Ever since the evening news in the canteen reported that my colleague Xiao Wang had resigned because of me, I got a unique nickname that no one in the agency had won this honor for decades: "scumbag".

And because our secretary is a leader who is indifferent to anything except the atmosphere of the unit, especially the relationship between men and women, I am honored to become the person who the secretary does not want to see.

So soon after Xiao Wang's resignation, I naturally became the only person designated by the leader after the open recruitment and no one applied, and was assigned to the project department in northeast Tanzania as the person in charge, and came to the primitive and mysterious but extremely beautiful Kilimanjaro Mountain.

The project is located in a small town at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, adjacent to the southern foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro and 200 kilometers from the famous Great Rift Valley.

As the head of the project department, my work is easy and enjoyable, and the accommodation is of course the top floor with the best view of the entire apartment building. Every morning, you can open the window to see the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro, from the snow-capped peaks to the tree-lined rainforest at the foot of the mountain.

Since the country consciously developed Africa decades ago, this small town called Chawei has been stationed in more than a dozen project departments of different units stationed by the state for a long time, and the consequence is that the residents of the town and the surrounding villagers can at least one dialect of our country, so that in the first few days I thought I was in an African theme park in China.

So on the morning of the third day of my arrival, I sent an e-mail to my unit, asking for the dismissal of the translator and secretary I had hired from the unit, a beautiful Kenyan woman who had studied in the capital of our great motherland, Tina.

My leader, Crayon Xiaoxin, called in the afternoon. I can imagine the fat man with a big belly holding his big belly in one hand and the phone in the other, trying his best to sit in the boss's chair with his waist upright.

An angry voice came from the phone: "Your request team has a meeting to discuss it, and I don't agree." Don't think that no one can take care of you when Emperor Shangao is far away, you are only the person in charge of the project department, and the personnel issue is your business? Project progress, quality and safety are what you should worry about. Don't need a translator? Do you think Tina is just your translator? She was specially sent by the secretary to supervise you, you have more than a dozen project departments over there, so many female comrades, and one Xiao Wang is enough. ”

I laughed while listening to the phone, and said: "Don't be angry, leader, didn't I write my email clearly, in order to save the cost of the project department, it is recommended to be dismissed, and "whether it is appropriate, please give instructions", how dare I make my own opinion? Besides, I really don't need a secretary, and I don't need a translator, the black grandmother who sells vegetables here speaks Mandarin better than me, what kind of translation do you want? And Xiao Wang's resignation really has nothing to do with me, aren't you clear about this, can you tell the secretary okay? I know that the secretary cares about my personal problems, but no matter how much I care, he can't send me an African wife, right?"

I put down the phone, and in the blink of an eye, I saw a stunned Tina standing in the doorway looking at me with a cup of coffee. The atmosphere was slightly awkward, and I beckoned her in.

Tina walked in crampedly, put the coffee on the table, lowered her head and said, "Mr. Xu, my job is mainly to communicate with the Shengfan tribes along the project, there are many savage tribes in the tropical rainforest, and they are hostile to outsiders. ”

I tried my best to pretend to be amiable, tried to squeeze a little smile on my face, and said to her: "Okay, okay, I know, you see, the leader does not agree with me to dismiss you, you can stay, don't have a psychological burden, work boldly." ”

In fact, strictly speaking, Tina should be of brown race, her complexion is closer to the wheat color popular in Europe and the United States, with delicate facial features and light makeup, coupled with a tall figure and appropriate clothing, it can be said that she is second to none in the entire Chawei Town. And probably because of her level of education and wealth, Tina's speech and demeanor and personal temperament were fundamentally different from those of other black people, and she seemed closer to my compatriots.

Ever since Tina knew I didn't like having a secretary hanging around with me, she rarely bothered me except to help me organize my paperwork and bring me a cup of coffee on my desk every morning, and more often than not, she went to coordinate with the engineering team. This also allows me to write novels, watch movies, etc. in the office when I am not happy, and I no longer have to pretend to read documents and write reports.

This leisurely life continued for several months, until one day at noon I received a call that Tina had been captured by the Savage Tribe.

When I arrived at the scene with the police, I only saw Xiao Zeng, the leader of the security team, and a few members of the engineering team.

Xiao Zeng is from the Marine Corps "Jiaolong" Retired, guns and skills are very good, I went to the project department to give him a security team captain position, although it is just an empty small leader, every time you have to go to work, but there is a special allowance of 1,000 yuan per month, especially I got a HKM27 and a full set of American security team equipment from the black market to him, so that he can't wait to lie in front of me to swear allegiance, and I saved a fee for the project department to hire a security team, this cost I included in the project department everyone's full attendance award, all happy.

I walked up to him, picked up his HKM27, checked the magazine, threw the gun to him and said, "Tell me, what's going on? How could someone take Tina away without firing a shot?"

Xiao Zeng stood up and handed me a note, and said to me: "Mr. Xu, I have been derelict in my duty, you can remove me!"

I waved my hand and said, "Don't mess around with all this uselessness, get to the point." ”

It turned out that today Tina took Xiao Zeng and a few people from the engineering team to survey the terrain, and by the way, she looked for a savage tribe that was hostile to the government that had only been discovered in recent years within the scope provided by the government, so as to lay a good foundation for the subsequent construction of the project, and also brought some non-staple food with the car. When they arrived, they were surrounded by natives with rifles, and when Tina went to negotiate, they were seized, and they took our gifts and Tina with them, leaving only a note to be handed over to the leader of the engineering team. Xiao Zeng threw them into the rat trap and could only watch them leave.

