The train sleeper carriages have six berths in one unit, and Cyrus and his group of six have exactly occupied one unit. Kai and Fiona, the youngest, were supposed to sleep in the upper bunks, but they were not quiet for a moment and were instead assigned to the lower bunks. Before getting into the car, Fiona bought twenty pounds of grapes at once, knowing she would be in the car for a full thirty-six hours. The grapes were stuffed under the bunk and had gone bad in just one day. Kai and Fiona, frowning, picked out the rotten grapes and threw them out of the car window.
Cyrus, who already knew about Kai's strange illness, smiled and comforted Kai: "Don't worry. When you get to Cold Moon Village, there will be enough grapes for you to eat for a lifetime."
Cyrus was very easy-going and had a smile before he could speak. Kai and Fiona liked his good temper because no matter how much he was teased, he never got angry.
Jett was inexplicably excited and nervous about seeing the town girl forget-your-worries grass in three days, so he spent most of his time lying in the middle bunk, lost in thought.
There were two other people who liked to think about things, Rowan and Luna. When they got into the car, they asked to go to the upper bunk. Cyrus guessed that they didn't want to be disturbed and gave in to their request. They lay down on the upper bunk and could remain silent for most of the day, following behind them during meals and being unusually silent. But their eyes were often fixed on each other, as if they could communicate through eye contact.
That night Kai and Fiona pestered Cyrus Jett to play cards. Jett's cards were so bad that Fiona lost them after a few rounds. Jett chuckled sheepishly, looking embarrassed. Fiona, with her nimble legs, climbed up the escalator and asked Luna if she could play cards, and if she could, came down to give her a hand.
Luna was silent for a moment, then looked at Rowan, who had his eyes wide open opposite her, and shook her head at Fiona: "Sorry, I don't know how to play cards. You guys play."
Fiona shrugged her shoulders and made an indifferent expression. Coming down the escalator, she winked at Cyrus Jett to show her disdain for Luna. It was time to turn off the lights in the sleeper carriages. All the lights went out at once, leaving only a row of floor lights on one side of the aisle giving off a faint glow. The sleeper carriages were crowded with people, and some who had not returned to their berths in time were hurrying along the aisle.
Kai had eaten less grapes and was hungry again. But he grew tired of grapes and refused to eat them until he was starving. If he can't eat, then sleep. At least he won't feel hungry in his dreams. Although Fiona didn't want to go to bed so early, she knew Kai was hungry and had a hard time, so she lay down quietly and didn't disturb him.
It was unknown how much time had passed, and no one noticed when Luna, who was on the upper bunk, had come down and headed towards the toilet at the front of the car, but soon there was a rapid sound of footsteps in the aisle, and then Luna stumbled over, her heavy breathing showing her panic. Cyrus and the others hurriedly sat up and were about to ask what had happened when Rowan, who had been silent on the upper bunk, quickly came down the escalator, moving nimbly as if ready to rush down at any moment.
Rowan had already grabbed Luna and asked in a deep voice, "What's wrong?"
"Someone." Luna looked back in terror. "There's someone over there."
Fiona snorted and interjected, "What's so strange about someone on the train?"
Rowan gave Fiona a fierce glare and ignored her. He pulled Luna aside and asked in a low voice, "Did you see who it was?"
Luna shook her head, but the terror on her face grew stronger: "It's him, it must be him, he's been following us all the time."
Rowan knew, of course, who Luna was referring to.
At some point, both he and Luna felt a pair of eyes behind them, and their every move was under the gaze of those eyes. Rowan had tried many times to catch the man who was watching them in the dark, but the eyes were invisible, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't even find his shadow. The feeling of being peeped at was so unbearable that Rowan had many ideas about it, that person could be his former enemy or someone Luna's parents sent to follow them. Anyway, the man's intentions must have been bad, so Rowan was on guard all the time.
He swore that no one could hurt Luna. Even at the cost of his own life, he will protect Luna from harm.
Rowan pulled Luna down in the direction she came from. He was going to see where Luna had seen the man.
By the toilet, Luna stopped, still with a hint of terror, and said, "Just now I came out of there, and as soon as I opened the door, I felt someone looking at me in the opposite carriage. I looked and really saw a figure staring at me in the darkness, and even felt him smiling at me."
