Chapter 13 7-2

When I caught my breath, I asked, "What do you mean by that?" "If you think about it," he said, "think about it really hard, perhaps you'll see that it's no good for you--only bad. Knowledge, my child, often doesn't bring us peace. .A hundred years ago, we knew nothing about the structure of the atom, genetics, or black holes, but are we happier and more fulfilled now than we used to be?" When he finished speaking the last word, thick fog had surrounded the place where he was standing.I heard the hatch close softly: followed by a louder bang, the latch of the latch.

Thick fog billowed around the rattling Nostromo in slow motion. Monsters of nightmares suddenly emerge from the misty mist, expand, and then disappear into thin air. Inspired by Roosevelt's last tip, the fog in my head kept showing images more terrifying than the monster in the fog, but I was unwilling to focus on that focus, so I told myself firmly.Maybe he's right, even if I figured out everything, in the end I'd probably rather not know anything. Barbie once said that truth is sweet but extremely dangerous.He said that if people had to face every hard fact of life, people might lose the courage to live.

At that time, I replied to him that if that was the case, then he would definitely not have suicidal tendencies. Orson and I walked up the aisle, with Orson ahead of me, and I considered the possibilities, trying to decide where to go and what to do next.A piercing siren sounded, and only I could hear the crisis lurking in the urgent music; although I was afraid of crashing to death on the rock of truth, the hypnotic melody made me irresistible. When we got to the top of the tunnel, I said to Orson, "Well... any time you want to explain all this to me, I'm ready to listen." Even if Olsen had the ability to answer at this time, it was obviously not in the mood to communicate.

My bicycle was still leaning against the railing of the pier, and the rubber handle had condensed a layer of moisture, making it icy and slippery. Behind us, the Nostromo's engines rumbled.When I looked back again, the lights on the boat had gradually blurred in the white mist and turned into a faint halo.I couldn't see Roosevelt in the wheelhouse, but I knew he was there.Although there were only a few hours of darkness left, he did not hesitate to drive the ship to a berth in the open sea under such low visibility conditions. I led my bicycle across the marina pier and walked to the shore. The boats moored on both sides swayed gently. I couldn't help but look back several times, wondering if I would see Montgodelli in the faint light of the pier.If it's following us, it must be for reasons of caution.

However, I guess it's probably still on the Nostromo. ... Most of them respect you because of your mother. As we turned right back to the main pier and started heading towards the exit to Marina Harbour, a foul smell rose from the water.Apparently the stench of dead birds, men, or fish washed up on the pier by the tide.The rotting corpses must have been caught in the jagged shells of the pontoons and brought out of the water.This strong stench didn't just stick to the air, it was mixed in the air. It smelled more disgusting than the broth on the devil's table. I held my breath and closed my lips tightly to exclude the stench shrouded in the mist.

The sound of the Nostramo's engines faded away as it reached its mooring position.At this moment, the sound of rhythmic agitation accompanied by the tide does not sound like an engine at all, but rather like the frightening heartbeat of a sea monster. ships, destroying entire docks, and driving us to a cold, wet graveyard. When we were halfway to the main trunk of the pier, I looked back again to make sure there were no cats or other more terrifying stalkers. I couldn't help but say to Orson, "Damn it, it's starting to feel like the end of the world." It awed in agreement, and we walked, leaving the stench of dead bodies behind us, on toward the light at the entrance to the pier.

From the shadows next to Marina's office, Chief Stevenson of the police department, still in uniform, the same as I'd seen him earlier, stepped into the light and said, "I'm in a good mood today." The moment he came out of the shadows, I noticed a very strange phenomenon on him, so strange that I felt a chill penetrate into my bone marrow like a corkscrew.Whether what I saw was fact—or vision—it was fleeting, but enough for a short time to make me shudder and uneasy.I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible and evil supernatural phenomenon in front of me, but I couldn't clearly judge the reason for this feeling.

