The whole world fell into silence, as if the only thing left was the ticking of water drops, every three seconds, with an even rhythm.
Ta-ta...ta-ta...ta-ta...ta-ta...
The sound of water droplets sped up significantly, as if a dreamer suddenly encountered a nightmare, and his breathing accelerated instantly.
Ta-ta-ta...ta-ta-ta...ta-ta-ta...
The sound of water droplets became more and more rapid, like shooting, changing from burst firing to sweeping fire.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta...
For a moment, the sound of countless water drops became extremely dense, like beans being scattered high in the sky.
There is no high altitude and no spreading beans.
The space was dark and claustrophobic, and the suffocating sound of water dripping came from nowhere.
The whooshing cold wind blew across the place, causing the water curtain to lose its direction and rupturing the liver and intestines of the living.
Suddenly, a pale hand poked out from the mud.
A hand filled with the desire to live.
He was struggling to pull at the muddy soil, just like a drowning man trying to pull out a glimmer of life.
call!
A woman covered in mud straightened up where the hand was pulling her.
Her long hair covers her face and her face cannot be seen clearly.
The hair, which looked like it had not been trimmed for many years, was already tangled and hung down to the chest in a messy manner, dripping with mud.
The situation is indescribably weird.
Whoop whoosh!
Like a bellows blowing, the woman gasped loudly.
The right hand that was pulling before actually kept the pulling posture, kept getting closer, kept getting closer...
This hand actually touched Jiang Yue's face directly.
"Yue'er, it's so cold..."
Jiang Yue suddenly realized that his whole body bounced up like a spring. Due to the big movement, the wicker chair under his butt was knocked to the ground by him, and then hit the coffee table next to him, making a mess.
There are several bright windows inside the house, and blue bricks and green tiles outside.
Where is the rain and mud? Where is the woman covered in mud?
Jiang Yue rubbed his temples with both hands and shook his head rapidly, trying his best to get rid of the nightmare scene just now.
It’s this dream again…
It has only been four days since April, and this dream has appeared for the seventh time.
Whether I'm taking a nap or in deep sleep, this dream always comes unexpectedly.
Come without a trace, go without a trace.
Is it just a dream?
Jiang Yue rubbed his cheeks hard. The cold touch of that pale hand on his face was moist and sticky, as if it had actually happened.
especially……
The moment the touch occurred, the woman's disheveled, helpless look, as if taking a photo, was deeply fixed in Jiang Yue's mind and was clearly preserved.
Snapped!
When Jiang Yue was in a daze, something suddenly fell to the ground behind him.
Looking back, I saw that an old photo frame placed on the red rosewood incense table in the middle of the hall fell to the ground inexplicably without any external intervention.
The glass in front of the photo frame was shattered, but fortunately the photo inside was unharmed.
This is a 20-inch family portrait. It is slightly yellowed and looks old.
In the photo, a family of four is overflowing with happiness. Jiang Yue is also in the photo, holding an apple in his pink hands, and he is just a young lady of seven or eight years old.
Jiang Yue observed the scene carefully, his mind filled with doubts.
The incense table is about 40 centimeters wide and is placed in the center against the main wall of the main room. The photo frame is always placed against the wall on the right side of the incense table.
The first thing Jiang Yue did when he returned to his old house in Panshiling from the city on the first day was to do a general cleaning inside and out. He wiped and wiped everything clean inside and outside the old house.
Naturally, the photo frame was carefully wiped and he placed it back by himself. Jiang Yue remembered clearly how to place it and where it was placed, and he could completely restore every detail of the time.
Even if the photo frame slips, it should slide on the incense table, rather than jumping over the 40 cm wide incense table and landing directly on the ground.
If you want to achieve the effect of falling on the scene, unless the photo frame can do somersaults.
"Sure enough, when Qingming Festival comes, weird things happen one after another?"
He carefully picked up the family photo from the glass shards, and was about to turn around to find a broom and dustpan to deal with it, when Jiang Yue's eyes suddenly focused on the photo.
Without any warning, goosebumps suddenly appeared all over Jiang Yue's body, large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and even his breathing became rapid.
The image of the woman in the nightmare scene left in Jiang Yue's mind slowly overlapped with the woman in the photo.
"Mom?" Jiang Yue lost his voice.
He bit his lower lip tightly with his teeth, and his body began to tremble unsatisfactorily.
Jiang Yue never expected that the desperate and helpless woman in his dream that had been bothering him these past few days was actually his biological mother who had been missing for ten years!
No!
Comparing carefully, there are still obvious differences.
In the photo, the mother is intellectually capable, serious yet loving. She looks like she is in her early thirties, which is a prime time in a woman's life.
