When Kassel College was on the verge of collapse in a sudden earthquake, ten time zones away in Beijing, China, the Seismological Bureau issued a magnitude 1 earthquake notice. Not many people took it seriously, and only a few people thought of it.
I started to worry about whether there was any connection between the two, which was hit by a major earthquake in a coastal city hundreds of kilometers away from Beijing.
The lights of the subway went dark, and during the brief exclamation, the carriage shook slightly. Chen Wenwen gently opened her eyes, and grasped a string of shell necklaces in her palms.
The screen of the pink mobile phone is still bright in the dark. In the crowded carriage, passengers holding the armrests are pushing each other. White-collar workers in suits carefully hold their Starbucks coffee. Young male and female lovers cling to each other and talk to themselves.
Love words, the aunt who came home from grocery shopping groaned because she was squeezed, but still guarded her wallet and plastic bag vigilantly, which contained discounted carrots just bought from the vegetable market.
The noise spread from the front of the train to the end of the train. The dull air in the carriage was like a boiling pot of water with an airtight lid. Occasionally, light came through the cracks, which were advertisements flashing and extinguishing outside the car window.
The sign illuminated everyone's face in the power-off carriage.
I don't know if it was an illusion, but Chen Wenwen, who was sitting in a daze on her seat, saw that the faces under the white light were all pale, without any expression, looking silently ahead. Even her own cheeks were so pale and without blood.
, the cold light of the tunnel touches the cheeks in twos and twos, like white-washed peonies hanging on the window. Only from the dim outline of the black lines and corners can we find some of our past self among the strangers.
The rumble of the subway made her afraid to continue looking, and she involuntarily grasped the necklace on her left wrist.
Amidst the unstable hum of the electric current, there was a crisp sound of an electric arc exploding in the air. The white, ever-bright light returned from one end to the other. The entire carriage returned to brightness, just like the lid of a pot was lifted, and everyone's
Their faces were all illuminated, and they had different reactions, including surprise, uncertainty, dullness, and fear. Everyone was looking at each other, like small animals in the forest looking for their way home.
The subway was rumbling forward, and an announcement was made on the radio at the right time. It was just a small voltage instability, and the subway was running smoothly. Now everyone let out a sigh and swiped their mobile phones in a daze.
’s continued daze.
Chen Wenwen looked at the hustle and bustle in the bright carriage and was stunned for a long time. Then she shuddered slightly and came back to her senses. She lowered her head and returned her eyes to the mobile phone she was holding on her dress. On the screen was
Several messages in the text box were all sent by parents. The contents were probably the same as greetings and greetings, such as "It will be fine", "Read with peace of mind", "It's all over" appeared very frequently, seemingly normal words.
There was an unusually high level of worry in it.
She clicked through all the text messages and read them once, then checked the "Read and Save" box without replying. When she reached the last text message, her fingers paused.
That text message was sent three days ago, and the sender was a string of unknown local numbers that were not included in the phone book.
"...Wenwen, judging from the content of the last conversation, I still sincerely suggest that you come to my office and have a good chat. It won't take up too long of your time, half an hour at most, but I believe that this half hour
It will be of great significance to you and those who care about you. I will not charge the time for this conversation, and you don’t need to worry about subsequent fees. I have seen too many girls like you.
In the end, the road we walked out was not all that satisfactory. I want to help you, and I hope you will give me a chance to help you."
She didn't know how many times she had read this text message silently. She could feel the concern that didn't seem fake with her eyes and lips. She gently slid her pink thumb on the screen and accidentally touched the blinking cursor in the reply column to pop up the input method interface.
, and then immediately closed and exited the SMS box interface.
The subway announcement reminded her that the next stop was Yuanmingyuan Station, which was still six stops away from her destination, so she was not in a hurry to get off the train. She could use this time to rest more. The courses at the university have been quite stressful recently.
Her insomnia has worsened, and for other more important reasons, her energy is too limited during the day. She wants to take a nap all the time in her free time, but never dares to actually fall asleep.
Turning off the phone screen, Chen Wenwen leaned on the back of the subway seat and closed her eyes. She did not wear anti-noise headphones or listen to comfortable music, because compared to the quiet atmosphere, the rumble of the subway passing by the track would make her sleepy.
She felt relieved. The whispers of the crowd were suppressed by the roar of the railway track, which made her feel relaxed.
Yes... just like those words in the text messages that were so repetitive that they made her feel a little tired.
Everything has passed, just like a train moving to the next platform, everything has passed.
Her hearing followed the ups and downs of the noisy subway in the darkness with her eyes closed, and her mind kept getting heavier and heavier. The voices of people around her and the sounds of people rubbing against each other inexplicably made her feel like she was standing on a crowded crossroads.
mouth, which made her breathing speed up slightly.
It's such an annoying illusion. She obviously hates crowded places now, but those tiny, suppressed voices gave her a weird illusion. It was like a turbulent flow of people rushing past her like a wave.
But she stood motionless, looking up at the gray sky blankly.