In his right hand, Director Stevens held a frightening pistol.Although he didn't pose for a shot, the way he held the gun was not relaxed.He aimed his gun at Orson, who was standing a few steps in front of me.It was standing just outside the arc of light, and I was still in the shadows. "Would you like to guess how I feel today?" Stevenson asked, stopping not ten feet from us. "Probably not so good," I ventured. "I just had the feeling that I didn't want to be stabbed." The chief's tone of voice didn't sound like him.His voice was still familiar, with the same quality and accent, but his usual quiet authority had been replaced by a stern tone.Normally, when he speaks, he speaks as smoothly as flowing clouds and flowing water, making the listeners feel like he is drifting away. His tone is calm, warm, and makes people feel safe. But when he speaks now, it is like a turbulent turbulent current. Cold and sharp.

"I don't feel very good today," he said. "I feel so bad. In fact, my mental laziness is as bad as shit, and I don't have the patience to mess around with anything that would make me feel worse. Do you know what I mean?" Although I didn't fully understand what he meant, I quickly nodded and replied, "Yes, yes, sir. I understand." Orson remained as motionless as a stone, staring intently at the muzzle of the chief's gun. I know very well that Marina at this time is more desolate than anywhere else.Offices and gas stations don't come to work after six o'clock.Except Roosevelt.Apart from Foster, there were only five shipowners living on the ship, needless to say, they were all fast asleep at this time.The whole pier is as lonely as a sleeping bunk in St. Bernard's cemetery.

The thick fog muffled our voices.It's impossible for anyone to notice or hear our conversations. Director Stevenson continued to focus on Olson, while addressing me: "I can't get what I need because I don't know what I need. Is that annoying? " I sensed that this was a desperado on the verge of collapse, desperately trying to keep himself. He has lost the noble side of the past. His face is wrinkled with anger and anxiety, and even the heroic figure that was once glowing has also disappeared. "Have you ever experienced this void, Snow? Have you ever experienced such a void that you feel like you're going to die if you don't fill it, but you don't know where the void is? , and don’t know what to fill it with.”

