Zhou Yu woke up in pain.
Before he opened his eyes, he smelled a strong smell of burning ointment, and the cold aroma made people vomit. But when I moved my throat a little, I felt a burning pain.
Zhou Yu held back his groan, opened his eyes, and looked around. He was lying indoors at the moment. The entire space was about fifteen square meters, square and clearly visible. Based on the simple wooden walls and embroidered tapestries, it is not difficult to infer that he is in "Diegu"'s hut. There were two other people in the room besides him. A little girl sat near him, lowering her head to draw on a white paper. She was so focused on the painting that she didn't seem to notice that he had woken up. On the other side of the room, there was an adult woman boiling water with her back to him.
Zhou Yu looked at this woman intently. From his angle, he could only see that this woman's hair was very long, loosely tied with a rubber band, and she was wearing a shirt and jeans - this was already the most fashionable thing he had ever seen in this area. Outfit.
He tried to sit up as silently as possible, but because of his physical weakness, he still made a lot of noise. The woman who was boiling water immediately turned around.
"Oh, are you awake? How do you feel?"
she asked in a cheerful voice. Zhou Yu didn't answer for a long time, but just stared at her face blankly.
The woman's appearance is exactly that of an older version of Zhou Yu.
Although he knew in advance that mother and daughter might look alike, Zhou Yu was still surprised when he actually saw her in person. One is because they are too similar, and the other is because the woman looks too young.
Zhou Yu's father was fifty years old when he died. According to normal calculations, his mother should be at least in her forties. The woman in front of her looked like she had just turned thirty. If she and Zhou Yu were together, most outsiders would regard them as sisters.
There is also a third reason, which is the way women dress.
Previously, Zhou Yu had always imagined her as a goddess or something like that, wearing retro and grotesque cumbersome clothes and jewelry made of animal bones, muttering mantras in the smoke. However, the woman who appeared in front of him at this moment was a completely modern person.
A shirt, jeans, a mechanical watch, hiking boots, and even light makeup on her face. Even the way she puts on makeup makes Zhou Yu feel familiar and friendly. The same lavender makeup as Zhou Yu's was specially used to cover up the lack of blood color in their skin.
"Okay young man, have you seen enough? Have you never seen a woman?"
Different from Zhou Yu, the woman's voice was loud and playful, and she sounded like a cheerful person. Her figure is also plumper than Zhou Yu, showing the beauty of health and coordination. The soft timbre coupled with the unrestrained intonation left Zhou Yu speechless for a moment.
Seeing that he didn't speak, the woman put her hands on her hips, nodded to herself, and asked, "Where are you from? Snake? Spider? Wolf? It can't be a crow, right?"
"……I do not know what you mean."
"It's not good to lie, young man!" the woman laughed, "You're as young as you are, and you're still a man. It's not bad to have such a level. You've been practicing this specifically, right?"
Zhou Yu was really not used to the way she spoke. Compared with other elders he knew, this woman was too uninhibited in terms of attitude and words, just like an older peer.
Before he could adapt, the woman pointed to the window next to her and said, "Look, you've cut all my pictures into pieces. Chang Wei, you still said you don't know martial arts?"
Zhou Yu looked in the direction she pointed. A piece of black paper was pasted on the window near the door, which had been neatly broken into two pieces in the middle. A torn and crooked curtain was revealed behind the paper.
That was the window he had tried to peer into last night.
Seeing this window, he remembered what happened last night and immediately put his hand on his neck. But aside from the burning pain, there wasn't any swelling or scarring. The experience of being hung to Xiaoyue last night was like a nightmare that left no trace.
He was silent for a while and then asked: "What are those butterflies?"
"I don't know, that was your own dream. Have you come into contact with anything related to butterflies before?"
When the woman said this, her originally relaxed expression gradually faded away, and she said in a cold voice: "Tell me, what are you looking for me for? I have begun to decline a long time ago, and I can no longer touch it. On this point, you Shouldn’t it be clear? Why are you still bothering me?”
"I do not know what you're talking about."
Realizing that the two sides seemed to be talking to each other, Zhou Yu hesitated for a moment and then said immediately: "I came here for one person. Her name is Zhou Yu... you should recognize her, right?"
The woman stopped for a moment and stared at him.
After a long time, she nodded and said, "She is my daughter."
The relaxed, slightly joking smile just now disappeared from her face. After scanning Zhou Yu's whole body, she asked: "Are you her husband? Is she... okay?"
The way she addressed her daughter seemed stiff and strange. Zhou Yu frowned slightly, ignored the first question, and answered briefly: "She is missing."
The woman raised an eyebrow: "Missing? Then you are not married yet?"
This kind of question made Zhou Yu somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn't care about it. He just briefly explained his relationship with Zhou Yu, the process of acquaintance, the circumstances of Zhou Yu's disappearance, and the subsequent search process. To err on the side of caution, he didn't mention anything about the "dead end game."
As he narrated, the woman folded her hands on her chest and lowered her head to listen without saying a word. After he finished speaking, the woman turned around, took down the boiling hot water bottle from the electric heating rack, poured a cup of boiling water and handed it to Zhou Yu.
"……Thanks."
The wall of the cup is very thick, so I can hold it for now. Zhou Yu looked down at the cup and found some green mugwort leaves rolling inside.
"So, since there has been no news for half a year, what are you going to do next?"
After putting down the hot water bottle, the woman sat down in front of Zhou Yu and asked calmly as if it had nothing to do with her: "She didn't come to me after she disappeared. Why did you come to me?"
"You should know something, right?"
"Why do you think so? I'm not a fortune teller."
That indifferent attitude once again angered Zhou Yu. He put down the water glass and raised his voice and said, "Doesn't this matter have anything to do with you? You ran away when she was only three years old, right? Would you rather live in a place like this than see their father and daughter? Now? Zhou Yu also disappeared suddenly for no reason. Doesn’t this have anything to do with you?”
Faced with his question, the woman was stunned for a moment, and then she started laughing wildly while holding her belly.
"I understand, I understand, hahahahahaha... So that's what you think? I instigated my daughter to run away from home? Hahahahahahahaha... Sorry, sorry, cough, young man, this is not your fault, it's just It sounds so funny...
"But, haha, I'm sorry, Zhou Yu and I are in two different situations. If she left suddenly after she married you, especially after having children, then I would probably know the reason... But now she doesn't even have a partner. No? Then there must be another reason."
When the woman said this, she finally stopped laughing, wiped away her tears and said, "Maybe she is suddenly tired of city life and is going to find a village to farm?"
Zhou Yu looked at her with a dead expression.
"Ah, don't be angry, don't be angry... I'm just kidding. She is my daughter, and her temperament should be very similar to mine! She is full of unrealistic and arrogant ideas, and she doesn't think about reality or the future at all. How can she give in? However, young man, I suggest you stop looking for her. After all, I am her mother, and we will have some special feelings for each other, so I can be sure of one thing."
The woman was still smiling and kept wiping her eyes.
"No matter what happened to that girl, she is definitely dead now."
