A common tavern that connects all fantasy worlds

The major gave a last laugh and closed his mouth.He had no strength to speak anymore, his breathing gradually slowed down, and at the last moment of his life, he was finally able to stop and calmly face death.

The pain everywhere in his body was receding away from him, almost making him feel like he was in heaven.

But he knew in his heart that he must be going to the other end.There should be no beer and lobster, right?Wait, Coopers Winery should have been shut down long ago, right?

The convoy of all the living people left continued, Furiosa's chariot at the head, the boys' chariot in the middle, and the mothers at the rear.

In the Grand Canyon, the vulture tribe did not appear.

Perhaps they appeared before, and then, like Old Joe, recognized the Oerlikon machine gun at the rear of the tank, and retreated quietly.Or, maybe they saw the big fat dead body hanging from the Furiosa chariot.

When approaching the fort, everyone clenched their guns again, ready for another battle at any time.

But the battle did not come. The war boys who had lost their will to fight opened the elevator, and everyone rushed towards the fortress with the ecstasy of finding hope.

On the other side, after seeing Furiosa stand on the lift, Max found a car, filled up the gas, and drove out of the fortress in another direction after a while, into the desert.

Max on the co-pilot yawned: "Hell, why doesn't the tavern open until evening?"

"Because it's a tavern." Max replied, and looked back at the two girls in the back seat: "Are you sure? Have you told Furiosa?"

Daiger, the thin, blond, and Cheetos, the brunette, nodded.

"Okay," Max said, stepping on the gas, sending a cloud of sand from the car's rear wheels.

Chapter 8 Memories

After sending everyone back to the tavern, Max finally had time to sit down, have a drink slowly, and maybe get a good night's sleep at the table later.

Max came over, put a plate of pickled olives on the table, and raised his glass to him.

After the two had a drink, the bald man picked an olive and chewed it in his mouth, while he said inarticulately: "They can forget it, I thought you would stay in the 'fortress'."

"...I'm not suitable for this kind of life." Max replied.

Max touched his chin, hesitated for a few seconds, and then continued: "...you heard what the 'Major' said, right? What do you think?"

"Are you telling his story or his view of the world? I don't have any opinion on it." Max also tasted the pickled olives, and the special sweetness with a slight sourness made him salivate: "...that's why I said I'm not suitable... I'm just a former mounted policeman, I don't have any other skills except fighting for my life, and of course I can't see through the future possibility of any one person or a kind of 'order'."

He straightened out his thoughts, and then said: "And everyone will change. I am changing. The crowd will conflict, run-in, adapt to or destroy each other in the collision of emotions. This process is too grand. I have neither the ability nor Not interested in participating."

"So you're, uh, 'The Masquerade'?" Max interjected.

"...What does that mean? I... don't belong to any faction, and my perception of good and evil has long been fixed and I don't intend to change. I have been acting on my own instincts in the wasteland, and I don't care about others What do you think about it, and I hope others do the same for me."

Just after Max finished speaking, Xue Li also came over with a glass of wine, and joined the topic with a smile: "Indeed, typical vigilante style, we generally classify this kind of person as 'chaotic good'."

"Oh. Where are Cheetos and Daigo?"

"Look through my clothes in the back where I live to see if there is anything the two of them can wear." Xue Li replied, "...Why are you looking at me? Seriously, Max, you have to take the two of them out to buy some Clothes, walking around the city, something to eat, fishing, etc., they jumped out of one cage, not to jump into another cage!"

Max chewed an olive and smiled wryly: "Because of your suggestion to increase firepower, I can't go back to Sao Paulo for the time being. At least I have to wait a few days, and I will be trapped in your little cage for a few days, so do you feel it? better?"

It was true, maybe Sonny was looking for him all over the world with his blood pressure rising and his scalp tingling.

He can't keep looking like this forever, Sao Paulo doesn't belong to him alone, and he also has a lot of things to deal with, such as fire mergers, interest competition and distribution, and police raids; Max estimates that he will be able to slip away in about 48 hours gone back.

"...and I'm going to sell that security company as soon as I get back. I think you're a great place to get me free drinks and meet people from different worlds without the CIA watching all day My ass." Max said, "...Xue, how about letting me be your employee? Responsible for bringing you food and buying other supplies from outside, and you only need to provide me with drinks at ordinary times."

