Qin Sheng's eyes were sharp, and he was neatly dressed. His face was eight-quarters like Qin Yuchi's, and his facial lines were even tougher.

Qin Yuchi stood quietly at the door, Qin Sheng examined him for a few seconds, then looked away, "Come in."

After getting the password, Qin Yuchi pushed open the garden door, straightened his upper body and walked in, then turned around and closed the gate without making any extra noise.

The winter sun is not hot. Even on a sunny day, the temperature in City B is below zero. When a person breathes, white mist lingers on the tip of his nose.

Qin Yuchi walked to the stone road outside the lawn and stood still, staring straight ahead, without saying a word.

Tap water was sprayed from the faucet, pouring it on the lush grass, drizzling.

After a while, Qin Sheng turned around, watered the lawn behind him, and said in a calm voice, "Start."

Three seconds later, Qin Yuchi replied coldly: "I have participated in six movies this year, two starring in the first episode, three supporting roles in the second episode, and one guest star."

"Three films were released, with a total box office of 3.6 billion, 21 endorsements, 19 blockbuster cover shots, and 13 evening parties..."

With a dull face, Qin Yuchi reported all the work and achievements of this year, as if reciting a manuscript, without any ups and downs in his voice.

After Qin Yuchi finished his report, Qin Sheng frowned slightly and asked, "There are no film nominations and awards this year?"

""Bitter Life" was sent to participate in the awards last month, and it has already been shortlisted. There is no problem with the nomination, and there will be results before June next year." Qin Yuchi replied.

"Well," Qin Sheng turned his head, continued to water the lawn, and asked, "Ximo said you haven't been sleeping well recently, what's the reason?"

Qin Yuchi subconsciously tightened his fingers, trying to clenched his pants, almost showing a strange expression, but fortunately, his face and voice didn't change at all.

"No, filming has to be upside down day and night. I can't delay the schedule of the crew. It's normal to not sleep well." Qin Yuchi said.

This answer seemed to make Qin Sheng very satisfied, he nodded and said: "Don't play around with things, go in."

"Yes." Qin Yuchi turned around and walked towards the house, walking unhurriedly, each step was of almost the same length.

After the group went bankrupt and liquidated, this residence was the only property left under Qin Sheng's name. He lived in it for nearly 20 years. It was developed in the last century in an old villa area on the outskirts of the city.

Qin Yuchi suggested moving to a more convenient place for Qin Sheng, but Qin Sheng refused.

The decoration of the bungalow is very old, the walls have been renovated twice, the corners have been cleaned, and the musty smell is lingering.

"Yuchi, you're here." Tong Yichun walked out of the kitchen wearing a cloth apron, with crow's feet showing at the corners of his eyes from laughing.

Qin Yuchi bent down to put on slippers, and put the leather shoes into the shoe cabinet on the second floor, aligning the heels exactly.

"Aunt Tong." Qin Yuchi nodded in greeting.

Tong Yichun took a sneak peek outside the door, and whispered: "In the kitchen, there are soft-boiled eggs in sweet wine that you like, go in and eat, and I will help you look after your dad."

"Thank you, Aunt Tong." Qin Yuchi smiled slightly and walked towards the kitchen.

There is not much sugar in the soft-boiled eggs in sweet wine. The taste of wine and sweetness are very light, without any taste, just like white water.

Qin Yuchi lowered the corner of his mouth, brought the bowl to his mouth, and took the soup and eggs in his mouth. He chewed a few times and then swallowed, like a starving ghost.

A minute later, Qin Yuchi walked out of the kitchen, and Tong Yichun said with a smile, "Sit down and rest for a while, and start eating when Ximo comes."

"Okay, thanks for your hard work, Aunt Tong." Qin Yuchi walked to the sofa and sat down, even though he was sitting, his back was straight.

His movie was playing on the TV screen, the literary film that won the award last year.

The aroma of the food wafts to the tip of the nose, and it tastes the same as the dishes cooked by my mother, but things are different, old people die and new people love each other.

The voice in my ear gradually faded away, and the movie screen also became blurred in a daze.

Qin Yuchi put on a Bluetooth headset, played "Oxygen", and once again silently recited the countdown, "20, 19, 18..."

Qin Yuchi counted down to 1, then returned to 20, and the cycle repeated until Qin Ximo's laughter hit his ears, and the countdown was reset to zero.

"Yuchi, come here, dinner is ready!"

Tong Yichun's voice floated over, Qin Yuchi put away his earphones, stood up and walked to the dining table.

"Brother, Aunt Tong." Qin Ximo entered the door holding Qin Sheng's arm.

Several people sat around the dining table, and the dishes were not arranged according to the usual family habits. All the dishes were divided into four portions and placed in front of everyone, with a napkin on the right.

"Let's serve dinner." Qin Sheng picked up the chopsticks and said.

Hearing this, Qin Ximo and Tong Yichun also stopped laughing and sat upright. There were only the sound of chopsticks hitting the bowl lightly on the table and the sound of chewing.

