Blade and Swift

Two black afterimages stood in front of him, holding a huge sickle in their hands, and a scepter stretched out from the dark void, reaching the top of his head.

"Judge you in his name when the sun rises. Now, tell your guilt."

He saw the red sun disc rising from the horizon, the hourglass of time was turned upside down, and the twilight of the end was approaching.

"I'm not guilty..."

"An innocent person?" The chaotic voice asked back.

The black afterimage raised the slaughtering sickle high, and the blade turned as red as blood in the setting sun.

The scythe fell sharply—

"Say your crime!"

Yan Xichen sat up suddenly, the morning light covered his body and face, but it couldn't dispel the chill of the nightmare just now.

The line of sight gradually focused, and the breathing gradually stabilized.He sat up on the bed, looked around, and wiped his face.

This was the second time he had this dream, and the details in the dream were so real that it almost haunted him.

"Brother?" Someone knocked on the door, "Are you okay?"

"It's okay." Yan Xichen jumped off the bed, took off his half-wet short sleeves and changed into another one, "Come in."

Yan Jing poked her head out from the crack of the door, the strawberry hairpin on her head was shining, just like her eyes: "Hi! Brother, why did you just wake up! You are going to take me to the mall today, aren't you? Forgot again?"

"Never forget, never forget." Yan Xichen stretched exaggeratedly, reached out and pinched his sister's face, "Give me some time to change clothes, huh?"

After washing in 10 minutes, his parents were already waiting for him in the living room.

The woman poured him a cup of hot milk, and the man wore an apron in the kitchen humming a song and frying eggs. Yan Jing, under the woman's warning of "don't picky eaters", forcibly stuffed the half-eaten green pepper rolls onto Yan Xichen's plate.

"Just get used to her." Seeing that Yan Xichen ate the remaining half of the burrito very naturally, the woman rolled her eyes, "It's the age when you are tall, how can you choose anything?"

"Mom, my dad and your genes are so good, don't worry." Yan Xichen smiled and patted Yan Jing's head.

"Ah, your oily hand!"

"Jingjing, come and help me find two empty plates." The man shouted from the kitchen.

Yan Jing bounced past.

Xichen was almost urged by his sister to finish the breakfast, and then he was dragged out of the door to see her off.Parents told Yan Jing to remember to answer the phone outside and not to come back too late.

Before going out, the woman went to the entrance and straightened the collar of his shirt.He is much taller than her, but the woman still maintains the habit of putting her hands on his shoulders. She smiled, with fine lines at the end of her eyes: "Go, my son is so handsome."

Yan Xichen smiled, lowered his head and kissed the woman's forehead: "I'm going out."

Pushing open the door, the wind with the smell of green grass rushed towards him, and the sun was shining brightly.

Yan Xichen is very aware of how lucky he is compared to ordinary people.He has been taught too much how to face distress and desperation since he was a child, but he has never ushered in a storm.

Life is so smooth that it seems to be hanging out, and is often called "little koi" by friends.

The family is harmonious, the parents are open-minded, and there is a lovely younger sister.From childhood to adulthood, I have never worried about my grades, I have never worried about interpersonal relationships, and I have never bent down for society.When he came out half a year ago, his parents and younger sister not only quickly accepted his sexual orientation, but also worried about the psychological pressure that coming out would bring to him.

God gave Yan Xichen a good skin, and this advantage brought him extra points from childhood to adulthood, enough for him to write a million-character article "What kind of experience is it to look good" on Zhihu.

No matter how dissatisfied a person is, if he lives such a life, he will inevitably sigh and sigh.

He now runs his own milk tea restaurant. Although he doesn't have to work from nine to five every day, he still has a lot to worry about.

Recently, though, something unusual happened.

Around five or six in the afternoon, a little boy always comes to the store alone. He orders a lot of drinks every time, and can sit by the window for an hour.

Fixed location, fixed time, unshakeable every day.

Every time the little boy came in, the number of customers in the store gradually decreased, and in the end he was always the only one left in the entire store.

Five or six o'clock in the afternoon, it stands to reason that it should be the beginning of a small climax of passenger flow.

This is also what Yan Xichen thinks is the most abnormal.Today, he decided to meet the little boy.

After cutting a small piece of lychee rose flavored cake, Yan Xichen brought it to the little boy and pushed it to him, and sat opposite him.

Only now did Yan Xichen have the opportunity to observe the boy carefully.

He has an immature face, but his expression is not ignorant, and a pair of dark brown eyes are like water flowing in the evening light.

The little boy took a long sip, then tilted his head suspiciously to look at the cake in front of him, and then at Yan Xichen.

The eyes seem to ask: What does this mean?

"I invite you to eat." Yan Xichen Zhi Yi looked at him, "You come here alone every day, are you waiting for someone?"

"Probably." Hearing what he said, the little boy picked up the fork rudely.

"Mom and dad?"

"No, I'm waiting for dusk." The little boy looked out the window.

dusk?

Yan Xichen turned his head suspiciously, his eyes gradually widened——

On the distant horizon, a blood-red sunset is slowly rising!

Twilight... Scythe... Charge...

An indescribably palpitating tingling sensation crashed down the spine, and a few words vaguely appeared in his mind.

"what happened to you?"

When he came back to his senses, the little boy had already run up to him, holding Duoduo in one hand, and swinging back and forth in front of him with the other.

Before Yan Xichen had time to regain his senses, the little boy blinked suddenly, stretched out his hand and poked his waist twice.

Yan Xichen was so sensitive that he almost jumped up when he was poked.But before he could react, the little boy poked him openly, as if he thought it was funny.

"Don't make trouble!" Yan Xichen patted his buttocks casually.

