There was a time when Jania doubted the details of all the horror stories. Suspiciousness has to do with particularities, such as the extreme stench of human remains and grease that is different from that of other animals, or the ability to make a bold person faint with fear. No, she believed that some people would go crazy with fear when they saw a corpse, but it wasn't the corpse that did it, but the danger it suggested.
A corpse that does not suggest danger or pain is not frightening. For example, the corpse at the farewell ceremony, or the corpse that was carefully processed and placed in a specimen bottle. Jania had attended her grandfather's funeral, and the face sleeping among the lilies and daisies did not look at all scary. Her grandfather's appearance had been carefully curated, although he still looked very different from his original appearance, like a plaster dummy made in her grandfather's likeness.
Jania had never actually seen the body of someone who had died violently. She had only seen it in a photo album that Malcolm had hidden. It is cleverly attached to the back of a drawer in the far corner of the studio, and blocked with a thin layer of wood of the same color as the drawer. Perhaps all this was done to prevent Zhannia from discovering it, but Zhannia knew it long before she was in high school. She secretly investigated the only signature on the album and even found a photo of him and Malcolm when they were young. Luca Baker was a war correspondent before his disappearance. There is not much information about him that can be found on the Internet. It seems that this man disappeared four years ago.
In the photo album Baker left for Malcolm, Jania saw war, refugees, and human remains. The wounds caused by the war are not at all what objective words describe. There are no small round bullet holes or blood stains across the chest, but pure cruelty without mercy, which is the source of people's imagination of purgatory. The horror is not telling you that the person in the photo is dead, but telling you that people can be killed in this way. If your kind can do it, so can you.
Baker's last letter to Malcolm was hidden in the interlayer of the album cover, smelling of gunpowder and rust. The contents of the letter were ominous and strange, and it seemed that Baker was in a dangerous and hasty situation. He tells Malcolm not to come to him, never to come to him, and that if a stranger comes to him, to pay attention to how they look in bright light, because "they will melt."
Seeing the purgatory scenery again and again may have caused serious damage to Luca Baker's spirit, and even gave rise to the illusion of being haunted by evil spirits. But if there are indeed things beyond common sense in this world, Baker may have really seen something other than hallucinations. Jania had tried to make subtle innuendos about Malcolm, but her father had said nothing about it, and no suspicious visitor had visited their home in years. Luca Baker's words only appeared accidentally during the chaotic moments when Jania was awakened by nightmares - they would melt.
Will melt. Like snow meeting boiling water. It's like the human body encountering iron juice. Luca Beck's diction is subtly evocative. If he had encountered the vampires people often talk about in popular stories, he would have used words like "burn" and "purify", but "melt" reminds people of cold things.
"Are you feeling cold?" Akurabin said, "I see you are shivering."
Jania's thoughts had gone very far at that moment, leaving her soaked flesh and blood body alone on the sea, and ran back to the woods next to Regenberg like thunder and lightning. Luca Baker, whom she had never met, read the posthumous letter in her ear. They will melt. "they". In those places that have never been ruled by the human order of life, in those places that cannot be captured by eyes and lenses, is grotesque the normal state of the world? She felt as if she was torn apart, living in two places at the same time, leading two completely different lives. She encountered a nightmare shipwreck, but at the same time she was asleep in bed, dreaming of confusing and turbid dreams. She was experiencing a life full of horror, but at the same time she lived an extremely ordinary life. Reality no longer matters, what you see before you is just a tiny illusion floating in the universe.
She thought of her brother. Life is unreal. It is full of tears and disguise. Seeing a dual reality and pretending to be one is a precursor to madness - was that the cause of the trip to Africa? And what solution can be found in the rainforest?
A piece of hot heat covered her forehead, which was Akurabin's right hand. He used his rough and hot palm to explore Zhaniya's forehead, and then waved it in front of her eyes, as if to confirm whether she was frightened by what just happened.
"Are you okay, boss?" he asked, "Can you still hold on? Or do you need to take a short nap first? I guarantee that nothing will happen while you sleep."
Jania shook her head. She still felt alienated from reality by what she was seeing, but she knew she couldn't rest. Closing her eyes and pretending nothing happened, letting her thoughts escape into the hazy shadows of dreams, was not her way of doing things.
She quietly dug her nails into her thigh. The pain made her understand what kind of life she was living now. Come on, whatever the hell this situation is, start with the first thing at hand.
