Murghab is the capital of the Murghab district of Gorno-Badakhshan Oblast of Tajikistan and the largest city in the eastern part of Tajikistan. But when you get there, you will find that it is not much different from a village in China.

The "city" stretches along the north bank of the Murghab River, and in a narrow valley with sparse and sparse earth-gray bungalows, there are three "hotels" in the city, all of which are homestays run by locals with a few houses vacated. However, such conditions are much better than sleeping in a tent on Sarekole.

After completing the first phase of the boundary survey work, Dahmina returned to China with the Tajikistan team, and the first stop was to rest and resupply in Murghab.

Murghab's inns are generally unnamed, only the facades are painted white. The team stayed in a "white house", the largest hotel in the city, with five rooms, which the owner said was fully booked for the first time this year.

The boss's name is Kulia, and he is a middle-aged man who is diligent and talkative.

The next day, the surveyors who had not been to the city for a long time had gone out for a walk, and only Dakhmina remained in the hotel to rest. Culia cooked at noon, and he invited Dakhmina to dine with his family.

After eating, Kulia made another cup of tea, brought yogurt, and talked to Dakhmina over a drink.

"It's rare to see people from Dushanbe here." "However, don't look at Murghab is very small and broken, but in the eyes of the surrounding mountain people, this is still a big city." They buy and sell things, and they come to Murghab. ”

As soon as Kulia spoke, Dakhmina suddenly remembered something.

"Have you seen anyone from the east? Selling gold sand or gemstones? ”

"Yes! There is a bazaar (market) in Murghab, and every year half a month before the heavy snow closes the mountain, merchants who collect gold sand come to the Murghab bazaar. There, the mountain people sold them the gold sand they had mined, and then used the somoni (Tajikistan currency) to buy winter supplies at the bazaar. Kulia said.

"So, have you ever seen a mountain folk who can speak Chinese? Among those who come to the bazaar to sell gold sand and precious stones. ”

"Absolutely! There was a square-faced, sheepskin-clad man who had lived in my house all these years, and he didn't speak much Tajik, he could count, and sometimes he would bring a man with curled hair. They only come once a year and rarely talk to people. ”

Dahemina was stunned, because Brother Toutou was a square face, and the person with curly hair was not curly?

She asked a few more about the characteristics of the two men, some of whom Kulia couldn't remember, but some of them could be confirmed.

"Do you know them?" He asked Dahmina.

"I've seen it in the mountains to the east." She said.

"I heard from the vendors in the bazaar that every year when they sold the gold sand, they had to buy a lot of meat and grain, and they would also buy a donkey to pull it back. Every year new donkey carts are bought, and the poor donkeys must have been killed by them - we Murghabs do not kill donkeys, donkeys are our foot strength. ”

Dahemina nodded, silently sipping the black tea that Kulia had just brewed.

……

"So, in fact, it was the five themselves who went to Murghab to trade gold sand, right?" Shen Yu asked after listening to what Dahmina said.

Dakhmina still has reservations: "It feels like this. ”

Something suddenly came to mind.

"There are five of them, right? Why did we only see four people in the report: the headband, the hero, the curly hair, and the deaf, and there was no fifth? ”

Dahemina looked at Lin Shan, who finally had a chance to speak.

"At that time, we didn't see much of a fifth person......

"Why? Is there no such person? Or does he not live with other people? ”

"Yes, there is." Lin Shan said, "And he also lives in that cave. But how to put it, I always feel that person is very abnormal, and other people don't treat him as a normal person. ”

"There is almost no presence, and it feels like the other four will avoid him." Dahmina added.

"Hide? Is it a mental problem? ”

"No, it's because—he's so ugly......" Lin Shan finally told the truth.

"Yes. The first time I saw him, I thought I had seen a ghost. If it was him who I bumped into in the red willows, I would have shot him without hesitation. Dahemina sighed, "Because he's uglier than a savage......

"Is it because you don't have a face, or because your face looks ugly?" I was shocked and quickly asked.

"No," Dachmina shook her head, "his facial features are crooked, and they call him 'Xuan Ming', which is probably taken from the name of the two elders of Xuan Ming in "Heaven and Dragon Slayer". ”

Lin Shan suddenly sat on the table and smiled bitterly.

"What's wrong?" Dahermina asked with concern.

"About Xuan Ming, in fact, I know more about it, that is, his life experience."

"Oh?"

"This is what the headband told me secretly, and he told me that Xuan Ming is actually a child of Xiaoliu...... And Xiaoliu is not a man, she is a woman. ”

We were all shocked.

Lin Shan looked at Dahemina and said, "At that time, you were Chinese, and they obviously didn't want to say more to you. But I still privately asked Xuan Ming if he had been like this since he was a child. Later, when the headband couldn't hide it, he simply told me secretly, he said that Xiaoliu was actually a girl, and since she grew up, she didn't have to work, but accompanied the master...... You get the idea, right? ”

"It's horrible." Shen Yu and Dakhmina said in surprise.

Later, Master did not come back, and they searched for Master to no avail, so they had to return to the Nameless Valley. Because when they first arrived there, several people were still unfamiliar with each other, but something happened the night before - a fierce and vicious, hairy thing rushed in and kidnapped Xiao Liu......

The four of them had to search everywhere, and they finally found Xiaoliu on a meadow at the foot of a mountain, naked and covered in scars. They hurriedly picked up Xiaoliu back, lit a fire and bandaged her.

Under the care of several people, Xiaoliu recovered day by day, but she obviously had a mental problem, and when she saw the shadow reflected in the fire, she shrank into a ball in fright, whining and crying. Moreover, her belly is getting bigger day by day......

"By the time the weather warmed up the following year, Xiaoliu gave birth to a child, but she also bled a lot. The four of them didn't know how to deal with it at all, and watched Xiao Liu stop breathing.

They buried the little six on a mountain to the west, and raised the child with goat's milk, and as he grew up, the child's appearance became more and more terrifying, and the hero gave him a name, called him Xuanming—this is the origin of the fifth man of Sarekole.

"But a few of them always feel that compared with the lively and cute Xiaoliu, Xuan Ming is simply a human shame, so they don't want to admit that Xuan Ming is the child of Xiao Liu."./15_15456/