Chapter 19 Section Eleven

After she boarded the swan boat, she slept in a big dormitory with the singers and dancers.They are all girls in their teens and twenties. They like to romp and whisper before going to bed, exchange letters from distant lovers, and sometimes bring games from the shore to the boat, such as divination cards. definite future. She was the last one to come, so she slept in the innermost place, where there happened to be a recess, so her bed was a little lower than the others' beds, and it seemed to be her own little world, which was her later lonely grave. Sleeping outside the alcove are two dancers, sister Miao Ni and younger sister Miao Ye.They were identical twins, and when they stood facing each other, it was as if one were looking in a mirror.Others often confuse them, especially on the stage. They wear the same dance clothes, move in the same way, and the expressions on their faces are like a person and his own reflection in the water, and there is no difference at all.Only Lan Yue'er never made a mistake from the beginning.She smelled the sweet milk baby smell from Miu Ni, and the smell of soap from Miao Ye's body, no matter how many pieces of soap she changed, they always exuded the same smell in the end.The taste of the two has never changed.

The parents of Miao Ni and Miao Ye are also twins. Their family has been twins since ancient times, and all relatives are twins. It seems that God deliberately weaves this family into a pair, fearing that they will be lonely. "If someone in the family only has one child at a time, it must be an affair with someone." Myuni said with a smile. Myuni's lover was the tamer who had eaten the head of the lion, and the only thing left of him was a lock of golden lion's mane firmly held in the hand of the headless corpse. Myuni is determined to avenge the tragic death of her lover.She saved all the money she earned and hid it under her pillow, planning to use it to buy the murder of the heartless lion.She had already found the killer, who was her lover's former assistant.The boy has been promoted to animal trainer.Every once in a while he would secretly cut off a bunch of the murderer's mane and send it to Mynie, so that she would know that the murderer was still alive.Gradually, those lion's manes sent from time to time became Myuni's spiritual support.

However, a few years later, when she finally saved enough money to get rid of the golden-haired murderer, the murderer had already died of old age in the cage one step earlier. Miao Ni is obsessed with revenge, and Miao Ye is addicted to witchcraft.During the days when the green-haired witch took refuge on the swan boat, Miao Ye secretly asked her for advice, asking her how to hide her flirtatious lover in her ears. "That would itch," said the Witch, and she told Miao Ye and all the girls on board solemnly, "The only magic that works in love is love itself." Lan Yueer's best friend on the boat is Dan Mengsan, she loves to chat with him, and will tell him when she has something on her mind.However, that was not the same as the friendship between her and these girls.Once, when she was taking a shower with Myuni, she saw Myuni's deep cleavage, and she asked Myuni, "What is this?"

"Used to pinch an ant," Mynie said with a smile. Once, she saw Miao Yeh bleeding out when she peed, and asked her in surprise if she was injured. "You'll have this too when you grow up," Miao Ye told her. From these girls older than her, she saw the changes of women every month: a little emotional instability, breast tenderness, a slight fishy smell from their bodies, and when they happened to be performing on the shore, those dogs would chase them , sniff them. The smell is contagious, because the girls all live in a large dormitory, and as soon as one of them menstruates, the girl in the next bed will soon also menstruate, and then it will spread to the whole room.Not to mention Miao Ni and Miao Ye, their first monthly letters came on the same day.

Lan Yue'er can't discuss these things with Dan Mengsan.She dreaded and looked forward to that day, worried that the dogs would come after her and sniff the bottoms of her skirts and lick her heels when she came ashore. Those monthly blood spills from the womb that turn a little girl into a teenage girl are a celebration of growing up.Lan Yue'er never dreamed that when that day came, what greeted her was not a celebration, but the seven gates of hell. People who entered would not be able to escape. From then on, they would feed on the darkness and feed on blood, living as if they were dead. , but can never die.

That year, she was fifteen years old. On that miserable September day, in the middle of the night, she trembled all over in her sleep, moaning in pain from her throat, a hot stream flowed from her body and flowed between her legs, she didn't know if it was blood or what. Miao Ni and Miao Ye were the first to hear her groaning like a wounded beast, and they held their candles to see her. They lifted the quilt from her body.She heard Milkman-scented Milnie say, "She's on her period." Miao Ye, who smelled of soap, touched her head and said, "Her head is so hot!"

