Chapter 60: Zaitsev

Amerad Mosque.

Zaitsev sat in the flowery garden with his cane, looking like an ordinary old man, dressed in a well-fitting white robe, with a turban wrapped around his head, and his withered hands occasionally trembling involuntarily.

But no one knew that this man was actually one of Salander's most trusted intelligence advisers. The old man, who seemed peaceful, was now filled with anger, and while Zaitsev's health was deteriorating, the Sultan sent him some of the best doctors and sent him to the Amerad Mosque to recuperate. This was extremely intolerable for Zaitsev, who had never hated the mosque and everything in it since he had been circumcised.

For those around him, Zaitsev has always been an outlier. He never adhered to trade guidelines or ethics, and in any case, Zaitsev was not a reputable businessman, but he made his fortune in business. In what Zaitsev called 'the wonderful green years', Zaitsev traveled to all corners of the continent with caravans or hijacked by thieves.

When Rhodok was still the southern province of Swadia, Zaitsev sold indulgences issued by the Bishop of Swadia, and later Zaitsev himself had a stonemason carve a template and print more than 2,000 counterfeit indulgences.

Zaitsev sold these inferior relics to the farmers in the mountains, and beat all competitors with a low price and a human service - Zaitsev's indulgences were only half the price of the church's sale, and Zaitsev claimed that these indulgences would exempt God from other indulgences, including cheating, which God did not forgive. This made Zaitsev a thorn in the side of the Diocesan Federation of Rhodok, whose priests until now hated the Salanders. However, some energetic Rhodok farmers have been waiting for Zaitsev all these years, hoping that he will once again bring comfort and salvation to his soul.

And in Vicchia, Zaitsev sold cough drops there for half a year, and the sales were good, and at that time the Vekia region was still under the control of the Svadians, and even the Nords were honest at that time. Zaitsev bribed a group of beggars to help him with propaganda, that is, a group of beggars pretended to cough, and one of them drank Zaitsev's cough medicine and immediately stopped coughing, so everyone praised loudly. Zaitsev said again, saying that his potion was almost sold out, and the sale of fifteen large bottles a day was limited, and some citizens with weak constitution came to buy it one after another.

If it weren't for the death of the last drug, Zaitsev might have been working as a pharmacist in a pharmacy in Vikya for the rest of his life, and it is said that he can make a lot of money in this business and greatly improve the quality of life of local beggars.

When Zaitsev fled overnight, countless beggars cried and cried, but after all, Zaitsev was not left behind. It was late at night, and Zaitsev fell into two stinking ditches in succession, finding the stinky Charlie in one ditch and the stinky Edward in the next.

Later, Zaitsev went to the North Sea, where he peddled underwater breathing drugs to sailors. As a result, a sailor did not believe it, so Zaitsev asked the sailor to test it himself, and the sailor poured a few mouthfuls of Zaitsev's potion and jumped into the water, but the sailor has not yet returned to reveal to the people that Zaitsev's potion did not work.

Zaitsev and a group of curious citizens waited on the shore for an hour, but did not see the sailors return, so Zaitsev announced loudly: "The sailors have lived happily under the water with the bewitching ** water monsters", the people on the pier shook their heads and called for the judge. The judge sentenced Zaitsev to drink his own potion and then go underwater to confront the sailors, otherwise he was sentenced to sell counterfeit medicine.

Since then, Zaitsev has been declaring that the Nords are 'cruel', but Zaitsev made it to Svadia alive. In Svadia, Zaitsev set up a fortune-telling stall at the entrance of the military academy in Paravon, and he used it as he learned, and after being beaten many times, Zaitsev was finally able to say the prophecies that were in harmony with the hearts of the people.

Later, when Zaitsev heard that Salander had taken many prisoners during the war in the south, and that they were now being sold at a low price, he thought it was a good opportunity, so he sold fortune-telling candles, skulls, virgin blood, dog intestines, and other items that night, and finally got a ticket and climbed on a ship carrying iron nails and returned to Sharez.

After that, the wonderful life of the slave trader Zaitsev began.

It was also from that time that Zaitsev considered doctrines and something worthless. He learned to eat roast pork in Nord to keep out the cold; In Rhodoc, he mingled in churches to pray to God, and sold indulgences to the surrounding farmers; While in Svadia, Zaitsev had three more friends and had always interacted well with a large number of tavern hostesses - he helped them understand the future of life, and they helped him understand the happiness of the night.

After choosing a career as a slave trader, Zaitsev's association with this society became more profound. He began to see the world from a philosophical perspective—not a scholastic philosophy, but a real philosophy of life. He used to sit on a hunger strike in the desert, hoping to figure something out. But after a few days, when the brothel girl asked him what he wanted to understand, Zaitsev would always spit on the wall to the side and scold: "I want to understand a ghost." ”

In those years, Zaitsev specialized in kidnapping and selling children, buying prisoners on the battlefield, and breaking up people's families in besieged cities.

