Madame Orchid/兰花夫人
1
A delicate fragrance came, like the orchid, wearing the pier a perfume where a young lady of grace had just stepped gently, with her enigmatic solemnity from the ship brimming with harsh words, casticating the ship driver for his “taking his time” style, surely making many of the lad’s hearts skip a beat, including me.
“Would some of you like to give me a hand?” chirped her, and just with her luscious eyes blink, my feet and hands moved as if they were suddenly electronically motivated. I grabbed her suitcase and spit out the words that I would’ve expected never being said. “I just knock off. Not a trouble for me at all.”
“Oh, that’s so heavy. What’s in it?”
“Nothing. Just something for living.” She smiled.
2
“Orchid Mansion, that’s a good name.”
“I heartily appreciate your words. It really makes my day.” Her over-politeness seemed to me a burst of uneasiness. “I’m not lionizing you. It’s really beautiful. Look at those ‘O chid’…”
“It’s ‘orchid’.” She chuckled as my face blushed. I had quitted school for centuries, and I even didn’t know how to specifically describe her beauty, combined with grace, sophistication, and a little archaic aesthetic. It’s just, beyond all my vocabulary.
“I don’t even know your name.” I braced up my courage and even being a bit scared by my pretense of confidentally shouting out loud.
“Orchid. Call me Madame Orchid.” She replied in geniality.
“I…I’m 28, actually.” Considering that my apperance belied my age, and she might think I am a young boy, I specially told her my age.
“I know. I just said call me ‘Madame Orchid’. Your age can be a secret actually.”
This was, ridiculous, for she looked just in her middle twenties, obviously calling her ‘Orchid’ is a better choice. Maybe she’s just putting on airs.
“You wanna come in and have a cup of coffee? You must be exhausted.” I’d never expected she would invite me. I was the very kind of man who had been teased as lacking of masculine charisma, let alone being popular among girls. I never thought of a girl or a woman inviting me of her own accord. I just felt a fire burning inside at that moment, burning out my capability of saying no to invitation.
3
“Martin, this is my new friend.”
An old man, well-clad in white blazer with the badge from some unfamiliar organization, greeted me with a plastic smile, a smile, at least, which was opposed to the young man behind whose handsome masculinity, just like his father had (because of their resemblance, I assumed they are father and son), was shrouded by the effeminate fright on his face as he saw Madame Orchid and me.
“Good job, Martin.” She said to the old man, and whispered in the ear of the young man, as his fright was exaggerated to the tremulous despair. “No, no.” I read his words from the movement of his lips, as his father quietly wiped his tears with a transparent effort to hide from the attention of their master.
“What are you looking at? Come. Let me show you around the house.” Her voice pulled me to the reality. As I travelled around her house with a fusillade of paean and psalm, I reached her garden full of orchid.
“So, that’s why you are ‘Madame Orchid’?”
“Not really. Orchid is actually my family crest. We’ve been exposed to the nourishment of orchid for centuries, and I’ve benefited the most from it. Orchid, for me, is more like the continuation of life.” As she said those wired words to me, I was peeping the beauty of their family crest. Pure and graceful as they were, they somehow radiated a sense of nausea to me as they gave out their delicate fragrance, which doctors might classify as the psychological reflection of uneasiness when coming to a strange place, but the palpitation betrayed everything. It was not the uneasiness. It was real. Oh my god, something changed in front of my eyes. The orchids started to crook. The sunlight was really scorching, out of proportion to the high latitude here, and…Oh, I felt exhausted, as if my stamina stored for the whole weeks’ labor was stolen…I left there as fast as I could with the improvised excuse, irrespective of whether it sucked, having no time to count on how many times I tripped over the miscellanous flowers and vines interspersed over her mansion, squinting up, with the help of the moonlight, at the nuance of the old man’s face. “ Something’s wrong with his face.” I said to myself, but I didn’t have time to contemplate which part of his face has changed. I dashed to a soda fountain, having my mind cooled off by the air conditioner and the iced Americano, talking to the barista about what happened…
4
“Martin once worked with us. But one day, he’s gone, without a word. Heard that he’s married to a woman, and we lost contact. He was the most eminent barista I have seen, and he was so kind and attractive, the de-facto endorsment. Those young girls from the college, some widows haunted by loneliness, and some lascivious chicks, you know…I know it can’t be him. He was of the same age as me, but what you describe is just a clone of him.” He babbled, and just after that, a memory suddenly struck me. “The wrinkle!” I almost jumped from my seat, “He gained more wrinkle on his face!” Without any vis-a-vis communication, I could, even when I was running for my life, notice the change of his face. Maybe it shouldn’t be called as ‘nuance’, but a kind of horrid senility as if decades of years elapsed over just one hour. Something sinister came to my mind.
