Liu Lingzhong's Selected Short Stories Serialized (1139)

Flower Shop(3)

But I am already old and decrepit, and I am prone to forgetfulness, or selective amnesia. I can't do anything, I often put on my crown, and I always like to force other people's bad things on myself for some reason. even carved a boat to ask for a sword, trying to find a guy named Nie Tong on the steamer of the vicissitudes of life. He was my treasure hunting partner thirty years ago.

"The person who died in the flower shop should not be him. ”

"That person's name is Xie Jun, and he is a junior employee of the company. ”

The boss gave him a cuckold. ”

But he died of his own cause. Qin Feng insisted.

His parents were both ground workers and went to prison at every turn. He had guarded the rental bookstore, and his father was the real boss at that time, and when he realized that hidden in the sea of novels, which was equivalent to a bookstore, was actually another ridiculous continuation of the underground organization traffic station, and could not change the fate of the parties involved, he quit the game. He opened a flower shop and fell into the trap of a bandit leader or guerrilla with the same name and surname who had an unclear relationship with his parents, and as a result, someone died in the flower shop due to a complicated emotional dispute between the other party. Nie Tong went to labor re-education for three years for no reason. I heard Qin Feng, the most famous cat breeder on our street, say that he didn't know where his old house moved after it was demolished. Nie Tong later opened a lottery shop to make a living, his father died many years ago, and his mother, who also engaged in the student movement, died in prison. Her body is terrible, and this is what I often heard from my partner Nie Tong and Qin Feng, the owner of the cold drink shop, since I was young, the old lady has a long life, and she may still be alive now.

In order to take care of his mother, Nie Tong was unmarried for life. Of course, this is actually a set of rhetoric by Qin Feng, a cat breeder, just like in the eyes of a madman, everyone is crazier than himself. I know that Nie Tong could have been my ideal partner to find treasures, if he had never been in prison or hospitalized in Suzaogou Psychiatric Hospital. At one point, he really scared me out, and I had to back off. I used to be depressed because I couldn't find the most appropriate reason to turn around and avoid Nie Tong.

Qin Feng asked, "How can you tell him what is in your heart." ”

"When he opened a flower shop, he desperately wanted to go to the cat graveyard. ”

"I've been there after it closes after dark. Qin Feng said.

"None of the guerrilla intelligence officers were found. "I admit it.

If you think about it, most of the former treasure finding partners are no longer young, he is almost fifty years old. Nie Tong's family rented a book house as a substitute for the underground organization traffic station, including the large area of the flower shop he opened to escape the arrangement of fate, and now there are many high-rise buildings.

"It's actually another world. I replied.

"Nie Tong will never be able to get out of the Demon Palace. Qin Feng said.

He could never become a castle guerrilla in the reinforced concrete jungle. His father died, he took care of his mother, and his brother was never heard from, and he never escaped his fate. I heard Qin Feng say that Nie Tong once went crazy again in the flower shop and drank half a plastic disinfectant in the middle of the night. He was never a drunken maniac, there was no possibility of a mistaken drink, no, no one told me, but I witnessed it. However, as Nie Tong's treasure search partner, I was not ready to die, and it was obviously impossible to watch him struggle, twitch in front of him, and slowly stop breathing. I carried Nie Tong on my back and sent him to the hospital for gastric lavage, but he drank the magic potion, his face was red, and his energy was full of energy. I was in worse condition in the hospital than he was.

He actually said, "Tian Sen, you will be so kind." Please, don't mess with me. "So I remembered the golden asters blooming in the flower shop, and the fuchsia melon chrysanthemum, fragrant snowballs, dancing spring flowers, lilies, phalaenopsis and shell flowers surrounding the large glass fishing tank, and the red and white lions, black cat lions, and red lion goldfish swimming in the gloomy and dirty water, and even a white balloon blown up with a condom floated on the surface. It's really similar to every dream, but the difference is that the dream is only black and white, just like the kind of negative taken by a camera. As a result, I saw the colorful oil painting hanging on the pink and white wall of the flower shop, which I once painted with Nie Tong by the pond in the forest of adolescence, and I realized that he was actually an artist who had been delayed by the rental book house and the flower shop. Another oil painting he painted can completely restore the situation of the female bandit leader Xiao Yamei's unlucky ghost husband dying in the flowers. Heavy makeup smeared the corpse, and a large group of warm-colored goldfish surrounded the whirlpool. Dreams tormented my treasure companion in the long dark nights of the four seasons, and he saw a vast swamp in the middle of nowhere, and a road through it was intermittently full of flowers. Nie Tong woke up from the brink of death and told me that he liked the purple-red spherical flowers of the lily family, like a baby's little fist. I like to reflect the red mountains all over the mountains, like flames burning on the earth. He loves cat ears and is golden. In fact, he doesn't like artificially grown flowers, and he often suffers from pollen allergies in the flower shop, and he can't breathe, including Nie Tong's psychosis is becoming more and more frequent, which I suspect has something to do with it.

"Is he happy as a treasure looking partner?" Qin Feng asked.

"I don't understand. I replied.

The glass fishing tank was covered with green moss, and the goldfish and the corpse lying on the petals were gone. I'm referring to the oil paintings, where Nie Tong covers his dreams with blooming alpine rhododendrons, and only I know the corpses and countless dead fish hidden in the colorful petals. After finding Po's partner that fat cat flirts with a bobtail at the castle gate and completely fails, he despairs of the knight at the masquerade.

