Chapter 18 16. Amazing request

September 26, 200X at 11:10 PM When I woke up, I saw the uncle staying by my side.Seeing me open my eyes, he asked, "How are you doing, are you all right?" I nodded slightly, and glanced at the place where the series of tragedies happened just now—the three corpses were gone.I thought of that storage room, and my heart tightened. The middle-aged uncle sighed and said to me: "We seem to have really misunderstood the red-haired young man. Just now the female clerk told me that she remembered seeing the mother wandering in front of the counter for a while this afternoon—— It may have been at that time that she quietly took the pistol from the drawer, which she intended to use in suicide. Alas, the result was a series of misunderstandings and confusions that resulted in the loss of three lives!"

I felt a burst of blockage in my heart, as if I was suppressed by some invisible things.I dare not tell the middle-aged uncle that the disappearance of those three lives is more or less related to me-if I can make some judgments and actions in time, maybe I can save their lives.Too bad it's too late now. I didn't want to be in self-blame and regret all the time, so I changed the subject and asked the uncle: "Where is that girl? How is she?" The middle-aged uncle sighed: "She was hit hard. After her boyfriend died, she kept holding his body and crying by the wall. We persuaded her to put the body down and cheer up, but it was completely useless." The uncle looked Glancing at me, she tilted her head backwards, "Why don't you try to persuade her again."

I looked towards the place the uncle pointed, and sure enough, the fashionable girl was sitting on the ground against the wall, holding her boyfriend's body tightly in her arms, sobbing sadly with her head buried, looking extremely pitiful.I hesitated and said, "It's useless for you to persuade her, but will it be useful for me to persuade her?" "Try it. Even if you can't persuade her to let go of the corpse, it's always good to talk to her." I thought about it and said, "Okay." I brewed and organized some comforting words in my heart, and walked in the direction of the fashionable girl.When I came to her, I found that all the comforting words I had prepared were blocked in my throat and I couldn't speak them out.I feel that in the face of great grief, any consolation is powerless.I wanted to go back and let her stay quietly for a while, but then I thought I agreed to uncle, so I reluctantly squatted down and said, "Don't be too sad, okay? After all...we are alive No better than the dead."

She buried her face in her elbows, twitching, sobbing, completely unresponsive to my words. I said again: "I remember what your boyfriend said to you, asking you to take care of yourself. Just treat it as fulfilling his last wish, don't be sad, or your boyfriend will be worried underground .” She still maintained the same posture, without even raising her head.I sighed: "Okay, maybe you want to be alone for a while, then I won't bother you here, but I hope you can cheer up as soon as possible." I stand up and prepare to leave.Unexpectedly, the fashion girl suddenly stretched out her hand to hold me, raised her head and said to me: "I want to ask you to do me a favor, can you?"

I immediately nodded and agreed: "Of course, what do you want me to do?" "Please... go get that gun and shoot me to death." I was shocked, stepped back, and shook my head again and again: "This...how can this be done!" "Please..." she begged, "I could have committed suicide, but I just lacked the courage for that moment. So, please grant me, let me end this endless torture, and be completely free!" I squatted down and looked at her, and said solemnly: "Don't say such things, and don't think like that! I know you must be sad and distraught when you lose the one you love. But you can't let this kind of emotion occupy you all the time. You, make you give up hope of living. You have to be strong and live a good life for your boyfriend, that is the best consolation for him!"

"No..." She shook her head in pain, "I didn't want to die just to follow him. I just couldn't stand this kind of torture. I know, sooner or later I won't be able to escape... Rather than being killed in fear It would be better to die early on your own." Startled, I asked, "Why do you say that?" She looked at me: "Didn't you hear the last sentence that red-haired bastard said before he died? He said that he had never intentionally killed anyone—when a person is about to die, his words are good. I Do you think he would lie to us before he shot himself? Do you know what he said?"