I opened the note, and there were two lines of Chinese characters neatly written on it in imitation of Song style: "Comrade of the leader of the engineering team: Please go to the bottom of Hilla Peak as soon as possible." I would like to salute my comrades!" The inscription was Qiao Zhijun, with a brief handmade map drawn on the back.

After reading it, I put the note in my shirt pocket and said to Xiao Zeng, "It looks like I'm in trouble!"

Turning my head, I asked the captain of the town's police team, "What do you know about this tribe?"

The captain with a black face like coal spoke fluent Chongqing dialect: "These cubs are very unruly and hostile to us, and they usually go down the mountain to change something, and they hardly meet us." We mobilized them several times to tell them to come down the mountain, but if they didn't do it, they just forgot it, and we also injured a few of us. Oh yes, they also speak Chinese like us, Mandarin is better than me and you, and can write Chinese characters. I don't know where I learned it. ”

I patted him on the shoulder and said, "Since they are not friendly to you, then you don't go, Xiao Zeng and I can go." They didn't hurt anyone, they looked like friendly forces. ”

When the Earth's crust was torn apart 25 million years ago to form the Great Rift Valley, the volcanoes on both sides of the rift erupted thousands of times before they stacked Mount Kilimanjaro, so the mountain was not formed by crustal impact, but by volcanic magma. Hilla Peak is 3,962 meters above sea level, it is the shortest of the three main peaks of Kilimanjaro, and it is not very well developed, and there are still some uncivilized indigenous tribes in the mountains.

Xiao Zeng explained to me while driving, and in the process of exploring the road in the early stage, he and Tina made a detailed understanding of the terrain and human history along the way.

I was looking at the map and listening to his explanation, and when I heard this, I said, "Have you ever seen an indigenous tribe that can write imitation Song Chinese characters?"

He smiled and said, "It's not really strange. China began to enter Africa half a century ago, when thousands of teams were sent to various parts of Africa to build bridges and pave roads, deliver food and cure diseases, and many children learned to speak Chinese and write Chinese characters with the team. Now many African tribes have pictures of their old people, and that's how they came. You know, there are many tribes they go to, and the local government has never cared about them. Or do you think Chawei Town will become a Chinatown? It's a deep friendship accumulated over generations. ”

"What about this Qiao Zhijun? This is obviously the name of a Chinese person. "I asked again.

Xiao Zeng laughed and said: "Because my country has been helping the African people, you know that we have always been affectionate and friendly to our friends, plus our national strength has developed rapidly in the past few decades, our country is now a place that African people yearn for, so many Africans have their own Chinese names." Do you know what Tina's Chinese name is? Her name is Jiang Chang'e, because she lived by the Yangtze River for a period of time when she was studying abroad, and she liked the story of Chang'e running to the moon, so she gave herself such a name. Xiao Zeng laughed happily. I smiled when I heard this.

In the evening, we arrived at the agreed place. Just at the end of this road, the more than ten meters high Huatan Friendship Monument is erected in front.

At this time, I was already driving, and Xiao Zeng was holding a gun and looking around vigilantly. When we saw a pyramid-shaped stone pile, we stopped our car and walked to the campfire next to the stone pile.

I pulled out my lighter and lit the bonfire, and the two of us waited quietly.

Suddenly, Xiao Zeng pulled the bolt with a "snap" and said, "It's coming." I looked in the direction of his gun, and I saw a tall figure approaching us.

In front of him, it turned out to be a black man wearing a blue homespun tunic, who was more than 1.9 meters tall. He walked over to the fire, picked up a twig and shook it, turned to us and smiled, revealing his snow-white front teeth. After looking me up and down, he stretched out his hand and said to me in Mandarin, "Hello, Mr. Xu, I'm Qiao Zhijun." ”

When I followed Qiao Zhijun on the mountain road, it was already completely dark, Qiao Zhijun walked in front with a flashlight, and Xiao Zeng also turned on the strong flashlight on the gun, and walked at the end to help me light the road.

Every time I walked a while, Qiao Zhijun raised the flashlight in his hand and shook it, and the sound of ropes sounded around me, I looked around, the darkness was still the master here, and there were many shadows between the mountains and rocks, and I didn't know how many people and horses were ambushed. When Qiao Zhijun said to take a break, I turned my head to look at Xiao Zeng, he nodded to me, and vigilantly held the gun to observe the surroundings.

I relaxed, crouched down and tightened the laces of my hiking boots, and by the way checked the LL80 umbrella* knife tied to my trouser leg, which had been given to me by the captain of the German escort hired by the project department next door when I was drinking at the small bar at the end of the tea, and he also paid for my drink that night, just because I talked to him about Xingyi Quan in Chinese kung fu.

Returning to the mountain road in front of me, I looked up at the swarthy Mt. Hilla standing in front of me. The moon is dark and the stars are scarce, the mountain shape is majestic and cuiwei, and some tree shadows are full of shadows standing against the mountain, and the stretched branches move slightly with the wind, like a ghost dancing in the hand. Occasionally, there are all kinds of mountain sounds, and they are like the singing of the delight. A path winds along the side of the mountain, like a jade belt paved in front of it in the moonlight.

After resting for a while, Qiao Zhijun stood up, turned on the flashlight, and the three of them continued to walk along the mountain road.