Almost all adult residents of Shenzhen are outsiders. I have never met any adult born in Shenzhen, but there are many children in Shenzhen. Despite the increasing cost, more and more young people choose to produce and raise their offspring here. These newly born human babies have brought about a wave of monster births in this emerging city of Shenzhen.
A few days ago, when almost everyone had forgotten about the local monsters, Shenzhen TV aired a 23-minute program, interviewing the last three old-generation Shenzhen monsters they found, who were said to be dying soon. I don't actually have a TV, and I don't like TV shows either. I only saw this video on Weibo two days after the program was broadcasted because I had nothing else to do at that time.
Actually, Shenzhen TV didn't originally plan to make a TV program about these old monsters. They did it because one of their vacationing reporters encountered a dying and disappearing old monster while traveling in Chengdu, and he got the inspiration on the plane back to Shenzhen two days later.
The reporter from Shenzhen TV is named Luo Wei. I only know about this program and the story behind it because he posted an article on his Weibo, which was then reposted on WeChat public accounts and shared on Moments. Finally, someone recommended it to me.
In his article titled "The Story Behind the Last Words of Shenzhen Monsters," Luo Wei said that when he saw the old monster dying in Chengdu, he was drinking tea in a teahouse on Chunxi Road. He said that drinking tea in Sichuan is different from elsewhere; it is a unique way of leisure, very comfortable and distinctive. He emphasized that this was just his personal feeling and added that he is from Jiangxi, which is also a place famous for producing tea, but people there don't drink tea as leisurely as Sichuan people do. Anyway, he was drinking tea at that time, a deep green tea, maybe just called green tea, he couldn't remember clearly. He remembered that there were no refills at that time, and he saw the old monster lying next to an indoor potted plant in the teahouse.
The old monster was small, only a little over half a meter long, and was already transparent for the most part. It would probably disappear in about half an hour. This was Luo Wei's first time seeing a dying monster with his own eyes. It was probably because the monsters in Shenzhen were still young. Of course, he had also watched videos of monster deaths on the internet before, but those could be watched in ten seconds. The real death of a monster is very slow. A poet once said that it had "a sense of beauty invaded by a breeze after a stuffy heat." But that poet died a long time ago, he committed suicide by lying on the tracks, supposedly because he had AIDS.
Luo Wei took a big sip of tea and then walked over to observe the monster. He started by standing and observing, then he squatted down, but soon stood up again because his feet became numb. He watched for about ten minutes, and the monster became slightly fainter, but because he had been staring at it, he didn't seem to notice much. Then he continued to drink tea, took out his phone to reply to WeChat messages, and made plans to go out for drinks with friends in the evening. Then he forgot about the disappearing monster.
Two days later, when he closed his phone on the plane and looked at the setting red sun, he remembered the monster again. He thought, the monster is dying, just like the sun is setting. But the sun doesn't actually set, it just moves to another angle on the earth relative to this position. What about the monster? Did it really die? What about humans? Human death is probably certain because it leaves behind a decaying body that insects can bite without resistance. But monsters don't leave behind bodies, they just disappear. Maybe they turn into air, just like how humans decay into soil, stench, and stones; monsters are born from the imagination of babies, so they turn into air, or maybe they turn into light. Turning into light should be more romantic, right?
In that article, Luo Wei wrote that when he thought of light, he thought of the monsters in Shenzhen and thought it would make a good TV program. Although these thoughts may not have been logical, he said that was his thought process at the time, except that it was interrupted by his attention to a female passenger on the same flight. Luo Wei wrote in the article that the female passenger was wearing a linen or light brown shawl-like garment and seemed to have a dimple when she smiled on her right cheek. Luo Wei said he wanted to strike up a conversation with her at that time, but he didn't. He felt that something crucial was missing in his thinking and evaluation, or maybe it was just because he was shy or afraid of losing something, but he couldn't explain what he might lose. He then wrote, "Height between 1.6 to 1.65 meters, on the China Airlines flight CA4337. If you see this article, you will know that I am talking about you. I hope you can contact me. I think I have fallen in love with you."
