Lamp (folktale)

There's always a lot of weird stuff going on these days.

For example, although it is a rare day without smog, but from a distance, the sky is still not clear, always feel that there is a touch of red where the distant heaven and earth meet, like blood spreading to the nearby sky, looking up at the sky is not blue, but slightly purple or even like the color of puffy skin.

"Probably a thunderstorm is coming." When Yan Fang thought like this, the bell just rang after school, and the lecturer had already rushed out of the classroom before the lecturer had even finished saying the two words "after class". Yan Fang did not move, he only silently continued to copy the notes on the blackboard, strange obsessive-compulsive disorder made him unable to tolerate half of the words written in the notebook, of course, and the act of leaving without wiping the blackboard clean. He copied slowly, and by the time he finished copying, there was no one in the classroom. He packed up his things and went up to the podium to wipe off the blackboard before he carried his school bag and prepared to go out to dinner.

"Yan Fang!" When he heard someone calling him, the fluorescent lights in the classroom suddenly flashed, and he was startled, and when he looked back, there was another person in the classroom, "Let's eat together!" "It turned out to be Guo Feng of the same major.

When I walked out of the school gate, it was already completely dark, obviously it was only five o'clock in the afternoon, the dark sky was so fast that both people felt a little strange, the wind was very weak, but Yan Fang felt a lot of goosebumps on his hands. But that's not the weirdest thing —

"Hiss—it's really weird today!" Guo Feng looked around and said, "Is it too dark?" Why can't I see the stall selling dinner in front of the school? Yan Fangyan also looked in the direction of the small restaurant where they often ate on weekdays, but there was no restaurant here, and the place where they were almost exhausted was empty, and even the lights in the guard room at the entrance of the school where they had just come out became dim and dim.

"To... Shall we go back?" Guo Feng snorted, "Go back to the canteen to eat well, this weather, isn't it haunted?" Yan Fang frowned, "Sigh" and said, "Don't be fooled, where in this world, where will there be ghosts?" Yan Fang is a thorough "materialist" and a super fan of Sherlock Holmes, not to mention that there are no ghosts in this world, even if there are really ghosts, he is eager to rush out and arrest him, to say that he is scared by the statement of "ghosts", it is really unlikely.

"Then you say, if there are no ghosts, where are all the small restaurants and food stalls here?" Guo Feng asked and looked around. Yan Fang was silent, and he couldn't explain this. Usually, the entrance to the school is full of vendors with small stalls, which is very lively, and the students are like flies around the stalls, but today there is an empty and dark patch everywhere, which is indeed very abnormal.

There are two possibilities, the first is that he and Guo Feng's eyes have suddenly gone blind for some reason, so they can't see anything, and naturally feel that the surrounding area is dark and empty. But this explanation does not make sense, one is that two people cannot be inexplicably blind at the same time, and second, even if they are really blind, if there are vendors and classmates around them, they should be noisy, how can they be as quiet as no one, unless they are both deaf again. But apparently they could hear each other. So this explanation is not correct at all. The second possibility is that the chengguan has just come, the chengguan will be the vendors "please" away, the students who did not eat naturally all went back to the canteen to "forage", he and Guo Feng came out late, so here is an empty and very quiet, but... How did those small restaurants in fixed locations disappear?

"Yan Fang, you see!" Yan Fang, who was contemplating, was interrupted by a cry of surprise from Guo Feng, "Look over there! There is light! "Following the direction of Guo Feng's fingers, Yan Fang saw a faint glimmer of light not far away, which looked particularly warm in the cold black." Look at the distance... Maybe it's a small restaurant! Guo Feng's eyes shone with excitement, as if it was another person who had just promised to be afraid of ghosts, and he proposed, "Let's go and see!" ”

The two of them trotted almost all the way toward the place where there was a light, and strangely enough, it seemed that they were not as close as they were to the light. Having been running for a while, Yan Fang could barely catch his breath, but the distance between the lights and them did not seem to be getting any closer. "This is not right..." Yan Fang stopped and gasped heavily, "Shouldn't it... It shouldn't be a mirage or something like that..." Seeing Yan Fang stop, Guo Feng also stopped to rest, "There is something wrong, but... But will mirages appear around our school? ”

Except for the gasps of the two men, there was hardly any sound heard here, and it was eerily quiet. Suddenly, Yan Fang felt a strange "grunt" behind him, as if something had fallen into the water, but there was no pond around the school. Yan Fang looked back, not only did he not see anything, but he was surprised to find that the dim light in the original guard's room had long disappeared, where could he still see where the school was?! Not good, really bad.

