nightmare novelist

"We came here a year ago. When we came, there were already dozens of people. Later, hundreds of people came. When this place was the most crowded, there were almost three to four hundred people. I don't remember the exact number. "

The old man took a broken doll from the little girl, took out a little needle and thread from the side drawer, helped the broken glasses on the bridge of his nose, and squinted his eyes to thread the needle and thread.

"I came here at the beginning because they said that a higher place might be able to avoid the gray fog, and most of the people living in the villa area are rich people. After knowing the news that the gray fog is harmful, they took a plane to other cities or even It’s another country.” The old man shook his head, “At that time, the rich people here probably never imagined that one day every corner of this land would be engulfed by the fog. Instead, there is a way to isolate the fog in this villa area. "

"A way to isolate the gray fog?"

"Yeah." The old man couldn't thread the thread into the needle yet, "I'm rather surprised that the three of you had such a calm expression when you came in. There were some people who escaped from the outside before, and they were frightened when they saw that there was no gray fog here. I have died, and I have arrived in the afterlife."

"This world is huge, and there may be more than one place that is isolated from the gray fog." Su Qian Ruo thought, "But we really want to know why this place can isolate the gray fog."

Until now, Su Qian didn't know anything about the "Wish Wishing Machine".

"It's because the first batch of people who came here found a strange device in the villa area, a bit like a stone sculpture with lights on. One of us casually said something next to the sculpture, saying that we hope the gray fog will not enter. In the villa area, the low-quality lights on the sculpture changed from green to red, and we also watched helplessly as the gray fog that had already entered the villa area was abruptly blocked by an invisible wall.”

"That is a sculpture that can make wishes come true." The old man said somewhat mysteriously, "Every time the light on the sculpture turns green, we can make a wish, and we can get food, water, and everything we want .”

"Can any wish come true?" Shen Jiang asked eagerly.

"Your reactions are normal now. You couldn't tell that you were someone who had escaped in the gray fog for so long." The old man squinted his presbyopic eyes, and couldn't see where the needle's eye was.

"Let me help." Seeing that the old man agreed, Xu Qingdai took over the needle and thread, "Although it has been a long time since I have done this, I have practiced it before."

"I'm old and useless." The old man saw that Xu Qingdai finished threading the needle and thread all at once, and shook his head helplessly again, "If I was young, I might have been able to stay inside with Xiao Yu instead of being trapped like everyone else. expelled outside."

Su Qian heard something from the old man's words, but she was not particularly sure, so she was born to ask for confirmation: "That is to say, the people who came here with you, the old man, after discovering the special ability of the statue, some young and powerful people The stronger and more tyrannical survivors monopolized the sculpture, and sent all the old and young children to the outskirts of the villa area?"

"The old, the young, the women, the weak, all of them can only live outside the walls they built." The old man nodded.

"Can that sculpture really grant any wish?" Shen Jiang asked the same question without giving up.

"How is it possible." The old man denied it with certainty, "I heard that they made many wishes, such as wishing that the gray fog would disappear from this world, that the living people would not be affected by the gray fog, etc. None of the wishes came true. Let me say that the biggest use of that statue is to prevent the gray mist from entering the villa area, and to make a wish to it to get food and water."

"Doesn't it cost anything to make a wish?" This is what Xu Qingdai is most concerned about.

"I didn't hear there was a price to pay." The old man glanced in a certain direction, "The group of guys occupying the statue are living a life like a fairy inside, and they can get what they want, maybe they are more comfortable and happy than before the gray fog appeared. "

"But grandpa said there were no chocolates or dolls in it, so Xiao Yu didn't want to go to the other side of the wall." Xiao Yu said childishly there, "and the people there are all bad guys, they took parents away, don't Let Mom and Dad come back to watch Xiao Yu."

"Ahem." The old man coughed a few times, and winked at Su Qian and the others. Obviously, what he said to his granddaughter may not be true.

"Since they use a wall to separate the inside from the outside, how do you know what's going on inside, old man?" Su Qian heard that the old man said a lot about things inside the wall, and the information on both sides seemed not blocked.

"They...behavior is also weird." The old man sighed, "Every once in a while, if they have enough resources around them, they will pick a few people from outside the wall and give them a chance to make a wish. Xiao Yu's parents are too. They went in like this. Those who went in to make a wish never came back, but the family members of those people outside can get a supply and a farewell letter, and they can live better than others.”