I stayed for a moment, and then my heart tightened: "You mean, the real murderer is still among us?" "Isn't it?" she asked rhetorically, and then pleaded with me, "That's why I beg you, please help me out! I've had enough, tired of living with this endless suspicion and panic, suffering This kind of physical and mental destruction and torture, and you don't know when you will be killed by the insane murderer, such a life is worse than death, so... please, please?" I bounced off like an electric shock, shook my head with my back to her and said, "Stop making such horrible demands to me again, I don't care what you think, but you can't force me to be a murderer! "

She was silent for a few seconds, as if desperate.After a long while, she said in a low voice: "Since you are all unwilling to help me, I have no choice but to choose another way to protect myself - when the time comes, don't blame me for losing my mind and doing extreme things." I slowly turned my head to look at her, and felt that her words were obviously threatening and crazy, which made my heart feel chills. "What do you want to do?" She stopped talking to me, lowered her head and pursed her lips tightly, and merged with her dead boyfriend again. I stood there for a while, then turned and left with an inexplicable panic.Just a few steps away, I caught a glimpse of a row of shelves on the slanted side. The little boy was looking at me steadily. I guess he heard all the conversations we had just now, and his face still had that weird and unpredictable expression.I can never read his expression, just like I can never meet his eyes.I walked quickly to the uncle's side, avoiding him like a plague god.

The middle-aged uncle saw me come over and sit down with a gray face, and asked, "Why, you persuaded her, but it still didn't work at all?" I said sadly: "Not only did it not work, she also made a very terrible request to me!" "any request?" "She said she couldn't bear this torture anymore, and she asked me to find the pistol and shoot her to death, so that she could get out of it!" "Oh my god, this is ridiculous." The middle-aged uncle was also shocked. "Yeah, how could I do such a cruel thing?" The middle-aged uncle shook his head hastily and said: "That pistol is too dangerous to put in the counter drawer." He thought for a while, as if there was no other suitable place to put it, he muttered to himself, "It seems that we have to take Just a little bit of precaution..."

I was thinking of another thing.I hesitated whether to tell the middle-aged uncle all my guesses and doubts about the little boy, so that he would also be alerted.But I forcibly swallowed the words again, and I remembered that the boy who existed like a ghost might hide in a dark place to spy or eavesdrop on us at any time, if I let him know that I suspect him to be a murderer , then I might be the next victim. The middle-aged uncle noticed that I hesitated to speak, and asked, "Do you want to tell me anything?" "Ah..." I was embarrassed for a while, and when I didn't know how to answer, I suddenly remembered the last sentence that the fashion girl said to me just now. "By the way, the girl saw that I refused to 'help' her, so she said something puzzling. She said that in this case, she had to choose another way to protect herself, and told us not to blame her Lose your mind and do extreme things."

"What does she mean by that?" the uncle asked with wide-eyed eyes. "I don't know either, but it makes me uneasy." The middle-aged uncle frowned and thought for a moment, then said in horror: "The extreme act of losing her mind she said, could it be that she killed us all in order to protect herself?" I was shocked: "No way? That's... too crazy!" The middle-aged uncle said worriedly: "It is impossible to say. People may become distorted and abnormal psychologically after staying in such a dark closed space for a long time. It’s time to do it.” Hearing what he said, my face turned pale with fright, and I asked in fear: "Then what shall we... do?" The middle-aged uncle sighed and said: "What can I do, just be more careful and be careful everywhere." I want to tell him that I've been doing it for a long time, and most of the others are doing the same, but the problem is that people are still getting killed, which shows that it is impossible to prevent it-but, as he said, we have what way?You can't really obey the girl's request and shoot her dead, can you? After hesitating for a while, I suddenly summoned up the courage to say to the uncle: "How about we break the door open! I think the danger inside is almost the same as outside now." The middle-aged uncle slowly turned his face to look at me with an elusive complex expression. I think he still hesitated because of lack of confidence, so he said: "We rushed out to ask for help, at least there is still a way of life. Staying here is tortured and killed each other, and in the end it is a dead end." The middle-aged uncle suddenly looked sad and said: "Help? I'm afraid... there is no help." I stared blankly at him: "What do you mean?" The middle-aged uncle was depressed for a long time, and finally let out a breath from his chest with difficulty: "There is one thing that I have been keeping from you. At that time, I was afraid that after I told you, everyone would become sad and hopeless in an instant, completely lost. The belief in living. But now it seems that the general trend is set, and it doesn’t matter if you say it.” He turned his face away, deliberately not looking at me, as if he didn't want to see my expression after listening to him say this. "Remember that MP3? The last day it died, and I tell you I didn't hear anything about it in the news. That's not true. The truth is... all the stations went off that day I don't get any of them at all." I freeze like a lifeless sculpture.I couldn't feel any body temperature, and my mind went blank.I've lost the energy to think about what this means to me or anyone else, because for a long time I didn't even feel like I existed.