He said: "Families of goldfish, they will appear in dreams. ”

"I hope so!" I said.

I knew very well that there would be a corpse from the flower shop at the same time. He avoided and selectively forgotten, and I didn't dare to say it in front of him. Once, Nie Tong dreamed that he and I were side by side—maybe his cheek was close to the other's face, but he was embarrassed to say it publicly—and sat on the shore only to wait for a four-headed animal, and he said that his face was the bandit who died in the flower shop, with four legs.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I dare to pack tickets. He replied with a blushing face.

The human-faced beast-bodied creature struggled desperately in the swamp surrounded by flowers, and finally disappeared. A black, metallic glow—actually a needle shot into a man's chest—the mud cracked open and closed silently, and the monster was nowhere to be seen, except for a series of condom-shaped bubbles that bubbled up from the water, and then flew all over the sky. The bubbles blew up in the top of our heads, and there was silence around us.

"Yes, no sound, no dialogue. Nie Tong said.

I replied, "We're already past the silent film era." ”

"Because neither of us is a grave robber. "But the wild pigeon resting in the cat graveyard always wanted to laugh at me." ”

The light of the swamp seemed to be covered with cobwebs in the opposite sky, and it sprinkled poisonous needles on the water, and the spots of light jumped, and suddenly the wind rose. The oil painting painted by Nie Tong at the Iron Works Hotel was deeply influenced by the impressionist style, with the flavor of the portrait painter Sargent, using a strong contrast between light and dark, which often confused me.

I saw a brighter sky with a pigeon flying. The painter's fat guide cat prepares to sneak up on the cat cemetery for a short stay with wild pigeons. In this way, I became miserable, why didn't I have the pigeon whistle that I had heard in my childhood? The rolling distant mountains were gray-blue, shrouded in a quiet mist, and Nie Tong's oil painting was sacred, peaceful, and quiet.

"The sea of peaceful flowers cannot hide the danger of the guerrillas. ”

"I guess there were two people who went to the old camp that time. ”

"In addition to the intelligence officer, most of the traitor Xie Jun is also there. ”

After two weeks of tossing and turning in the adolescent forest, alpine azaleas, I left the cat cemetery with my friend Treasure Hunt. Nie Tong's Sargent portrait was not done in a dream or at the Ironworks, and he told me that if I wanted to show the good old days of the guerrillas, chiaroscuro was not enough, and I had to return to the flower shop. It was also my common salon as a novelist, a historian, a treasure hunting partner and painter, a storyteller, and the people involved: Nie Tong's parents, unlucky ground workers, informants, bandit leaders, cheaters, cuckold husbands and flower-decorated deceased, and traitors. On the way back, we were on a long bus.

"Wouldn't it?" said Qin Feng, the cat keeper.

The two of us and the coffin car were surrounded by alpine rhododendrons, and suddenly a gust of wind blew on the wasteland, and the petals gradually formed a vortex. The shuttle got stuck deep in the swamp. That's the oil painting that Nie Tong finished after he shut me out after returning to the flower shop. I closed my eyes, and I could almost clearly see the cracks in the ground slowly closing. The waters are quiet.

"When the wind blows, he dies of love betrayal, falls into the trap of comrades, and is actually a traitor himself, will he close his eyes? ”

"When I finished painting, Nie Tong was already dead. ”

Walking on the road to the flower shop in the past, just after the zebra crossing, on the sidewalk, the street garden is open normally after the Qingming Festival, I know that there is no flower shop looking for a treasure partner. I met a middle-aged man in his fifties who claimed to be Nie Tong's elder brother. Although he said that he hated his adoptive parents deep down and mistakenly believed that they were traitors and that the bookstore owner died because of them, it was unlikely that he secretly murdered his adoptive father. He could only run away from it.

"My dad had a very strange eye disease. Nie Tong said.

"Who are you suspicious?" I asked him.

"My brother. The treasure partner said bluntly.

"He hardly rents back his book house at the hydropower station. ”

Nie Tong said: "It doesn't mean that there is no chance at all. ”

His brother was a neurotic guy who gloated and told me that the flower shop had long since closed and that the house had been sold. His adoptive mother and son didn't know where to move, and there was only one explanation, and they felt guilty in their hearts, so they desperately avoided him.

He said, "I'm the son of the bookstore owner!"

"Or, their mother and son don't live in the city anymore. ”

"That's absolutely impossible. "He said he still had an impression of me.

"It's really difficult to find Nie Tong. I said.

"You can go to a psychiatric hospital. He said.

"Maybe it's a good idea. I smiled wryly at him.

Nie Tong's brother shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and made a hint that I didn't quite believe: take a knife and cut his throat, or strangle him. I have a good relationship with the other brother, and I have been looking for a treasure partner for many years, will he be angry with me because of this?

"Tian Sen, you often go to the cat cemetery with the murderer in the flower shop. ”

"You've stalked us both in the past?" I was shocked.

"At the Ironworks Inn, I've always stayed next door to you. ”

"No wonder there are always swirls in the oil paintings that Nie Tong painted in the past, I thought it was the impressionist style, but it turned out to be the eyes. ”

"He beat Durelendin, also to keep his composure. ”

I actually knew about it, and Nie Tong wanted to relieve the pain.

"My brother suffered internal injuries in prison. The man said.

"You stopped me on the street and I wanted to talk about this?"

He smiled, "I heard that you are looking for him everywhere, and I am the same." ”