The night rain was pouring down. There was an electronic scrap recycling yard that had been operating for many years outside this urban village called "Fu Rong Village". The mountains of garbage were also being covered by the rain.
Raindrops dripped from the rows of old-fashioned TV screens and hit a pile of flip phones underneath. In the pile of mobile phones, there were pieces of damaged green circuit boards that were removed from some electrical appliances.
.
At this time, next to the rusty red container where the caretaker of the recycling yard lived, an old yellow dog that was tied up suddenly became furry and started barking toward the distant night sky.
Not long after, the guard looked out from the door of the container, but saw nothing, and then a drunken curse rang out:
"What are you calling? I've been barking all night. Stop barking. It's nothing."
The sound of rain was falling, a short distance away from the container.
Lei Yue followed the crow in the night rain above from the apartment building to here, walking through the electronic waste piles.
The path through the garbage dump is a shortcut from the village to the city. Many people come and go every day, and he often takes this path.
But at this time, he was the only one on the road, and there was a strange strangeness around him.
Something's wrong...
Lei Yue looked around in confusion, and saw that the waste products everywhere were covered with a thick layer of flesh-film-like slime mold, and the bacterial film was filled with dark red liquid that was swelling and flowing.
And in the dark crevices of the garbage dump, there are still many slightly glowing branches growing out. They are small and twisted, looking like vines and thorns, spreading in all directions.
The wind and rain brought the smell of mold and earth into his nose, stinging his nasal cavity.
This place is not like the usual recycling yard where people come and go, but like a wilderness wasteland that has been untouched for many years.
"What's going on with those fungi? They weren't there when I passed by them this morning. Did I have a new hallucination?"
Lei Yue was surprised and suspicious, so he took out his mobile phone from the pocket of his windbreaker, turned on the camera, turned on the flash, and took pictures of the strange phenomena around him.
This is an effective test method that he has used for many years. If he can take a picture with his mobile phone, it means that it is "real" and others can see it. If he cannot take a picture, it is his own "delusion and hallucination". Only he can
can see.
At this time, he only saw the scene on the phone screen, which was exactly the same as what he saw with his own eyes.
"Others can see it too! It's not an illusion, it's just that this garbage dump has become like this..."
Lei Yue looked to the left and right, feeling a little startled. Suddenly, the crow in the night sky stopped flying forward, but swooped down with black wings spread.
In the splashing rain, there was a click and it fell violently on his left shoulder.
He almost couldn't stand and fell over. Even if he stabilized, he felt a heavy weight on his left shoulder, and the sharp claws of the crow seemed to have penetrated the windbreaker and embedded in his flesh.
This was the first time he had been in such close contact with it, and it came out of the blue.
"Hello, friend..." Lei Yue turned to look at the crow. Its dark feathers were right in front of him, like a huge black mountain.
The crow was silent, its eyes as solemn as the abyss just looking ahead, not even looking at him.
Lei Yue was a little bored, but he was also a little excited that it really seemed to be leading the way. He pretended to be familiar and complained in order to alleviate his confusion: "My way out is a garbage man, but if it is gold bars, that's fine, then you
He knows how to lead the way."
As he spoke, he stepped on the wet dirt road and walked forward.
There were more and more fungi everywhere. After walking for more than ten steps, he stopped suddenly and his pupils shrank just as he could clearly see the hazy scene in front of him.
"what the hell……"
Lei Yue was so frightened by the sight in front of him that he could hardly hold the phone and dropped it. He couldn't help but take a deep breath, but he almost choked and felt nauseous. The air here was extremely turbid.
He suppressed his surprise, steadied his hands and feet, and used his mobile phone to take pictures of the miserable scene in the rain and fog in front of him. It was still exactly the same as what he saw:
The heavy rain washed away the blood that was about to condense on the muddy ground, and it was clear that there was a weird corpse with mangled flesh and blood.
It was a tall, middle-aged man, sitting on the dirt floor, with his back leaning against a stack of old-fashioned TVs stacked several meters high.
The man was wearing an old coat, suit and leather shoes. On his right hand side was a short-barreled shotgun. The clothes and gun were all black and stained with large amounts of blood.
The man's chest and abdomen must have been cut open, and a large pile of internal organs hung out. Red, brown, and black flesh and blood were mixed with liquid, and they were all scattered.
Lei Yue couldn't tell where the heart was and where the kidneys were, but he could see that those organs were bloody and covered with a layer of fungus-like moss-like microorganisms, and the circles of intestines in the abdomen had turned into a shimmering
Twisted vines.
I don't know if those molds and vines grew from the corpse or were inserted from the outside.
But the vividness of light and color seems to be the source of fungi growing everywhere.
The man's head was right in the middle of an old TV screen, and the outline of his middle-aged face was tough and calm, as if it were a close-up of a black-and-white movie.
"It can be photographed with a mobile phone. These bacterial plants are real, and this murder case is also real..."
Lei Yue was stunned for a few seconds, and in a panic, his heart suddenly turned, and his eyes and cell phone camera turned to focus on the crow on his shoulder.
All he saw on the screen of his mobile phone was that his left shoulder was empty, and there was not even a wrinkle on the left shoulder of his windbreaker. It was just like the previous display: this blackbird friend was his delusional hallucination.
Delusion? No, that’s not right…
This crow, Lei Yue thought, was real, but only he could see it.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he became of this.
It brought me here! Otherwise, I would never have come to this garbage dump at night and encountered such a strange thing.
Maybe the crow was never a hallucination. Maybe I was right from the beginning. There was no hallucination at all. It was just that other people couldn't see it. Those doctors were wrong.
