Chapter 411 I want to die like a feather!
In the past in Africa, the slowest buffalo in a herd would be eaten by lions.
Now, in the devil's realm, those who cannot withstand temptation will be devoured by the devil just as the buffalo were eaten.
Before, Su Ming thought that those people were not good enough, but now Su Ming knew that they did nothing wrong. They just ran slower than others, not that they were evil by nature.
No one is immune to fall...it only takes one opportunity and everyone will fall, and this is exactly what the devil wants to see.
Humans always laugh at bison for having great strength but not daring to fight back against lions. In fact, humans are the same. When the devil is devouring its own kind, who can stand up and fight against the devil?
What's funny is that Su Ming only now realized that he could clearly lead the herd of cattle to counterattack the lion group, but in the end he just used his own standards to pick out the old, weak, sick and skinny cattle to sacrifice to the evil lions.
Since the devil wants them to give up their human dignity, they should also show it human courage.
Since the other party can use those ridiculous baits to make people fall into depravity, he can also find a way to use something to make everyone wake up again!
This is the essence of this game . It is not a survival competition, but a battle of beliefs between humans and the devil!
Su Ming looked down at the only remaining list of people in front of him, and with a stroke of his pen, he circled out the names of the elderly people.
"If the ruler of this world is wrong, then please prove it to me!"
…
The next day, Su Ming found the first old man.
"Master Xu, I want to discuss something with you."
The old man surnamed Xu glanced at Su Ming, forced himself to stand up with his weak body, and walked towards Su Ming. His son and daughter-in-law beside him hurriedly stood up to support him.
"Dad, let me help you!"
"You two don't need to help me. Just stay here. Mr. Xia wants to talk to me alone."
Old man Xu looked at Su Ming with his cloudy old eyes, his eyes full of meaning.
Su Ming nodded slowly to the three of them. His son and daughter-in-law looked at their father, then at Su Ming, and finally slowly returned to their original place and sat down.
Su Ming stepped forward to support the old man and walked to a secluded place. He helped Old Man Xu to sit on the decorative stone bench in the garden. As soon as the old man sat down, he said, "Mr. Xia, are you going to use my life?"
Su Ming was slightly stunned, then nodded slowly: "What I said yesterday was true. Have you ever thought about it since then?"
"Of course, how could we not think about it!" Old Man Xu said with a wry smile, "Not just me, we all thought about it... Young people may not know who is missing now, but we old people know it very well."
Old man Xu sighed and looked worried.
Among the missing people, the elderly account for a very large proportion. It is unknown why so many elderly people disappear, but it is an indisputable fact that the elderly are more likely to be murdered. As one of the priority targets of murder, Old Man Xu naturally understands this very well.
"Mr. Xia, what are you going to do? Is there really no other way?"
Su Ming remained silent.
Old Man Xu sighed and said slowly: "I am just an ordinary blacksmith, I don't have much brains, but I am not the kind of person who doesn't understand the overall situation. I just hope you can tell me the real situation now so that I can be mentally prepared."
"The way you speak doesn't sound like a brainless person. It would be great if everyone had your awareness." Su Ming sighed with emotion.
He could already see that this respectable old man would eventually agree to his request...even if he hadn't mentioned it yet.
"Master, what I said is true. In the end, only thirteen people survived.
But I think it is not important who survived in the end. What is important is how those thirteen people survived in the end. Did they survive by stealing other people's food or murdering other people? Or did they survive by being protected by others?
This is very important.”
"I don't quite understand what you mean. I hope you can explain it more clearly."
What an honest old man, Su Ming thought.
He reorganized his words and said it again:
"This alien world wants us to kill each other and hurt each other until the final thirteen people are decided. It is a destined result that thirteen people will survive, but how these thirteen people survive can be decided by us."
After saying this, Su Ming paused and changed his statement to a more simple and easy to understand one.
"Perhaps, there really is a devil in this place, and that devil wants us to kill each other and scheme against each other . But we can also choose to fight it. Although that will only lead to death in the end, and everyone will still die, but I think... that won't count as our loss."
Old man Xu was stunned for a moment, and his dim eyes gradually brightened, with a hint of inexplicable spirit.
