"Change!" The old camel cried out, and the unexpected stubbornness of his accomplices, and the unpleasant things that had happened that night, had at last made him unbearable.

"I'm trying to change your temper. Listen, you stink*. Listen to me, I only need a few words to kill the fat man, as surely as I grabbed his cow's neck with my hand. If he comes back, he will leave the child behind—if he slips over, and does not return the child to me, whether dead or alive, he will kill him with his own hands. As soon as he steps into this room, you do it, or you have to watch out for me. ”

"What the fuck did you say?" The girl screamed.

"What?" The old camel was mad, and continued, "That kid is worth a lot of money to me, and luck has come, and I can get such a large sum of money safely, just because a drunkard who can kill them with a whistle for me, does he want me to fetch water in a bamboo basket?" ”’

The old man was out of breath, and when he said this, he was stuck in a word, and at this moment, he suddenly stopped the catharsis of anger, and his whole appearance changed. His curled hands were still scratching in the air, his eyes were round, and his face was blue with anger, but now he was curled up in his chair, trembling all over, for fear that he would expose the treachery of his heart. He was silent for a moment, then boldly turned his head to look at his companion, and saw that she was still as listless as she had just woken up, and he seemed somewhat relieved.

The old camel wept and mourned in his usual tone, and said, "You are not strange, are you? ”

"Don't bother me anymore, old camel." The girl slowly raised her head and replied, "If Zhang Fatzi hadn't succeeded this time, he would have done it." He has already reaped a lot of benefits for you, as long as he can do it, he will get a lot of money, and if he can't do it, there is no way, so don't mention it. ”

"What about the kid, dear?" The old camel rubbed his palms nervously.

"That kid has to try his luck with someone else," Aju quickly interrupted him, "I repeat, get out of your gang - that is, if the fat man is okay." ”

"What about what I said?" The old camel stared at her with burning eyes and said.

"If you want me to do anything, you'll have to say it all over again," replied Aju, "and if that's the case, you'd better talk about it tomorrow." You've just been tossing and turning for a while, and now I'm a little confused again. ”

The old camel asked several other questions, all with the same meaning, intent on ascertaining whether the girl had heard the hint he had just blurted out, but she answered crisply, and looked extremely indifferent under his pressure, and his initial thought seemed to be right, and she had two more drinks.

Indeed, the female disciples of the old camel had a common shortcoming, and Azhu was no exception, a shortcoming that was encouraged more than stopped when they were younger.

Her unkempt appearance and the strong smell of alcohol in the house provided strong evidence for the old Jew's speculation. She was at first in a seizure as described above, then she was immersed in depression, and then she appeared to have mixed feelings and could not help herself, and just now she was still crying, and in the blink of an eye she let out all kinds of shouts, such as "Don't say death" or something, and made all kinds of speculations, saying that as long as the wife and gentlemen were happy, nothing mattered.

The old camel had always been very experienced in this kind of thing, and it was indescribably satisfied to see that she had really come to such a point.

This discovery reassured the old camel. He had two purposes for this trip, to inform Ah Zhu of the news he heard that night, and the second was to check with his own eyes that Zhang Fatzi had not returned, and now that both purposes had been achieved, he left for home, leaving his young accomplice, and she dozed off on the table.

It was already midnight. It was dark and bitterly cold, and he was really not in the mood to wander around. The cold wind swept through the streets, as if trying to sweep away the few scattered pedestrians as dust and garbage, and the pedestrians could see that they were hurrying home.

However, it was a smooth ride for the old camel, and every time the strong gusts of wind pushed him roughly, he shivered for a while.

He walked to the corner of the street where he lived, and was fumbling with the key in his pocket when a dark figure burst out of a black porch across the road and slipped up to him without noticing.

"Old camel." A voice whispered close to his ear.

"Ahh The old camel immediately turned his head and said. "You're—"

"Yes." The stranger interrupted him. "I've been around here for two hours, what the hell have you been in?"

"For your business, my dear," said the old camel, glancing apprehensively at his companion, slowing his pace as he spoke. "All night is for you."

"Oh, that's still going to happen." The stranger said mockingly. "Okay, what's going on?

"It's not good." Said the old camel.

"It's not bad, I guess?" The stranger stopped abruptly and looked at each other, looking panicked.

The old camel shook his head, and was about to answer, when the stranger asked him to stop, when the two of them had come to the door of the old camel, and the stranger pointed to the door and said, "It is better to go into the house and say that he has stood near for so long, and he has suffered from the wind and cold, and even his blood is frozen."

The old camel had a sad face, and seemed to want to push it, but in the middle of the night, it was inconvenient for him to bring the living to his home. Sure enough, the old camel muttered that there was no fire in the house, but his companion reiterated his request imperiously, and he had to open the door, and ask his companion to come in and close it gently, and go and fetch a light for himself.

"It's as dark as a grave," the man groped his way forward. "Hurry up."

"Close the door." The old camel whispered from the end of the aisle. Before he could finish speaking, the door closed with a loud thud.

"It's not mine," said the other, discerning his way. "The wind blew it, or it closed on its own. Get Ryo, or I'll hit my head in this damn hole. ”

The old camel went down the kitchen stairs in the dark, paused and came up with a lighted candle, and brought the news that several boys were in the front room, and they were all asleep.

