Penname is Ziran, a member of Jinhua Writers Association. More than dozens of novels and essays have been published in major local and national newspapers, magazines, and books, and he has won many essay awards. Among them, the novel "Soft Moonlight" was included in the "Essential Poetry and Essays of Young Writers Across the Century", and the novel "Return" won the third prize in the National Short Literature Essay Competition. He was once hired as a special writer by the supplement of Zhejiang Youth Daily. In 2010, he published "Indescribable", a collection of novels, poems, and essays.
In addition to writing, he also loves painting. He is a member of Jinhua Artists Association and a director of Lanxi Artists Association. More than 30 illustrations in the book are all written by the author.
Chen Jing's Work 1 -
North Window (Short Story)
At night, a black net was opened, and the lingering and gloomy drizzle continued permeated the whole city.
North window.
Two suspicious eyes were hidden in a narrow gap in the deliberately opened brown curtains of a certain building.
Opposite me, I don’t know when, the window that was always yellow in color suddenly grinned.
On the balcony that had lost its warmth, an empty and lonely clothes-drying rod stretched straight out, sharp and sharp, piercing Yi's heart. This sudden isolation, domineering, and murderous posture seemed to never want to change.
Yi's chest began to hurt inexplicably and strangely.
Yi Zai fantasized over and over again in his mind, weaving a series of storylines in the novel where the opposite person disappeared. In the middle of the night, Yi often hears the sound of breaking glass and often sees the vague figure of a mature woman. This woman had disheveled hair, bare feet, black nail polish, and a pair of pink soft-soled slippers. She walked softly over and over on the cracked mahogany floor.
Severe insomnia made Yi's nerves highly excited...
The choking wind wrapped in the drizzle pulled Yi's ears, passing by a cobblestone with a wet cold light and a mysterious pattern. The quiet path drifts towards the opposite side.
A scratched door and a rusty lock. At Yi's suggestion, the door suddenly opened.
Yi was extremely excited and restless, as if there were countless secrets calling inside. The equally excited flashlight that had been lurking in Yi's pocket flickered on.
Yi tiptoed, dragging her shadow, following the pale light, and flashed in like a wandering spirit.
A rotten musty smell filled her nose, and Yi resisted the urge to vomit. In a panic, Yi stumbled over something. When he looked down, he saw a pile of gray old clothes lying on the ground, gasping secretly.
Going around the pile of clothes, there was a wooden chair, with one foot kneeling helplessly and aggrievedly towards Yi.
That stubborn light brought Yi, who was holding her breath, into the bedroom. Yi first looked behind the door alertly. A black umbrella with a long metal handle was leaning against the wall, implying aggression. The shoe cabinet is filled with rotten leather shoes of men and women, with their black mouths open, and they don’t know what language they speak.
In the center of the bedroom, there is a large bare bed. On the bedside table is a dusty calendar, the date is fixed on December 22, 1990, the winter solstice. "Winter Solstice", a meaningful circle is drawn with a red pen on these two words. Yi Jiu stared at the blood-red circle, lemon-colored flames flashing in his eyes.
The beam of light then went under the bed. Yi was shocked to see those very familiar pair of pink-colored soft-soled slippers lying on her back! In a daze, two feet painted with black nail polish slowly slipped into the slippers, and then quietly walked out from under the bed, a cool breeze gently brushing the back of Yi's neck.
Yi's heart beat faster and her palms became slightly sweaty. Yi heard a few dull dry coughs rushing out of his throat and crashing into the dead gray walls.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, sounding like the gnawing sound of some kind of insect. Yi became more and more excited, and there was an indescribable desire surging in her hot blood. Yi clearly felt that lonely heart beating excitedly and irregularly. Everything here is more and more consistent with imagination! A proud sneer appeared on the corner of Yi's mouth.
Yi slowly approached the brown wardrobe standing against the wall, stretched out her hand, hesitated for a moment, and suddenly opened the door. It was empty, except for an unknown hanging item that smelled of blood. The long coat of wild animal hair seems to still exude the residual warmth of the hostess. Yi stretched out his middle finger and index finger and gently stroked the sweater. The hair fell down like snow, instantly revealing the white and red skin underneath. Yi felt sick and quickly closed the closet door.
A flickering light entered the bathroom. Yi's mutilated face appeared in the cracked and decaying mirror, as strange as if he had encountered a ghost. Yi's eyes fell on the dressing table, a broken piece of rose red lipstick, a lonely mouthwash cup next to it, and a pink toothbrush with curly bristles inserted.
A wandering light flashed into the kitchen. On the operating table, there was a kitchen knife with a cracked handle, exuding a faint cold air. A piece of braided linen rope, tied with a hanging knot. There was a pile of ashes in the corner, damp and cold. When you pulled it with your fingertips, the ashes immediately began to twist.
Yi was stunned. The pile of living ashes actually revealed seven words: "Living is a problem." Has there been a suicide here? Or homicide? Yi was so excited by the unknown, strange and mysterious things in this room that her whole body trembled, and every pore produced a sneaky and dangerous joy of exploring.
Yi Zheng was immersed in this unique experience that he had never had before. He vaguely heard a faint, strange sound coming from behind. Yi turned around, and suddenly his hair stood on end. The pile of old clothes that had previously been limp on the ground like corpses stood up, arms around each other, and danced.
Yi yelled and stepped back, echoes flying around.
