After answering Wu Heng's question, Ben began to recall the girl again.
She gave him the conviction to fight against the Pennywise, Pennywise.
This is also what Wu Heng wanted to see. The best way to overcome fear is through belief, and there are two extreme kinds of belief: one is infatuation, and the other is hatred.
If someone possesses even one of these traits, they are definitely a crazy person.
He then recalled the love poems he had written, those shy love poems that had never been signed.
He always hid his love for Beverly Marsh very well.
But anyone who observes carefully can see that he always carefully keeps a certain distance from her, and that he holds his breath when he accidentally touches her hand or arm.
And then there's his deliberate dressing up every time he sees Beverly Marsh; you can tell, oh, that kind and lovely chubby Ben, I like that girl.
Unfortunately, he was ignored; who would pay attention to a fat, good-for-nothing child?
So many days and nights,
He shyly avoided her, yet deliberately approached her out of longing; such is the contradiction of young love.
However, this love affair eventually ended.
Ben didn't even know when it started or ended; he tried hard to recall.
Was it shortly after they separated?
Or was it when Beverly Marsh told him that she had someone she liked?
Or was it when he forgot about her?
In short, he couldn't tell anymore; the postcards he had been sending had simply stopped, and he had forgotten everything.
He was simply treasuring the postcard subconsciously, his subconscious telling him that the piece of paper was precious, just as people subconsciously protect themselves and fear pain.
These memories are like Coral emerging from the water at low tide; they are connected, not separate islands.
But he still has many hazy memories, which are gradually returning and will fully surface when the tide recedes completely.
If he were to dive down now and get a clear look at Beverly Marsh's face, he would see an unpleasant sight:
Those are purple starlings that return to New England every spring.
A large flock of birds crowded around the power lines, trees, and rooftops, their hoarse courtship calls filling the spring sky. This image kept replaying in his mind, feeling both strange and uncomfortable, as if the clamor had obscured Beverly Marsh's face.
For a fleeting moment, he even saw white paint smeared on the bird's face and blood-red on its sharp beak.
Ha, Pennywise bird!
Wu Heng felt very satisfied as he looked at the increasingly strong conviction emanating from his body.
Ben Hans was the smarter one in both the first and second movies.
In the story, Mike Hanlon, a black man who retained his memories because he had stayed in Derry, called each of them one by one. He used the oath scars on his palms to awaken their memories, and they decided to return to Derry to fulfill the oath they made in their childhood.
27 years later, Pennywise the Pennywise also sent a signal to Derry.
"Go home!" It's waiting for them.
On their return journey, each of them encounters monsters conjured from their own deepest fears and regrets.
For Ben, what could be more regrettable than his first love?
As his memories became clearer, Ben also discovered the love surging in his mind; he still loved that girl.
"Very well, let's begin!"
Smack!
Wu Heng snapped his fingers with his right hand, activating Swine Two's ability to break through walls.
Ben felt as if his surroundings had changed; he felt as if he had returned to Derry, to the original library, the place where he first searched for clues about Pennywise.
This is where Ben's fear began, and that's where Wu Heng sent him.
Ben saw a Maturin drawn in chalk on the bookshelf, but then felt dizzy. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, only to find that it wasn't Maturin at all, but just a scar on the wood grain, indicating some corrosion.
He put his hands in his pockets and surveyed his surroundings.
The library remained unchanged; its lines were still as pleasing to him as ever. Like a well-designed stone building, this library also knew how to draw the gaze of those examining it into a world of contradictions.
The hardness of the stone is balanced with the delicacy of the archway and slender columns, creating a sense of sturdiness and cleanliness while also appearing delicate.
This sense of contradiction, which prevents it from being ugly, compels one to think.
Ben only wanted to see the glass walkway connecting the library and the children's room, where his memories were stored. He wanted to walk around the walkway to the front door, but his view was always blocked by the thick stone walls of the library.
His ankle boots had gotten wet at some point.
Recalling the past made him feel heartbroken and sad, but he also found it interesting.
After passing through a glass walkway, a high-hanging spherical glass lamp emits a soft, warm yellow light.
He stepped into the halo of light, and a memory suddenly surged forth, so powerful that he almost fainted.
