Snails? The old lady just reminded me to be careful of snails, so why did Jiang Ming take out a snail shell? "
Chen Ge was confused, but he knew the old lady would not harm Jiang Ming.
Carefully putting the snail shell back into his pocket, Jiang Ming held Chen Ge's hand and walked out of the old lady's room.
The boy led Chen Ge around the shared apartment. They went to the windowsill on the rooftop, the storage room that was filled with coal briquettes, the cubicle that was filled with trash. Whenever he found a snail, Jiang Ming would be very happy.
Chen Ge had no idea why Jiang Ming would work so hard to find a snail, but seeing how serious Jiang Ming was, he did not have the heart to interrupt him.
Accompanying Jiang Ming silently, they ran around the apartment and only found four snails. Jiang Ming placed all of them into his pocket, and then holding Chen Ge's hand, they ran down to the first floor.
As long as they did not make any noise, the strange neighbors would not come. After Jiang Ming's father was beaten up by the old lady, he did not show up again.
"Are you going home?"
Jiang Ming nodded happily. He led Chen Ge to stand outside the rented apartment with the wooden sign and reached out to pull on the rope.
After the light inside the room flickered several times, the door was opened, and a slender woman with pale 'skin' appeared behind the door.
When she saw Jiang Ming return safely, there was a gentle smile on her face. Then, when she saw Chen Ge, a trace of panic crossed her eyes like she was afraid of the arrival of a stranger.
The woman signed with Chen Ge. She appeared to be deaf and mute as well.
Chen Ge did not understand the complicated sign language, so he could only maintain the smile to make himself appear more approachable.
The door slowly opened, and Jiang Ming excitedly ran to the woman. He took out one snail after another from his pocket like he was showing off.
The woman touched the boy's head, and with a gentle smile on her face, she looked at Jiang Ming's happy face quietly.
This should be Jiang Ming's mother.
After entering the room, Chen Ge closed the door.
Looking at the harmonious scene in front of him, Chen Ge could not blend in at all. The woman's face was like an ordinary person, but her body was covered with patches.
Looking from afar, Jiang Ming's mother looked like a rag doll. There were no patches on her body except for her hands and her face. The rest of her body was sewn and patched, and her skin was like a tattered coat.
Chen Ge didn't dare to imagine what the woman had gone through to have such an image appear in the child's memory.
The woman gestured with her hands as if she was praising Jiang Ming, but the happy atmosphere in the room soon disappeared.
The light at the door lit up again. The rag doll's mother and young Jiang Ming both turned to look at the door. Finally, Jiang Ming's mother walked to the door and opened it.
The pungent smell of alcohol rushed into his nostrils, and a ferocious-looking drunkard appeared at the door.
The mud-like body was pressed against the door frame, and the arm that was connected to the bottle pointed at Chen Ge. The drunkard glared at the rag doll woman.
The woman gestured with her hands, but the drunkard had already lost his patience, and he pushed her away.
Seeing the drunkard walk in, Jiang Ming took out the few snails from his pocket and jogged to stand before the drunkard.
He held the snails with both hands, wanting to show them to the drunkard, but before he could reach his hands out, the drunkard slapped Jiang Ming's arm to the side.
The snail shell fell to the ground, and the snail that Jiang Ming had spent so much effort to find was crushed.
The drunkard stared at the crushed snails on the ground, and his face turned red. His veins popped, and he seemed to be even angrier.
With nowhere to vent his anger, he flipped over the small table in the living room. The water bottle on the table almost hit Jiang Ming, but thankfully, the rag doll woman blocked it.
The hot water splashed on the ground, and part of it landed on the drunkard. His whole body turned red, and he grabbed the rag doll woman's hair and pinned her to the ground.
After the woman fell, her first reaction was to wave at Jiang Ming, telling him to hide inside the room.
The drunkard dragged the woman by her legs, and the arm that was connected to the bottle kept falling.
The boy stood in the messy living room. He had no idea what he had done wrong. The snails on the ground were crushed, and the rag doll mother was pinned to the ground.
His shoulders were shaking from fear. He did not know who to turn to for help. He looked at his mother, who was in pain. He wanted to go and help the woman, but he was powerless. He did not even know how to speak.
"Don't be afraid."
Chen Ge patted Jiang Ming's shaking shoulders lightly. "Let me help you."
Chen Ge kicked at the drunkard. When the drunkard separated from the rag doll woman, he swung the hammer at the drunkard's shoulder.
"Bang!"
The drunkard slammed into the door of the room. Chen Ge did not give the man the chance and continued to attack.
