Could monkeys from different generations still exchange experiences?
Zhou Ze couldn't help but laugh.
He found the scene rather comical.
Then,
when he thought of the "half-face" personality within him that he often used,
the smile on Boss Zhou's face gradually faded.
The weather was excellent today, sunny and with good air quality. Zhou Ze thought he should go back to his room to sleep.
"Boss, there's smoke over there,"
Yingying said, pointing to the distance outside the window.
Zhou Ze turned his head to look, then simply pushed open the bookstore door and stood on the street. The smoke was coming from the northwest of South Street Pedestrian Street, not too far away, probably a residential area.
"Looks like a fire."
"Seems so."
"Hope no one is hurt or in danger."
"Yes."
"Hope the firefighters are safe too."
"Yes."
"Alright, Yingying, come upstairs and sleep with me for a while. Help me prepare some clothes, I'll take a shower first."
"Okay, Boss."
Boss Zhou entered the bathroom, just took off his clothes, and started the water, when his phone rang.
He glanced at it; it was Old Daoist's call.
In the past, Boss Zhou would probably choose to take a shower first and deal with anything else later, but now that Old Daoist was in this state, Zhou Ze was really embarrassed to treat him so casually. He had to pick up the phone with a bath towel draped over him.
"Hey, Boss, there's a fire here."
"Huh? A fire? Oh, I see it."
"Boss, I'm here. There's still a family upstairs who hasn't come down yet, and the fire is pretty fierce."
"Oh."
Zhou Ze replied while testing the water temperature.
It was about right.
"I can't, I have to go up and save people, Boss, I won't talk anymore, I'll hang up first."
"No, Old Daoist, don't..."
"Beep, beep, beep..."
Zhou Ze's hand, which was reaching for the showerhead, trembled.
He redialed, but it just kept ringing, no one answered. Old Daoist was probably too busy to care.
Zhou Ze gritted his teeth,
turned off the water, quickly put his clothes back on, and rushed out of the bathroom. Old Xu had driven out to buy groceries, and there were no cars parked in front of the store he could use, so Zhou Ze simply started sprinting.
Having experienced so much and seen so many ups and downs, he could at least sense that within many seemingly chaotic and complex events, there was often a pattern.
Old Daoist had been diagnosed with terminal cancer,
and didn't have much time left, maybe three months,
and now he encountered this fire,
and someone in the fire needed to be saved.
It was as if the stage had been set, and the script had provided a way that it considered a very good way to end the play.
Dying to save someone in the final moments of life, a great and dignified death.
However,
from Zhou Ze's perspective,
even though Old Daoist had cancer and seemed to have come to terms with it,
Boss Zhou didn't really think Old Daoist was doomed.
He had many ways to help Old Daoist extend his life, but the truly final moment hadn't arrived yet, and he had been accommodating Old Daoist all along.
God knows what he was thinking now,
a man in his seventies,
suffering from a serious illness,
and now he was playing the hero,
what if he really died in the fire?
Zhou Ze was moving very fast. He deliberately chose alleys with fewer people, so he didn't attract anyone's attention. The fire was indeed not far away. When Zhou Ze pushed through the crowd and saw the burning residential building ahead, he didn't even bother to catch his breath. He first scanned the crowd for Old Daoist.
There were many onlookers, and many were taking pictures with their phones, but after looking around, Zhou Ze didn't see Old Daoist.
Well,
he must have already gone up.
The sound of fire trucks was already approaching from a distance, they should be arriving soon, but Zhou Ze couldn't wait. He could ignore the fire when he was standing in front of the store because he felt it had nothing to do with him, but now that Old Daoist was inside, he had no choice, he had to go.
For a long time,
Boss Zhou had always had these two great guys, Old Daoist and Old Zhang, by his side,
but to be honest,
the saying "entering a room full of orchids, after a long time, you no longer smell the fragrance, and you become one with it" didn't apply to Boss Zhou.
There were more people outside, so Zhou Ze rushed into the burning residential building first, not choosing to go up the stairs, but climbing out of the first-floor stairwell window and climbing up the side of the building like Spider-Man, unseen by the crowd watching from the front.
Boss Zhou didn't go straight to the upper floors to save people. He was worried about Old Daoist's current physical condition. He seemed fine usually, but if he really inhaled too much smoke and had other problems, he might faint in the stairwell.
Fortunately,
all the way to the seventh floor, Zhou Ze didn't see Old Daoist unconscious on the stairs, and from the outside wall, he could already hear Old Daoist shouting.
"Come out, come out, you can still get down now, take a wet towel and cover your mouth, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, cough cough cough, cough cough..."
