Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 943 The Curse of Name (Part )

That was the first time that the black bird that made the childish speech appeared in his dream. Later, I had the blackbird dream several times, but the first time was never vivid in my mind. When he woke up, those sharp "right?" sounds like metal friction seemed to be in his ears. Every word Blackbird said was clearly printed in his mind:

Isn’t it the same thing when you find it in reality?

That morning, although he still set foot on the way to work, he accidentally walked into the bookstore halfway. The city map hanging next to the counter ran straight into his sight as if it had been waiting for him.

The black tower is at No. 206 Dongyun Road, by a lake in the old industrial park. Although it was very dangerous there, he had to go again.

He bought the map and sat by the flower bed in a nearby square to read it.

--go again. This time I just need to go during the day.

It has been several years since he came to this city, and this is the first time he has seen a panoramic map of the entire city. In fact, you can just use the map software directly on your mobile phone, but with such a small screen, it is difficult to fully see the regional layout. In contrast, paper maps are much clearer when unfolded, and there is no need to worry about network and power outages. He was thinking about the various benefits of the paper map. However, more than ten seconds after unfolding the map, his hands began to tremble.

No. Not at all.

It is simply an outdated map. No wonder no one buys it. He had no choice but to take out his mobile phone and search "Dongyun Road" on the software. The answers displayed were all irrelevant shops. He zoomed out, zoomed out, zoomed out, until he could see the shape of the entire city on a palm-sized screen.

The city, which is dominated by the two largest urban areas in the east and west, roughly appears on the map in the shape of a poplar leaf. The rounded tips of the leaves point to the south, and the root without the petiole points to the port near the sea. However, even on such a small map, it is not difficult to see clearly that the city's port is a coastal port built along an open and straight coastline, rather than an estuary port built at the mouth of a river.

Whether it's his subconscious cognition or the images he can recall at the moment, even in dreams that are both illusory and real, those giant cranes drinking water at the beach - aren't they following the path of the river towards the beach? Of?

He picked up the paper map that was spread out enough to cover the desk area and slowly moved his fingers over it, trying to find familiar places in his past life. Auto repair shops, train stations, industrial parks... none of the places that I thought existed for granted can be found on this new, smooth map. The harder he tried to discern, the stranger each road seemed.

There are contradictions everywhere. Surrounded by conflicts but turning a blind eye, allowing them to slip quietly through life. If it weren't for what the black bird said in his dream, he would never have thought of searching for Dongyun Road again - however, the fact is that Dongyun Road does not really exist. Did what happened that night really happen? Is everything just his delusion? Even Xiaocu never existed?

When I recovered from my daze, the prescribed working hours had passed. He put away the map belatedly, thinking of going to the store first. However, the square that I saw looked extremely unfamiliar, as if it was my first time in my life. This is obviously the place you must pass by when you go to work every day, right?

As if his memory had been taken away by the map, he walked out of the square through the nearest exit, but the street he entered was still very unfamiliar. The fork in the road where you could usually make a choice without even thinking about it, now every one of them looks so the same. Even if I think of following the road signs and navigation, I still can’t tell the name of the road I usually take. In the past, I didn’t even need to remember the road names to follow the right path. Every road I passed, I would forget it in the blink of an eye after seeing the name. ; I obviously felt that this store was familiar from the past, but then I thought it was the first time I saw it.

He was completely lost in the maze of streets. And the deeper fear than getting lost is realizing that there is something wrong with your mind. He had heard of this disease: an elderly man in the village seemed to be sane on weekdays, but one day he suddenly couldn't remember his name and address on the road, and ended up living on the street for half a month. It was finally found later.

Do you also suffer from that disease? Although he is still young, it is not completely impossible. Didn't his great uncle suddenly suffer from mental illness when he was in his twenties? It was precisely because he had witnessed how elusive mental patients could be that he did not believe in such things as ghost possession. There is no need for any evil spirits to cause trouble. The human mind is such a fragile and risky organ. Even if you have not yet reached the age of Alzheimer's disease, lesions such as tumors and blood clots are not restricted. Or maybe you are just like your uncle, who is a potential mental patient and will become ill when stimulated. So what should we do? Should I go to the hospital for a checkup? But if a problem is discovered, he won't have money for treatment, which will only increase the mental torture.

While he was wandering around in a daze, he felt a little cold touch on his cheeks. It started to rain again. He has lived here for many years, and now he is too lazy to hide from the rain. He just looks at the intersection and thinks about his own thoughts - if he can never remember anything from now on, he will not even go home or go to work. If it becomes a problem, how can you still make a living? Maybe from now on I will carry notes with me and write down all the road names and directions along the way. If you do this, you can barely cope with it for a while, but if the problem in your brain continues to worsen, one day you may not even be able to read words. At that moment, instead of turning into a loser who giggles in a mud pit and pig pen all day long, it is better to find a remote river and jump into it.