Later, Shenzhen TV made the TV program based on Luo Wei's proposal, called "The Last Words of Shenzhen Monsters." A four-meter-tall brown-green monster appeared in the program and said that these days, due to the problem of returning to the southern hemisphere, the air was very humid, and the sunlight was also blocked to some extent. So it had been feeling weak in its limbs. It said it would be great if someone could give it a UV lamp, but it didn't have electricity, so it said it would be better not to send it. The sun would come out in a few days, and it would probably die in September. If someone sent a lamp, it would have to be thrown away later because it had an unpleasant smell that people didn't like, and no one would want to continue using the lamp. In general, it was all because there was no electricity. Even if it was sent, it couldn't be used. Later, after a commercial about a certain beverage was inserted, it said that if someone invited it to their home as a guest, it didn't need a lamp or even if its limbs were weak a hundred times, it would be fine because it was too big and had never been a guest in someone's home before. And as it mentioned earlier, it had an odor that people didn't like.
The second monster was probably the size of a human, actually a little smaller than the average adult, about 1.4 meters, maybe a little less. It was yellowish-white and had smooth skin, like an inflatable doll, but it didn't have any odor, so a female reporter also appeared in the program and sat with it on a high-quality rattan chair in a beverage shop, chatting with it. The female reporter ordered coffee, and the monster ordered a glass of milk. The monster said it paid great attention to maintaining its physical health and often exercised, which was uncommon among monsters. Moreover, it said that sometimes it also read books. It said that it used to live with a family who owned a clothing factory. The family was from Guangzhou and treated it well, but later the business went bankrupt, and they ran away. It didn't know where they went. Later, it went to live in a factory that made electronic watches. The boss asked it to be a night watchman in the factory, but less than three months later, the boss also ran away, taking only the cat and a working girl that he kept in the factory, who seemed to be from Guizhou. Later, the boss's wife closed and sold the factory, and she left Shenzhen with her son. The monster then went to several other factories, but the bosses there had bad tempers and always seemed to want to break the workers' legs, so the monster left after staying for only a few days. It wasn't until later that it met a female boss who took it home and became its secret lover that its life finally stabilized. But now, so much time has passed, and the secret is no longer a secret. Moreover, the female boss has become obsessed with square dancing and scolding it, so the monster has recently started to feel a bit lonely.
The female reporter asked it, "Can monsters and humans...?"
The monster didn't understand, so it asked back, "Can what?"
The female reporter paused, not because she was shy, but because she was considering her words. Then she decided on the word she wanted to use, "make love."
The monster said, "Oh, that's possible. It has a mouth."
The last monster that appeared on the program was a mini monster, standing only 23.5 centimeters tall. The female reporter measured it with a cloth ruler in the program, and it also had a 12 cm long tail with a small tuft of black fluff at the tip. The rest of its fur was blue. It lived in a flower shop and carried the scent of roses. It said its best friend was a white-bellied cat named "Titi" that the flower shop owner raised, but that cat didn't want to be interviewed, so it didn't appear in the program. The owner of the flower shop is a 21-year-old girl who apparently opened the shop with a loan, but the business is doing well because there is a technology park nearby where many young people work and start businesses in the internet industry. It is full of love and in need of roses. The mini monster said that the owner of the flower shop has also fallen in love recently, and it seems that the person she is dating is a programmer who works on the backend. He seems quite shy. Sometimes he comes to the flower shop to buy flowers and then immediately or in the evening gives them to the flower shop owner. The flower shop owner puts the bouquet or flower in a specially prepared vase with a Pikachu pattern. The girl owner often says that the flowers inside are the most beautiful in the shop.
The female reporter said to the mini monster, "Don't always talk about the owner. Talk about yourself."
The monster said, "I can't remember what happened before. Now is the best."