"Have I the right to say no? You've made up your mind to stay here, haven't you?"

Xue Li pouted.

He brought the two notebooks, first opened the employee record book, and added the three names "Max Payne", "Daiger", and "Cheetos". "Pending", "Pending".

In another customer record book, Max's name disappeared when it was opened.The various settings of this tavern are always so casual, secretly showing intelligence in places that don't matter.

"So you're not going to live in your own world anymore?" Max asked, drinking silently and watching the two finish all this.

Max raised his eyes to look at him, and replied in a low voice: "...well, I have nothing to do there anyway. The ceiling I see when I wake up every day is not necessarily the same. And...Although it is the same as you, My wife and children were also buried in that world, but I will never be able to see them again. Once I appear in the United States again, I will be taken care of by several special departments in turn."

As he said that, he leaned back, found a comfortable position on the chair, and continued to speak in that sleepy tone: "I have never seriously told my own story, have I?... I usually I wouldn't tell anyone about my past, I don't think it's very interesting to tell. But after hearing the Colonel's story in your world, I find that sometimes it's good to tell someone I can trust... It's better than dying Tell the enemy before you die and pray that he will remember to be strong, right?"

Max began to succinctly describe his past, the shattering of the American dream more than ten years ago, revenge, conspiracy, alienation, and the web woven by drugs, alcohol, and violence.

Daiger and Chito also came out at some point, both of them were wearing baggy T-shirts and jeans that were several sizes too big, lying on the back of the chair of the table behind, leaning close to the man who was telling the story, listening intently.

They didn't always understand what they saw and heard from another world, especially since they were kept isolated in the "fortress" since they were very young; but the two girls cleverly didn't ask, but understood Max through guessing and imagination. In "expression" something.

Love and hate, anger and guilt, the taste of losing all meaning in existence, these are the same no matter which world you are in...

Max understands better.Not only was he born before the war, he understood the complexity of the operating system of the human world, and he was in the same situation.

He is now wandering in the wasteland, looking for redemption, what is Max looking for after leaving his hometown?

He likes to speak directly, so he immediately asked.

"...Maybe it's the inner peace." Max thought for a while and said.

The girls looked at each other in dismay. Except for his shaved head, big beard, and vicious face, Max was quite calm now, much calmer than when he was shooting with an Oerlikon.

"It seems that we have all found it." Max understood, and he raised his glass to Max, and the two men drank a glass of wine tacitly.

Xue Li's expression on the side was a bit strange. He sometimes frowned, sometimes his eyes lost focus, and finally just snorted while holding his headache.

The other people at the table were startled, and quickly surrounded him, asking him, "Are you okay?"

Xue Li stood up covering his head, and answered intermittently: "I, I don't know... I feel... a headache..."

Suddenly, he turned his head to look at Max, his eyes turned from confusion to shock, and then to complex.He rubbed his temples and whispered, "...Jessie?..."

Max's wine glass fell to the ground with a slap, he strode forward and grabbed Xue Li by the collar, lifted him up from the ground, with a ferocious expression on his face that no one else had ever seen, gritted his teeth and said: "You shouldn't know the name."

Xue Li looked extremely calm, with a smile on the corner of his mouth, patted Max on the shoulder, and said word by word: "...Because you haven't told your story yet. But you can tell me like a tavern Well... just now, it looks like it thinks I'm fulfilling both of your wishes, so it's feeding me more information. Why don't you put me down and let me tell you what I know? Anyway, you You can't hit me, you can't kill me."

Max also persuaded from the side: "...Max, I may understand the meaning of this name to you. But to be honest, if there is no boss and his tavern, you will not be able to get your salvation! Don't you believe that he still Who can you trust?"

Max lowered his head, let go of Xue Li's collar with trembling fingers, sat back weakly in his seat, and muttered softly: "...I'm sorry."

"It's okay, as Max said, we can completely understand your emotions...Okay, now I have to explain why I understand."

Xue Li also tidied up his clothes, and sat down on the chair next to him, and the first words he said after sitting down gave everyone present goosebumps.

He said: "I forgot when it was, I have watched a series of 4 movies called "Mad Max"."