"Jiang Ming, look closely. He is not invincible. He is just a weak coward. There is no need for you to be afraid of him!"
The drunkard's body was recovering quickly. His arms grew back to the furniture in the room, and his expression became more and more menacing.
"I will lure him into the room. Once the door opens, you need to escape!"
To buy more time for Jiang Ming and the rag doll woman, Chen Ge could only knock the drunkard down again and again.
Every time he was knocked down, the drunkard's appearance would become scarier. His body continued to expand. His back was pressed against the wall, and he slowly merged with the rest of the room.
In Jiang Ming's memory, the words' home 'and' father 'were closely linked, so this situation did not surprise Chen Ge at all. The only thing that worried him was that Jiang Ming and the rag doll woman had not escaped from the room.
Cracks appeared on the wall, and the ceiling started to crumble. The ground was shaking, and the light behind the door flickered several times before suddenly going off.
The light disappeared, and a thick stench drifted out from the dim room.
The cracks on the roof grew larger. The drunkard's body, which had grown several times larger, touched the ceiling, and at that moment, the roof of the room collapsed.
The stench assaulted Chen Ge's nostrils, and the thing that had crushed the whole room had appeared!
A hard shell with a spiral shape, a sticky body, and a giant blood red snail was crawling on top of this home.
Endless negative emotions were injected into the drunkard's body. The giant snail's slightly smaller tentacles cracked open a hole, and it was filled with innumerable teeth.
The large body reached out from the shell, and the blood red snail bit at Chen Ge.
"A snail? Why would such a scary thing appear in Jiang Ming's dream? "
Chen Ge protected Jiang Ming as they retreated. The whole world behind the door had changed after the snail appeared. Blood leaked out from the walls, and the apartment looked like it would collapse at any moment.
"Let's go upstairs and find that old granny!" Chen Ge led Jiang Ming and the rag doll woman up the stairs. The neighbors who looked like monsters also became crazed under the influence of the blood red snail.
Initially, this world only gave Chen Ge the feeling of absurdity. It was like a very small child holding a brush and drawing, but after the appearance of the blood red snail, this world started to become bloody and cruel, and it became closer and closer to the real world behind the door.
After the three arrived at the old lady's room, Chen Ge knocked heavily on the door.
"Granny, I'm here to take you and Jiang Ming away from here! I know the way to escape! "
The door opened, and the old lady stood at the door with the cane. She saw the crazy neighbors and the blood red snail that was crawling toward them.
"Your lingering spirit is still there, and you should not stay here. Come with us." Chen Ge had already made his decision, and he took out the comic.
The old lady hesitated. She opened her mouth to say something, but Chen Ge could not hear her at all.
"I'll take that as a yes." Chen Ge turned to shield the old lady and Jiang Ming behind him. He stared at the blood red snail that was slowly crawling toward them. "This snail is the culprit behind the collapse of Jiang Ming's whole family. It is also the embodiment of all the negative emotions and disasters in Jiang Ming's mind. If we can kill this thing, Jiang Ming might not be so confused anymore."
Pressing the play button on the recorder, Chen Ge called softly, "Xu Yin!"
The blood red pattern spread out rapidly with Chen Ge as the center. The blood red snail sensed the threat, and all the crazy neighbors came running toward it.
"Five Red Specters are enough to destroy this incomplete scenario, so the extra Red Specters will be used to maintain the basic framework of this scenario."
Flipping through the comic, more and more blood patterns appeared. They were incredibly aggressive, and they covered the whole scenario in a short amount of time.
The blood red snail had stopped moving. It could sense the threat, but Chen Ge's hands that were flipping through the comic did not stop.
More and more blood patterns almost covered Jiang Ming's world behind the door. Finally, at a certain moment, the critical point was broken, and the heavy scent of blood rushed at them like a sea of blood!
One after another, shadows started to appear around Chen Ge. They were all dressed in red. Without needing him to say anything, the Red Specters were like sharks that had smelled blood, and they leaped at the blood red snail.
With the cooperation of several Red Specters, the snail's sturdy shell was shattered. At that moment, Chen Ge saw something extremely scary.
At the deepest part of the snail's shell, there was the face of a baby whose eyes were closed!
The face was similar to the face that he had seen on the shadow in Li Wan City. It was the face of the ghost fetus when he was still a baby!
"Ghost fetus?"
The baby's eyes slowly opened, and there was pure evil in his eyes.
A shrill laugh echoed, and the body inside the shell exploded instantly. The baby's face dissolved into blood, and only a wooden toy was left on the ground.