Did Xiaochu have a similar feeling the night he left home? He reached out and touched his face. His cheeks had long been soaked by the rain, but his eyes were still dry, unlike Xiao Chu who always looked like he wanted to cry. What's there to cry about? Rather than being sad, his stronger feeling was that of unwillingness. While his peers could rely on family support to go to school and live a peaceful life, he had to endure hard work and pain. It would be fine if all these efforts could be rewarded, but now he is not even given a chance to work hard!

The city blurred in the rain. The various signboards on the street lost their color in the water vapor, turning them all into a dim and hazy gray. The whole city turned into a charcoal drawing on a sketch paper. After staring at the painting for a long time, he gradually felt that he could see through the dusty layer of rain and mist and follow the lines.

Those contours and lines pulled him forward like gravity. He didn't need to read the words on the road signs or the shop signs along the road. He just felt that the land under his feet was tilting in the direction he was looking at, and he staggered forward like a drunken man walking down the slope. Where are you pulling yourself to? He actually found it a bit funny, thinking to outsiders that he must be crazy, right?

There were indeed passers-by holding umbrellas passing by him, but no one seemed to notice his strange behavior. Everyone continues on their own trajectory indifferently. Isn't this the norm in this city? From birth to death, everything will run according to order. He was also pulled forward, crossing one intersection after another without thinking. During the journey, my clothes were completely soaked. The map in my hand seemed to be made of waterproof coated paper, but in the blink of an eye it was completely damaged by the rain. It collapsed into paper with just a pinch. It was worse than dry paper. The oil painting is still fragile.

The map he spent a lot of money to buy was damaged, but he didn't feel any pity in his heart. Instead, he felt relieved. Even the cold feeling left by the rain on my forehead is calming and comforting. When he recovered from his trance, he realized that he was already standing under the eaves of the rented house.

He turned and looked back at the street. The road, stained gray-black by the rain, was still as usual. Every tree and wall he could see from here looked familiar. How to get from here to the bicycle shop where he usually works, at which intersection he should turn or go straight, and what kind of landmark buildings there are, these are all things he knows very well.

——Now I remember everything again.

When the map in his hand was completely destroyed, the memory of the road in his head came back. He turned on his phone and checked the time. It was less than an hour before he left home.

Although there was a near miss in the end, he still failed to go to work that day. As soon as he got home and changed out of wet clothes, he felt hot all over his body, dizzy, and had a fever in bed. From time to time, there was a corrosive sting from the parts of his body that had been exposed to rain, which prevented him from sleeping soundly. Instead, he no longer had nightmares.

When he woke up the next day, he was in better spirits than the previous few days. Thinking back to the time when I was walking around in the rain, I felt that I must have been too stressed out due to poor sleep. As for the map, upon reflection, it was entirely his own fault. The port near the sea is originally in the north, and there are no important rivers flowing through the city. Thinking of it this way, of course there won't be any estuary port.

What happened when I went to find Xiao Chu that night became extremely unreal after I got caught in the rain and had a fever. It was like trying to recall the details of the dream after waking up. As soon as you wake up, you will forget it quickly, and you only know roughly what it was. Very bizarre content. Looking back now, he couldn't rule out the possibility that he had confused dreams and reality. Did he really see the man and the black tower by the lake that night, and that was why he had the subsequent strange dream? Or was it that he actually fell into a nightmare for some reason from that night on, and mistook it for reality? Condition?

After such a long time, he could no longer be sure of the facts, and since the fever subsided, the urgency to find the Black Tower had also disappeared, and life had returned to a state that was unchanged and that made people unwilling to change. Until two weeks later, he once again dreamed of the black tower by the lake:

It is still a quiet and wide lake covered with patches of lotus leaves, and countless tall black spiers can be seen at the end of the lake. Radiating rays of light burst out from behind the tower, slowly swaying in the sky. The brilliance is still bright and bright, but it no longer has the heat of the past. But in the middle of the lake, which was originally only green leaves and algae, red flower buds were floating here and there.

Do dreams also have changing seasons? Just as he was thinking this, the black bird with the white spotted tail emerged from the lotus leaves in the middle of the lake, walking leisurely on the water.

Different from the changing environment around it, the iconic bright red forehead of an adult bird is still not visible on its head, and its body shape has not changed significantly. It is still a young rail bird that speaks weird childish words.

"It's you again." The girl's thin and arrogant voice still came from the open beak, "Are you going to go over this time?"