“So you are the researcher of Orchid Family?” Just after I posted my experience online, an anonymous friend invitation popped from the bottom of my screen. This guy, a self-claimed professor of the school of history at XX University, sent me a screenshot, and meanwhile, into the unlimited fear. The Orchid Family, having existed and flourished in history, was obliterated two centuries ago. And there had been only the corpses of the elderly, not even one younger than 60 years old according to their looks. Pinkton concluded it as the mass suicide for being solitary confined by their improperly functioned body and separation from offsprings. No one seemed to dig into the truth, as if no one dared to do so. No one would ask where those young men and women of Orchid Family had been even just out of curiousity, let alone noticed that there were 59 bodies.
“How did you get this?” I texted, ready to bombard him with a fusillade of questions.
“You don’t have to know. Any questions? If not, I’ll go sleep.”
“Hold on, hold on.” I instantly typed these words, fingers almost gouging my keyboard, trying to grab the last straw to get to the truth.
Nothing happened. A prank, I thought to myself. Just as I was about blacklist the man out of sheer ennui of listening to his make-up stories, a piece of new message popped, “Why did you just leave my house?” Just as I was shocked to speechless, another message came.
“ONE ALWAYS IGNORE WHAT HAPPENED BEHIND HIM.” The delicate fragrance, again, it came…
5
I am aging.
Recently, my skin has not as smooth and moister as it was, wrinkles creeped onto my countenance, my muscle flapped, breasts sagged, and my hair, no, why interspersed with gray hairline?! I know the time has come. “They are not enough for me, sucker.” Soon our neighbor may see a woman of senility, both physically and mentally, hoe orchids, again, just as their ancestors witnessed ten scores ago. And the telepathy, again, with them, is a torture.
Under a star-scanted sheet of pitch black without moonlight, I stripped off and dug myself onto the soil nourishing the orchids, bearing the fire burning and insects gnawing at my flesh and blood without letting out a moan for not waking people nearby up and ruining this telepathy. Just as I itched so much like the wound of the rash fester and the soil is as cold as ice, the connection has built. The life of orchid has been the life of me. And those tiny babies are itching for the nourishment of young man.
“Now, you are Madame Orchid, again.” I talked to the shriveled body in the mirror as I knew it was the last time I saw it.
Martin, with his brother Luke, was the first two lads to be overwhelmed by my charisma, owing to the perfume I wore extracted from the pedal of orchid. They came to my mansion and unconsciously became the bait of my babies in the garden.
But I, myself, needed a young man, too. Drooling over the freshness and strength of the young men of nowadays owing to the invention of lotions, toners, gyms and the advent of plastic surgery, I truly needed one to take me a thrill ride like the roller coaster in the theme park. However, I didn’t really get the amusement of it since when I was of that age, it was just used to convey mines and coals, which was a job of tempting fate for money. “So, Luke, come to my bedroom and lock the door.” I couldn’t wait to enjoy the youth that Martin interfused and the voluptuousness Luke gave. No one, including the dock worker, ever took even a close look at the clock in the living room—each of the minute was named after one of a family members as our first head of our family imposed her precept on the whole family that at any time, the family members should be 60 as our Orchid Family was, is, and will always be the presdigitator of time.
“Now, you’re the next.” I said to the boy fainting on the table in front of the computer, feeling the bunch of orchids in my hands sucking his youth and fill the room with the fragrance, dropping a bomb on the society that Madame Orchid has come again.