Picking up the chopsticks, Qin Yuchi didn't eat the food directly. Instead, like Qin Sheng, he first separated the meat of the braised small yellow croaker, picked out the spines one by one, and put the spines into an empty bowl.

Fish, pork chops, and cowboy bones, each piece of meat with bones was separated before Qin Yuchi began to eat.

He didn't show his teeth when he chewed, and he didn't talk when he ate. Qin Yuchi put the food in front of his mouth bit by bit, and swallowed it in a daze, without tasting anything.

After the plate was empty, Qin Yuchi put down his chopsticks, wiped his lips silently, looked straight ahead, and sat down.

After a while, Qin Sheng also finished his meal, and said to Qin Yuchi, "Go to the room to sleep when you are tired."

"Yes." Qin Yuchi stood up, stacked the bowls in front of him from large to small, walked to the kitchen, put them in the sink, and then walked to his room.

When the door of the room was closed, Qin Yuchi leaned against the door panel, breathed a long sigh of relief, and rubbed the space between his brows.

Qin Yuchi's room was on the second floor.

It was only twelve o'clock in the noon, and the sunlight leaked in through the shutters, illuminating his room brightly.

Qin Yuchi drew the curtains, took out two small bottles of essential oils, a bottle of eustoma, and a bottle of iris cedar from his pocket.

Putting eustoma incense on his neck, Qin Yuchi lay down.

After a sleepless night, with some pain in his heart, Qin Yuchi closed his eyes and soon fell into a dream.

 …

"Qin Yuchi, who are you showing this look of dying or living! Get up!"

Dad's voice?

How could he dream of Qin Sheng?What about Lin Shu?

In the dream, he was also lying in the room, staring at the ceiling in a daze.

Qin Yuchi couldn't tell how he felt, his spirit was wooden, and his body was also wooden.

"Isn't it normal to act like this when your lover is dead? Or is it normal to be like you, whose wife died last month and remarries next month?" He moved his eyes slowly and stared at Qin Numbly.Sheng said.

spouse?who died

Could it be... that Lin Shu died?

Besides, how could he talk to Qin Sheng with such an attitude?

Soon, Qin Sheng was so angry that he slapped him on the face, making his cheeks and ears numb and his brain buzzing.

"I just think he died well!" Qin Sheng grabbed his collar and questioned, "You still call him lover when he treats you like that? Are you cheap?"

"Treat me that way..." Hearing Qin Sheng's words, he said dully, "Yeah, I'm cheap, I just love him."

Qin Sheng's eyes were filled with hatred immediately, and he slapped him on the face again, "Shut up! If it wasn't for your playfulness, or because you didn't go to school that day, how could Ximo die? How dare you say you love him?"?!"

He's playing around with things...?

Huge pain gnawed at the heart.

"You just said 'he treated you like that'..." He met Qin Sheng's eyes numbly, and asked in a low voice: "Dad, I only said that he is my boyfriend, how do you know he treats you like that?"What did I do?"

Hearing this, Qin Sheng was stunned for a moment, the anger on his face seemed to be extinguished, and disappeared in an instant, his complexion pale.

"You know, you actually know," he giggled like crazy, "Dad, how dare you ask me why I can't produce a work, get no awards or nominations? How dare you say that I'm a fool?"

"Is it because I don't want to win the award? Is it because I don't want to accept the good drama? I can't accept it, he doesn't like me to accept it hahaha..."

"So you know, you all know..."

He stood up, pushed Qin Sheng away, stumbled off the bed, "Dad, don't pretend, it's because you are too hypocritical, too self-interested, too concerned about face, pretending to be sanctimonious, but in fact you are a perverted control freak, so Mom will be punished."You can't kill yourself."

"Qin Yuchi, stop!" Qin Sheng shouted behind him, grabbing his wrist tightly.

With a sneer, he slammed it away, like a demented lunatic, staggered and walked out.

The snow in the winter night was falling, he was wearing thin clothes, slowly sat in the Pagani in the garage, started the car, and drove at night.

He was driving aimlessly, following the signs, not knowing where he was going.

"Brother, you have a new message~"

Lin Shu's voice reminder sounded on the phone, and he smiled a little and said, "Sir, new news is broadcast."

"Mr. Qin, Tao Lian just got on the plane and has already left City B."

He smiled and nodded in the dark, got off the highway, and finally drove to a single-family house in the suburbs.

When the car stopped, he picked up an ax from under the passenger seat, turned quickly into the garden, and walked towards the window on the first floor of the bungalow.

Clang!Clang!

The iron guardrail outside the window was bent, smashed, and fell to the ground in pieces.

Finally, all the steel bars in the middle of the iron guardrail broke, forming a big hole.

He slammed it on the window again, and the shards of glass splashed all over him and scratched his cheek. He didn't care, and got in with the axe.

There are several famous paintings hanging on the wall in the living room, and violins are filled in the window.

violin?