Even though this was just a ridiculous dream, Cai Ji still hated this strange bird that spoke human words. The thin, vicious child's voice, the condescending and arrogant attitude, and the evil intentions hidden in the dark eyes. If it is really a character in a fairy tale, it is probably the pet of a certain devil - Swan Lake. Isn't there a black bird?

"How rude!" Blackbird said immediately, "I am the owner of this lake, and I don't know how many people have taught me here!"

Not wanting to pay attention to the words of this strange bird, Cai Ji walked along the lake shore. Because he was in a dream that transcended common sense, he also knew that it was impossible to go around the lake to the black tower on the opposite side. However, he might have a better position, at least where he could see the glow behind the black tower more clearly. Didn't he see a building similar to a trestle that night? Maybe this thing will appear in dreams.

What's annoying is that the blackbird doesn't just leave, but follows him on the lake. The pair of lone slender feet stepped from one lotus leaf to another, and they kept saying:

"Hey, do you want to go find that tower? It's really annoying when you come around my house like this."

"What do you care about?" Cai Ji replied, "I didn't enter your lake."

While he was talking to the black bird, the glow behind the black tower continued to change colors and shapes. The dazzling colors are as before, but the wind in front of us is cold. The fiery breath contained in the glow has indeed disappeared, and his previous questions have been answered: this cold glow is undoubtedly a hint of the approaching night, this is a dusk dream by the cold lake.

Although he didn't know what the glow symbolized, he still felt a vague sense of sadness in his heart. If dreams reflect people's subconscious, then this ray of light that has lost its heat may be the subconscious view of the future. Whether it’s family, work, or even health, how can you still ignite your passion for life?

"puff!"

Blackbird laughed loudly: "You really take yourself seriously!"

If he had the ability to control this dream, he would kill this annoying black bird first. Unfortunately, no matter how much he disliked this strange creature, the black bird still followed him step by step, and even his thoughts were clear, which showed that it was indeed something he had created subconsciously.

Blackbird's laughter stopped. It flapped its wings gently, making Cai Ji think it was about to fly to the shore. But this bird seemed unwilling to leave the lake, and still just jumped among the floating leaves. "Hey," it said, "how do you know this is a dream?"

"Isn't this just a dream?"

"Yes, but how do you know?"

What could be the reason for this? It's just the so-called "lucid dream" - some people can have the ability to think while they are awake in their dreams. Even if all the perceptions in the dream are the same as reality, and the sounds, colors, sounds, and touches are made lifelike, they can still know that they are in the dream. dream. He had not had such an experience before, probably because he had been having nightmares recently and was unable to enter deep sleep.

"Do you really know when you are in a dream?" Blackbird asked slowly, "Since this is a dream, you should know the situation in reality, right?"

"...I know. There are no bullshit birds in reality."

"So, what's the name of the place you live in in reality, that city that's different from here?"

Faced with this extremely simple question, the answer has already been on my lips. He opened his mouth to say the word. There are no harsh words. It is a word that is very easy to remember and has a bit of romance.

"Where I live now is..."

The words were paused due to the blankness of thinking. The blackbird flapped its wings, and a shrill laugh erupted from its slender neck.

"What is it?" It asked deliberately, as if it had known for a long time, "What is it? What is the name of the city you live in now? Can't you remember it? You should know it?"

The name was on his lips. This is where he has lived for a long time. Even in this strange dream, every bit of my past life can be clearly recalled. Only the name of this city, obviously the first thing I come into contact with and the most commonly used thing, is blurred in every memory. This feeling is like memorizing words in primary school. If you see the answer, you will suddenly understand it, but when you are actually asked, it escapes from your mind cunningly.

The black bird, which was becoming more and more disgusting, kept chuckling as if it was a successful prank. "Can't you remember? You can't remember it, can you?"

"I just forgot about it all of a sudden!"

"Really? Then, how many characters does the name of this city have? You should remember it, right?"

"Isn't it just three words..."

wrong. Even if he didn't see Blackbird's sinister expression, he knew that the answer he threw out without thinking was wrong.

"It's two words..."

The strong sense of wrongness was not alleviated by the change of mouth. He paused in confusion, trying to remember the last time he mentioned his place of residence. Putting aside the daily chatter, there are definitely certain occasions when you should write about the city where you live. For example, if you want to send something to your hometown or buy a bus ticket, you have to choose a specific city, right? However, all these scattered memories seem to have been copied into two similar but different copies - how long is the name of the city? Is it two words or three words? The answer must be one of them, but no matter which one you choose, the memory of the opposite will be too strong to ignore.

"Can't you remember?" Blackbird said, "The name of this city is taboo. If you know the name, you will be cursed."