The pile of clothes without head, face or limbs twisted wildly and rushed towards Yi fiercely.
The stunned Yi flew out from the exposed balcony and clearly heard a heavy sigh from the clothes drying pole pointing directly at the north window.
North window.
The long-planned maroon window curtains shook violently a few times, and gradually returned to calm.
One day.
North window.
A large patch of moss suddenly grew out of the cracked wall, overflowing with a painful and strange dark green.
Yi saw that the thin man wearing glasses on the second floor, with a shiny bald head, put his right hand into the mail green trash can on the roadside. Then, he put his right hand in, and then, unknown from inside, He took out something and quickly put it into the black plastic bag that had been prepared in his left hand. Then he adjusted the frame of his glasses, glanced around, and walked away.
After a while, the gray-haired old woman on the first floor stopped next to the trash can, holding a dustpan. She took out a box of matches from her pocket and lit a pile of paper with something written on it in the dustpan. The flames flickered, and a wisp of black smoke rose up with the breeze, slowly invading Yi's north window.
Yi blinked, and jumped up like a spring, grabbing the door and running down.
Yi turned the trash can upside down, picked up a branch, and moved it bit by bit.
Yi couldn’t remember how many pieces of paper she had written on just a moment ago. She only remembered casually crumpling several paper balls, throwing them into the wastebasket, and then dumping the green garbage into it. bucket.
Yi concluded that the four-eyed bald man on the second floor picked up his secret. Moreover, a bald man will definitely, in the dead of night, put the pair of rat eyes behind the lenses under the dim light, unfolding those crumpled, dirty, and sour-smelling paper balls bit by bit, sneaking up Trouble with those private things that belong to Yi, then murmur, chuckle, and then spread the word to ten, ten to hundred...
Yi was very regretful, angry, panicked all day long, and had insomnia all night long. .
The old-fashioned wall clock passed down from ancestors on the wall struck twelve times feebly and hoarsely in the darkness. When the last ring fell, the telephone bell rose from the ground.
Yi grabbed the phone, but there was no sound from the other party, only a slight hot breath. Yi judged that it was a man, and he was the bald man with four eyes on the second floor.
The silent phone rang over and over again. Yi’s twisted face turned red, and she was breathing heavily. She ran around barefoot from the bedroom to the living room, from the bathroom to the kitchen, mouthing He also screamed strangely from time to time.
A pair of sharp scissors appeared in the TV camera. Yi's eyes twitched, she picked up the scissors, and cut the phone line with hatred. Finally, deathly silence returned to the room.
Yi seemed to suddenly remember something, and her two eyes, which had been blinking nervously, were staring straight at the locked drawer in the middle of the desk.
The drawer is filled with messy diaries and scraps of paper, with dense handwriting on them, full of heavy, hot secrets and privacy. Yi thought that keeping these things would make him uneasy and worried, as he might not know who would get them in the future. Drawers have always attracted thieves, especially locked drawers.
So, Yi Qi messed with the black and white words, then moved them all into an iron pot and lit them. The flames suddenly jumped up, illuminating Yi's excited face, which was glowing red, and Yi felt very happy.
This fire burned until dawn.
Yi has been squatting in front of the iron pot filled with ashes, occasionally letting out a dry groan or two, occasionally talking to himself, occasionally chuckling, and occasionally sobbing quietly...
p>
Early in the morning, Yi went downstairs with a dustpan to pour out the ashes. At the corner of the stairs on the second floor, I bumped into a bald man with four eyes.
Yi found that his bald head was particularly bright today. The pair of small bloodshot eyes hidden behind the lenses blinked and smiled strangely at Yi. Yi's scalp was numb, and he opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end he couldn't spit out a word. He watched the figure that made him grit his teeth disappear completely.
Yi was helpless and at a loss as she climbed up the stairs in confusion, feeling that every cat's eye was shining with a strange gaze, making her whole body uneasy.
……
At midnight, endless thick fog enveloped the city.
The bald man lived happily without warning.
Under the dim light, the bald man held up a magnifying glass, his face glowing red, excitedly teasing out the secrets of Yi picked from the trash can.
It was extremely quiet all around. There was a restless atmosphere in the air, indicating that something was about to happen.
At this time, the time is ripe. Yi arranged for a masked killer of unknown gender to sneak in through the half-closed window. Before the bald man could raise his head, everything disappeared without anyone noticing.
The crumpled piece of paper, carrying the warmth of a bald head and the sour smell of garbage, returned to Yi's hands.
In the thick fog, the outline of the bald head gradually became a black and white photo...
The side of the north window.
A winding railway track stretched to the end of the sky, and a night train flew by at lightning speed, crushing Yi's fantasy to pieces.
It was a very strange day.
After countless days of drizzle, it suddenly cleared up and the sun burst out from the clouds, making it exceptionally bright, bright and charming.
North window. The large patch of thick green moss that grew wildly in the cracks in the wall suddenly withered and died overnight for no reason. The maroon curtains were also gone, replaced by a lake-green curtain.
Opposite. The clothes-drying pole on the balcony, which was poignant to people's hearts, finally put away its murderous posture and put on colorful clothes, fluttering in the wind. The empty window with the grinning teeth was filled with wheat-yellow waves again.
This city, this building, perhaps, has long been accustomed to talking to itself.
? (Text/Chen Jing)
Compiled by Chen Shuihe on the afternoon of September 11, 2018