Rowan's face was deep and his eyes were red. He didn't speak, but suddenly pulled Luna into his arms. Luna sobbed, shivering all over.
Rowan gently patted her back of the spine and said softly, "Don't be afraid. With me here, you have nothing to fear."
The car sped through the night of the wasteland. Outside the window was a dead silence of darkness, with only the sound of the wind occasionally piercing through the connection of the carriages. Rowan leaned against the carriage and held Luna in his arms for a long time. Luna had stopped crying and rested her head on Rowan's shoulder, feeling a kind of sheltered warmth.
She really couldn't imagine how she would live on her own without Rowan.
On that earthquake night, she and Rowan brought their parents to the football field, and before Rowan could react, she ran away secretly with him.
It wasn't Rowan who took her away; it was she who took Rowan away.
She knew her parents wouldn't let it go and would use all their power to find her, and she knew her father's power in that city. So she stayed in the city for the last few days, hiding with Rowan in a small inn on the outskirts of the city. During those days, she had only been to the company once and had intended to take a few days off, but she didn't expect the company to give her half a month off because of the earthquake. But it was that one time when she came back from the company that she felt a pair of eyes watching her from behind.
Fear arose, and every night she would wake up from nightmares, and at that time, Rowan would surely keep her eyes wide open by her side. Rowan would not sleep in the dead of night. He was Luna's patron saint, and he would not allow anyone to hurt her in the slightest. This was the only comfort Luna could get now.
Rowan stayed by Luna's side all night long and could only fall into a deep sleep when the sun shone in. Rowan had the habit of drawing the curtains when he slept during the day, as if the sun was shining on him, so that he could sleep soundly. Luna didn't want to disturb him, so when she had nothing to do, she went alone to an Internet cafe in a small hotel.
On the Internet, she came across Cyrus' post for a companion.
Cold Moon Village. It must be a quiet valley, far from the hustle and bustle. The town has quaint buildings and simple people who live a peaceful and happy life. Luna decided to go to Cold Moon Village. She returned to her room and gazed at Rowan, and a picture had already emerged in her mind of her and the man in front of her living happily in a small house in a strange town.
Luna and Rowan didn't go to Cold Moon Village for fun; they were looking for a quiet place to settle their lives.
When the faint light of the ground lamp reached him, it was already very faint, and he could hide himself completely in the darkness. And he chose a good line of sight, just to see the square where the two carriages met. He saw Luna in the arms of the strong man, and the two of them leaned against the wall of the carriage, not moving for a long time.
He suddenly felt touched, for the love between the two men in his sight.
He had been following them for several days. They were staying in a small inn on the outskirts of the city, staying indoors every day and only wandering around in the evening. This made him curious about the two men. No normal person would live like them. They were clearly avoiding something, and they had been avoiding before he followed them, so he thought there must be some other people looking for them.
Who could it be?
He was being more and more cautious in his pursuit.
Luna was a rather unusual girl, and he had never seen so much melancholy on any other girl's face. She was a girl living in melancholy, and her attachment to that strong man was so morbid. Wherever they went, they went together. Even the only time they went to the office, it was the strong man waiting for her downstairs. The strong man was undoubtedly a very alert person, and he had already sensed that someone was following them, so he would turn around very suddenly or rush to where he thought the stalker was hiding to check.
The stalking was thus a bit challenging. But he likes it. That way, it's more exciting.
He is like a cunning beast, engaging in a protracted battle with his prey. The prey's alertness stirs up his fighting spirit, and he knows that if he is slightly negligent, the prey is likely to become a hunter, and likewise, if the prey is slightly slack, it will become food in his mouth.
His pursuit was actually more of a wait outside that small inn, as he waited for an opportunity for Luna to go out alone. Such waiting is dull and requires a strong will to keep going. And he took pleasure in it, knowing that he was enjoying the process of the pleasure coming.
He could clearly remember that four years ago he had brought the first girl back into that old house, and because of the lack of necessary preparations, it had really taken some effort to bring the girl back. The girl, who had drunk too much with a group of friends in the hotel, reached out to stop him as she passed by.
"Let me see your body." She said with a wild laugh.
She was a woman dressed in a seductive way, with her snow-white thighs exposed in the autumn. As she spoke, her legs trembled before his eyes.
His blood rushed up, and he felt a force rising rapidly in his heart.