However, Lei had no time to feel happy about this, and his heart sank: So what path is the crow taking now?
He looked at the crow on his shoulder and felt that its feathers were darker than ever.
The tension and uneasiness I felt about it before are gradually reappearing. Crows feed on death and carrion...
"Huh." Lei Yue slowly let out a breath of mist, but he didn't want to lose his only friend like this, so he asked in a hoarse voice:
"Who is that? My friend, you have led me the wrong way. Am I responsible for this kind of murder?"
He was speaking to the silent crow while sorting out some of the increasingly strong doubts in his mind:
"Do I want to be a concerned citizen? Well, should I call the police now? It's raining so hard. Maybe after a while, there won't be any clues left at the murder scene..."
The body was not swollen, and there was still blood flowing vaguely, which indicated that the time of death may not have exceeded half an hour, so why were there so many mold vines?
Was the body dumped here by the murderer? Did the murderer just walk away and come back to deal with it?
Lei Yue held his cell phone, becoming more and more confused. His eyes were still piercing the rain curtain, scanning the horrific murder scene in front of him.
"It's better to call the police first." He added, "The police shouldn't be so confused as to regard me as a suspect. Not long ago, I was in the hospital taking care of my grandmother's funeral, but how can I explain that I came here on a rainy night? My friend
Did you bring me here?"
He hesitated to speak and shook his head. He would probably leave the police station and be sent to a mental hospital for examination...
Suddenly, the crow on the left shoulder soared into the sky again, breaking the wind and flying over the man's corpse. A black flag seemed to be flying above the corpse.
"What?" Lei Yue was stunned, thinking about his complaint about coming here to pick up trash, "Is there anything?"
He then had a weird guess, "Friend, do you want me to go up and search the body?"
The black bird did not chirp, but just flew above the carcass, seemingly observing before pouncing on the carrion.
"Search the body?" Lei Yue murmured to himself, but could not take this step easily. The safest way to call the police now...
However, there is trust between friends.
He couldn't help but grimace when he thought about the true attitude of those he regarded as friends towards him.
The crow is not an illusion, so I should cherish this friend even more.
"Listen to you." After the chaotic thoughts settled down, Lei Yue tried to be brave and sang softly to the crow in front of him: "Friends will walk together for life, even if they go to jail."
But this self-deprecation could not relieve much pressure, and he was still a little nervous.
However, he did not forget not to leave fingerprints. Lei Yue looked around, found a pair of old plastic gloves among the scraps nearby and put them on his hands.
Then, he walked a little bit towards the garbage pile ahead and approached the strange corpse.
He paid great attention to his steps. While avoiding bacteria, blood, and fragments of human tissue, he tried to take a path that left no footprints. Even if he had to leave footprints, he tried to hide them as much as possible, as they would soon be washed away by heavy rain.
This was not only to hide himself, but also because he did not want to damage the murder scene. He did not want his exploration to affect the subsequent police investigation of the case.
"Comparing your feelings... If there is a victim in this murder, the victim and his family need justice; such a dangerous murderer must be caught quickly..."
Lei Yue thought this, and at the same time, the closer he got to the corpse, the more pressure he felt in his heart.
When he walked and stood next to the corpse, the rotten stench of mold and flesh and blood hit his face, causing him to feel a physical palpitation that was almost fainting.
"Um..." Lei Yue choked and staggered slightly. There was a muffled click and he kicked something hard under his foot, and he was suddenly shocked.
He struggled to regain his footing and looked down, only to see the short-barreled shotgun on the muddy ground next to the body.
The short-barreled shotgun is all black, with a cylindrical magazine, no butt, and only a small pistol-type grip. The total length is about less than 70cm, and the barrel takes up more than half, which makes it both dexterous and ferocious.
What style is this? Lei Yue didn't know. What made him unable to take his eyes away was a logo engraved in the middle of the grip guard.
It was a logo with three concentric inverted triangles stacked one above another, with a color like a blood seal.
He looked at the danger warning flashing sign of a car, and the sign in front of him also seemed like a danger warning.
"This gun... is quite beautiful."
For some reason, Lei Yue's heart beat a little faster, bang, bang, bang. He wanted to take a deep breath to adjust his breath, but the air around him was really choking, so he had better act quickly.
"Uncle, excuse me, please don't blame me."
He said something serious to the corpse, then slowly bent down and searched the corpse's coat pocket.
Now that we were closer, we could see more clearly the man's handsome middle-aged face, as well as his dull eyes...
The strange lines on the vine-like intestines and the liquid-filled slime mold on the skin are also clearly visible.
"..." Lei Yue held his breath, suppressed his horror, tried his best to keep his hands steady, and searched through the pockets of the corpse's clothes one by one.
No cell phones, ID documents, etc. were found, almost nothing.
In the end, I only found a small black-covered notepad in an inner pocket of my coat.
"You just want me to find this book?"
Lei Yue's voice was a little hoarse due to the turbid air, and he asked the crow flying above.
The crow didn't respond, so he had to bend over to block the rain, and gently opened the small book to take a look. He saw a line of message and signature written in pen on the title page:
[This is a gift and a curse. - Shotgun Man]
He looked at this sentence and read it several times, feeling moved in his heart, but he did not understand the full meaning of this sentence.
"Shotgun Man? Is that this man's nickname?"
Lei Yue glanced at the dead face of the corpse and the shotgun on the ground. It must be...
He continued to look through the notepad, and the violent black rain fell from the night sky, soaking the pages filled with messy words.
Thank you for your support. I have signed a contract today. I am very happy to see many old friends and new friends~~~