matchmaking

Luo Youning woke up with a sharp pain in his throat.

When he opened his eyes, the sky was already bright, and the evil spirits disappeared with the night.

Qiao Jing leaned on the shop opposite him and was flipping through a travel magazine, and glanced at him when she heard the sound: "Have you had a nightmare again?"

Luo Youning didn't remember what happened after that, but she was full of shock and couldn't recover for a long time.

Qiao Jing's eyes froze slightly on his throat, and then passed over calmly. He got up and poured him a cup of hot water.

The body of the cup simmered until the palms felt warm, and the remaining coldness finally faded away. Luo Youning lowered his head and took a sip of water, and after a while, he said in a low voice: "It's that person...he found me."

"It's more obvious than yesterday," Qiao Jing reached out and gently touched the red mark on his neck: "Does it hurt?"

Luo Youning shook his head, and then nodded immediately. He didn't want to hide it from Qiao Jing anymore: "He wants to grind me to death day by day, so that I can experience... the pain he suffered before he died."

With slender fingers combing his short black hair, Qiao Jing comforted him in a low voice: "You will be fine."

Luo Youning didn't say anything.

The rumble stopped abruptly, and the train stopped in a small town.

The smell of food wafts from the half-opened car windows, sleepy-eyed peddlers push their small carts along the road to sell breakfast, passengers hurry up and down, and the noise of people is always far away from them.

A few rays of morning light quietly climbed onto the car window, and the warm sun glowing in Phnom Penh seemed to be cool with the morning dew.Luo Youning narrowed his eyes slightly when he was stung by the sudden warm sun: "Actually, there is nothing to say - the person I killed was Cousin Dayu."

Qiao Jing sat down beside his bed.

Luo Youning was in a trance, he was diving—that memory was like an unspeakable swamp in the forest to him, in which there lived evil ghosts that devoured people, and he once locked the gate leading to that swamp tightly, But now the lock was corroded and rusted, and the evil spirit came out of the swamp again.

It played hide-and-seek with him, and he was like a grasshopper in its palm, no matter how much he hopped around, he couldn't escape a dead end.

He had to go back, dive into the quagmire where the evil spirits once lived, and pick up the scattered memories bit by bit. Yu Bingwen was no longer there, but he had to face it.

"At that time, our parents were busy with work, and they would send us back to the countryside together during the summer vacation. Dayu's family had many relatives, and our grandparents and grandparents lived in the same place in the countryside. His cousin used to live in the city. Later, I heard that my parents were in a car accident, so I moved back to the country to live by myself." The hot water in the cup was drunk before he knew it, and Luo Youning turned the cup, slowly digging out the rotten food deep in the swamp from the depths of his memory. Scattered, "His cousin often comes up with some interesting gadgets to amuse people, which is very popular among the children in the village. Every time I pass by, I can see many children playing in front of his house..."

He still remembered the slope behind the Yu family's ancestral house.

The slope twists and turns like a long python entrenched.On sunny days, it lazily reveals its bright green long ridges, green onions and weeds, clusters of vines, full of vitality; but once it encounters rain, snow and frost, it loses its temper and rolls to reveal the ferociousness under its skin, muddy and wet. If you are not careful, you will trip over the hidden potholes and fall into the smelly dirty water.

The slope is long and long, and the man's house is built at the end.

The house leaned against the high mountain and faced the dense forest. It was a solitary building, living in isolation like his people.

The members of the Yu family never interacted with him, and even the rest of the village also alienated him.

Only curious children visit his home.There they find delicious treats, fun toys, and the laughs that kids always bring.

That person seems to like children very much, no matter whether those children are little monkeys jumping up and down, or the devil king with a bad temper.He can always let them play with a good temper.

He built a small amusement park for the children in the open space in front of the house, with slides, swings, seesaws, and even a basketball hoop for older children on the flat concrete floor.

Although the two of them didn't play together with the children in the village, sometimes they would go up to borrow a court to play basketball when there were few people.

Where winter is cloudy and windy, summer shows its benefits.

The shade of green trees falls all over the ground, and the singing of cicadas resounds in the sky. It is always a good time in leisurely summer.