The slight tinnitus caused by the rumbling subway, and all the chaos in the high pitch of the tinnitus were synchronized to one of the staffs, and they were traced upwards away from the music and onto the white paper that no one cares about.
Following the ringing in her ears, her mind felt a little empty. She enjoyed the noisy silence and didn't let herself think too much about the usual messy things. She just drifted along the crowded flow of people at the intersection, until even she herself
Don't even realize where they are.
This made her more and more conscious, and the world in front of her gradually dimmed, with no light reaching the crowd.
A voice suddenly sounded in the darkness, the sound of footsteps, neat footsteps, sounded around her, like a team marching forward.
Chen Wenwen, who was dozing, shivered for no reason, and a cold feeling surged from her spine to the back of her head. Wasn't she on the subway? How could there be a team moving forward?
She opened her eyes and saw a pale face. Looking elsewhere, pale and unfamiliar faces formed a sea around her. Those faces were so unfamiliar, so cold and expressionless. .
She was not in the subway station, but actually standing in the center of a black intersection. The pale people around her formed a black crowd, walking forward silently.
She wanted to take a step back. She was in the center of the crowd and wanted to leave the crowd, but then someone suddenly pushed her behind her and asked her to follow the team.
She started to panic and yelled, but no one responded to her. The silent people behind her were dissatisfied with her struggle and stretched out their hands to push her back roughly. Someone even held her shoulders and urged her to move forward. Walk.
The crossroads under her feet gradually spiraled higher, and she seemed to be swept away by a silent black wave. The buildings around her collapsed, the sky was dark, and golden fireflies hung in the sky, like eyes critically watching the progress. Crowds.
This wave of people can only keep going up, up, up in a solemn and frightening piety, but they don't know where the upward end is.
It was a long and suffocating pain, her consciousness was tightly locked in a cage, the high pressure tore her spirit, and the ubiquitous black tide crowded around her, penetrating into her body pervasively.
She gradually lost herself in the crowd. She squatted down and stopped walking forward, so countless fists attached to her body pushed her forward. The white dress and fair skin were as distinct as the black crowd. Lamb on the altar.
There was a voice in her ear that kept singing slowly and softly, telling her to keep up and not fall behind. The noble moment was about to come.
She didn't know where the end of this terrifying and depressing journey was. She only knew that fear and helpless emotions were crawling inch by inch in her skin and blood vessels as if they had entities. The more afraid she became, the more they The faster she climbed, licking every inch of her skin with joy, it was about to form a thick cocoon on her body, hiding her somewhere where no one could find her, secretly Buried in the ground.
Scream, shout.
But there was no response. Stubborn resistance only slowed down the progress of fear taking over the whole body.
The voice told her to go to sleep and have a dream, a dream that she would never wake up from. The crowd was getting higher and higher, and the spiral staircase was getting closer and closer to the top.
Until a certain moment, in the darkness, she heard a sound, the sound of a door opening.
Someone pushed open a door in the darkness, and a beam of light came in from behind the door. There was a person standing in front of the light.
The person standing behind the door might not be as heroic as she imagined, but instead looked a little stooped. Because of the light behind her, she couldn't see the person's face, but she could hear his voice.
But he was indeed calling her name.
He walked towards him and stretched out his hand to her blankly, and he also stretched out his hand to hold it. Her hand tried hard to straighten in the crowd, her fingers trembled slightly unnaturally, but just a little.
It's just a short distance away.
She suddenly realized that she had repeated this scene countless times, reaching out countless times and missing it countless times. So they passed each other, and the man looked at her confusedly, as if asking her why he didn't catch her.
his hand.
The man looked at me with such complicated and regretful eyes that he turned around and ran down without looking back, just like he did before.
Of course, she also recognized the man's back and called out his name urgently.
road--
"...Um, this classmate, are you okay?"
Someone asked with concern in Chen Wenwen's ear. Even if her voice was very low, it would undoubtedly be like a thunderclap to the latter.
The harsh sound of entering the station was like white thunder and lightning tearing a hole in the black spiral world. Chen Wenwen sat up suddenly on the subway, as if she had emerged from the radiant hole, and the drowning person jumped out of the water violently.
, exposed to the sun, everything in front of us began to become brighter.
The swinging ring, the crowded carriage, and the sweet station announcement on the radio. This is still the same subway station. Chen Wenwen, who is still in shock, is sitting on her seat, surrounded by dozing office workers. The stop light on the door not far away starts.
Flashing, the National Library site stopped immediately.
In front of her, two young men and women stood side by side with a hanging ring, tall and beautiful. Among them, the beautiful girl carrying a black schoolbag tightened her schoolbag straps and looked hesitantly at the sweaty and shocked man in the seat in front of her.
Girl, "This classmate, do you need any help? There are so many bloodshot eyes in your eyes."
Nightmare?
Nightmare.
It's that nightmare again.
She was sitting on a metal bench in the subway and thinking, looking so haggard and lost.