He beckoned the stranger to follow, and led the way upstairs.

"What can we say here?" said the old camel, pushing open a door on the second floor. "There were a few holes in the blinds, and we put the candles on the stairs and there was absolutely no light next door."

The old camel bent down and placed the candle on the upper flight of the stairs, and behind the door there was a chaise longue or sofa without a cover, and there was nothing else that could be moved.

The stranger sat down in a chaise longue looking exhausted. The old camel dragged the armchair over, and the two sat opposite each other. It wasn't too dark, the door was ajar, and the candle outside was projecting a laser onto the opposite wall.

They kept their voices down and talked for a while. Except for the occasional staccato word, the conversation was not at all inaudible, but in spite of this, it was not difficult to hear that the old camel seemed to be defending himself against some of his companion's words, and the latter was rather agitated.

They muttered like this for a quarter of an hour, perhaps a little more, and several times in the course of the conversation they used that name to the stranger—raising their voices slightly, and said, "I'll tell you again, it's badly arranged." Why don't you let him stay with the others and train him to be a sneaky slug pickpocket? ”

"It's not that simple!" The old camel shrugged his shoulders and shouted.

"Oh, you're saying you can't do it even if you have a way, can you?" Asking, with a grim face. "Haven't you done it to other boys dozens of times? As long as you have patience, at most a year, you can let him be sentenced to a sentence, run away steadily, maybe he will never go back, right? ”

"Who's going to benefit from this?" The old camel asked.

"Me." Eyes drooped replied.

"It's not me," said the old camel, speaking very deferentially. "He would have worked for me. If you have to do both parties in a transaction, you have to take care of the interests of both parties, right? ”

"So what?" Asking.

"I find it quite a task to train him in this trade," replied the old camel, "and he is not like any other boy in the same situation. ”

"It's different to see him go to the ghost." The man muttered, "Otherwise, I would have become a thief." ”

"I can't get hold of him and make him bad," continued the old camel, anxiously gazing at his companion's face. "He hasn't touched his hands yet, and I don't have anything to scare him, and at the beginning, we were a little bit sideways, or it was in vain. What can I do? Send him out with the Clever Ghost? As soon as we went out, we couldn't bear it. For the sake of all of us, I'm so scared. ”

"It's none of my business." Said with drooping eyes.

"Yes, yes," said the old camel. "I'm not bothered about this right now. Because, if there was no such thing at all, you wouldn't have noticed him at all, and then you realized that it was him who you were looking for. Hey, with that girl, I'll get him back for you, and she'll spoil him from then on. ”

"Strangled the girl." He said anxiously.

"We can't do that now," replied the old camel with a smile. "Besides, that's not our business, or maybe one day, I'll be desperate to find someone to do it. I know the details of these chicks. Once the child is at a loss, she cares no more than a piece of wood. You want to call him a thief, and as long as he's alive, I'll let him do it from now on. If—if—" the old camel leaned over to the other—"it's not likely, you listen—but in case the worst happens, he's dead—"

"That's not my fault." The other interjected in horror, and put his hands tremblingly on the old camel's shoulders. "Listen, I didn't interfere in this, I told you from the beginning, you can do anything, but you can't let him die, I don't want to see bloodshed, this kind of thing will be exposed sooner or later, and it will make people haunted by ghosts. If they shoot him, the blame will never be on me. Did you hear that? Set fire to this place. What is that? ”

"What?" The old camel also screamed, and reached out to hug the frightened coward. "Where?"

"Over there." He glared at the wall opposite. "The figure. I saw the shadow of a woman, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a floppy hat, slipping past like a gust of wind against the wainscoting. ”

The old camel let go of his arms, and the two of them hurried out of the house. The candle was still standing in its place, and the wind through the hall had blown it to pieces, and the light of the candle shone only on the empty staircase and their pale faces. They listened intently, and the whole house was enveloped in dead silence.

"That's your hallucination." As he spoke, the old camel took up a candle from the ground and stretched it out to his companion.

"I can see it clearly." He replied with a shuddering eye. "The first time I saw it, the shadow was hunched forward, and as soon as I opened my mouth, it ran away."

The old camel glanced contemptuously at his companion's frightened face, said that he could follow him to see it if he pleased, and went upstairs. They looked from room to room, and it was surprisingly empty, cold. They descended into the hallway and then into the basement.

The pale blue tide hung against the low walls, and the traces of snails and slugs glistened in the candlelight, but everything was dead silent.

"What do you think now?" They went back into the hallway, said the old camel. "We don't count, there's no one in this room except Toby and the little ghosts, and they're safe enough. You see. ”

The old camel took out two keys from his pockets as proof, and explained that he had locked the door the first time he went downstairs, so that the conversation would not be disturbed.

Grim eyes hesitated in the face of this new piece of evidence. The two of them continued their fruitless search, and his protest gradually became less intense, and then he let out a few sinister laughs, admitting that it might have been just his own impulsive imagination, but that night he did not want to continue on a different subject, for he suddenly remembered that it was past one o'clock, and the two close friends parted.