"This... What's going on here? Guo Feng obviously also found that now even the school could not be seen, and the surrounding area was completely sunk in the darkness except for the light in the distance. What to do......

"It seems that we can only go further and see if we can go to the place where there is a light!" Yan Fang looked at Guo Feng and said. Guo Feng nodded, obviously there was no other way at this moment. They quickened their feet and walked again in the direction of the only light.

This time it seemed very lucky, and soon after walking, the lights in front of them were obviously getting closer and closer to them, and in a short while they were close at hand. It's an old brick and tile house, really very old, the gate is wooden double open, and there are some quaint carvings on it. Right next to the gate there was an equally carved wooden window, and the light they saw was coming out of it.

"Is anyone there?" Yan Fang went over and knocked on the door, but no one responded. "Is anyone there?" Yan Fang raised his voice and shouted again, or no one responded, but this time I don't know if Yan Fang knocked harder or how, the door actually opened a small slit by itself, and when Yan Fang was preparing to sneak a look at whether there was anyone, Guo Feng pushed the door open as if he couldn't wait.

Inside the house, quietly, directly opposite the gate there is a huge picture of eight immortals crossing the sea hanging on the wall, a high and narrow table placed on an incense table, which has inserted a lot of incense, although some have been burned out, but there are three incense sticks floating with green smoke, it is clear that someone has just worshipped God and inserted it. Yan Fang remembered going to his grandmother's house when he was a child, which was also the case, but now few people would incense at home, and it seemed that there was an old man living in this house. Just thinking about it, an old woman with gray hair and a floral dress came in from the back room carrying a pot of water.

Both sides were stunned, and then Yan Fang immediately said, "Hello Grandma!" I...... We are students of the Agricultural University, late from class, we didn't find anything to eat outside, and it was too dark... So..." Yan Fang looked at the old woman, and then looked at Guo Feng, and for a moment he even choked up. Guo Feng was nervous for a moment, and then twisted and squeezed to explain: "Milk... Grandma, we're not bad people... only...... I just want to find a place to have a meal..."

The old woman did not speak, went straight to the only large square table in the room, opened the cork of the hot water bottle and poured boiling water. The two boys stood hesitantly to the side, not knowing what to say for a while, and inexplicably broke into the old man's house, and the mother-in-law's failure to call the police was already worthy of them. After a moment of silence, the old woman suddenly spoke, "... Haven't eaten yet? The two were inexplicably shocked and nodded awkwardly. The old man sat the two young men down and went to the back room again.

"Here... There was a strange sense of familiarity. Yan Fang's muffled voice was full of words. Do you think so too?! Guo Feng's eyes widened and he said, "I also feel as if I have been here before, and..." He paused and swallowed, "Just now when the old woman walked past me, I saw her... She actually looks a lot like my grandmother! Guo Feng's voice trembled slightly, "But my grandmother died three years ago!" ”

"Please!" Yan Fang glanced at Guo Feng and said, "Should you say that this old man is your grandmother who has been dead for three years?!" Yan Fang held his cheek with his hand, "Rest assured, there are no ghosts in this world." Moreover, even if there is a ghost, it is your grandmother, and it will not harm you! ”

As the words were being spoken, the old woman in the house came out with two bowls of noodles, and Yan Fang and the two quickly took the noodles in the old woman's hand, and said "thank you" in their mouths, and they ate it in a big mouthful. Originally hungry, this way is so inexplicable, although Yan Fang said in his mouth that he was not afraid, his heart was a little hairy, this hunger was frightened, the physical consumption was too large, and after a while he ate a bowl of noodles to the bottom. The bowl of noodles is porcelain, with blue flowers on a white background, which is very similar to the bowl in his grandmother's house when he was a child, which makes Yan Fang inexplicably feel a little more at ease. Guo Feng also quickly finished eating, and he even drank the soup in the bowl. As soon as he looked up, he burped contentedly, but saw the old woman standing alone by the window, as if she was waiting for someone.

"Grandma," Guo Feng asked, "are you waiting for someone?" ”

The old woman's eyes kept staring out the window, afraid of missing something. She replied slowly, "I'm waiting for my grandson, he comes here every year today to see me, it's been ten years!" Every year when he comes, I make him a bowl of noodles. ”

Yan Fang listened very sadly, the old man who lives alone can only see his grandson one day a year, such a look is eager to wear, but today is so late, the grandson is afraid that he will not come. Yan Fang thought so in his heart, but he could not bear to break the old man's hopes, he comforted the old man and said, "You may as well sit here and wait, your grandson should come back immediately." Saying that Yan Fang moved his chair to the old man's side, the old man turned back and said "thank you", followed by a scream that resounded through the night sky.

