Chapter 61 Chapter fifteen

June 19, 2012, the 17th anniversary of Shenming. A new moon hangs in the middle sky, passing through the small path on Nanming Road, between two new buildings, I saw the abandoned factory.Under the tall chimney, wormwood grows overgrown, and the sound of insects and frogs resounds.Drilling into the crumbling factory building, wherever the flashlight beam went, it was still messy, until the tunnel full of cracks. Witch Quarter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... After seven silent steps, he just reached the end of the tunnel, facing a thick metal hatch with a round handle covered with thick spider webs.

take a deep breath. Imagine that corpse, Teacher Shen Ming who died lying in the filthy blood, the rotting corpse of twenty-five years old... She dared not open the door. Ten o'clock sharp. Back on the ground of the dilapidated factory building, she squatted down, opened the paper bag she carried with her, took out the silver-white tin foil, and lit a flame. The person who was burning these tin foils was a woman in a white dress, her black hair covered her side face, and her slender fingers approached the flames from time to time.She is not Nie Xiaoqian in "A Chinese Ghost Story", nor is she a female ghost or fox fairy in legends, but she is so young that she looks like a goblin - no wonder the students call her "Sister Fairy".

It turned out that she never broke the appointment, but it was seventeen years later. The flames dyed her face red, and she held her white dress carefully so as not to be burned by the flames.A few pieces of ashes from Mingbi floated into his eyes, and tears fell into the fire along his cheeks, making the sound of sizzle evaporation. Suddenly, a certain voice sounded behind him—whose cry was it? The moment Ouyang Xiaozhi turned his head, a figure stood up from the tunnel in the Witch District, as if someone had come back from the dead. Seventeen-year-old Si Wang. She screamed miserably, scaring away all the ghosts in the wilderness, and raised her sleeves to cover her face: "You...you...how come you are here?"

"Twigs." Last week was the final exam of the first year of high school, and only Si Wang hadn't left school yet.He stepped over the tinfoil fire and slowly approached her white dress, as if about to open a goblin's skin. "Do not touch me!" He grabbed the female teacher's struggling arm: "Don't be afraid! I'm here!" "Siwang, are you crazy?" She looked up again, and now she looked like a teacher, and asked seriously, "It's summer vacation, why don't you go home? What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"I should ask you this question, right?" The boy looked into her eyes, enigmatic eyes that were still wet from tears, until the flames behind him were extinguished, leaving only yellow and black ashes. "But it has nothing to do with you. When he died, you were not born yet." She shook it desperately a few more times: "Let go of my hand!" Si Wang became much stronger, his shoulders remained motionless, and his five fingers clamped her like iron clamps: "Do you still remember the Dead Poets Society?" Listening to his quiet voice, Xiaozhi's heart beat wildly. Looking at the underground hatch, she shook her head: "You mean that classic American movie?"

When she was a high school student, Shen Ming, a Chinese teacher, showed this movie to his students in the audio-visual room of the multi-purpose building, for which she was criticized by the principal and dean. "Not only that, have you forgotten?" Si Wang opened his clear youthful voice: "From Ming From day one, be a happy person / Feed horses, chop firewood, travel around the world / From tomorrow, care about food and vegetables / I have a house, facing the sea, spring is warm and flowers are blooming. " Her teeth began to chatter. In the middle of the night of the Ching Ming Festival in 1995, Teacher Shen Ming took Mali, Liuman, and Ouyang Xiaozhi to climb over the school wall and sneak into the underground of the witch's district, reciting Haizi's poems one after another.

This is Teacher Shen Ming's Dead Poetry Club, a secret exclusive to the four of them. It is said that even his fiancée doesn't know it. If the school leaders find out, he will probably be expelled as the class teacher. The significance of the Witch's Quarter to the four of them is not some horrible and mysterious place, but the Dead Poets Society. Two months later, two members of the Poetry Club died one after another, one on the roof of the library, and the other in the underground of the Witch's Quarter. "At that time, the Dead Poets Club often recited the works of two poets, one was Haizi, the other was Gu Cheng—both of them died, one committed suicide by lying on the railroad tracks, and the other was on a small island in the South Pacific, Hacked his own wife with an ax first, and then committed suicide."

"Are you alluding to the death of Teacher Shen Ming back then?" "On June 19, 1995, you also dressed like this." She looked down at her white dress, and then stared into his eyes: "Who are you...?" "Xiaozhi! If I told you that I am Shen Ming, would you believe me?" The voice came from his throat. At this moment, his eyes belonged to a thirty-five-year-old man. "No!" So, he grimly read a long series of words—— "Teacher Shen." "Don't talk to me, let alone approach me. I'm not a teacher anymore." "I heard that you won't be in our school tomorrow, when will you leave?"

"Tonight, at eight o'clock." "Can you be later? At ten o'clock in the evening, I will wait for you in the witch's district." "Witch District? Is there anything important?" "I have something to tell you, I'm afraid it will be inconvenient during the day." "Okay, I promise you, it just so happens that I have something to tell you." "At ten o'clock sharp, see you at the gate of the Witch District!" On the afternoon of June 19, 1995, Shen Ming's last day alive, they had their last conversation in front of the fence of the school playground.

"Shut up...no...stop...please...stop talking...please..." She had covered her ears, muttering non-stop. "Xiaozhi, tonight seventeen years ago, at ten o'clock, I came, but I didn't see you." Si Wang let go of her hand and stroked her hair, "That night when there was a heavy thunderstorm, you In the end—have you been here?" She couldn't say a word, she just shook her head desperately. "You didn't come?" He smelled the smell in her hair, "Okay, I believe you." "Let me go!" Drilling out of the dirty factory building, the crescent moon gradually faded away and turned into a starry sky in the suburbs. It reminded me of the spring seventeen years ago, when Mr. Shen Ming accompanied his classmates, sitting in the grass in the wilderness, watching the Lyrid meteor shower fall from afar.

Suddenly, teacher Ouyang Xiaozhi raised her skirt and rushed outside, but was grabbed by Si Wang's wrist tightly. The seventeen-year-old student ran wildly with his teacher, panting all the way to the subway station, but missed the last subway. Xiao Zhi stopped a taxi, and Si Wang held on to the door, her eyes were trembling, but her mouth was very strict: "Let go! Let me go home!" On June 19, 2012, at 10:45 in the middle of the night, she went away in a taxi, looking at the starless night sky through the blurred window glass, and the witch's area 17 years ago - dark In the cold underground, Teacher Shen Ming led the members of the Dead Poetry Club to sit down, surrounded by a few white candles, like some kind of ancient sacrificial ceremony, and the flickering backs were projected on the wall, like the murals of primitive people, wearing a big white sweater Ouyang Xiaozhi recited a poem by Gu Cheng emotionally: "The sky is gray/the road is gray/the building is gray/the rain is gray..."