, as if I have a guilty conscience. I always think that this kind of voice is the most annoying voice in the world.I saw a lot of police cars driving up the hill and didn't know what was going on.Will they come to arrest me? I don't have a temporary residence permit.Or did I commit the mortal crime of murder and arson while sleepwalking? I am uneasy. The police car stopped in front of a wood, and the police got out of the car and ran towards the woods. It turned out that they were not here to catch me, and a stone in my heart fell to the ground.I said to myself: You bastard, you are such a kind person, how could you commit a crime? You just wrote some horror novels. There is nothing to be afraid of. Don’t be so frightened in the future. My curiosity drove me towards the woods. A cordon was pulled up outside the forest. I can't get in at all.There are more and more people watching.I heard people say that just last night, a female college student was raped and killed in the woods.After hearing this, my scalp became numb.This forest is not far from where I live, I haven't slept all night, why didn't I hear anything? If I heard the movement, would I save that poor college girl? The answer is yes. But I didn't hear it! A fresh life disappeared not far from me, and my heart tightened. In the following period of time, I always dreamed of a girl covered in blood in my sleep, struggling to shout at me: "Help me, save me—" After I woke up from the nightmare, I kept hitting my head with my fist. I hate myself. We always lament the impermanence of fate, just like the proprietress of the snack bar I often go to eat.The proprietress is a very good person. Her family lives in a remote country, and she opened the snack bar to support her son in middle school.I have seen his son, a tall and thin boy.He is studying at Huangjueya Middle School opposite the small shop, and he is in the third year of high school, and he is about to take the college entrance examination.The proprietress worked hard from dawn to dusk, which was touching and touched by the selfless maternal love. At noon that day, I ate at the snack bar. Read a local newspaper while eating.My eyes stayed on a piece of news: October 11, 2005 was the third day for freshmen to go to school.At around 2:45 p.m., a thin man with a foot-long machete kicked open the door of classroom 408 of Wanzhou Medical School. Huang Xingfeng, a girl in the last row, hacked 17 times in a row.Three-quarters of her head was cut off, and the murderer kept kicking her head, chest and back while chopping off. Blood sprayed half of the classroom... The murderer was Yuan Huajun.When Huang Xingfeng dialed a classmate's phone number, he mistakenly dialed a "0" in the number to an "8", and dialed it to Yuan's PHS. The two got to know each other and got in touch with each other, and soon they lived together.Later, Yuan took Huang away and wandered outside for more than two months.Soon, Huang left a message to her classmates on the Internet, saying that she was controlled and lost her freedom... Huang called her father in Wuhan one day to say that she had escaped and asked him to send her money for travel expenses. On October 9, Huang returned to school, and three days later the murder happened... Huang was three months pregnant before her death.An insider said that Yuan once dragged a knife to kill people in Wanzhou, and he is a wanted criminal on the Internet.After being arrested, Yuan was still very arrogant in the detention center, bragging many times that he had taken care of five young women... I just finished reading this message when I heard a bang, like something exploded. It turned out that a beer bottle had exploded, and the shards of glass had ruptured the proprietress's veins.This is really a sudden disaster, I saw blood flowing from her legs.Everyone present was very surprised, but she herself appeared very calm, tore open an old dress, and bandaged the wound with cloth strips.Then he calmly said to his son, "Push the bike over and take me to the hospital." The son, who was so frightened, hurriedly pushed the bicycle to the door of the small shop. The proprietress sat on the back seat, and the son rode away quickly on the bicycle. Looking at the blood all over the ground, my head was a little dizzy. Afterwards, I never saw the figure of the proprietress. I didn't see her until I finished writing and left Nanshan. Thinking about it now, I still remember her kind and simple smile, and her calm expression after being hurt.I don't know if she is living well, whether my son has been admitted to university, and if he is admitted to university, he should have graduated.I sincerely wish them well!Bless those who are struggling at the bottom of society! The writing entered the final stage, and the problem came out. It started with chest tightness, wheezing, and severe coughing, which may be related to my smoking.I sleep 24 hours a day and sleep for up to three hours. When writing, I smoke one cigarette after another. Without cigarettes, my writing cannot continue at all.My room was filled with smoke, and the smoke leaked through the door, and people passing by thought it was on fire.Even if I open the window, there is no way to let the smoke disperse.I know that going on like this is very dangerous, and maybe I will die from smoking in the end, but I really have no way to solve this problem. I have become strongly dependent on cigarettes, and it has become a serious disease!I had to refrain from smoking when I was not writing, perhaps to relieve the pressure on my windpipe and lungs a little. I am no longer young. Then came severe insomnia and anorexia.I heard a writer say that writing makes me want to vomit, and I hate words very much.I am not like this, I like to write, if I can't sleep, I don't like to eat, it's not because I hate writing, but because I have a problem with my body.How much I love writing, the process of writing is happy and exciting. It can be said that in my eyes, writing is the most beautiful thing.It is hard for me to imagine how a person who wants to vomit at the sight of words can write a good novel, just as it is difficult for a cow to climb a tree.Words have souls.All characters come to life as soon as they are written on paper. Finally, kidney pain. It's the only book I've written about kidney pain so far. That night, after I took a shower, I felt a dull pain in my lower back.I didn't pay attention to it, thinking it was muscle pain from sitting for a long time every day.Unexpectedly, in the middle of the night, I felt severe pain.The pain made me sweat all over. I gritted my teeth and persisted. Only then did I know that my kidney stones had started to attack again.I have to hold out until dawn and then go to the hospital. Writing cannot continue. I lay on the sofa and turned on the TV. Before the game started, I just watched a TV series. I didn’t know what TV series, because my eyes were watching the TV, but my heart was so painful that I couldn’t bear it.Then the game started, and I didn't pay attention to the game. I didn't even figure out which team was playing against which team, let alone who lost and who won.I lay on the sofa, suffering.I wanted to call my friends in Chongqing, but I couldn't bear to bother them. They took good care of me when I came here, and invited me to dinner and singing during my break.I thought of the brothel girl in the Qing Dynasty, it would be great if she could float in and talk to me. After I had this idea, I felt very shameless.I thought again of the female college student who was raped and killed in the woods. Maybe her ghost was wandering in the woods outside the window, shouting: "Help me, save me—" My cranky thinking did not relieve my pain, but made it worse. In this way, I stayed up until dawn.After dawn, I endured the pain and went to the hospital.After the doctor at the hospital examined me, he asked me if I needed an operation.I thought about it and declined the surgery.The doctor gave me some medicine and I left the hospital.During those days, I spent the last writing time on painkillers.I often gritted my teeth and said, no matter what, I must not leave Nanshan until I finish writing.I see pain as a test from God, if I can't even endure this pain, I will accomplish nothing. When the last word is written, I feel that I am still alive, and I live so real and happy, and the birds outside the window are singing for me.Miraculously, my pain disappeared.Later, I did not go for surgery, but insisted on taking medicine.At the end of that year, when I went for a physical examination, I asked the doctor how big my kidney stones were. He smiled and said to me, no, I didn’t see any stones in your kidney.I was relieved. Nanshan, Nanshan, that's where I write. That is the place where my memory is full of pain. That's where I left traces in my life, Nanshan, Nanshan...