中文版
1
轮船上，因这位司机慢慢腾腾的驾驶风格而产生的尖刻斥骂不绝于耳。一位优雅的年轻女子款步走下轮船，浑身上下透着一股神秘感，而又不失庄重。她所到之处，幽香若兰，似为这座码头喷上了香水，引得码头上的年轻男人纷纷沦陷，当然，也包括我。
“请问有哪位可以为我搭把手吗？”她的声音清脆婉转。仅仅是一个浓情蜜意的眼神，我就如同被电力驱动一般走了过去。我接过了她的行李箱，并随口吐出了那几个字：“我帮你把行李拿回去吧。我下班了，一点都不会麻烦的。”我真希望我从来没说过这话。
“哦，这太重了。这里面是什么啊？”
“没什么。只是一些生活用的。”她笑着说。
2
“兰花公馆，这名字真好听。”
“我由衷地感谢您的夸奖。这让我很开心。”她似乎有些过于礼貌，我的心中生出了一丝不安。“我不是在吹捧，它确实很漂亮，看看这些‘南花’……”
“是兰花。”她咯咯地笑着。我却老脸一红，我已经辍学很久了，我甚至不知道怎样具体描述她的美，是那种混合着优雅，持重，还有一丝丝古朴的美感的美。只是，我的词汇量显然不允许我描述出这种美。
“我还不知道您的名字呢。”我鼓足勇气喊出了这句话。我自己甚至都被我强装自信的音量吓到。
“兰花。你可以叫我兰花夫人。”她的语气十分和蔼。
当时，我觉得她可能以为我只是个小男孩，毕竟我长得这样年轻，确实看不出年纪，所以我特意告诉了她我的年龄：“其实，其实我28岁了。”
“我知道。我只是说叫我‘兰花夫人’就好。至于你的年纪，你完全可以对我保密。”
这就太离谱了。她看上去不过25岁上下。很显然，直呼其名是更好的选择。我以为她存心摆架子，就没多问。
“你要进来坐坐吗？你一定累坏了吧。”我没想到她会主动邀约我。因为，我一直被嘲讽为缺乏男性魅力的典型代表，更不必说受到女生青睐了。我从没想到也会有一个姑娘会主动邀约我。我感觉我的体内有一团烈火升起。我知道我已不可能拒绝了。
3
“马丁，这是我的新朋友。”
门前的一位老人正在对我笑脸相迎。他衣着考究，穿着一套白色的制服，上面印着一个徽章，代表着一个我并不熟悉的组织。如果这位老人至少还是摆出了一副假笑的话，后面的那个年轻人则是完全不同，他有着不输于他父亲的英武（由于他们两位长得非常像，我便将他们当作了父子），但在看向我和兰花夫人时，脸上却写满了与之不相称的柔弱和恐惧。
“做得好，马丁。”兰花夫人对老人说道。话毕，又对那个年轻人耳语了几句。听到兰花夫人的话，这个年轻人的身体开始抖动，恐惧的神情又增加了几分，变成了绝望。“不，不要。”我读出了他的唇语，又看到了他的父亲悄悄拭去了脸上的泪水。显然，他不想让兰花夫人看到这个动作。
“你在看什么呢？过来，我带你参观一下我家。”夫人的声音将我拉回了现实。游览着她的公馆，我生发出了连珠炮似的赞歌。左看右看，我已经来到了她的花园，园里种满了兰花。
“所以这就是你叫‘兰花夫人’的原因？”
“也不算是。兰花其实时我们的家族徽章。数个世纪以来，我们的家族就一直受到兰花的恩泽，这点我是最有体会的。于我而言，兰花就是生命的延续。”就在她向我诉说这些奇奇怪怪的话时，我偷偷瞟了这些她们的族徽。虽说它们纯净素洁，婀娜多姿，散发着馥郁的芳香，但不知怎么的，它们始终带给我一种眩晕恶心的不适感。这种不适感对医生来说可能就是一种因为在陌生环境下感到不自在所产生的心里映射，但是心悸的感觉告诉了我一切。这不是心理上的不安，这是真真切切的。我的天，我眼前的景象变了，这些兰花正在变得扭曲。这里是高纬度地区，为何阳光会如此毒辣？而且……啊，天呢，我感到好累，感觉下一周的精力都被掏空了……我现编了一个借口，有多快跑多快，根本不想管这个烂借口能不能骗到她，数不清被满地的花朵和藤蔓绊倒了多少次，只是眯起眼睛抬头看了一眼，借着微弱的月光，我看到那位老人的容貌似乎有些细微的变化。“他的脸有点不对劲。”但是我没有时间仔细思考究竟是哪里变了，就火速跑向了一个冷饮柜台。吹着冷气，喝着冰美式，我的思绪也平静下来，开始和咖啡师讲述着今天发生的一切……
4