"I'm fine," she said. It was like a spell that allowed her to regain control of her body. She threw away the toy-like manual inflator, inflated the swimming ring directly with her mouth, and then handed it to Akarahama. Akurabin didn't interfere during this process, he just looked at her.
"Is that enough for him?" Jania asked.
"I think I can't find anything better for the time being. Zhou, what do you say?"
"that's it."
Zhou Wenxing’s voice came from behind Zhaniya’s head. Judging from the position of the sound, he was still in the sea, but Zhaniya did not hear the sound of paddling. Out of an instinct, she didn't dare to look back at the man crawling out of the shark's mouth - could he still be called a human? Did she really see the whole process clearly?
"We have to use this pile of materials given by kind people to find a way." Chirabin said as he threw the swimming ring over Zhaniya's head, "Don't worry, I am very good at building rafts, let me do it People can handle it. But Zhou, the way you played has frightened your head. Are you not going to apologize?"
"She's not scared of me."
"I wasn't scared," Jania said. She finally turned to look at the man left in the sea.
Zhou Wenxing stayed vertically in the sea like the Argo before. Half of his body was hidden under the surge, and it was impossible to tell what was holding him up. However, anyone who knows how to tread water will understand that he is definitely not swimming if he looks at his arms hanging close to his body and his straight posture without any exertion. He was basically standing in the sea, standing in a body of water that was changing all the time. He was like a kelpie, Jania thought, and she wouldn't be too surprised if his skin suddenly turned white and swollen and he lunged at her with sharp nails and teeth.
They stared at each other like this for a few seconds. Zhou Wenxing didn't change much. He even smiled politely at her. If these actions of his were not enough to make a child cry loudly at night, then his right arm pushed him one step closer to the image of a living corpse. The right arm was still roughly in its position, but Zhannia didn't know how to describe the injury. She didn't know what caused it. Shark's gastric juices? Or was Argo doing something horrific? As she stared at the red, blurred arm, the word from Luca Baker's letter came to mind again: melt. Not burns, not corrosion. Not a disease. Melting is really the right word.
"Are you afraid of blood?" Zhou Wenxing said. His questioning voice was calm and did not sound like a knowing threat.
"Not afraid," Jania replied. She lowered her head again to look at the waves that submerged Zhou Wenxing's lower body. She seemed to see that the water was darker than other places, but maybe she was just imagining it.
"Great," Akurabin said, "You two stay there and let me get rid of this pile of materials. Don't worry, this thing is easy to deal with."
For a moment Zhenya thought Akarabama was joking. She did think about making a bamboo raft to escape back to the shore, but that was more of a self-comfort in a desperate situation than a plan. She had never built a raft, and watching Malcolm at work taught her that many craft jobs were not as easy as they seemed. It might take her a day or two to build a bamboo raft on the shore, not to mention that she didn't even have a machete or a rope. Jania wouldn't be surprised if what they dug fell apart as soon as it hit the water.
However, Akira Bin seemed confident about this job. He does work as neatly as a farmer. He gently wiped his rough red palms on the tarpaulin, and like magic, pulled out a piece of bamboo. The bamboo was as thick as Zhaniya's arm, and just pulling it out was laborious enough. However, when Akurabin did this, Zhaniya didn't even feel much movement in the pile of bamboo beneath her. Then Akurabin stood up the bamboo and held it in his palm, just like an ant holding a matchstick upright. Jania was astonished by this display of his hand. If the environment hadn't been inappropriate, she would have wanted to applaud this red-skinned weirdo.
"I'm very good at farm work." Akurabin said with a hint of pride, then reached under the tarp and tore off a piece of black tape. "I have lived on a farm since I was a child, working with all kinds of people. Doing all kinds of handicrafts. I could have been the best farmer in the area, but my old man thought I was smarter and could do more amazing things. So he sent me to school."
"Do you think working on the farm is more interesting than reading?"
"It's hard to say, end. I must admit that my horizons have been broadened in a way that I didn't get when I stayed on the farm. But sometimes I think it would be better to stay there. The more you see, the better. The less you have, the less trouble you will have. I may be a bit shady when I say this, but I am telling the truth. I am a person who is not afraid of hard work. When I am on the farm, I want to be like Whatever I do, I will do it in the end. But when you start studying, things get troublesome. Have you ever felt like this?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Captain."
"I'm talking about shoulds, end. When you farm, you just have to achieve your goals. You want a new shed, then you build a new shed. But if you want to do something like my dad The situation is very different when it comes to 'big things' like that. Not only do you have to think about how to do it, but you also have to consider whether you should do it. I'm not good at dealing with the second kind of problem, but I think you are quite good at it. "
"How could you know?"