The woman was accompanied by three men who laughed and surrounded him in the middle. They were all drunk, and as they spoke, the alcohol rushed over him, making him realize that they were a bunch of insane lunatics.
"Do you hear me? Let the guys open their eyes. We've never seen such a thin man in all our lives."
"Don't blame me for not giving you face if you don't take off your clothes."
He stood still. Their words had left him at a loss, but the anger had made his body tremble slightly. His insistence clearly enraged the group of lunatics, and a hand reached out to unbutton him. With just a gentle wave of his hand, he pushed the hand away. But then he was hit hard in the face.
These lunatics are all experts in fighting. They strike quickly and fiercely, and the parts they strike are all critical. At first he was able to wave off a couple of times, but soon he was knocked down to the ground. When those feet came down, he had no way to protect himself but to hold his head tightly and curl up.
It was unknown how long the beating lasted, and the feet were on him, and even more so in his heart.
What made him more indignant than being beaten was that in the end they unbuttoned him and saw his thin body. It was a body he himself would not have been willing to face. He closed his eyes, and the great humiliation made his body tremble.
He heard wild laughter ringing out beside him. Those laughs were like thorns, piercing the most vulnerable part of his heart.
The group of lunatics flew away, but the laughter still lingered in his ears.
He quickly covered his clothes, enduring the pain, and staggered behind them. At that time, he didn't know what he was going to do either. He just wanted to follow them and not let them disappear from his sight. The city may not be very large, but searching for a few people in this vast sea of people is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He won't let them go.
That night, the wild woman went into a building with three men. He was hiding in the shade behind a flower bed downstairs. Time had passed, and the pain was growing, and the chill of autumn was even more bone-chilling in the dead of night, but he didn't care about it at all. There was only one thought in his mind: wait for them to come out.
What could he do when they came out? He is no match for the three men at all.
He was filled with unspeakable humiliation, and if he couldn't find a way to vent it, he didn't know if he could go on living.
Around the early hours of the morning, the seductive woman appeared. A night's sleep made her look much more haggard, and no matter how heavy her makeup was, it couldn't hide the decaying air that was immediately visible on her.
His heart raced and his hands and feet began to tremble violently. But those forces did not disappear; they gathered in one place, eager to burst forth.
He followed the woman, and in a secluded alley he rushed up from behind and strangled her by the neck. The woman was actually quite strong and quickly broke free, screaming and fighting with him.
The woman's scream made him panic. He was slapped in the face by the woman, bent down to pick up a brick from the corner, stood up and put it on the back of her head.
The woman slumped down unsteadily.
Later, he carried the woman on his back to the old house. The old house was his ancestral home, abandoned for a long time, located in the urban-rural fringe of the eastern suburbs of the city. Most of the old residents of the house have moved to the new district, so the house is rented out to some migrant workers. There are few people on the streets in the early hours of the morning. The occasional one or two people I meet just look at him curiously and walk on their own. It's a cold city where no one cares about things that have nothing to do with them. That made him feel relieved.
How did he deal with that woman? He lay on the upper berth of the train carriage and thought carefully.
The past suddenly made him feel ashamed.
At that time, he was like a first-time butcher who had no idea that destruction was also an art. He tied the woman haphazardly with some hemp ropes and stuffed some rags into her mouth. He stripped her naked and tortured her according to all his most instinctive desires. He made the woman kneel in front of him and then kicked her to the ground with a heavy kick. As the beating went on, he found a way to vent all his pent-up grief and anger. He gathered all his strength and exerted it on the woman.
That was a damned woman. She was really dead, but he didn't even realize it.
Then he collapsed on the ground, drenched in sweat, staring at the woman beside him, feeling extremely relieved. The abominable woman will never open her eyes again, and she can no longer insult anyone at will.
He buried the woman's body in the yard of the old house.
On many nights later, when he thought of the woman, the feeling of shame grew stronger. He felt that his way of dealing with the woman was like that of a barbarian, like that of an uneducated gangster. How could I be as rough as a scoundrel? Life is precious, everyone has only one life, and if he wants to take away someone's only one life, he must choose some unique way. Destruction is an art, but art is inseparable from creation.
His life was thus enriched, and life was given a new meaning to him once again.
He detested the strange looks that were directed at him in life, yet he was constantly expecting some women to act in a way that hurt his heart. In this way, he found direction for his life.