The woman in the dream was disheveled and looked to be in her forties or fifties. Her eyes were frightened and helpless, filled with heartbreaking despair.
but--
Jiang Yue, who has always paid attention to details and has a photographic memory, made repeated comparisons: similar facial features, the height of cheekbones, the proportions of three courts and five eyes...
But it is absolutely certain that it is indeed the same person!
This thing is totally weird.
His mother, who disappeared ten years ago and was in her early thirties, actually entered his dreams repeatedly at the age of forty or fifty, crying to him and begging him for help!
Jiang Yue has always liked to ponder some weird and mysterious things, so he naturally has some knowledge of dream interpretation.
Most people who appear in dreams will only stay in the past.
Especially when deceased people appear in dreams, they are mostly as they were when they were still alive.
Jiang Yue was only eight years old when his mother and his archaeological team disappeared mysteriously ten years ago. The appearance of his mother in this family photo is basically Jiang Yue's final memory of his mother.
Jiang Yue had never seen his mother, who was in his forties or fifties, so there was no way he could form an impression of her, and there was no reason for her to appear in his dreams.
Jiang Yue held the photo and was so lost in thought that he forgot about the broken glass on the ground.
"Second brother, second brother..."
There was a cheerful shout from outside the yard, and a boy with a tiger-like head ran across the yard and half-expanded his head at the door of the main room.
Seeing Jiang Yue in the house, he was suddenly surprised. A bear rushed to Jiang Yue, his face full of joy at seeing his long-lost relatives.
The boy is about eleven or twelve years old, with healthy bronze skin, a pair of black eyes that seem to be able to talk, and a high nose unique to the Jiang family. His whole body exudes the unique wildness of country children.
The child is the only son of Jiang Yue's third uncle's family. His first name is Jiang Tong and his nickname is Sangou.
Sanshu and his wife have been working in developed cities in recent years, and his grandpa is no longer alive. The child Sangou has no one to take care of him in his hometown, so he has been fostered by his sister-in-law in the town.
It was a rare long holiday during the Qingming Festival. The little boy found out early that his cousin Jiang Yue was going back to his hometown in Panshiling to pay homage to the family. In the first few days, he asked his sister-in-law to take him back to Panshiling.
Unfortunately, my sister-in-law opened a small shop in the town. She was very busy during the holidays, so she really didn't have time to take him back to Panshiling, which was dozens of miles away.
Naturally, this is not a problem for Sangou.
On the day of Tomb Sweeping Day, he got up early and walked dozens of miles of mountain road alone back to Panshiling. Once he returned to the village, he didn't even go back to take a look at his family, so he rushed into the old house of Jiang Yue's family.
"Sangou, didn't my sister-in-law say that the store is busy and she doesn't have time to bring you back?"
Perhaps because they are related by blood, although the two brothers are five or six years apart in age and rarely see each other, they have a good relationship.
Every time he went back to his hometown, the three dogs clung to Jiang Yue like gummy candies, wanting to tie them to his second brother's waist.
Jiang Yue also dotes on this little cousin, saying that he is a cousin, and emotionally there is no difference between him and his biological brother.
Faced with his cousin's questions, Sangou scratched his head. He didn't want to confess that he had sneaked back without telling his sister-in-law, so he changed the subject.
"Second brother, who is the woman who went out just now?"
"You're talking nonsense when we just met! I'm alone all the time, how can anyone go out?" Jiang Yue slapped Sangou on the back of the head, just thinking that he was being cunning and avoiding the topic.
Sangou was immediately unhappy: "Why is there no one? He wears a plaid skirt and has long hair. His head and face are dirty, as if he just came back from the fields. I'm still surprised! Who is this stupid person?
Mother-in-law, how can anyone wear a floral skirt and go to the fields?"
Before Jiang Yue slapped him the second time, he raised his arm in the air and paused.
Flowery skirt, long hair, dirty head and face.
The image inexplicably coincided with the dream again.
After Sangou described these characteristics, Jiang Yue got goosebumps all over again.
He grabbed the three dogs and rushed out of the yard.
"Sangou, where did you see that woman going?"
Sangou pointed to the left: "This is the road. When I came here, she just came out of the yard and met her at this place. She went along this road. I even looked back."
Sangou said it seriously, but until the end of the road, there was no sign of anyone.
Jiang Yue checked along this road. Since it had been raining steadily for the past two days, the footprints on the road were easy to identify. The fresh footprints were only left by the three dogs when they came. There were no fresh footprints in the opposite direction.
"Three dogs!" Jiang Yue's face sank.
"Second brother, I didn't lie to you! I swore that if I lied to you, I would call a car and kill him." Sangou was obviously an upright boy, and he swore while holding his neck.
Although Sangou is skinny, he has a sense of proportion. Once it rises to the level of swearing, it is definitely not a joke and is 100% true.
Jiang Yue sighed and looked in the direction Sangou said, in a daze.