This is Tao Lian's musical instrument room?What is he doing here?

In the dream, he panted, looked around, took out all the violins, broke them open one by one, as if he was looking for something.

Those violins were smashed by him, but he still couldn't find what he wanted.

Feeling more and more depressed, he went to the wall again, took down the paintings on the wall, tore them up one by one, and checked the frames.

Not long after, an oil painting of the goddess of victory was torn apart by him with an axe, and he finally found a thin piece of letter paper.

He picked up the paper, walked to the window, and looked at it carefully in the moonlight.

"After thinking a lot and rewriting the suicide note several times, I finally decided to leave only one sentence to the world:

Go to your uncle's bullshit world, he is dead, see you again, your father, your mother, and your whole family!

—Tao Xiaotian, November 2."

He looked at the "suicide note" and the words "Tao Xiaotian" on the signature, and moved his eyes to the oil painting of "Goddess of Victory" that had been torn in two, and smiled strangely.

"Shit world, shit world hahaha!" He frantically raised his ax and slammed it on the painting.

The "Goddess of Victory" that seemed to be mocking him was smashed into pieces, scattered in the air, and fell on his hair...

Qin Yuchi opened his eyes suddenly, his heart was pounding, and he couldn't calm down. He was so fast that he couldn't breathe, as if he had run several kilometers in a row.

The numbness in the dream seemed to be transmitted to his body through the dimension.

Qin Yuchi sat up in a daze, looked around, and sat there for nearly five minutes before remembering that he was at home and had just finished the New Year's Eve dinner.

His heartbeat gradually slowed down, his heart felt empty, and a great sense of panic swept over him, about to swallow him up.

Qin Yuchi hurriedly jumped out of bed, picked up his mobile phone and rushed into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and filled the sink with cold water.

Playing "Oxygen" with trembling hands, Qin Yuchi held his breath and immediately buried his face in the water.

"Down deeper and deeper into the sea, I began to miss you..."①

Listening to the vague singing, Qin Yuchi counted down in his heart, "20, 19, 18..."

This is his most common method of calming down.

No matter what negativity, pain, depression, anger, or panic.

As long as he listens to "Oxygen" and holds his breath several times, those emotions will disappear, and he will gradually calm down and fall into a deadly calm.

In the past, he only needed to hold his breath three or four times, and those emotions would dissipate.

But this time, he held his breath for a full eight times, and only half of the sense of panic disappeared, and the other half remained in his body, which could not be eliminated no matter what.

Qin Yuchi raised his head, looked at himself in the mirror, and raised his hand to wipe off the remaining water on his face.

Lin Shu died.

Ximo is dead.

Tao Xiaotian also died.

Qin Yuchi recalled the conversations and scenes in the dream, and pieced together these fragments of information.

He had a sense of certainty that these pictures must not be dreams, but must have happened in reality.

But why did these images appear in his dreams?

Qin Yuchi closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, picked up his phone, and paused playing "Oxygen".

It was already ten o'clock in the evening, he had slept for a full ten hours, his throat was dry and sore, but he didn't have the energy to care about the pain, so he quickly found Qin Ximo's WeChat and dialed the voice.

After a few rings, Qin Ximo quickly connected.

"Brother? What's the matter?" Qin Ximo's voice was still very energetic, calming the panic in his heart.

"Where are you? At home or back to the dormitory?" Qin Yuchi asked in a steady voice.

"I'm going back to the dormitory in the afternoon. Why did you call suddenly? What happened? Did you dream about Brother Lin again?" Qin Ximo asked worriedly.

Qin Yuchi was silent for a moment, then lied and said, "Well, I dreamed again."

"Brother, I think Brother Lin doesn't seem to like it..." Qin Ximo sighed softly and said very tactfully, "Hey, forget it, you can chase after you want to, you can chase after yourself, anyway, you can't follow me.Get news here."

"I don't want you to reveal his information," Qin Yuchi said, "I just want to ask you, do you have the contact information of the professor of your school's Institute of Brain Science?"

"Brain science research? What do you want this for?" Qin Ximo was stunned for a moment and asked in doubt.

"I... want to ask a professional to ask what is going on with these dreams?" Qin Yuchi explained.

"The master said it was a memory from a previous life, but you don't believe it, and you say I'm superstitious..." Qin Ximo whispered, "Okay, okay, I'll ask the senior, and I'll tell you when I find out.What's the matter?"

Qin Yuchi exhaled silently, and instructed: "When you leave school, you must pay attention to safety and try to go out with friends, remember?"

"Remember! I'm already 22 years old!" Qin Ximo dissatisfied, "I left school with my classmates today."

After getting the answer, Qin Yuchi calmed down, and finally reminded: "The professor's contact information... In short, as soon as possible."

The author has something to say:

Qin Yuchi: The Last Stubbornness of Atheists.

Mad Dog Progress: 30%

Note: ① "Oxygen" lyrics