In his third year in the business, when Charlie and Edward were already four or five years old, Zaitsev unexpectedly took over a middle-aged man from a group of robbers for seventeen dinars. The middle-aged man had no relatives, but he promised to transfer one of his circuses to Zaitsev as soon as he sent him home. Zaitsev asked the middle-aged man to write down the contract, and he happily tied the middle-aged man to a camel and went to the middle-aged man's hometown.

On the night the middle-aged man arrived in his hometown, Zaitsev was blocked by thirty tall men in cloaks. Zaitsev was taken aback and did not know what was going on. Finally, Zaitsev saw the middle-aged man sitting in the middle of the room, listening to the reports of the people around him as usual.

The men seemed to ignore Zaitsev's presence, and it wasn't until Zaitsev was about to slip away and his hind feet had already stepped out of the door that he was grabbed by a guard outside the door and thrown in.

The middle-aged man looked at Zaitsev at his feet and asked him: "Do you have anything to say?" ”

Zaitsev flicked the dust off his body and smiled helplessly, "You are worth more than seventeen dinars. ”

The middle-aged man laughed, "Indeed, I want to be worth a little more." How do you think I'm going to punish you? Think of one for yourself, and if it's more appropriate, I'll take your advice. ”

Zaitsev then sat up cross-legged, and thought for a long time under the gaze of a group of cloaked visitors, and the more he thought about it, the more frightened he became, and finally he not only lost his voice: "It's just business, don't do it!" ”

"Come on, I'm leaving tomorrow morning. When the time comes, I can only leave you to these brothers around you to deal with, you can do it. ”

"Uh...... I'll work with you! ”

The middle-aged man was stunned, he didn't expect this young man of Salander to be so cautious. Secrets were more important than anything else to the middle-aged man's guild, and since Zaitsev knew their clues, it was certainly the most convenient and safest way to dispose of Zaitsev in order to prevent the danger he would bring in the future - but it would be a different matter if this guy joined.

"Do you think this honor is punishment?" The middle-aged man asked rhetorically.

Zaitsev smiled wryly, "If I don't, I'm going to die, and that's the only thing left in my life that I have countless possibilities." ”

"In the next room, there are two mischievous bastard twins waiting for me to feed; There are still so many slaves to be sold on the battlefield; There are so many places in the world waiting for me to enjoy; Now I can only follow you, and I don't know where to go to be a scribe of scriptures, or somewhere to knock stones for the rest of my life - it's not punishment or anything. ”

The middle-aged man frowned and thought for a long time, "You come with me tomorrow, your two little children had better be disposed of." ”

"No way!" Zaitsev shouted, "They're bastards, you won't be able to find a better alternate than them!" In the past few years, I have not taught them anything other than to teach them to cheat and deceive, and you will definitely get twice the result with half the effort in the future. ”

"Bastard! Who do you think of us? The middle-aged man shouted.

"It can't be worse than an imam anyway, but it's not much better, is it?"

The middle-aged man was entangled by the internal logic of this sentence for a long time before he said, "If anything they shouldn't know is known to them, I don't guarantee that they will grow up." ”

"Killing those two little bastards is a matter of doing harm to the people! At least it's for me! Zaitsev bowed with a low figure, thanking Allah for opening his eyes in his heart.

At dawn that day, the cloaked men were gone, and the next day only Zaitsev and the middle-aged man remained. They rented two mules, and Zaitsev hung a basket on the left and right behind the mules, which contained the weeping Charlie and Edward. Whenever Zaitsev was annoyed, he threatened to throw the two little bastards in the desert to feed the foxes.

Edward would cry even more when he heard this, and Charlie would shout, "You can't bear it!" ”

The middle-aged man laughed and turned around, "Zaitsev, this guy named Charlie is very similar to your own child." ”

Later, the middle-aged man gradually led Zaitsev into an organization that had existed for hundreds or even thousands of years, an organization that would produce blue moon potions.

This group has spread across the continent, but many of the people in it don't know each other. Zaitsev won their appreciation for his rich experience and intelligence, and the middle-aged man also promoted Zaitsev. Zaitsev was assigned much later to the Salanders to gather intelligence. Those who trained with Zaitsev were sent to the kings or usurpers in the countries of the continent - regardless of which country prevailed, Zaitsev's organization was always invincible.

After restoring part of his freedom, the middle-aged man gave Zaitsev a sum of money. While members of other groups would use the money to open an antique shop or an elegant inn or something to gather intelligence, Zaitsev used the money to set up a circus and continue the slave trade.