Fire safety knowledge is actually very widespread, for example, you are "educated" every time you go to the cinema to watch a movie;
but when you really encounter a fire, under the influence of panic and fear, very few people can really calm down and respond according to the methods that have been popularized before.
The fire probably started in the middle floors. For now, the fire hasn't completely spread, but the smoke is quite heavy.
Zhou Ze climbed in through the stairwell window and walked towards Old Daoist.
Looking at Old Daoist, who was anxiously holding a wet cloth he didn't know where he got from, covering his mouth and nose,
Boss Zhou really wanted to kick him!
Telling you to show off,
telling you to cause me trouble!
I should be sitting in the bathtub, but you made me run here and get covered in smoke.
At this moment, a young woman's body poked out from the room. There was also a golden retriever at the woman's feet.
"You take it down first, I'm afraid something will happen to Baby."
"I'll take you down first, don't worry about the dog, sister."
"No, if it doesn't go down first, I won't go down either, I don't care, I don't care, I can't leave Baby behind, you have to take Baby down first, if something happens to Baby, I won't live either, I won't live!"
At this time,
Old Daoist also noticed a familiar figure walking out from the black smoke at the stairwell entrance.
Who else could it be but his own boss?
Old Daoist immediately grinned, revealing a smile. With the boss here, everything would be fine.
A mere fire was nothing to the boss, right?
But soon,
Old Daoist realized something was wrong.
The boss's face was very gloomy, and it wasn't just blackened by the smoke. That anger was really bubbling up.
Old Daoist, with his rich experience of testing the limits of death, immediately became alert.
Something bad was about to happen.
The boss was angry!
"Boss, you came..."
"Bang!"
Zhou Ze kicked out.
Old Daoist stared in shock as the woman standing at the door was kicked away by his own boss.
……………
On the rooftop across from the burning residential building,
a dirty monkey was squatting there,
its face wearing a silver mask, a bell hanging around its neck, and a paper figure the size of an adult's palm tied to its waist.
At this moment,
the dirty monkey was having a great time playing with the mask.
But suddenly,
it abruptly took off the mask,
and then its body began to retreat non-stop,
spitting out several mouthfuls of blood.
After taking off the mask, it could be seen that the monkey's eyes were dull and foolish, without any of the intelligence unique to monkeys, more like a muddleheaded, stupid thing.
The paper figure at the dirty monkey's waist fell at this moment, floating in the air.
"Thank you for your hard work."
An old voice sounded.
A moment of clarity suddenly appeared in the dirty monkey's muddy eyes, but it immediately returned to muddiness.
"Squeak squeak squeak! Squeak squeak squeak! Squeak squeak squeak!"
The dirty monkey seemed to have gone mad,
and began to frantically fight with the air in front of it,
It kept jumping up, grabbing upwards with its arms, and after landing, it jumped up again, continuing to grab, madly and tirelessly.
It was as if there was a bird hovering over its head, which did not exist at all, and that bird seemed to be trying to peck at it, the monkey retreating from time to time with a "hiss hiss hiss" sound in its throat.
The paper figure continued to float there,
looking at the burning residential building across the street for a while,
and then looking at the dirty monkey fighting with the air,
Because it was a paper figure,
it had no expression,
but it was filled with an extremely strong aura of death,
like a coffin lid that had rotted to the extreme,
being pulled out again into the sunlight to be exposed!
"Squeak squeak squeak!!!!!"
The dirty monkey suddenly jumped twice as high as before,
and then grabbed something with both hands,
after landing, it pressed it firmly under its feet,
then lowered its mouth,
and began to tear and bite desperately,
biting,
still the air.
But in this process,
it seemed that the wail of a bird sounded,
and,
under the dirty monkey's feet,
a faint wisp of golden smoke began to spread,
but in an instant it dissipated with the wind, as if it had never appeared.
"Squeak squeak... Hehehe..."
The dirty monkey raised its head,
looking at the paper figure floating in front of it while drooling.
"Thank you for your hard work."
The paper figure repeated this sentence.
The dirty monkey continued to laugh foolishly,
sat down,
and began to breathe heavily.
The paper figure floated to the edge of the rooftop railing,
As the fire trucks arrived, the fire was beginning to be controlled, and there was no immediate threat of spreading.
"The funeral clothes… you have received them;
The sacrificial offering… I have also found it for you long ago;
Next,
you,
can go die."
The paper figure raised its head,
a ball of blue flame began to rise,
and when this flame appeared,
the surrounding scenery also began to darken.
"Whether the era belonging to Mount Tai has completely ended, I don't want to bother with it.
But this kind of unfilial descendant,
must… go… die…"
The paper figure let out a sigh,
threw the blue flame in his hand forward,
and said with a forlorn expression:
"You die… the next generation… can still have some… hope…"