For the sake of Max's mental health, and also because of Xue Li's own headaches, he did not focus on the first three parts, but gave a general description of the plot, and then carefully talked about the "frenzy" that several others have experienced. road".

As he filled in the details of his memory bit by bit, others could only choose to believe him-because no one had told him these things, and Max hadn't even had time to relay Major Kalashnikov's story.

Not only that, but the places in his story that are different from everyone else’s experience are also reasonable, and even more heroic, especially Furiosa who was seriously injured and Nax who died resolutely.

Max heard the last and didn't want to say anything more.He didn't even drink the rest of the wine in the glass, picked up his gun, and lowered his head to return to his own world.

"Hey, Max!" Xue Li called him quickly.

Max didn't look back, but stood still and whispered in that magnetic voice: "...our life is also your story...our pain is just your entertainment...do we really exist?"

"...Who can prove that he really exists?" Xue Li became serious, staring at Max's back and said: "All memory, perception, and thinking are subsets of 'existence', just like any axiom cannot Proof, you can't prove existence itself with things derived from existence. But I have a proof that is devoid of logic and only belongs to the emotional level, do you want to listen to it?"

Max, who still turned his back to everyone, did not answer, Xue Li took him as the default, and continued: "...you were born before the war, so you might have had pets. What was the name of your first pet? Remember?"

Max finally turned his head, pursed his lips tightly, and looked at Xue Li who was talking.

"No, don't tell me. No movie goes into this level of detail, so I don't know this information at all. It's yours. Even if you don't have a pet, the girl you once dreamed of, your teacher, your mother The kisses on your face, the smiles your wife gave you when you got married..."

As he said that, Xue Li stretched out his finger and pointed at Max: "...Those feelings that only you know are the evidence of your existence."

Chapter 9 The Door That Opens

Max is gone, but Xue Li knows that he has not lost this guest.

There was a moment of silence in the tavern, and Max lost interest in talking. He sat on a chair, drinking his stuffed wine and fell into memory; Daige and Chito sat together and whispered, as if they were discussing Kepabei and Nax thing.

Xue Li went back behind the bar, and the memories he gained were far from just a few movies.

Although he still doesn't know how he came here, and he can't remember who he is except for his name, but from the strange knowledge instilled in him by this tavern, he has obtained the hope to improve the situation. Clear method.

It seems to say...every time you satisfy a guest from another world, you can get a memory about that world, and a random memory fragment will be given as a gift?

Because the two old men named "MAX" are quite satisfied, he has been rewarded.

Right now, he just squinted his eyes, carefully flipping through the past he had just retrieved in his mind.

At that time, he seemed to be very young, his name was not yet "Xue Li", and he was learning to ride a bicycle.

That afternoon, he rode out alone, and boldly rode directly onto the smooth road.The summer breeze brushed his cheeks and hair, and the scattered houses and courtyards on the street appeared and disappeared from his vision... I don't know why, maybe it was a sudden brain twitch, or he thought it was cool to do this, he suddenly let go He got off the handlebars, straightened himself up, and tried to control the car with only his feet.

Sure enough, he fell down and almost fell into the ditch on the side of the road. There was a big gash on his head, and he bled a little.

The uncle hurried over to help him up, and asked him, "Is it broken? Where's your lord?"

At that time, he didn't cry when he was very young, but just said to the uncle: "I'm fine."

Before the uncle took out towels and bandages from the house, he had already pushed the bicycle with deformed wheels and ran back home with his face covered in blood.

The strange thing is, looking back now, he didn't feel any fear, regret, bewilderment, etc. at that time, and even felt that the feeling of his heart beating faster when he gave up was very good.

The warm sun that afternoon was so bright that he could barely keep his eyes open, and the only scenes he could think of were the alleys and courtyard walls extending from both sides of the road, and patches of green on the field ridges in the distance.

Xue Li, who was in the tavern at the moment, touched the top of his head and found a scar in the crevice of his hair.

Judging from the length of the wound, he still had to go to the hospital for stitches after returning home.Of course, he doesn't know whether his parents scolded him or not, and the memory he retrieved is only up to the moment when he pushed the cart and ran home.

Another memory that was retrieved was less pleasant.

In this memory, he was somehow standing in an office while another man a few years older was berating him angrily.