After learning that Zaitsev had become the owner of the circus, the middle-aged man disguised himself as a man named Hanako and asked him: "What do you mean?" ”

Zaitsev said with a serious expression: "You promised me. ”

The expression of the middle-aged man amused Zaitsev for a long time. Zaitsev knew that the group was constantly watching him, and that if something they thought was dangerous, they would make Zaitsev disappear from the world completely. But after all these years, nothing has happened to Zaitsev.

Middle-aged people do not have many restrictions on Zaitsev, but there is one restriction: "You must not marry a wife and have children".

For this limitation, Zaitsev, who had just won his life, was not a thing to be disappointed, but as he grew older, Zaitsev felt more and more lonely. This made him very glad that he had saved Charlie and Edward in the first place, but Zaitsev really wanted to have children of his own.

Over the years, Zaitsev slept with many women, and he secretly observed that whenever he left a place, people would go to find them. Once Zaitsev hid a woman who had already spoiled his child in a remote place, he thought he was doing well, but soon someone brought him a strand of the woman's hair. When he went there again, the hiding place was empty, there was a pool of blackened blood on the ground, and Zaitsev could only pray that she was still alive.

During the North Sea War, Zaitsev bought a group of captives in the Vizan Heights and sold them to Swadia. There was a woman who looked a lot like a girl Zaitsev liked when he was young, and naturally, everything that should have happened happened. In order to protect this woman, Zaitsev tried his best to restrain his desire to get close to this woman. He only hoped that this woman might be able to give birth somewhere, maybe he himself would never see her again, and she was unlikely to conceive a child, but this possibility became the psychological comfort that Zaitsev relied on more and more.

After all these years, Zaitsev no longer remembers how many women he had, but the Nord woman, a woman from the Gil tribe of the Vizan Heights, has always appeared in Zaitsev's heart. He couldn't tell why, but occasionally he fantasized that he and this woman had spent an ordinary life, with a group of children.

This desire drove Zaitsev crazy, he became cynical, cursed Allah and despised the teachings.

"If Allah will give sunshine to everyone, why would he leave me alone!" This is Zaitsev's answer when the old Sultan of Salander asked Zaitsev why he was so repulsive to Allah.

The old sultan smiled and said no more.

Every child of Allah has his own cliff to climb over that no one else can do.

The war began and ended, the girl became beautiful and old, the wheat was green and yellow, and finally it was harvested.

Zaitsev, who has been heroic and brave for a lifetime, is also old, and has been thoughtfully arranged in the mosque to wait for the sunset of life.

"It's ridiculous!" Zaitsev muttered.

At this time, a young servant boy came to Zaitsev and saluted Zaitsev, wearing a turban as a sign of piety, and said: "What kind of food do you want for the evening?" ”

"Uh...... pork, drizzled with fragrant broth; Find a few pagan little beauties to dance for me; By the way, two more pots of Vecchia's medicinal wine, or the little beauty will squeeze me dry haha......"

Zaitsev looked at the young man in front of him with eyes as wide as bull's eyes, and couldn't help but feel even more proud.

"Allah! Do you want to beat me? Haha, old Zaitsev won't be afraid of you before he goes to hell, ahem, old Zaitsev wants, ahem, ahem, ahem......"

Before Zaitsev finished speaking, he felt a red in front of him, as if Allah was angry, as if the sky was bleeding.

Zaitsev fell on his back, surrounded by panicked people, and he fell completely ill.

In the dream he once again examined his life, he felt a little sorry for Allah, after all, the old man did not provoke himself much, he always gave him a dark touch, but he has come to this point, Zaitsev does not think it is a big deal, didn't Allah also erase his own descendants, just owe the two of them.

Allah, let me be the lamb that will not return to your fold.

“…… Old beggar......"

Zaitsev heard someone calling to him, he opened his weak eyes with all his might, and saw Charlie sitting beside him, "little beggar ......," Zaitsev smiled and said weakly.

Charlie was a picky eater when he was a child, always saying that he ate beggar's food, and scolded Zaitsev for being an old beggar. Zaitsev would chase Charlie and scold him for being a little beggar.

It looks like a dream when I think about it.

"Old beggar, Allah is ready to take you away."

"Old man...... The son walks on his own, not with ...... Allah...... That bad old man...... Go, no Allah......"

"Allah's."

"Try it...... Look at ......, little beggar...... The beggars ...... and want to ...... Convince me ......? ”。

Zaitsev closed his eyes, tears flowed down his cheeks, he felt that his life was very interesting, printing indulgences, pouring fake medicines, telling fortunes, playing jokes with God, going against Allah, and a lifetime of it.

Charlie sighed, leaned down, and whispered something in Zaitsev's ear.

Zaitsev's eyes widened suddenly, his lips trembled, and his cloudy eyes were suddenly washed by welling tears.

"Heavenly ...... Yes! True...... Allah Ah......hh ”