He mentally wrote down the name of the nearest street, then threw his pistol down the drain and walked back to the Cyclamen Hotel. At the hotel's bar, he asked for a flat of local liquor to sip slowly to regulate his excitement. A sign on the wall caught his attention.

"Is this a joke?" He asked the waiter, "Is it illegal to carry a weapon here?" ”

"Here, the only place where weapons are not allowed is in hotels." The waiter replied, "You may carry a weapon when you walk down the street, but you must bring it in a bright place." ”

"Hey, I'm so surprised."

"Of course, many people don't obey the law, and I'm sure they all carry weapons in secret."

"It's even more astonishing." Bronze said.

"And, everybody I know has a gun in their car."

Bronze stared at him stunned, just like when he had met the guy who was robbing in the small park. "It seems that some precautions should be taken."

"The Pioneer is a gun shop." The clerk said.

This sentence took Bronze by surprise. "Really?" All he could say was these few words.

"We believe that there are people who want us to take responsibility for our own safety."

"I think that's the right thing to do." Bronze surveyed the pistols and rifles on the shelves, and his eyes fell on a locked glass counter with a pistol inside. The store smelled of firearm lubricants. "I want a Walter Type 380 pistol."

"It's impossible, it's all sold out."

"So is there a Sig Saul Model 928 pistol?"

"It's a great weapon." The clerk said. He wears rubber-soled shoes and overalls.

The clerk unlocked the glass counter, lifted the lid, and pulled out a pistol about the size of a bronze slap. "It uses the same bullet as Beretta's, 9 millimeters. It was loaded with fewer bullets, 13 in the cartridge box and one in the chamber. The gun is double-acting, so you don't have to strike the iron before firing – you just pull the trigger. But if the strike iron has already been wrenched and you decide not to shoot, you can safely use the reverse trigger on this side to lower the striker. The construction of this weapon is superb, absolutely top-notch. ”

The clerk removed the cartridge box and pulled open the sliding lid on the top of the gun to reveal the empty chamber before handing the gun to the bronze. Bronze puts the empty cartridge back onto the cartridge card and pretends to aim at the portrait on a poster.

"You've convinced me." Bronze said.

"The price is 950 oceans, and I will sell it to you."

The bronze took out the ocean and put it on the counter.

"I'm sorry," said the clerk, "but Big Brother is watching." You must fill out this form before you can get a gun after a police investigation proves that you are not a terrorist or public enemy number one. This paperwork will cost you ten oceans, and you have to thank the stewards here. ”

Bronze look at the table. One of them asked if he was a felon. Do the people who designed this form really believe that someone would answer "yes" to these questions? He was skeptical.

"When is the earliest time I'll get my gun?"

"The law says it's five days. Here is a copy of the article on the rights of weapon bearers. ”

Anchored to the copy of the article is a proverb. It was only then that Bronze realized that the alien city was indeed extraordinary.

Step out of the shop and bathe the bronzer in the early morning sun, gazing admiringly at the towering mountains east of Santa Fe. He still can't believe he's been to Santa Fe. He had never been so impulsive in his ministry life.

On the way back to the hotel, he looked back on the busy morning and all the things he had arranged, opened a ticket account, and transferred the money from the bank where he had deposited; contact with the local branch of the National Stock Economics Company, which he had entrusted; He called his landlord in Chongqing and agreed to pay a fine for breaking his tenancy, in exchange for promising to pack up his few clothes and send them in. He was exhausted from all that he had accomplished, but the reality of being in Santa Fe was getting stronger. The more he accomplished, the stronger his determination to stay here. He has many other things to do. He's going to get a car and buy a means of transportation; He needed to find a place to live, and he had to find himself a job to do.

On the radio, he listened to a report on the public radio "Noon Edition" of many middle-aged corporate managers who were now giving up their stressful jobs (before their companies were demoted and relieved) of moving to the mountainous western states, where they started their own businesses and survived on their talents. These people find it exciting and rewarding to work and take risks for themselves. The host called them "lonely eagles".

In fact, at this moment, Bronze feels very lonely. He said to himself, "I'd better find another place and not stay in a hotel room." Renting an apartment? Buying an apartment? How do I decide? What's in my favor? Just check the newspaper advertising column? Just as he was hesitating, he noticed a signboard. He was passing through a shady street with a sign hanging in front of an adobe building. Suddenly, he knew he had an answer, and it was much more than just a solution to the question of where to make a home.

"It's a renovated house." The woman said. She was almost 60 years old, with short gray hair, a slender face wrinkled by the sun, and many turquoise jewelry. Her name is Wang Yina, and she is the publisher of the sign that Decker noticed. This was the fourth property she had shown him. "The owner of this house has been selling for over a year. No one lives here. They authorized me to say that they were willing to accept a lower price than they were asking. ”

"How much do they ask?" Bronze said.

"Five thousand oceans."

Bronze raised an eyebrow. "So you're not kidding when you tell me that the prices of the houses here are quite high."

"And it's getting better every year." Wang Yina explained that what happened elsewhere in the past few years is now repeated in Santa Fe. When the wealthy came to visit, they fell in love with the picturesque mountain town and decided to buy a property there. As a result, prices have been driven up, and locals have been forced to move to other cities where they can afford to live. Similarly, real estate in Santa Fe is getting more expensive day by day, mainly due to wealthy immigrants from big cities.

"Last year, I sold a house for 10,000 yuan and put it on the market again after 9 months, asking for 160,000 yuan." Wang Yina said. She wears a felt hat. "In Santa Fe's case, the house was ordinary, not even an adobe house. All the builder has done is to fix the structure of the house and add a new brushed whitewash. ”

"Is this an adobe house?"

