Chapter 44 Chapter Fourteen

In 2011, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Lantern Festival. Ma Li hasn't been back to this city for a long time, and he is watching the American drama "The Walking Dead" online, and he has a strong sense of involvement. The phone rang suddenly, and when I picked it up, I heard a crisp male voice: "Hello, I'm Shen Ming." The voice of a teenager is no longer the elementary school student in memory, nor is it the high school teacher who died sixteen years ago. "you……" "Long time no see, I miss you a little." messy. "Hi, are you still there?"

Shen Ming or Si Wang?Ma Li was in a dilemma, hesitated for a long time and replied softly: "I am here." "I want to meet you, now." He froze for a moment, at eight o'clock in the evening, just finished eating: "Okay." "Okay, I'll be waiting for you at the flower and bird market, you should know where it is." "The Workers' Cultural Palace in the past?" As Ma Li blurted out, the other party's tone was slightly relieved: "That's right." I wanted to say something more, but the phone was hung up. Half an hour later, the willows will be on the moon, and people will meet after dusk. It is often said that Qixi Festival is Chinese Valentine’s Day. In fact, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the authentic one. And fall in love.

The flower and bird market usually sells flowers, plants and pets, and it happens to hang up lanterns tonight.Ma Ma was in his thirties, with a clean shaven beard and long hair. He stood alone at the gate, watching the boys and girls going in and out in the dark, beating a drum in his heart. "horsepower." Turning back in panic, he saw a handsome young man's face—he was completely unrecognizable. He hadn't started to develop five years ago, and he was completely different from the sixteen-year-old boy today.The chin has crawled out of the beard, and the Adam's apple is already very obvious. He is 1.75 meters tall, so there is no need to look up at the horsepower.

Under the Lantern Festival lanterns, Ma Li is no longer young, even though it is the most attractive age for men. Should he be called Shen Ming or Si Wang? "How have you been all these years?" Ma Li hasn't seen him for five years. Since the beginning of 2006, he helped the boy complete his revenge on the Gu family, and let Lu Zhongyue's ill-gotten wealth be investigated and punished. went. At least as far as he knew - Si Wang or He Qingying's accounts did not have more than one penny because of this. In fact, Ma Li dared not have any contact with the boy again, no matter whether he declared the teacher's ghost possessed or not.He was afraid that if he got stuck no matter how deep he got, everything he gained by risking his life would be wiped out like Lu Zhongyue, and even his life would be ruined.

"As you can see, I'm still looking for Lu Zhongyue. The truth is not as simple as I imagined." Sure enough, it was him—the face of a boy, but the tone of an adult, almost no different from Teacher Shen Ming back then. The two walked across the small stone bridge.There are men and women in twos and threes next to them, looking up to guess the riddles on the lanterns. Colorful fireworks rise from time to time in the night sky, and every time the fireworks fall like stars, their faces will be illuminated. "Sixteen years ago, this was the Workers' Cultural Palace, right under our feet, and there was a stamp card market. You were interested in collecting stamps, and you used your pocket money to buy some stamps every few days, and then hoped that the value would increase, but you would go there next time. has fallen below face value. I remember you sending

I borrowed twenty yuan and bought a set of commemorative stamps. " "Yeah, after graduating from high school, I don't know where I threw that set of stamps." Si Wang nodded maturely: "Children nowadays don't know what collecting stamps is. In 1992, in the midsummer, I just became a people's teacher, and you registered for the first time at Nanming Senior High School. You were wearing an off-white shirt with blue sports pants, Saint Seiya is stuck on the schoolbag, and I later found out that Zilong is your favorite. You are tall and have big eyes, and many girls are staring at you quietly."

"Even I have forgotten what happened so many years ago." A biting wind blew through in the cold winter, and he watched the clouds of white air exhaled from his mouth dissipate with the wind into the night sky above his head, mixing with the sky full of gunpowder smoke. "The military training in high school was the hottest few days. I still remember the poisonous sun. The oleander grove next to the playground was the only place where students could enjoy the shade. It was crowded with people every time they rested. As a result, many people Two layers of skin still faded from the sun. You suffered from heat stroke standing under the sun, and I carried you to the hospital on my back, and you couldn’t find the registration fee in your pocket.”

These words made Ma Li touch his cheek subconsciously: "Now I am pale due to lack of sun exposure." "Among your classmates, you were the first to discover the Witch's Quarter." "In the second year of high school, a girl in the class next door drowned while swimming. All the students ran to the abandoned factory in the middle of the night and burned all the relics that had not been cleaned up to her underground. Everyone bought a stack of tin foil, and everyone said this The place is very efficacious, allowing the dead to receive all blessings, and it can also bless the living. This is the only practical function of the Witch's Quarter for us."