There was a time when he read Laozi's Tao Te Ching and thought that water was the most spiritual substance, so he drowned two women in the bathroom in different ways. Later, while fishing by the river, he found a very small leech. He caught the leeches and studied them carefully. The back of the leech is dark green with five stripes, which are interlaced with black and pale yellow stripes. On the ventral side, there is one pale yellow stripe on each side, and the rest is grayish white with tea-brown spots. These are non-blood-sucking leeches, which he once experimented with on his arm. The soft little worms are very active, twisting their bodies and moving forward quickly.
The leeches came in handy when another woman was brought back to the old house by him.
Every day he would put a leech in her ear while she was asleep. The leech arches its body and soon disappears from sight. But the woman was still fast asleep, as if she didn't notice. He went into the room and saw that the woman had almost scratched herself all over, with no skin left intact.
Later, he opened the woman's brain and saw that the leeches were still alive, joyfully arching their bodies, which had become much larger than before.
The pleasure of creation could fascinate him just as much as destruction itself.
But whenever a woman died before him, he couldn't help feeling sad. This sadness had later permeated to the very core of his body and soul. He thought that the continuation of life was a very difficult thing, but the loss was a very easy thing. Why do so many people choose death?
Death is something that happens to the deceased and thus has nothing to do with others. It has nothing to do with him, and thus his sorrow carries a deep sense of worry.
Just as he was hiding in the darkness of the upper bunk of the sleeper carriage, looking at Luna and Rowan embracing each other, the sadness in his eyes spread uncontrollably. He thought that she was a rather unusual girl, and melancholy was all she had in her temperament. What kind of way should a melancholy girl choose to die?
Luna stumbled through the alley, with the low walls on both sides swaying and pressing down on her. She kept running, and the bumpy path made her stumble and fall several times. She got up and saw that her knees were bleeding, but she didn't feel any pain at all.
It was too dark in the alley, yet there was a light from somewhere that illuminated the path beneath her feet.
She kept running forward, trying to get out of this alley. There were many forks in the alley, and each one gave her a jolt. She had no idea how long the alleys were or if she could run out, and was filled with despair.
There were the most terrifying things in these alleys, and she had been avoiding them all her life. This time, she didn't know if she could still avoid them.
Those things gasped behind her, those sounds seemed to fill the entire night, and even though she covered her ears tightly as she ran, they still rang clearly and truly in her heart.
She just kept running, not daring to stop for a moment.
At last she saw a glimmer of light ahead, a street lamp hanging from a black wooden telegraph pole. The lamp gave off a dim light, and countless tiny moths fluttered around it, giving the light a hazy feeling.
She ran towards the light, which was her only hope in the darkness.
The black wooden telegraph pole stood in the middle of the road, with a high wall behind it blocking her way, and she was in a desperate situation. She collapsed in despair on the ground, and the shadows behind her were drawing nearer.
It was truly a mass of shadow, standing behind Luna, completely enveloped in darkness. It seemed invisible, and when the light reached it, it spread out in all directions, leaving a separate dark space.
It flutters towards Luna, with its thunderous panting.
Luna let out a heart-rending scream, using all the strength she had left in her body, her throat burst open, and a mouthful of blood shot out of her throat. The shadow standing in front of her was covered in blood, and it panted even louder. It crouched down, the bloodstains close to Luna, and then the shadows suddenly spread out, slowly enveloping Luna. Luna tried to struggle, but she was so weak that she had no strength, and the shadow seemed so light and powerless, but it was like a swamp, trapping you in it and making it hard to escape.
Luna's scream was still ringing, but she had already merged into the shadow.
It was Rowan who pulled Luna out of her terror.
Rowan shook Luna, constantly whispering her name in her ear. Luna woke up, her eyes filled with deep-seated fear. She felt a cool sensation around her mouth and reached out to touch some hot, thick liquid.
She really vomited blood in her sleep.
Rowan called her name pitifully and held her tightly in his arms. She wept silently, and as soon as she wept, she could not hold back, and her whole body trembled in Rowan's arms.
On the train, Rowan waited for Luna with her eyes wide open every night.
He seemed to never tire, but the next day he looked extremely haggard. His wide-open eyes in the darkness, at certain times with terror, were even more intense than Luna's.
- What else is he afraid of?