The basketball was thrown too high, whizzed over the hoop, and drew a trace in the air, crashing and smashing through the window on the first floor.

Yu Bingwen was taken aback, and Luo Youning kicked his ass: "Are you tall enough? You can fly into the sky with every shot. Now it's all right. I smashed the window of someone's house. Let's see who will let us play in the future."

Yu Bingwen was a timid person, so he immediately said, "What are you afraid of, let's run away?"

"What are you going to do if you run away from the ball?" Luo Youning didn't let out any anger, and said angrily, "Who told you to engrave your name on the ball? I'm afraid others won't know that you did it!"

Yu Bingwen shrank his neck when he heard the words, pondered for a while and made a decisive decision: "Ningning, otherwise, you can go in and pick up a ball. I will buy whatever you want when you go back!"

Luo Youning rolled his eyes: "Come on, let's save your pocket money to buy raccoon instant noodles."

He was used to cleaning up the mess, and knowing Yu Bingwen's cowardice, if he let him go, he might not see the ball until dark, so he simply went to pick it up by himself.

The motorcycle outside the door was ridden away, and it was quiet inside and outside the house, as if the owner was not at home.

Luo Youning originally wanted to go through the window, but when he came to the window and saw that the door was unlocked and there was a small gap open, he simply pushed the door open and went in without hesitation.

The room was gloomy and damp, and the surrounding curtains were drawn so that no light could see through it. It was as if you had fallen into an underground cave when you stepped into it, and you couldn't see your fingers for a while.Luo Youning was stunned for a moment before his eyes gradually adapted to the darkness in the room.

The basketball happened to smash into the window of the living room, and the broken glass splattered all over the floor, which brought a little summer yang energy to the sunless living room.

With the faint light, he found the basketball under the corner of the curtain.The basketball was covered with glass shards, and he didn't know what to do for a while, so he could only use his toes to roll the ball out of the glass pile and kick it out.

The ball was spinning around on the ground, and it was about to roll out of the room. In the next second, the whole ball seemed to be kicked back by someone, and suddenly turned around and bumped around.

"Birds in the forest..." A radio in the corner of the room hissed suddenly, and then a nursery rhyme began to play over and over again: "Who is hiding. The eyes in the pool are peeping. The birds in the corpse forest stopped singing , Where did the fish in Burial Soul Pond go? They must die! They must die!”

Luo Youning was startled by the sudden sound, ignored the glass shards stuck on the ball, and hurriedly chased after the ball to pick it up, but the ball seemed to have a sudden self-awareness, avoiding him and rolling all the way until it rolled to the sofa Bian suddenly stopped the momentum and stopped firmly next to a pair of children's shoes hanging in the air.

It wasn't until this moment that Luo Youning realized that there was another little girl in a pink princess dress sitting on the ebony sofa in the middle of the living room.

The slender legs are wrapped in white stockings, and the tail of the fluffy skirt is like a delicate little rose blooming between the cold and hard wooden sofa. The little girl is as cute as a pink jade, but her big black eyes are lifeless and empty. staring ahead.

She sat there motionless, like a soulless doll.Although the light was dim, Luo Youning could still notice scars spreading from her cheeks to her neck at a glance. The scars were of different shades, some were bruised and blackened like bruises, others were red, swollen and eroded like burns. Most of the wounds were not bandaged in time , the edges have begun to suppurate.

He picked up the ball and turned around. After walking a few steps, he couldn't help looking back at the little girl, "You...what's wrong with you?"

The little girl was like a doll on a string, her neck twitched, she turned her head slowly, and stared at Luo Youning. "It was your father who beat you?" Luo Youning lowered his voice, "Do you want me to call the police for you?"

Her lips and teeth kept fluttering, as if she wanted to say something, but she couldn't make it out.

Luo Youning said softly, "Are you dumb?"

The little girl shook her head, her mouth opened wide.

For a moment, Luo Youning's spine felt cold, and through the dim light outside the door, he could see clearly - the little girl had no tongue in her mouth, and the base of her tongue was neatly cut off by the root.

"Who are you?" A gloomy male voice came from the corner of the room.