"Yeah, I was killed in that place too." Ma Li has unconsciously fallen into the past: "As the class teacher, you come to our dormitory every day. My bedside is full of books, various teaching materials, and "Einstein Biography". After the lights are turned off late at night, I often run When I went to Teacher Shen’s room, I talked about the theory of relativity and the origin of the universe with relish, and how many black holes, white holes, wormholes, neutron stars, quark stars, soliton stars, dark matter, and dark energy there are in the vast Milky Way…” "Well, at that time I thought you were a strange student. In the months before the college entrance examination, you reviewed day and night, and often asked Mr. Zhang Mingsong to make up lessons-your first choice was Tsinghua University, which is not something ordinary people can do. I was admitted. Teacher Zhang came out of Tsinghua University, and he is a well-known special mathematics teacher in the whole city. One night you secretly shed tears in the self-study classroom, and I asked you what happened? You only said one sentence—I will never I don't want to go to Dead Poets Society!"

"Shut up!" Marie nearly covered his mouth. "I am Shen Ming. For sixteen years, I have been riding on this boy's shoulders. I am watching you!" Another burst of firecracker smoke drifted past, and the young Si Wang looked like a fighting dog, staring at Ma Li with wide eyes, making the thirty-four-year-old man lower his head in fear: "Don't look at me!" "I am no longer eighteen-year-old Mali, but you are still Teacher Shenming—I really envy you." "What do you envy me? Envy that I was killed at the age of twenty-five and soaked in the underground of the witch's district for three days and three nights? Envy that I will always be a lonely ghost, lying on a child named Si Wang? Do you believe it?" If you don’t believe me, leave him now and use your body as the host!”

"No--" "It turns out that you are still afraid of me, hmph..." "To be honest, I used to see the dead teacher Shen Ming in my nightmares, but now the face in my nightmares is ten-year-old Si Wang." The boy touched his sharp cheeks: "Am I so scary?" "In 2005, as Gu Qiusha's adopted son, you introduced me to the Erya Education Group and provided me with a large number of Gu family's secrets, including illegal evidence such as insider trading and bribery to officials. You will die without a burial place. But you are confident, it seems that you have already sentenced the Gu family to death." "It was they who perfidiously sentenced me to death sixteen years ago! From the day I was born, I wanted to avenge myself. I made a list of four people: Gu Qiusha, Gu Changlong, Lu Zhongyue, and— — Zhang Mingsong.” Ma Li was startled, Zhang Mingsong was still on the list? "In 2004, from the day you first met Gu Qiusha, you made a crazy and bold revenge plan?" "No one knows me better than horsepower. I tried every means to make Gu Qiusha fall in love with me irresistibly, just like falling in love with her in my previous life. After being adopted by her, I discovered all kinds of problems in the Gu family. Summed up the weaknesses of everyone including Lu Zhongyue." "That's right, just like the box of medicine you asked me to hand over to Lu Zhongyue. If this guy really wants to practice magical skills, he must first come from the palace." A trace of coldness flashed across the boy's eyes: "After all, I'm just a primary school student. Only by having a trustworthy helper who has the ability to control the overall situation will it be possible to use Lu Zhongyue to serve me obediently, and eventually bring down the Gu family." , and made it difficult for him to escape the law. After thinking about it, the best candidate is you." "The class reunion on the 10th anniversary of graduation, and the later chats on Xiaonei and QQ were all carefully arranged by you, right?" "It's a pity that Lu Zhongyue got away in the end! It seems that I underestimated that guy. If it weren't for that—the other person wouldn't have sacrificed in vain." Ma Ma didn't know that the other person he was referring to was Police Officer Huang Hai. "Do you hate him that much?" "After the Gu family went bankrupt, I cracked the password of Gu Changlong's safe and got a letter from 1995. This letter was forged in my handwriting and written in my name to He Nian—my college classmate , and later entered the Education Bureau of this city, and was recruited into the Erya Education Group. After two years of disappearance, I found the body by the Suzhou River. Maybe it was out of jealousy. He Nian used this letter to insult me. .However, there is only one person in this world who can forge my handwriting——Lu Zhongyue." "Lu Zhongyue colluded with He Nian to frame you?" "Actually, I don't want them to die. I just want these people to live and suffer so that they can repay everything they owe me." "Mr. Shen, you have become a little scary." "Humans are such an animal. When everyone around you is extremely cruel, your killing instinct will explode, and in the end, blood will flow into rivers." Back under the lantern at the entrance of the Flower and Bird Market, Mali took out the car keys and said, "I'll take you home." In a black Porsche Cayenne SUV, the teenager sat in the passenger seat and fastened his seat belt, but Leslie Cheung's "I" was playing on the Mali stereo. "I am me / I am fireworks of different colors / The sky is wide and the sea is wide / I want to be the strongest foam / I like me / Let the rose bloom a kind of result / In the lonely desert / The same blooms naked..." The dazzling fireworks continued to rise outside the car window, and the song was played repeatedly in the car, but the two of them never said a word.