"Of course." Wang Yina led him out of her house and down a gravel path to a tall metal gate. The brushed stucco walls on both sides of the door are as high as the door. The door is carved with silhouettes of replicating prehistoric petroglyphs. Inside the gate is the courtyard and gatehouse. "The house is surprisingly solid, and you knock on the wall next to the front door."

Bronze knocked. The impact on his knuckles made him feel as if he had hit a stone. He surveyed the exterior of the house. "I saw that the columns supporting the gatehouse were a little dry."

"Your eyesight is good."

"The yard was overgrown with weeds, and the interior walls needed to be repainted. All of this seems to indicate that your so-called renovated house is not in line with the reality. "What's the real problem?" This property is located on two acres of land, and you told me that this is a suburb with beautiful scenery, which is an ideal location. But why hasn't it been sold yet? ”

Wang Yina hesitated. "Because it's not one big house, it's two small houses that share a common wall."

"What?"

"To get from one part of the house to another, you have to go outside and go through another door."

"Who wants this kind of inconvenient housing?"

Wang Yina couldn't answer.

"Let me see the rest of the house."

"You mean, even with this layout, you might still be interested in this house?"

"I'll have to check it out first, take me to see the room."

Wang Yina took him into the hall in confusion, and there was a basement, built on the ground floor of the house, with a low door, and the space was very narrow. When the bronze came out of it, it patted the dust on the clothes, and felt very satisfied. "The power supply looks like it's about 10 years old, and the copper pipes are a little newer, but they're all pretty good."

"Your eyesight is really good," Wang Yina said, "and you know where to start." ”

"If the infrastructure needs to be renovated, then there is no need to renovate the place."

"Remodeling?" Now Wang Yina is even more confused.

"Look at the layout of this house. The common wall is built between the two houses that are connected, but it is possible to convert the wall into a room, create a corridor at the back of the room, and then tear down part of the common wall to allow the corridor to lead to the house on the other side, so that the two houses are connected. ”

"Oops, I'm ......," Wang Yina looked at the garage. I never noticed that. ”

Bronze pondered inwardly. He had no plans to buy such an expensive house. He thought of the 30,000 oceans he had saved, and whether he planned to become a pauper with a house.

"I can only give 4,000!"

"Below the asking price? To such a valuable house? ”

"Give this house that I heard you call a renovated house, or did my suggestion suddenly make it more attractive?"

"For the right buyer, yes." Wang Yina looked at him carefully. "Why do I have the feeling that you have negotiated a real estate business many times?"

"I used to be a consultant for a real estate company." Bronze handed her the business card that the Intelligence Bureau had printed for him. "Hartung Company, headquartered on the Bund in Shanghai. This company is not a multinational corporation but operates a number of special real estate businesses. My job is to look for the kind of real estate that is actually worth a lot more than it seems. ”

"Like this house." Wang Yina said.

Bronze shrugged. "My problem is that I can only afford four thousand anyway."

"I'll make this clear to my client."

"It's important to emphasize this. By the usual standard, the deposit should be one thousand.

Bronze shrugged again. "There's another problem – I can't afford a house if I can't find a job."

"How about selling real estate?" Wang Yina suddenly burst out laughing. "You've been trying to convince me to make a deal."

"Maybe a little."

"I like your style." Wang Yina smiled and said, "If you can convince me to make a deal, then you can convince anyone." You need a job, and now you've found it. The question is, how can you afford to renovate your house? ”

"It's easy, with cheap labor."

"But where do you expect to find cheap labor?"

Bronze stretched out his hands. "Right here."

Bronze had felt fear many times, both in his time in the Special Forces and later as a civilian intelligence agent—failed missions, no foreseen threats—but none of them could compare to the fear he felt when he woke up in the middle of the night the next day. His heart was pounding, he was disgusting, and his sweat-soaked underwear was clinging to his body. For a moment, he seemed to be engulfed in darkness, not knowing where he was. This is not a room in a cyclamen inn. But then he remembered that he had moved to a rented house run by Wang Yina. The house was even smaller than the apartment he had rented out in Chongqing, but at least it was cheaper than the rooms at the Cyclamen Hotel. At present, the first principle is to economize.

His mouth was dry, but he couldn't find the light switch. As he fumbled his way to the cramped bathroom to find the sink, his ass touched a table. He drank several glasses of water in quick succession to quench his thirst. He fumbled his way to the window of the private room and opened the double blinds. What appeared in front of him was not a spectacular landscape, but the moonlit streets and alleys in the streets.

He asked himself, what had I done? He started sweating again. I've never owned a large fortune in my life, but I've just signed a document promising to buy a house for which I have to pay all at once, am I crazy? What would the Intelligence Agency think if they heard that I had actually invested in real estate? They will wonder what makes me believe I can afford to pay the money. Actually, I couldn't afford it, but they didn't know it.

Bronze can't help but think of a recent scandal. An agent betrayed secret intelligence from the Moscow underground of the Intelligence Bureau to the Russians in exchange for $20,000. The result was catastrophic - the organization of the operation was destroyed and the agents were executed. It took several years for the intelligence agency's counterintelligence agency to begin to suspect a double agent and eventually focused its suspicions on that person. To the great shock of the Intelligence Agency, a team from the counterintelligence agency found that the man had nearly failed both times during a polygraph examination as part of a routine review, but that the polygraph results had been described as ambiguous and had reached conclusions in his favor. The group also learned that the spy had invested a lot in real estate — several vacation homes and a 10,000-acre farm; In addition, he also has hundreds of thousands of dollars in different bank accounts. Where exactly does this money come from? Shortly thereafter, the man and his wife were arrested on charges of espionage. The Intelligence Service, which had already relaxed its surveillance of the private lives of its agents, has now taken new and strict precautions.

。