“以前也有个马丁在这里干活。但是有一天，他走了，没有留下一句话。听说他和一个女人结了婚，后来我们也就断了联系。他是我见过的最卓越的咖啡师，他是如此善良如此迷人，他实际上已经成了我们店的代言人。那些大学女生，那些寂寞的寡妇，那些辣妹，你懂的……我知道，那个马丁不是他，他和我同岁的。但是，你说的那个老人真像一位翻版的他。”在他絮絮叨叨地叙述中，我突然想到了什么，几乎是从座位上跳了起来。“皱纹！他的脸上皱纹变多了！”没有与他面对面交流过的情况下，仅仅是在逃命中的一瞥，我就注意到了他脸上的不同。看来，那不是什么细微变化，而是一种衰老，一种好像在一小时内老了几十岁的可怕的衰老。一些可怕的念头在我的脑海中浮现。
当我在网上发布我的经历后，我收到了一条好友邀请：“你也在调查兰花家族吗？”这个人自称是某某大学的历史系教授，给我发来了一张截图。光是看一眼上面的内容，我就陷入了无尽的恐惧。兰花家族在历史上真实存在过，并且也兴盛过，但是在约两个世纪前却被一股神秘的力量消灭了。当时，现场全部都是老人的尸体，从他们的相貌来看，没有一位不超过60岁。对此，平克顿侦探事务所的结案报告却仅仅只是集体自杀，这些老人年老体衰行动不便，远离子女，终日受困于家中，无法接受这一切。没有人去进一步求证真相，好像没有人敢这么做一样，因为甚至没有一个人对兰花家族其他年轻男女的去向感到好奇，更不必说现场有59具尸体。
“你怎么会知道这些？”我问道。我有一肚子的问题要问他。
“你不必知道。还有其他的问题吗？不问的话，我要睡觉了。”
“等一下，等一下。”我快速打下这行字，手指几乎要戳穿键盘。这是最接近真相的一次了，我无论如何都要抓住这根救命稻草。
什么也没发生。大概是场恶作剧吧，我想着，就要拉黑他，单纯是因为听这些骗人的废话听腻了。正要拉黑他时，一条新消息弹出：“你那天为什么要跑？”就在我惊讶地说不出话时，第二条消息弹出：
“人们总是不知道看看他们的背后。”那馥郁的芳香，我又闻到了……
5
我正在变老。
最近，我的皮肤不再像之前一样光滑水润了。皱纹悄悄出现在我的脸上，我的肌肉开始松弛，胸部开始下垂，而我的头发，不，为什么，为什么里面散布着白发？！我知道，那一刻到来了。“该死的，他们的生命不够我用的。”所以，很快我的邻居又会看见有一个身体和大脑都严重衰老的女人拿着锄头在种兰花。她又开始种花了，与他们的祖先在二百年前见到的一样。对我来说，与这些花儿重新实现心灵感应，才是真正的酷刑。
今天晚上没有月光，星星很少，我脱去衣服，把整个身体都埋进兰花所处的这片土地里，忍受着火焰灼烧和百虫撕咬血肉的痛苦，并且为了不惊扰到邻居而破坏这场仪式，我一声不吭。当我感到周身奇痒难耐，像是皮疹化脓的感觉，并且泥土冷得像冰窟窿一样时，我就与它们建立了联系。现在兰花的命就是我的命。这些小宝贝可是十分期待年轻生命的滋养了。
“现在，你又做回兰花夫人了。”我对着镜子里那具干瘪的身体说着。我知道，这是我最后一次面对这样苍老的躯体了。
多亏我喷上了我从兰花花瓣中萃取出的香水，马丁和他的哥哥卢克成为了我迷人魅力的头两个猎物。他们来到了我的公馆，并在不经意间成为了我花园里那些小宝贝的猎物。
而我自己，也需要一位年轻男人。现如今，由于男士乳液，爽肤水，健身房和医美的诞生，我所垂涎的新鲜且充满力量的肉体随处可见。我太需要一位能带我飞升的年轻男人了，那感觉就像是坐过山车一样。但是，我从来没有从过山车中获得过乐趣，因为当我在玩过山车那个年纪时，这玩意儿还是用来运煤运矿的，那是个玩命挣钱的活。“所以，卢克，来我房间，把门锁好。”我已经等不及享受马丁给我的年轻肉体了，更加等不及享受卢克的爱了。包括最近的那个码头工人在内，没有一个人注意到客厅里的那个时钟，表盘上的每一分钟都是以我们家族成员的名字命名的。我们家族的首位掌门人就为整个家族定下了铁之戒律，就是兰花家族的成员必须一直是60位，因为兰花家族会一直是时间的魔术师。
“现在，下一个就是你了。”看着被我手中的兰花迷晕倒在电脑前的这个男生，我感觉到这些兰花正在吸收他的精气。而这充斥整个房间的馥郁芳香，就是在像社会投出一则爆炸性新闻：兰花夫人又回来了。