She suddenly felt as if her whole body was on fire, and the blood spurted out like a raging fire, splashing her feet wet. She heard Milkman-smelling Myuni exclaim, "She bleeds so much!" Soap-scented Miao Ye cried, "Will she die?" Her nose could no longer tell the difference between milk baby and soap, only blood.The dormitory suddenly became very noisy, and many lights were lit, but she blocked the light with her hands, her body trembling frantically. Then she saw the eldest mother come to her bedside, looked at her with frightened eyes, comforted her, and ordered her to be carried to her cabin.

They carried her around with sheets, and her blood kept dripping down, and the blood spread from the big dormitory to the cabin, and the hands of these people were all stained with blood.She saw blood on Big Mama's body, her blood. They put her on a bed with a blanket under them and covered her with a thick woolen blanket, and she thought they had wrapped her in a shroud. Seeing the eldest mother wipe her sweat with a handkerchief, she asked her in a trembling voice, "Yue'er, what do you think?" She was bleeding again, and looking at Big Mama with her feeble eyes, said, "I've soiled your bed."

"It's okay, it'll be fine in a while." The eldest mother changed her blood-stained pajamas, fed her medicine, and said to her, "It's medicine to stop bleeding." She seemed to be better and had many dreams. She dreamed of a hunchback. The hunchback was trapped in a red harp, as red as a crimson rose, with disheveled hair and no face. The sharp strings cut his clothes and skin, and he was bleeding all over, moaning wildly. A convulsion pulled her out of the dream.She felt as if there was a wild wolf in her body, gnawing at the blood vessels all over her body, trying to break free.She was bleeding again, spitting scarlet foam from her mouth, and screaming in pain.

She bit her own lip, she was very thirsty, but she spit out all the hot soup poured in by others. Several strangers came to see her, who seemed to be doctors.She heard one of them say, "How can one person shed so much blood?" Another said: "She may have been enchanted." Afterwards, the man chanted a mantra beside her bed.She wanted to tell him to go away, but no sound came out of her throat.The blood still flowed out of her body slowly, as if she would not stop until she had to run out. She was paralyzed on the bed like a bloody rabbit, leaving only a faint breath and a pile of bones, her wet skin trembling.In a hazy state of consciousness, she saw Dan Mengsan shrinking outside the room, looking at her with tears.She wanted to tell him that in her dream she had seen a lyre, not a lyre.

But she couldn't hear the sound of the piano, only heard that Beibei was already crying in the kitchen and recited the Book of the Dead for her. She pillowed in her loose hair, the blood underneath was cold.The eldest mother never left her side, looking at her with desperate eyes.Those mysterious, haloed eyes that had redeemed her on the embankment now seemed to be waiting for a final farewell. The girls who watched her grow up felt sorry for her in the big dorm room.Someone secretly used cards to divination for her, but they didn't dare to see the result. The swan boat was silent, no one was on deck.On the full moon at the bow of the ship, a group of shadows moved, and in an instant, the group of shadows swallowed the moon completely, and the sky and the earth were instantly dark.At this time, a group of black and dense things rushed from the river to the bank quickly. It was a group of headless mice with blood dripping from their necks. There were so many that they could flood the entire river bank.The headless mouse dragged its flustered tail over the reeds and through an ancient tomb in the field. The blood dripped on the coffin, making the bones in the tomb tremble with fright. The river was deep, and there were dozens of horses with men's heads and snake scales on their bodies. They kicked up the sand in the river bed, and suddenly turned around in the dust, with their frightened eyes wide open. Standing on their feet, they gave a tame neigh to the swan boat, as if seeing their king. On the deck at the bow, a group of ghosts hovered, looking like big birds, but with a woman's face, hands and feet, crouching towards the cabin where Lan Yueer was lying. In the cabin, in a dream, Lan Yueer saw the hunchback trapped in the red harp again.He was old and bruised, and a swarm of green flies was flying over his head.