"You mean, we have to choose how we die now, right?" He raised his hand and asked tremblingly.
"That's right." Su Ming nodded deeply and slowly.
Old Master Xu took a deep breath, squinted his eyes and looked at the purple moon in the sky, and the stuffiness in his chest was no longer there.
Soon after he came here, he felt chest tightness. He had thought about the proposition of death countless times.
As an old man who has lived for nearly seventy years and is still in good health, he is actually not afraid of death.
Death is meaningful. Although it may not be meaningful to the dead, it is meaningful to the living.
He has been a blacksmith since he was young. He doesn't understand much philosophy, but he knows how he would be better off dying. Especially in this ghost place, he is more determined than ever before on how he should face death... He hopes that his death will give his son, grandson, and daughter-in-law the courage to stay optimistic. He hopes that they will not be so desperate. He wants them to know that no matter how difficult the situation is, it will eventually pass.
This idea is fantastic and unrealistic, but it does exist in Old Man Xu's heart.
What Su Ming had just said coincided with his thoughts.
Yesterday, when Su Ming said in front of everyone that he wanted to challenge the master of this world, he felt like his heart was hit by a hammer.
He thought Su Ming's words were well said!
He had long wanted to know what kind of damn place this was. It turned good people into monsters! It turned neighbors who were originally friendly into enemies!
If this place really has an owner, then he also hopes to challenge that person like Su Ming. Even if he is just an old man, even if he has no ability, he will spit at the person who controls everything and curse him -
"You think you are so capable! You think you can make us turn against each other and fight among ourselves? I tell you, you think too much! Don't look down on others. You can't do anything except hiding behind like a turtle grandson!"
He had this dream several times. In the dream, everyone was united and they were so hungry that they had nothing to eat. The adults gave their food to the children and women, and he gave his food to the young men. Then he died, and the same thing happened to the other old people.
In the dream, they died tragically. Although they were all dead, he felt that this ghost place was not scary at all. Instead, this strange world seemed to be the background that set off their noble character.
The way he died in his dream was the way he wanted to die!
But... dreams are just dreams after all. When you wake up you'll know nothing like that happened.
Selflessness only exists in dreams. In reality, no one would give up food to others.
Who else would give food to a child except his parents? The old man didn’t give away the canned food voluntarily. The old man disappeared without a trace, and the canned food disappeared with him.
The situation now is different from when Old Man Xu was young. When he was young, the devil once broke into half of the city, and he and a large group of people digging iron ore were trapped underground. He remembered that the last steamed bun was given to him by an old miner who was on the same shift. The miner said that he had no strength to hold on and left the last bite of food for him.
"We shouldn't kill each other and compete with each other to see who has the ability to survive. That's too cowardly, and even death will be ugly. I want everyone to understand this truth... Death is not scary. What's scary is that even the way you die is chosen by others." Su Ming said , as if he was talking to himself, or as if he was talking to Old Man Xu.
"Okay! Old man, I've been wanting to do this for a long time!"
Old man Xu crossed his arms in front of his chest, tilted his head slightly, tears welled up in his eyes, but his face suddenly showed a heroic look:
"If we can let them live like human beings, what's the big deal if a few old guys die!
There is a saying that goes, "Some people are lighter than a feather after death, but some people are heavier than a mountain after death! Since we are all going to die! ... we must not die in a cowardly way! I want to die like a feather, flying up to the sky!"
Su Ming's eyes were slightly red, and Su Mingqiang smiled and asked, "Do you know what I want you to do?"
“Hahaha!” Old man Xu laughed out loud. “Hey! I guessed it a long time ago. I guessed it when you were halfway through saying it. Last time you lost a little blood, this time you lose your life!… It’s no big deal!”
…
After parting with Old Man Xu, Su Ming wanted to continue looking for other elderly people, but Old Man Xu said that he would persuade the others. After hanging out in the manor for so many days, all of these old guys were familiar with each other, and it would be faster to let them talk it out among themselves.
Su Ming and Old Man Xu just parted in the morning, and in the afternoon, he came to report with a group of old men and women.