"... That's your job. Do you know what a job is? Do whatever you want. Why don't you go home and be your keyboard warrior?"

After being trained, he retorted unconvinced: "...I don't think so, how can I write such a report?"

"Nonsense!" The man became even angrier, "...No one cares what you think! That's not reporting, we are doing self-media, not news, or education! No one even knows that it was written by you , do you think this account is yours? It allows you to express your point of view? Besides, your opinion must be right? Okay, then it seems that you are not suitable for this job!"

When he received his unpaid wages and stood on the street, the same sunshine as that summer day when he was a teenager shone on his shoulders again.

He had to admit that what the man said was right... At any time, anyone's expression cannot be completely separated from the situation.When this situation is set to "require opposing opinions to hype the heat", he certainly shouldn't let his own temper do it.

It's just that maybe his ability is really not suitable for this kind of work... Even if he pinches his nose, it is impossible for him to write "Wong Kar-wai is a young man with no disease", "A big man with self-admiration" like the leader. Wei Lynch", "Nolan has become kitsch", "a miracle that leads the audience's aesthetic growth", "don't label a good movie indiscriminately".

He is not schizophrenic!

Memories faded into nothingness here, while Xue Li in the tavern rubbed his eyebrows with a headache.

The good news is that he looks like a normal man, the bad news is that this kind of naive stupidity will make him suffer more sooner or later.

"Ha, I'm stuck in this tavern, what could be worse?"

Suddenly he figured it out, and couldn't help talking to himself and laughing out loud.

Looking up, Max had already walked over with an empty glass, followed by two girls who didn't know what to do.

"...what are you talking about, boss?"

"It's nothing." Xue Li glanced at him, took out another bottle of wine, opened the lid and poured it for him: "It seems that I have to collect some real things from the guests in the future, otherwise there is no money for you purchase?"

"Isn't it possible to starve to death here? How much is a little appetizer worth? I still have a little money in Minecraft." Max raised his glass of spirits and took a sip, signaling Xue Li with his eyes that he should tell the new employee Talk about this tavern.

"...Okay, okay...I know you're all curious, and it just so happens that I understand more things..."

As Xue Li said, he dug into his trouser pocket and took out a few keys.

"One for each person. With it, you don't have to look for the door of the tavern at night. Just think about it or think about my face and push any door. It's the same when you go out, think about it with the key A door in another world will do... that's right, Max, you don't need to hide here anymore."

"Who says I'm hiding? Also, who wants to open the door with your face?" Max grumbled, "I'll go back after I finish this glass of wine."

"...Remember to take Daig and Chito to buy some clothes later. Well, stop drinking, come with me, and see where you are going to live."

Xue Li led a few people through the back door of the bar and into a dimly lit corridor.

Daige and Qido's eyes widened. When they first came here to find Xue Li's clothes, there was only a bathroom on the left side of the corridor and a bedroom at the end; but now, there are more people on both sides of the corridor. Three wooden doors came out, and the names of the two of them and Max were engraved on the doors.

Really simple and clear design.

Xue Li has long been used to this kind of mystical setting, so he pushed open the three doors without any abnormality, looked at the furnishings inside, and rolled his eyes: "Well, I shouldn't have any expectations. ... Everyone, everyone has the same room, each with a bed, a wardrobe, and a mirror. If you want anything else, go to another world and move it yourself.

"The bathroom over there can be regarded as the staff bathroom. It is different from the bathroom used by the guests. It has bathing facilities. Since we have men and women now, please remember to lock it when you go in and take a bath, and hang the sign of 'bathing' outside the door. ...or how about just going to another world for a soak and coming back?

"But as long as you stay in this tavern, you won't die, get hurt, get sick, or grow old in any way; it's not the case in other worlds. I can only remind you to be careful."

After introducing the room, he took everyone back to the front hall, pointed to Max and said: "Now this uncle has become an employee of our tavern, that is to say, Max is the only customer left. However, from now on, any time Someone from another world will open that door and come in and buy our wine... Speaking of which, what will you two do?"

The two girls looked at each other, and Daiger spoke first, "I'll make dolls out of screws, spark plugs, and rubber."

"I can arrange flowers. But never real flowers. Old Joe has some plastic ones."

[6. No. 6]