Now I really couldn't understand what he said at all, but I didn't think he was in the mood to explain to me, so I made a serious face and nodded sympathetically. "Yes, sir. I know what that feels like." His brows and eyes looked damp, but not from the damp air; greasy sweat made his face shine.His face was unnaturally pale, as if a white mist was pouring down from his face, icily evaporating from the surface of his skin, looking like a mist god. "It felt worse at night," he said. "Yes, sir." "This feeling can come at any time, but it's worst at night." His face was contorted, perhaps because of extreme disgust. "What kind of rotten dog is this?" His arm holding the pistol stiffened suddenly, and I thought I saw him almost pull the trigger. Ourson bared his teeth, but didn't move or bark. I quickly smoothed things over: "It's just an ordinary Labrador mixed breed dog. It's very good, even cats won't bully it." Stevenson, inexplicably thrown into a rage, said, "It's just an ordinary Labrador mix, huh! Call it hell, there's nothing that's just an ordinary thing, not this place , not this time, never again." I considered whether to reach into the pistol in my jacket pocket.I hold the bicycle with my left hand, my right hand is free, and the pistol is in my right pocket.However confused Stevens may be, he is still a policeman, and if I make any threat, he will respond professionally and fatally.I can't count too much on Roosevelt's claim that I'm respected, that even if I let the bicycle fall to divert his attention, he'd still kill me with a single shot before I could draw my pistol. Also, I can't shoot the chief of police unless it's absolutely necessary.Even if I hit him, I would be sentenced to death, daylight. Stevenson patted his head abruptly, his eyes briefly leaving Orson.He took a deep breath, followed by several short ones, like a pig dog following the scent of prey. "What's the smell?" His sense of smell is clearly better than mine, for I've just now picked up, in the barely perceptible breeze, the faint stench of dead bodies emanating from the trunk of the pier. While Stevenson's behavior so far has been enough to make my scalp tingle, his reaction at this moment is even more strange.His shoulders arched tensely, his neck stretched out, his face turned upward.As if savoring the stench.Excited eyes appeared on his pale face, and his tone of speech was no longer calm like that of a policeman interrogating a prisoner, but almost abnormally excited, nervous and curious. "What's that smell? Do you smell it? It smells like rotting corpses, doesn't it?" "It's coming from under the pier." I confirmed. "Probably some dead fish, I guess." "Damn! Damn! Rotten stuff! Smells like... funny, doesn't it?" He was clearly salivating, almost licking his tongue. "Yes! Yes! It's really interesting." He must have heard the groan in his own voice, or else he noticed my reaction, for he looked at Orson and me suddenly worried, struggling to hold himself together.To say he struggled would not be an exaggeration, he was clearly caught in a tug of war on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Finally, the Chief finally found his own voice—or at least something close to it. "I've got to talk to you and come to an agreement, right now, this evening. You come with me now, Jon." "Where are you going?" "My patrol car is parked right in front." "Then my bicycle—" "I didn't want to arrest you, I just had a quick talk to let each other have a consensus." The last place I want to be is Stevenson's patrol car.But if I refuse, he may take more drastic measures to detain me.Plus, even if I try to resist arrest, if I get on my bike and run as fast as I can—how far can I go?With the sun out in a few hours, the best I can do is escape to the neighboring towns along the coast.Even if I have plenty of time, my XP disease cannot allow me to leave Moonlight Bay. Only here can I return home before sunrise, or find a close friend to take me in and give me darkness. "I'm in a good mood today," said Stevenson again.He gritted his teeth, and his tone of voice returned to his original sternness. "I'm really in the mood today. Do you want to come with me?" "Yes, sir. I have no objection." He gestured with his pistol for me and Orson to go ahead of him. I led my bicycle to the end of the pier entrance, reluctantly letting Stevenson with his gun walk behind us.Even if I'm not an animal communicator, I know Orson is just as nervous as I am. The plank walkway at the pier ends, followed by a concrete walkway lined with gerbera daisies, which bloom during the day and close their petals at night.In the dim light, snails with bright tentacles crawled on the sidewalk, leaving trails of slimy silvery white slime. Some crawled from the flowerbed on the right to the flowerbed on the left that looked exactly the same, while others struggled from left to right Crawl in the opposite direction.It seems that these humble molluscs have the same dissatisfaction and restlessness with the status quo as humans. I led the car zigzagging to avoid crushing the snails. Olsen sniffed the snails on the ground as he walked, and stepped over them carefully. Behind us, the "creaking" sound of snail shells being crushed can be heard endlessly, accompanied by the sound of the soft snail's body being trampled into mud.Stevenson didn't just step on the snails he saw, he only crushed the snails that happened to get in his way.Some snail shells were crushed briskly by him, and some were kicked hard several times by him. The soles of his shoes stepped heavily on the concrete floor, which sounded like the knocking of iron ladders. I can't bear to look back.I was afraid that what I saw would be a cruel sneer. I was bullied by the little Taibao in my childhood, until I had the wisdom and physical strength to fight back. But the expressions on their faces at that time are still vivid in my memory.Putting that look on a child's face was frightening enough, but the same look--the sinister eyes, the flushed cheeks, the sneer of cold-blooded lips backing the teeth-- If it is placed on the face of an adult, the horror will