When we walked into the main house, the old men walking in front were cursing, as if they were cursing about men's affairs and why old women were joining in the fun.
Some bad-tempered old ladies in the back were also cursing non-stop, and the house was extremely lively for a while.
Su Ming heard the sound and walked out of the study. He was stunned when he saw the groups of elderly people below.
Old man Xu, who was walking in the front, also happened to see Su Ming, raised his hand and greeted him proudly: "We are here!"
Just as Old Man Xu finished speaking, another voice suddenly rang out from outside the door: "Hey, you guys, wait for me."
The old men and women walking in front suddenly became quiet and turned to look at the door.
Outside the door, a thin old man with a goatee walked slowly into the front hall.
Old Man Xu let out a long sigh and said comfortingly, "Old Wu, don't force yourself. It's okay."
The old man with a goatee sighed and said in a trembling voice: "You all left, leaving me alone... It's meaningless.
Lao Xu, I've thought about it... You're right, the outside world is a young people's world, and we old bones have nothing to fight for!"
"So I... after thinking it over, I think it's better for us to go together, so that we can have some company on the road." Old man Wu said with tears in his eyes.
Old Man Xu nodded vigorously, then raised his head and looked at Su Ming.
He touched his sparsely haired forehead and smiled shyly: "Xiao Xia, I have something to ask of you."
Su Ming looked at this group of old people with a dazed expression.
For a long time, there has been an abstract illusion in Su Ming's heart. In the illusion, he is carrying a heavy burden and walking alone on a thorny road. The burden in his fantasy is very heavy, so heavy that he wants to put it down, but he is afraid that he will not be able to pick it up again after putting it down.
But just now, for a moment, he seemed to feel his shoulders suddenly become relaxed, as if someone had taken the burden from him.
Su Ming felt that this might not be an illusion.
Perhaps, he didn't have to go alone from the beginning.
"Go ahead!" Su Ming responded loudly from the second floor, feeling surprisingly happy.
"Haha, well... it's like this. We are all rough guys, all blacksmiths! We can't read or anything. We want to write something before we leave, and would like to ask Elton to help us write it." Old man Xu said loudly.
"No problem, I'll write it for you myself." Su Ming agreed readily.
"That won't work! You can't do it. Elton has to come."
"Why?" Su Ming was a little confused. He observed the other person's expression to see something, but he only saw some awkwardness and something meaningful and indescribable, as if this practice was a special care for him, a young junior.
"Just call Elton over! I'll talk to him in person!" Old Man Xu said carelessly.
"Master, leave it to me."
At some point, Elton appeared behind Su Ming.
He took a few steps forward to the fence and waved to the people below: "Brother Xu, Brother Zhang!"
"Hey, you've come at the right time. Hurry up! A lot of people are waiting for you to write a suicide note." A hunchbacked old man whom Su Ming didn't know shouted to Elton.
Su Ming turned his head and looked at Elton in surprise.
Elton shrugged slightly at Su Ming, his mouth curled up, revealing a smile that only a mature old man could show: "Every day when I distribute food, I will talk to everyone. It should be understandable that people of similar age have more topics to talk about, right? Don't look at me like this, I also lived in the slums when I was a child."
"This is really... a real person never reveals his true face." Su Ming nodded blankly, and it took him a long time to recover.
…
In the evening, Su Ming sat alone in the study with a piece of paper spread out in front of him.
He held a pen in his hand, preparing to write something.
Originally, Su Ming had no such idea, but the practice of Grandpa Xu and other elderly people writing suicide notes aroused Su Ming's desire to write a suicide note.
After all, if he continued on this path, he would most likely die, and if he died he would never see Xia Xiaoyu again...so he had to write something.
"Hiss - it's so depressing. I have to think about how to send a letter to you. I feel like all my brain cells are burning out." Su Ming complained with a sigh.
The scenes of the days I spent with Xia Xiaoyu flashed quickly before my mind. There were so many thoughts I wanted to write down, but I didn't know where to start.
He didn't want to write too much, as that would make it sound like an old lady's foot binding, but he also felt it would be inappropriate to just skip over it.
After staring at the letter paper and hesitating for a while, Su Ming finally started writing.