"Xiaoyu, let's go out with the doll." The old man handed the repaired doll to his granddaughter, and after sending the child away, he continued to say to Su Qian and the others, "My son and wife said in their farewell letter that there is everything in it." There is no shortage, they can eat and drink well if they stay inside, and they can give us some more when the supplies are distributed every month, as long as they wait, they can wait for the day of family reunion."

"But Xiaoyu and I waited month after month, and this year has passed, and the people around us either entered the wall a long time ago, or died of illness, and unexpectedly... only me and the child Xiaoyu were left .”

"Can we also go inside the wall?" Shen Jiang asked anxiously again.

"..."

For some reason, the old man was silent for a long time this time.

"Every once in a while, the entrance and exit on that wall will open. But..." the old man paused again, "According to the law, that door should have been opened five days ago. Xiaoyu and I have been waiting outside for so long , now it should be Xiao Yu's turn to reunite with her parents, but the door has not been opened."

"Can we go and have a look?" Su Qian got up from the sofa.

"Yes, yes!" The old man nodded immediately, "I don't know if it's because those bastards behind the wall look down on our grandparents and refuse to open the door for us no matter how much they shout. If they know that a newcomer has arrived, they should open the door."

The old man took Su Qian and the others out of the villa, gave Xiao Yu two books to remind her not to forget to read, and then led the trainees to the direction of the wall.

Along the way, Su Qian learned that the old man was a retired old teacher, so even at this time, she hoped that her granddaughter could read more books and know more knowledge, so that she would not be greedy for pleasure when she was on the other side of the wall.

The old man always feels that he has not many days left, and every day's teaching to his granddaughter is like the last exhortation.

Su Qian could also see that the old man had educated his granddaughter very well. Even though he grew up in such an environment, the child was still innocent and lively, and he was very serious when he was sitting on the ponytail outside the villa with a book and read it.

"Is this the wall?" After the trainees came to the place mentioned by the old man, what they saw was a neat brick wall and a very solid iron gate. Shen Jiang couldn't help muttering, "Do you still have professional wall and door workers here?"

Su Qian also went up to touch the brick wall, and felt that the stacking was indeed very professional.

"This should be what they wished for." The old man explained, "because no one saw them building this wall, and it seemed to appear here overnight. And don't look at the wall is not too high. Someone tried to build this wall before. Climb over this wall, but you can't get up."

As if to confirm what the old man said, Shen Jiang immediately rolled up his sleeves and prepared to climb the wall, but just jumped up and then slid down, unable to grasp the seemingly rough wall no matter what, he could only cough dryly in embarrassment.

"We've tried many times, but in the end we had to give up." The old man said, and then raised his voice and shouted to the wall, "Hello, is there anyone?! Is it time for this door to open? Hello! There are three The newcomers came in from the outside, they are all strong adults, can you open the door if you hear it?"

But there was no response from the other side of the door.

Su Qian and the others waited outside the door with the old man for a while, but nothing happened.

"If there is no price for making a wish, there is absolutely no need for the people inside to bring in the people outside in batches. The fewer people who should enjoy things like supplies, the better." Xu Qingdai stood bored and said casually Said, "Could it be that the people inside are really so kind and kind?"

"If you are kind, why do you need this wall?" Su Qian shook her head to express her disapproval.

"Maybe it's because of the restrictions on that statue? For example...Everyone can only make one wish a year? So every time the people inside the wall make a wish within a year, they can only choose new people from outside the wall to enter? Now this door No, is it because there is no shortage of people who wish to make wishes?" Shen Jiang analyzed it quite skillfully, and what he said was also very reasonable.

"That's what we guessed too." The old man's expression was a bit bitter, "But they can't just throw us outside like this! Let me forget about my old bones, Xiao Yu is still a child!"

"Did the survivors who came here have other children besides Xiao Yu?" Su Qian asked suddenly.

The old man thought for a while, then shook his head and said, "There is no one as young as Xiao Yu. The youngest ones except Xiao Yu have all graduated from college."

Su Qian glanced back at the 16 villas, and seemed to be able to see a small figure sitting by the bushes obediently flipping through a book.Was that the only child among all the survivors?

"I'll think of a way again." Shen Jiang tried several times and still wasn't discouraged.

"I just want to go to another place to see, and I don't know what my house looks like now." Su Qian saw Shen Jiang trying there, and didn't bother anymore. Guessing that the world in the fog is a parallel world, He really wanted to go to the Su family in this world and see if he could find some special clues.

"I'll go with you." Xu Qingdai obviously worried about her friend's children.

"Go, there is no one else anyway." The old man said, and added, "But someone should have lived there before, and it might be messed up by people."