When he looked out of the window again, there was only the gorgeous sunset glow outside the window. It seemed that the sun that was about to swallow the sky and the earth just now was just an illusion of his.

Is it a hallucination... But how could it be exactly the same as the content of the dream?

"It's a beautiful evening, isn't it?" The little boy had to be quiet when he restrained his hands, and followed Yan Xichen's gaze to look out the window, "But, don't you think this evening is a bit too long?"

Yan Xichen suddenly concentrated.

He knew something was wrong. From five o'clock, Xiao Li at the counter went out to eat, and the sun had already started to set at that time.

An hour has passed now, and the light of the setting sun has barely changed.

Time seemed to be suspended.

Is it an illusion?Or was the recent nightmare putting too much pressure on him?

"Thank you for inviting me to eat cake today." The little boy suddenly broke free from his restraint, and ran to the gate in a blink of an eye, "Goodbye."

The little boy opened the door and went out, and then customers began to enter the store one after another.Within 10 minutes, the milk tea restaurant became lively again.

The phone was quietly placed on the table, Yan Xichen woke up the screen, the time showed [-]:[-], there were two missed calls and a text message, it was called at [-]:[-].

There is also a text message: "Brother? Why didn't you answer my call?"

Yan Xichen stared at his phone.

In the past twenty or ten minutes, he was sure that the phone never rang.

Delusion?

There must be something wrong.

Yan Xichen was a little depressed, from the perspective of his family, he seemed to have something on his mind.

At first, the parents speculated whether it was Yan Xichen who was dating, but Yan Jing soon denied it.His brother is a pure sister-in-law. If he doesn't want to go to the store on weekends, he will take her out almost all day long.According to Yan Jing's words, it is a lonely life, and there is no way to save it.

Of course, Yan Xichen also knew that he had lost his composure in the past few days, but he couldn't get out of his mind the recurring nightmare that day and the incident about that little boy.

But the next day, the third day, and the fourth day, the little boy didn't come again.

Yan Xichen couldn't wait for him.At the same time, he found that some insignificant changes were quietly taking place in his life.

The first time he was ticketed; the first time he broke all the eggs on the way home; the first time he didn’t hear the alarm clock; I am afraid that it is commonplace for one person.

But Yan Xichen suddenly discovered that these trivial and common things had never happened in his previous 20 years of life.

This is the most abnormal.

In the past two days, Yan Xichen became anxious again, and a huge sense of unreality attacked him.

Then suddenly one day, he repeated that nightmare again.

This is the third time he has repeated this nightmare.

When he woke up, the sun was just rising, and the rising sun on the horizon was burning red, giving Yan Xichen the illusion that everything that was terrifying in his dream was gradually merging with everything in his real life.

It was also on this day that he saw the little boy who liked to drink a lot in his milk tea restaurant again.

At six o'clock in the afternoon, Yan Xichen went home early.

As soon as he opened the door, his eyes caught off guard the small figure sitting on the protective railing across the road.

The boy sat on the guard rail and kept a good balance, smiling at him from the gap between the continuous traffic.

The sky started to turn red again.

Yan Xichen looked up for a long time before making a decision.

He stepped over the fence and crossed the road without looking sideways.He didn't look left and right, and he didn't speed up his pace hastily.

He crossed the road with countless high-speed vehicles like this, like entering no man's land.

He managed to get out of the traffic without a car hitting him.

Yan Xichen looked back blankly at the traffic behind him, his heart was still beating violently, as if he couldn't believe for a while that his conjecture was actually confirmed.

"Either I'm crazy or the world is crazy," he murmured. "Fuck!"

The little boy was behind him, gesturing to jump off the guardrail.

Seeing Yan Xichen turn around, the little boy stretched out his hands, looking very cute, and made a gesture of "wanting to hug".

Too many weird and unexplainable things happened to this little boy, and he was obviously not surprised that Yan Xichen crossed the road safely.What did he imply when he said to him that day, "The evening is too long"?

Yan Xichen picked him up and didn't intend to let go: "Who the hell are you?"

The little boy hugged his neck naturally: "I am a guest in your restaurant."

"That would be boring." Yan Xichen stared at him, "I don't mind taking you home directly."

"It's not very polite to threaten a child."

"Not only do I threaten children, I spank them."

"Okay." The little boy smiled, but the smile looked malicious, "You want to know what happened to yourself, don't you? Why is the world in front of you not right?"

"I knew you had a problem."

"The truth behind the thing you're wondering about may be a very cruel fact." The little boy took the tone and pointed to the glass window beside him.The evening light is refracted in the window, and the world inside seems a little different.

The little boy looked at himself in the glass and Yan Xichen who was a little confused and frowning tightly: "Your family, friends, ideal job, and stable life may all be lost after you know the answer. Even so , do you still want to know?"

"I don't know what nonsense you're talking about." Following the boy's gaze, Yan Xichen also saw himself in the glass window.

He moved closer uncontrollably, then closer again.

"Then I'll make the decision for you." The little boy suddenly reached out and tapped on the glass reflecting the dusk, "Wake up from your utopia, little brother. I hope you won't hate me."

The light in the night suddenly dimmed, and all the street lights flickered at the same time, and finally went out.The road under his feet stretched infinitely far away, and the cars on the road were all gone.

The distant horizon began to burn.

Yan Xichen raised his head and looked towards the end, his pupils gradually constricted.

The setting sun rises again, and the dusk returns to the world.

The light from the horizon enveloped the land like a silent explosion.When the light dissipated, it was still the same city and street, but it was completely different.

The little boy in his arms was gone, the window next to him was empty, and the streetlights had changed.And across the road, there has never been his milk tea restaurant.