It wasn't like the tangible force of being punched or slapped in the face, but rather a strange feeling of overlapping time, an indescribable sensation that could only be described as 'déjà vu'.
He had felt this way before, but never so dizzying. He stood there for a while, feeling as if he were truly lost in time, momentarily forgetting whether he was 38 or 11 years old.
Wu Heng sat in the church prayer seat, staring into Ben's eyes, which had already lost their luster. Ben was lost in thought, his facial expression constantly changing.
He took out a video camera and started filming Ben.
Then he wiped the palm-sized, worn-out Maturin again with a wet wipe, as if he were polishing a priceless antique work of art.
Then he held it in his hand, turning it over and over, examining it from all angles.
He couldn't see anything wrong with it, so he even tried biting it with his teeth.
Clear teeth marks were left on the tortoise shell, two teeth marks about one centimeter wide, covering the dog's teeth marks, leaving only the deep, sharp canine tooth hole in the middle of the teeth marks.
Wu Heng even felt that he tasted bad breath.
It must have come from that Bichon Frise named " Pete ".
But this also proves that, at the very least, the material of the tortoise shell is just an ordinary tortoise shell.
In terms of efficacy, Wu Heng did not perceive any ability to exorcise ghosts.
Could it be that he's overthinking things, and it's all just a coincidence?
But Wu Heng never believed in coincidences!
Coincidence itself implies unexpectedness and instability; it takes countless failures before a single coincidence occurs.
Then people called it a 'miracle'.
Just as in this world, Pennywise Pennywise has existed for millions of years.
During this time, countless humans have fought against the Pennywise.
Even Maturin had been providing assistance from beginning to end, but had never succeeded before; the process of eliminating the Pennywise had failed for millions of years.
Even the ritual for defeating the Pennywise, which Mike Hanlon supposedly found in the tribal records of the ancient Derry natives, and the vase-like container, was just a joke.
That was amusement deliberately left behind by the Pennywise; those primitive inhabitants never succeeded, and were all killed.
The so-called ritual to defeat the Pennywise is more like a ritual to 'worship' the Pennywise.
Only in the plot,
Although the ritual failed, the protagonists discovered that as long as they were not afraid of the Pennywise, they could weaken Pennywise.
They actually overcame their fear and defeated the Pennywise.
All of this was too much of a coincidence, so coincidental that Wu Heng couldn't even believe that the main characters could succeed again in this real world.
After all, he has come into this world, like a butterfly flapping its wings. The world has undergone subtle changes, and he has already influenced Ben.
Therefore, he had to guide the project in a direction that aligned with his interests.
" Pennywise's Heart!"
Wu Heng stretched out his right hand and gently touched his chest, where everything was quiet except for the Life Box.
His gaze returned to the tortoise shell, preparing to capture the evil spirit once Ben regained consciousness, and use it to test the situation.
If he could, he wanted Ben to experience all the fears and mold him into a protagonist reborn like in a novel from his previous life, someone who could completely ignore fear and strike at the heart of the enemy, like Pennywise or Pennywise.
pity.
He is quite intelligent and has a deep understanding of reality, making him difficult to mold.
However, Wu Heng also has a suitable candidate.
"Smack!"
As Wu Heng was pondering, a snap of fingers came from the doorway.
The sound was exactly the same as the snap of his fingers when he sent the book into the illusion of the wall-breaking maze.
It's as if someone recorded it and then replayed it.
"We've been targeted!"
Wu Heng's face darkened, and he gripped the tortoise shell tightly, quickly using his ability to control his emotions and regulate his fear.
Standing under the halo of the light, I rubbed my head.
The library was as quiet as ever, with only occasional whispers, the soft sound of librarians stamping books or overdue notices, and the rustling of newspapers and magazines being turned.
He continued walking, across the wide linoleum floor, where the red and black patterns were almost completely worn away.
He was as careful as ever, trying not to make a sound with his shoes, because the library had a dome in the center, and any sound would be amplified and attract attention.
The spiral iron staircase leading to the book collection area was still there, located on either side of the horseshoe-shaped main table, but a new railing elevator had been added to the library. The new elevator relieved Ben; he finally saw change here, and he hadn't fallen into a time-traveling rut.
At the same time, the scenery in Wu Heng's eyes also changed.