Although it said this, its eyes clearly expected him to know the answer and then be cursed. We can't let this thing succeed - but after all, it is just a part of the dream, why do we have to argue with this kind of thing? If you just walk away and don't go near the lake, you can probably avoid its harassment, right?

I can't remember the name of my place of residence right now, naturally it's because I'm in a dream. Doesn’t it mean that dreamers cannot do complex arithmetic or read text? After all, dreaming is also a time when the brain is resting, and some functions are not activated normally, just like the air conditioner cannot cool the car when it is turned off. When you wake up from this dream, everything will return to normal.

The black bird was very excited and kept giggling.

"What an idiot!" Its wings flapped happily, "When are you going to figure out the situation? You can't find the name anymore. It was stolen and hidden by others! If you want to find the name, you have to find it first. That’s the thief! Find him and kill him! Do you understand? If you don’t kill him, you will never go back!”

Kill him—he gave the instruction in that child-like voice. Even though he had already called all this a "nightmare" in his mind, he still didn't expect to actually hear the words related to murder. Is this also part of my subconscious mind? Because you watch too many violent movies and novels, deep down in your heart, you fantasize about killing someone to seek excitement? Fortunately, it was just a dream. Thinking about exciting things in his dreams does not prove that he is a bad person.

"What a coward!" Blackbird immediately sneered, "Coward! No wonder you didn't know something was stolen!"

"Nothing was stolen from me," he said dryly, "get out of here you pervert."

He gave the nasty black bird a false kick, hoping that he could use the wind from his legs to knock the thing away. It would be better if he could kick it far away to the horizon. Although the attack with this thought was ineffective, the black bird still symbolically jumped back two steps, and the upturned lotus leaves swayed chaotically on the soles of its feet.

"How pitiful!" Blackbird said sarcastically again, "You can't find the Black Tower anymore. If you don't kill the thief, you will never find it!"

Just like a prophecy, under the innocent curse, the glow behind the black tower began to fade at a speed visible to the naked eye. In the blink of an eye, the black sky like an iron curtain has fallen heavily. The cold wind blowing from the darkness is like a knife blowing, mixed with fine white frost, and invades the lungs with breathing. The bone-chilling sting was so real that when he woke up, he found himself curled up with his limbs, breathing in the normal air in the room. In the throes of pain, the question posed by the blackbird still echoed in his mind: What is the name of this city?

He staggered out of bed. There were countless invisible ice thorns in the air, poking holes in the skin that could be touched. What flowed out from the needle holes was not heat and blood, but A chill colder than hoarfrost. (It’s an illusion.) His hands and feet were a dark purple, as if they had been frozen to death. (It must have been an illusion that he had just woken up.) He staggered to the closet and started searching in the bottom drawer. It must be in the rental contract. The name of the city. This is information that cannot be stolen under any circumstances.

Under a large stack of woven bags, he found the rental contract he remembered. There was no mistaking it, it was here that he signed the contract with the landlord. Because there is no intermediary involved, the contract is the simplest and crudest form. In order to save paper costs, the entire text is printed on one page with extremely small font size. He picked up the folded paper from the deepest part of the drawer, eager to read it.

(What's this?)

The content printed on the paper was a "talisman painting" that he didn't recognize at all. Delicate patterns, like some kind of exotic writing, were printed one by one on the white paper with black ink. Each figure was as independent and clear as square characters, but they were definitely not the words he recognized. They were simply like the footprints of various birds on the sand. The only thing on the entire paper that he could understand was his own signature in the lower right corner. (This is a dream.)

He stared at the paper for a long time, then stood up slowly holding it. If you are still awake, ask someone else. So he put on his slippers and walked out, and met his neighbor at the door who was about to go to work. It was a middle-aged woman who often wore handmade sleeves. She seemed to work as a housekeeper, and she was one of the most peaceful and kind-hearted people among all the tenants he knew.

The woman was holding the bicycle in her hand. When she saw him, she smiled as usual and nodded in greeting. That smile made Cai Ji relieved. He stepped forward and hesitantly handed over the paper in his hand: "Can you do me a favor..."

Almost as soon as he opened his mouth, a strange look appeared on the other person's face. At first it was surprise, and then it showed fear. He must have been frightened by how disheveled he looked when he woke up - he thought so, and had to lower his voice and continue to plead: "Can you help me look at this piece of paper..."

The woman didn't even look at the paper. She suddenly took a step back, her face completely twisted and convulsed. The wrinkled skin and the squirming muscles cannot be called expressions, they are just tumbling and tumbling randomly like boiling water. She opened her black mouth, and a sharp metallic whistle came from her body.

　Happy New Year everyone, I sent red envelopes to everyone (referring to the update)

　　

　

(End of this chapter)