最后,李华相信了他.
起初,他觉得朱世九在胡说八道.但当朱世九自信满满地"预言"宿舍停电——而且预言竟然精准得令人毛骨悚然——这突如其来的冲击让他所有的疑虑都烟消云散.正如二轮李华所说:只要你抛给他一个"预言",他肯定会信以为真.
于是两人干脆没吃午饭,直接跳上开往吴市的高铁,在路上疯狂地买了五张机票,仿佛每一秒都至关重要.
下午3点30分,火车驶入吴城站.
当李华的双脚真正踏上这片陌生却又无可否认的真实地面时,他仍然有些恍惚.
"我的天哪,朱哥,我到现在都不敢相信我竟然相信了你!"
他的声音里既有兴奋又有担忧——兴奋是因为这是他一生中遇到的第一个真正超自然的事情;担忧是因为如果朱说的都是真的,那么在这场灾难中将会有无数人丧生.
"现在是3点半.我父母的店还没关门.我们直接去那里."
朱世九一把将还在恢复中的李华拽进出租车,动作飞快.
"司机,去吴市非主食市场!"
"我们真的非得这么着急吗..."李华嘴角抽搐了一下.
朱世九怒视着他."如果你有前一次轮回的记忆,你肯定比我更焦虑!"
"胡说!你以为我是那么胆小鬼吗?"李华依然毫无危机意识.
朱世九差点就挥拳打他了.好像他才是那个懦夫似的!
People who haven't lived through the apocalypse can never understand his urgency and terror.
He forced himself to calm down, frantically thinking about how to convince his parents to leave Wu City. Meanwhile, Li Hua kept yammering beside him:
"Brother Zhu, don't you have a little sister too? She's in high school now, right? Is she pretty? Got any photos?"
Zhu Shijiu couldn't take it anymore. "I swear to God, say one more word and I'll twist your damn head off!"
Li Hua shrank back with a sheepish grin. "I'm just concerned about your sister, man. After we pick up your parents, we'll have to go get her from school too, right?"
"That's not the poi—"
A spark flashed in Zhu Shijiu's mind.
Li Hua's random words were like a key that suddenly unlocked his thinking.
Instead of making up some absurd excuse to convince his parents, why not use his sister as bait to get them into the car?
"Wait! I've got it!"
"Got what?" Li Hua couldn't keep up.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi arrived at the destination.
"You wait in the car."
Zhu Shijiu tossed out the instruction and bolted toward the market. Passers-by turned their heads; he looked like he was running for his life.
…
Inside the market, in a small shop selling health supplements, Mother Zhu was tidying the counter. She looked up and saw a familiar figure sprinting toward her from afar.
"Huh?"
She rubbed her eyes, thinking she was seeing things.
"Old Zhu, quick, look—is that our son?"
Father Zhu, dozing in a rocking chair, was yanked up. He grumbled irritably, "No way, A-Jiu's in Jiang City. It's not a holiday, what are you on about?"
But the moment he followed his wife's finger, he froze.
"Holy hell, it really is our son!"
Father Zhu's eyesight was sharper; he recognized him instantly. The two of them stared in shock and delight as their son came running up.
The moment Zhu Shijiu reached the door, his mother hurried forward.
Just like last loop, she was full of confusion: "A-Jiu, why are you back all of a sudden?"
But this time, Zhu Shijiu didn't brush her off. His voice was urgent: "Something terrible happened! Xiao-Ya got into an accident at school!"
"What?!"
Both parents' faces drained of color.
"What happened to Xiao-Ya?!"
"No time to explain—I've got a car waiting outside, I'll tell you on the way!"
Zhu Shijiu rushed into the shop, quickly switched off all the power, urged his parents out, and pulled down the rolling shutter.
Father Zhu was panicking, but years of habit made his hands move fast—he locked the shutter in seconds.
"What on earth happened?" Mother Zhu's voice was shaking.
"Xiao-Ya's teacher called me—she fell down the stairs and split her head open, there's blood everywhere!"
The panic and urgency were so convincing that even though it was fake, it was flawless.
His parents were too frightened to ask anything else; their faces went pale.
When the three of them piled into the taxi and saw Li Hua in the front passenger seat, they didn't even have the bandwidth to ask who he was—they just assumed he was sharing the ride.
Li Hua opened his mouth to say hello, but a deadly glare from Zhu Shijiu shut him up instantly. He realized it was best to keep quiet.
Finally, the usually steady Father Zhu snapped out of it: "A-Jiu, when did you get the call?"
"Today. School let out early, I wanted to come home for a few days, and the moment I arrived in Wu City the teacher called. I don't know the details yet."
That one sentence—"I don't know the details yet"—blocked every question his parents wanted to ask.
The more Mother Zhu thought about it, the more terrified she became; her eyes were already red.
Father Zhu fell silent, his face taut with worry.
The car pulled up at Wu City High School.
Zhu Shijiu stopped his parents from getting out: "You two wait here! I'll go in first and check the situation—see if Xiao-Ya's already been taken to the hospital."
"No, we're coming too—"
Bam.
Zhu Shijiu slammed the door shut.
…
"Sir! My little sister goes here! She fell down the stairs and cracked her head open—I need to find her!"
He shouted as he sprinted past the security booth, not even waiting for the guard to respond, and disappeared deeper into the campus.
"What the…"
The security guard stood there, completely baffled.