"It's just a feeling, the end. You give the impression that you know what you're going to do at all times. You're very decisive - but if I'm honest, Jennifer, sometimes being too decisive is not always a good thing. You If you never hesitate, you'll miss opportunities for variability. And you'll become very predictable because that's just the way you are. Did I mention I have a niece?"
"No...I don't remember you saying that."
"Then I have a niece. She is older than you, and her mental age may be about the same as yours, because she is a girl who lives in the country, and is not as bold and alert as you. But she has some great qualities - —It’s amazing. If she was given some opportunities to show off, I think she would be able to surprise the world. What a pity! She couldn’t accomplish anything in the end. But I’m not surprised. I actually knew it would be like this. But, what if If you could be in a different situation with her, I think the outcome might be very different. That would be fun."
"What happened to her?"
"She had a terminal illness, and I think she passed away before the onset of the illness - but let's not say that! It's too early to draw conclusions now. Maybe I've been indebted to her in the past, but so am I. I hope that girl will have some good luck. Do I look like a bad uncle? My classmates once said that I don’t look like a conscientious person. What do you think?"
"I don't think so, Captain. You...are an interesting guy. A bit mysterious, but not a bad person. That's what I think now."
"Oh, that's such a touching compliment. I wish it would last longer, end. If you still think so when I die, that's the best thing."
This guy is really clueless when it comes to talking, Jania thought to herself. She didn't understand how Akarabah could jump between different topics, but she didn't particularly dislike it. Chi Labin may be a weirdo, but compared with Zhou Wenxing, she is more willing to chat with him more. This ugly red-skinned man did have a temperament that was familiar to her, a bit casual and easy-going, but at the same time he was also very polite. That's kind of like Malcolm. Jania would not say that Malcolm is the best man in the world, but she is very willing to be friends with a person of Malcolm's character.
She watched Akira Bin twist the old tape into ropes, and then skillfully tied them between two bamboo poles. It's not easy to use old soaked tape as a rope, but Akarahama's hands seem to have magic power. During the time they were chatting, he had tied two bamboo poles together so tightly that Jania couldn't even see how he tied the knot. He then took out a third bamboo pole from under them. If this trend continued, Zhaniya estimated that they might be able to get back to the shore before dawn.
"Don't just look there, stop it." Akurabin urged.
"Sorry, I don't think I can help. I can't learn how to tie a raft."
"Oh, no, you don't need to come. I just want you to say something. I can do hard work, but I can't stand boredom. After all, studying in the city is for I have a bad habit. Do you mind continuing to chat with me? If you don't want to talk to me, then just chat with Zhou. I like to listen to people talking, and I can say anything. My niece is also very enthusiastic in chatting. , if you have sat at the same dining table with her, you will know that the sheep she raises have three different names. Do you have a favorite animal, Tou Tou?"
Jania hesitated and said, "Wolf."
"Really? Why? I thought you'd like cats more."
"They're not as dexterous as cats, but they're strong... and their social structure is interesting."
"What about dogs? Isn't a dog a man's best friend?"
"Yes, of course. I have a dog at home too. His name is Leo, and he's a harrier. He even saved my life. But I thought we were talking about wild animals."
"Do you feel guilty about domestication, Tutou? Of course I believe that you have never abused your dog, and it truly loves you. But maybe deep down, you also know that it was selected to love you. , I have no choice but to love you. In terms of the level of power, it is no different from the chicken and beef that are placed on your table every day. It is just a luckier domesticated one. You will feel that you are not worthy of it. Loyalty? Do you think that's a sin? Is that why you chose to say wolf instead of dog?"
"I haven't thought about it, Captain. It's a very new idea to me, and I'll think about it later. What about you? Are you opposed to domesticating pet dogs? Or are you an animal rights activist?"
"Oh, I guess what I did wasn't enough. I was just asking casually because I happened to be thinking of some sinister plot. But, finally, if you want to talk to someone who loves animals, you might as well look back Look behind yourself.”
Jania looked back. She saw Zhou Wenxing still standing in the waves like a water ghost. Their eyes met, and Jania thought to herself what the hell.
"Isn't it unexpected?" Akurabin said while tying the knot, "Zhou is a vegetarian, and he is also very good at using herbs to heal livestock. If you want to find someone who never harms animals for his own benefit, I will I would recommend him to you without hesitation.”