immediately expand countless times, let alone a police chief with a gun in his hand and a police badge on his body. Stevenson's black-and-white police car was parked on the red brick thirty feet to the left of the Marina exit, not only unable to illuminate the street lights, but also shaded by tall Indian laurel trees.Even in this dim light, I could vaguely see the expression on his face that I dreaded most: resentment, loss of reason, and rising anger, enough to turn a man into the most brutal and ferocious beast in the world . Stevenson had never shown a malevolent side in the past.He seems incapable of even being mean to others, let alone holding grudges against them.Suppose he suddenly told me he wasn't the real Louis.Stevenson, but an alien disguised as the director, I would probably believe it without hesitation. Stevenson held his gun and demanded that Orson obey his orders: "You bastard, get in the car for me." "It'll be all right out there," I said. "Go in!" urged impatiently. Olsen peeked into the open car door suspiciously, groaning in disbelief. "Let it wait outside," I said. "It never escapes." "Get it in the car," Stevenson said coldly. "There's a leash policy in this town, Snow. We've never asked you to follow it, we've always turned our heads away and pretended we didn't see anything because . . . because handicapped dogs are exempt." I don't want to get into an argument with Steven in order to refute the word "handicapped".In any case, I am not very interested in these two words, what interests me are the six words he almost blurted out: because of your mother. "But this time," he said, "I'm not going to sit here and watch that rotten dog hang around, piss and shit on the sidewalk, and show off that I don't need a chain." If he thinks that dogs of the disabled should enjoy immunity from the law, why does he claim that Orson is showing off that he doesn't need a chain? Although I noticed his phrasing, I continued to remain silent. Arguing with him when he's hostile will do me no good. "If I can't get him," said Stevenson, "you'll be responsible for getting him into the car." I couldn't help but hesitate, trying to find other feasible ways.As the minutes passed, the situation between us became more and more tense.I don't think the situation was as critical as it was when the monkeys were bothering me in Wanjiao earlier. "Get me the goddam thing in the car, now!" said Stevenson, commandingly, and he didn't even need to stomp on it, his vicious tone alone was enough to kill the snails, his Sound is enough. Since he already had a gun in his hand, I was still at a disadvantage, and the only thing that gave me some comfort was that he obviously didn't know I was armed.However, at this moment, I have no choice but to cooperate as much as possible. "Get in the car, buddy." I told Orson, trying to put on a nonchalant tone so that my pounding heart wouldn't leave a trace of trembling in my words. Reluctantly, Ourson did as I was told. Louis Stevenson slammed the back door shut and opened the front door. "Now it's your turn, Snow." I sat in the front passenger seat, and Stevenson walked around the black-and-white police car to the driver's seat and got into the seat behind the steering wheel.He slammed the door shut and told me to close the door on my side as well, though I kept trying not to. Normally, I wouldn't feel claustrophobic even in confined spaces, but the space in the police car felt cramped than a coffin.The fog oppressing the windows is more psychologically suffocating than dreaming of one's own future funeral. The interior of the car also seemed damper and cooler than the night air outside.Stevenson started the engine in order to start the heater. The radio beepers of the police cars blared, and the cacophony of the police dispatch center personnel sounded like the croaking of frogs.Stevenson cut off the beeper. Olsen stood on the floor in front of the back seat, with his front feet on the iron safety fence separating the front and rear seats, spying on us worriedly.The chief pressed the button on the inner side of the door with the butt of his gun, and the electric central lock automatically locked the two rear doors. The sound of the doorpost sinking sounded as desperate as the sound of the guillotine. I thought Stevenson would put the pistol in the holster when he got into the car, but I didn't expect him to continue to hold it tightly.He leaned the weapon against his lap, the muzzle toward the dashboard.From the faint green glow of the dashboard, it seemed to me that his fingers were wrapped around the trigger guard rather than directly on the trigger, but that didn't diminish his advantage one iota. For a moment, he bowed his head and closed his eyes, as if praying or gathering his thoughts. The mist condensed on the laurel trees dripped drop by drop from the tips of the leaves, hitting the roof and hood of the car irregularly with "bang, pound, bang". Calmly and quietly, I thrust my hands into my jacket pockets, gripping the Glock tightly in my right hand. I keep telling myself.It must be because my imagination is too much. In fact, the situation in front of me is not as serious as I imagined.It is true that Stevenson was in a bad mood, and based on what I saw at the back door of the police station, he was actually not the Bao Qingtian that everyone had long thought of him. But that doesn't mean he has the intention of being violent.He might, really, just want to talk, and by the time he's done talking, he'll probably let us go unscathed. At last Stevenson raised his head, and his eyes were like skull cups filled with bitter wine.When his eyes turned to me, I couldn't help but shudder from the inhuman hatred in his eyes, which was exactly the same as when he came out of the shadow next to Marina's office earlier, the difference was , this time I knew exactly why I was frightened.At that moment, from my point of view, his watery eyes glowed yellow, just like the nocturnal animals displayed in many zoos, that kind of cold and mysterious inner light source, which I have never seen in normal seen in the eyes of men or women.