"Looks like the ghost fetus did not possess Jiang Ming's body."
Even though he had not found the ghost fetus, at least he had ruled out one possibility.
Chen Ge walked to the snail's carcass and picked up the toy from the ground.
He still had an impression of this toy. It was a gift from his father when he was very young, but one day, he suddenly could not find it anymore.
"Was it taken away by the shadow?"
After the snail exploded, the world behind Jiang Ming's door started to shake violently. The twisted neighbors slowly disappeared, and the foundation of this world was shaken.
Chen Ge had the other Red Specters temporarily stabilize the shaking world. He walked to the old lady and Jiang Ming's side. "It is time to say goodbye to this pain. I will bring you away from this place."
Flipping through the comic, Chen Ge wanted to pull the old lady and Jiang Ming into it, but Jiang Ming held the rag doll woman's hand and refused to let go.
The woman who lived in his memory gently pushed Jiang Ming away. She gently waved at Jiang Ming, and her body slowly became illusory before she finally disappeared.
"After we leave this place, I will bring you to find her in real life. She will miss you very much."
Closing the comic, Chen Ge held Jiang Ming's hand and returned to the first floor with the accompaniment of several Red Specters.
The scenario collapsed, and they opened the locked iron door.
When Chen Ge stepped out from the door, Jiang Ming, who was lying in bed in real life, opened his eyes. He sat up in bed and saw Chen Ge, who was still in the posture of raising his leg.
The door behind him crumbled completely. Chen Ge carried the backpack with one hand and looked at Jiang Ming quietly.
Jiang Ming, who sat in bed, did not cry or make a fuss. He seemed to recognize Chen Ge.
"Just treat what happened just now as a dream," Ye Zichen said. After Chen Ge said that, he realized that Jiang Ming could not hear him. He took out a pen and paper and wrote down the word 'mother'. "Be a good boy and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I will bring you to find her."
To prevent Jiang Ming from being illiterate, Chen Ge gestured as he wrote.
After a while, Jiang Ming finally understood, and for the first time, a happy smile appeared on his face.
"Have a good rest. Good night."
Touching the boy's head, Chen Ge flipped through the comic and released the old lady. "Granny, can you hear me now?"
The old lady's eyes were glued to Jiang Ming, and her body was almost transparent.
"There is a question that I have been curious about. Why would there be such a scary snail in the world behind Jiang Ming's door? Is he traumatized by the snail? Could it be that when he was young, he was tricked by someone else with a snail? "Chen Ge had many hypotheses, but none of them made sense.
"That snail is not a real snail." There was heartache in the old lady's voice. "Jiang Ming's mother was born deaf and mute. Since she was young, her family despised her. When she grew up, her family married her to Jiang Ming's father for some money.
"Then Jiang Ming was born. Even though he was not born deaf and mute, he had a hearing defect. The doctor suggested a cochlear implant, but even the cheapest cochlear implant costs tens of thousands, and the more expensive ones cost hundreds of thousands.
"The doctor said that the earlier the surgery, the better, but Jiang Ming's mother could not come up with the money, much less his father.
"Ever since Jiang Ming's father found out that Jiang Ming also had a hearing problem, his attitude toward the mother and son changed greatly. He even wanted to abandon Jiang Ming, but thankfully, Jiang Ming's mother stopped him every time.
"You've seen what happened next. Jiang Ming's mother learned water embroidery from me. She wanted to save money for Jiang Ming's cochlear implant surgery. His father liked to gamble and drink. He even stole the money that Jiang Ming's mother had saved, and in the end, he decided to rob her.
"Jiang Ming grew up in this kind of environment. He was too young to know what cochlear implant surgery was. Perhaps in his world, the snail represented the hope of hearing. He tried his best to find the snail because he wished to hear other people's voices, but at the same time, there was an undeniable reality. His family was crushed by that snail. "
After hearing the old lady, Chen Ge finally understood the world in the boy's eyes. There was a bloody truth in the absurdity.
"Granny, do you know where the boy's parents live?"
"What do you plan to do?"
"I plan to teach the boy's father a lesson, and I wish to help the boy's mother as well." Chen Ge took out his wallet from his pocket. "If the circumstances allow it, I hope that Jiang Ming will be able to hear in the future."
"You wish to fund the boy's surgery?"
"Why? Don't be fooled by my ordinary clothes. I'm actually an entrepreneur. "
Chen Ge pulled open the zipper of his backpack and shoved the hammer inside.
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