The seat beneath him vanished, and the feeling of weightlessness made him stand up involuntarily; the solemn red ambiance of the church completely disappeared.
What came into view was a library. He had glimpsed this library scene in a movie, and combined with the fact that when he controlled Swine Two, he also chose to use Ben's memories to create the library scene, even though he couldn't see Ben's memories.
Pennywise Pennywise!
The name came to Wu Heng's mind.
Besides it, Wu Heng couldn't think of anyone else who could snap their fingers in the same way and send him into the power of Swine Two.
This might not be Swine Two's ability, but only a part of it.
This is an invasion, an invasion between illusions!
Wu Heng looked around. The librarian was busy at her desk. She looked up at Wu Heng.
This is a young girl, very pretty.
Her light blue eyes swept over Wu Heng, then drifted away indifferently. She was a girl with severe nearsightedness who often spent time in the library, and most of them were like that.
If one's eyesight were normal, seeing Wu Heng's anime-character-like makeup would always draw a second glance, just like the shy high school girl next to him who was pretending to look for books but would occasionally turn her head to secretly glance at Wu Heng.
She was a young girl, about seventeen years old, with her dark blonde hair clipped back, revealing her pretty high school girl face.
Her face was flushed when she looked at Wu Heng.
"Handsome and mature priest, God, save me!"
Her eyes seemed to say something like that; it was the stirrings of a young girl's heart.
"Such a realistic illusion, as if Swine Two's abilities have been multiplied!"
Wu Heng couldn't help but inwardly praise this illusion.
He looked down at the tortoise shell he was holding.
At this moment, he finally discovered the purpose of the tortoise shell.
When he appeared in the hallucination, the tortoise shell also appeared in the hallucination, initially without any change.
The tortoise shell only came into play when Wu Heng controlled and regulated his emotions, and when his fear subsided to zero.
Two images appeared in his field of vision.
One image is a library in a fantasy world, the other is a church in reality. The two overlap, like an app page on a mobile phone, which can be switched and exited at any time.
This put his mind at ease.
Wu Heng even saw the true face of the girl with a blush on her face, who was pretending to look for a book but was actually peeking at him, through the tortoise shell in her hand.
The girl's face was painted white, her eyes were sunken, her bald head was shiny, and her lips were painted with red lipstick that went all the way to her ears.
She looks like Japan geisha.
On her obese body, the extra-small school uniform squeezed deep marks into the fat on her arms and calves.
This scene only made Wu Heng feel ridiculous and disgusted.
He couldn't stand Pennywise's feigned shyness, her wearing a high school girl's skirt, and the way she would steal glances at him with a look of secret admiration.
Perhaps the Japanese would like this, since they also appreciate geisha makeup.
He held the tortoise shell protectively in his palm; it could see through the illusions and disguises of the Pennywise Pennywise. It seemed that Maturin had already bet everything on himself.
Wu Heng turned around and looked around. He spotted Ben Hans walking up the stairs, so he strode after him.
Pennywise, who was looking for a book, saw Wu Heng leave. With the speed of a phantom, she crouched down, her heels touching the ground, and ran away from the bookshelf, disappearing around the corner into the glass corridor.
Ben walked up to the second floor and arrived at the book section. He looked at the opposite corridor and the top of the stairs, which was blocked by the corridor, and the headless body of the boy was clearly visible in his mind.
He stopped in his tracks.
"Sir, do you need my help?"
A voice came from behind his elbow, startling him. He turned around and saw it was the library assistant.
This is what it says on the girl's name tag.
This position existed in 1958 and was held by high school students. The salary was meager, and it was used to help some students who were working part-time while studying. It was a pleasant job.
"It's alright, thank you," Ben replied, then inexplicably added, "I'm here to see my son."
"Oh? What's his name? Maybe I've seen him before," the girl said with a smile. "I know almost all the children here."
"His name is Ben Hans, but I didn't see him."
"What does he look like? If I see him, I can let him know."
"Uh!" Ben started to feel uncomfortable; he really hoped he hadn't lied. "He's very strong."
As I was describing this, a voice came from behind me.
"Book!"
Wu Heng walked up the spiral staircase.
There wasn't time to split it into chapters, so I've combined the two into one (ω)