The screams were from Yan Fang. It turned out that this old man did not turn back and did not tighten, a turn of the head... The kind old man who had just clearly wrinkled like his grandmother was only half of his rotten face on the right at the moment, and he could faintly see maggots crawling on the rotten flesh, and the white bone on the left was also infected with fresh blood! Yan Fang was so frightened that he almost fainted, even if he had seen the scene of killing zombies eating people on TV, even if he liked detective novels, he was never afraid of bloody descriptions, but the impact of such a real scene was too great!

He sat on the ground and turned his head to call Guo Feng, but he saw that Guo Feng was actually still eating noodles, had he just finished eating? He he he he at this time... Aren't you confused by ghosts?! Yan Fang was almost crying, he really wanted to run away and get out of here quickly, but his legs were already so soft that it was as if he was not his own.

"Guo Feng!" He used all his strength to call out to Guo Feng. Guo Feng finally had a reaction at this time, he slowly took down the bowl, looked at Yan Fang, and there seemed to be noodle soup slipping from the corner of his mouth.

...... Wait, it doesn't seem to be noodle soup, otherwise how could there be liquid flowing out of his eyes, nose and even ears?! The incandescent lamp in the room suddenly flashed, and at this moment, Yan Fang realized... What Guo Feng left behind was blood...

face...... What's in the surface... There must be something in the noodles, just now I also ate the bowl of noodles, then I... Yan Fang reached out to touch his face, but when his hand was hanging in mid-air, he felt that he already had a pair of hands covering his face... Those hands... No temperature at all... He closed his eyes as if he were destined, waiting for death to come...

"Yan Fang! Yan Fang! "Someone is shouting to themselves, am I not dead yet?" Yan Fang slowly opened his eyes, the dazzling white light hurt him to see himself in the bedroom for half a day, his roommates had all gotten up, the weather was very good today, and the sun was shining outside the house. Yan Fang sat on the bed for half a day without figuring out whether the horrific experience he had just had was his own dream or if it had really happened. He got up and washed his face with cold water, suddenly remembered something, and asked his roommate Chen Yu: "Which bedroom does Guo Feng, who is the same major as us, live in?" Chen Yu replied with a blank face: "Guo Feng? I don't know... Do we have a professional named Guo Feng? ”

Yan Fang felt that the cold sweat on his forehead was like a seed breaking out of the ground, he ran out one by one to look at the list outside the door of the professional boys' dormitory, from 1 class to 4 class... Really, really no Guo Feng.

this...... What's going on? Is everything just a character in his dreams? After school, Yan Fang walked in the direction he remembered last night, but where there were any ancient houses, there was only a neighborhood selling barbecue and crock pot soup and snacks, and the crowd was boiling. He approached a local boss and asked if there had ever been an old mansion with carved doors and windows for an elderly man living alone, and the boss looked at him in amazement and asked, "How do you know?" So I told him a story—.

"More than a decade ago, when the Agricultural University had not expanded to such an extent as it is today, there was originally a pond full of reeds, and in the summer, many children played in the pond during the summer vacation. As a result, about ten years ago, a little boy of eight or nine years old fell into a pond and drowned. The water is still relatively deep, and when the child is salvaged, the child's whole body is puffy. Coincidentally, as soon as his family rushed over, the boy began to bleed, and the seven tricks were bleeding! It is said that the drowned child bleeds when he sees his family! Very smart! His grandmother went crazy when she saw it on the spot, and she couldn't stand the stimulation! Later, every summer, he would bring a bowl of noodles to the edge of this reed pond and say that his grandson wanted to eat. ”

"After ... Later..." Yan Fang felt his voice trembling.

"Later, didn't the Agricultural University expand?" So I filled in the pond. This old man cooks noodles at home every day, and every day he says that his grandson will come back to eat. Alas, it was also the child who loved to eat the noodles made by his grandmother before he died. Sigh, pathetic. ”

"That... Where is the old man now? ”

"Sick and dead!" I fell ill and died three years ago! The old woman was so pitiful that after his grandson drowned, his only son also suffered a stroke, and within a few years he died. His family later moved away. The old house was demolished, and now there are a few lonely graves left there. ”

Yan Fang's scalp tingled when he heard it...

A month later, Yan Fang was sitting alone in the classroom copying notes, and a middle-aged man came in outside the house, who turned out to be the uncle who told Yan Fang a story that day.

"This classmate, my restaurant is newly opened, there are coupons, do you want to go in and try it?"

“...... yes? How funny is this..." Yan Fang laughed and scratched his head.

He didn't know that this middle-aged man's name was Guo Liming, and he was Guo Feng's father...