Illusion profonde - Chapitre 11
This matter is very complicated to analyze.
1. This dream is just a dream; such an interpretation is completely far-fetched.
2. The old lady had once heard a story since she was a child—a man, on his deathbed, said he had a dream in which a group of beggars were trying to drive him into a dark room… So, when the old lady felt she was about to die, this dream from deep within her memory resurfaced…
3. Gui Qing is embellishing the story. The old lady did have a dream before she died, and only Gui Qing heard her recount it. However, that dream was only a rough draft, and Gui Qing unknowingly added embellishments. You're telling someone a rather mystical experience; after telling it many times, it's bound to deviate from the truth, with some exaggeration added. You could reflect on that.
4. Gui Qing was dreaming at the time. She was so tired that she didn't even know if it was a dream or reality.
5. When the old lady was dying, a tremendous force pushed her into a narrow, dark, and damp place; she must have had related dreams.
6. When Yu Ergui arrived, the coffin was lifted because there was just one less person to help.
I told Gui Qing the truth.
Gui Qing said something to me then that I still remember vividly. She said, "Xiao Zhou, this dream fits perfectly, why do you insist on finding so many far-fetched explanations to replace it?"
When it came to the funeral arrangements, I was just like the old lady's godson, busy with all the arrangements.
The old man watched all of this with cold eyes, without shedding a single tear.
After the old lady was buried, the house suddenly became quiet.
Only Huang Along and I were left.
It was afternoon.
He suddenly took out the pair of silver bracelets again and said to me, "Xiao Zhou, help me sell these silver bracelets, and then help me buy 100 painkillers, okay?"
I took the pair of silver bracelets and felt how heavy they were.
A sense of sorrow welled up in my heart.
I said, "Okay."
The old man took his medication like it was food, swallowing two to three times the usual dose of painkillers each time. He had developed severe drug resistance.
I bought the medicine for him, and he ate a handful of it as eagerly as a drug addict.
That night, some strange things happened.
First, the old man had just lain down when he suddenly shouted loudly.
I scrambled to my feet and asked him in a panic, "Grandpa, what's wrong?"
"My stomach hurts so much!..."
I quickly helped him up and ran to the outer room to pour him a cup of hot water. After drinking it, he still called out "Dad" and "Mom".
I immediately realized that he had eaten some spoiled food.
But I cooked dinner—corn porridge and garlic eggplant—and I ate it all. My stomach didn't hurt.
I didn't know what to do, so I ran to the west end of the village and found the village's traditional healer, Xian Changjiang.
Xian Changjiang arrived, took his pulse, but couldn't figure out anything.
At this point, he seemed to be feeling a little better.
After Xian Changjiang left, he and I lay down again.
He stopped calling out.
The moon was dim that day, and it was windy outside.
He seemed to have fallen asleep.
Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly heard dogs barking wildly outside. There were many dogs barking, as if a procession had entered the village.
As I listened, I felt more and more that something was wrong.
I got up and looked out the window. The village road was dark and deserted.
What does the dog bark?
After quite some time, the barking gradually subsided.
Just as the dogs quieted down, Huang Along suddenly sat up.
He usually has difficulty getting up, but this time he had a sudden burst of energy, like a fully charged machine.
I saw that he was holding a pair of scissors in his hand, and the scissors were pointing directly at me.
Fortunately, I was far away from him. I was lying at the end of the kang (a heated brick bed), the place where the old lady slept before she died.
"What are you doing back here!" he asked sharply.
"Grandpa, it's me..."
"Get out of here right now!"
I remembered that he couldn't hear me, so I shouted, "Grandpa, it's me, Xiao Zhou!"
He still couldn't hear me, his eyes fixed on me. It was as if someone were truly attached to me, or rather, to me.
He said breathlessly, "I've died several times on the battlefield, I'm not afraid of you!"
Love, please don't bloom (4)
I stopped talking and waited to see what he was up to.
Finally, he fumbled for the newly bought bottle of painkillers, grabbed it, and hurled it at me, screaming hysterically, "Here you go! You shrew!"
The medicine bottle smashed against the wall, fell to the ground, and shattered. The pills must have been scattered all over the floor.
The old man finally calmed down a bit and turned his eyes away, but his tone was still indignant: "Whether you live or die is none of my business! Go find Xian San!"
I don't know who Xian San is that he's talking about.
Is it Xian Changjiang, that untrained doctor from the village?
Later, he lay down listlessly.
I suspected he was talking in his sleep. But I didn't dare to sleep and quietly observed him.
His face was turned toward me, and he seemed to have closed his eyes and fallen asleep, but he didn't wheeze.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide and roared, "Go find Xian San!"
In the months following the old lady's death, the old man would often sit up suddenly in the middle of the night and utter strange words as if in a nightmare.
After a while, I stopped being afraid.
I have been sleeping in the same place where the old lady slept before she passed away.
At night, I often heard the old man's breathing becoming more and more labored, as if he was about to die, and I was terrified. I had never experienced a living person dying next to me before.
If there were even one other person in this dark, gloomy house, it would be better. But right now, it's just him and me.
My heart was in my throat; countless times I wanted to get up, run out, and find...
doctor……
However, Huang Along saw the sun rise the next day many times.
After a while, I wasn't so afraid anymore.
That night, he was much calmer, and his breathing seemed to become much easier.
I felt at peace, and soon I became confused.
It was an exceptionally dark night.
In the middle of the night, the old man suddenly turned over and said, "Little Zhou..."
I suddenly snapped awake. The dogs outside started barking in panic again, a chorus of barks filling the air.
“I had a dream…” he said.
He was deaf, so I could only listen quietly.
"I dreamt that a group of beggars were chasing me and intercepting me from all sides, trying to drive me into a dark room..."
I was terrified!
Is he going to die tonight?
He was deaf; he couldn't hear the words the old woman had spoken before she died. Yet, the words he was saying now were exactly the same as what the old woman had said before she died!
He added, "I saw that deadbeat among that group of beggars; she was chasing me too..."
I know that the "dead ghost" he was referring to was the old lady.
The room felt eerily dark. I dared not sleep, listening anxiously to Huang Along's movements.
The sky gradually brightened.
I finally saw Huang Along slowly sit up. A weight lifted from my heart, and I fell asleep in the blink of an eye.
That day, I got up very late. I made some breakfast, and my husband and I ate some before I went to work.
The old man died around 10 a.m. that day. A neighbor found him. He lay on the kang (a heated brick bed) as thin as a chick, looking very pitiful.
The body was cremated that same day. He and Xiangmi were supposed to be buried together. All that was needed was to open Xiangmi's coffin and put his ashes inside.
However, Guiqing said something that stunned everyone. She said, "The old lady only left one last wish before she died: that she not be buried with the old man."
The village chief thought for a moment and said, "Respect the deceased's wishes." Then he waved his hand and said to several strong laborers, "Go to Heilong Town and buy a coffin!"
The old man said he dreamed that the old woman was chasing him and driving him into a dark house... I still don't believe she will appear today to carry the old man's coffin.
As the coffin was being carried, I kept a close eye on how things were going, wondering what strange things might happen.
This time, it took seven men to lift the coffin.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
That was a coffin carried by eight people.
Suddenly, my eyes fell on that empty seat, and my heart skipped a beat…
Terrifying Parrot
It turned out that the staff found a parrot in one of his bags, and according to regulations, small animals are not allowed on airplanes. I heard him say, "I'm a magician, here to perform in Beijing, and tonight I'm flying to Guangzhou for another show..." My heart skipped a beat, and I suddenly had a strange feeling—he wasn't a magician at all.
The Terrifying Parrot (1)
fare