Zhang Qixun squatted down, took off his gloves, and gently stroked his fingers on the thangka, "I see that your painting does not seem to be the traditional painting style of Nepal, but it seems to be ...... Kadampa style on the southern Tibetan side. ”

"And you've been painting for some years, and the lines and colors are very harmonious, so don't you lose money by selling it at such a low price?"

"Love to buy or not to buy." The peddler wilted, didn't lift his eyelids, leaned crookedly on the steps behind him, and even snored.

Zhang Qixun didn't care about his perfunctory attitude, smiled lightly, and asked directly in Chinese: "What is your surname for this gentleman?" ”

After a pause in snoring, the hawker's eyes opened a slit slightly, and there was a shrewdness in his vicissitudes of life, and he glanced at Zhang Jixun, and then said in English: "I don't understand what you're saying." ”

"It's okay if you don't understand." Zhang Qixun took out the Nepalese rupees that had been exchanged before the customs from his pocket, took out two 1,000 pieces, and put them in front of him, "Ask you about a person, this person's surname is Ma, and he lives near the square, do you know him?" ”

"I don't know!"

The peddler shook his head, picked up the money in front of him, hesitated for two seconds, and then threw it back to Zhang Qixun, and then directly cleaned up the stall.

Zhang Qixun sighed, put the money back, picked up the ancient thangka painting, didn't keep much, turned around and left.

After Zhang Qixun's figure disappeared around the corner, after a while, the vendor who was still pretending to clean up the stall relaxed and picked up the money in his hat, and chuckled, "Fool." ”

These two words are said in Chinese in a serious manner.

The other vendors on the side gave him envious glances, "Oh my God, Balma, you've had a great fortune today, that rich guest is so kind, his face is clean and looks like an angel." ”

"Ubuya is right, those broken paintings of yours are only worth a few dollars, and that guest is equivalent to giving you two thousand rupees for nothing, which is really jealous."

Balmaskin grinned without smiling, and his emaciated cheeks and beard were glued with grease, and if it were summer, the fleas in it would have to produce many great-grandchildren.

Ignoring the cynicism of the others, he rolled up the few remaining antiques in a thin blanket underneath, threw them on his back, put on his hat, covered his heart, and staggered towards a tavern at the corner of the street, his steps heavy and stiff.

"In this Balma, if you have one or two idle rupees, you go to drink, and you don't know how to keep them to subsidize the family, no wonder the wife and children are dead."

"Shhh, don't talk nonsense, I heard that this guy provoked a priest of the Bahong people, otherwise how could such a big family die overnight, I heard that their family used to be a rich man who moved from the east."

"How dare you say this, you definitely don't dare to say it, beware of saying the same fate as the Balma family."

The vendors whispered for a while, sighed a few times, and then retreated back to their stalls.

Balma came out of the tavern pressed by the black glass window, carried a bottle of inferior tequila that he had just brought and put it in the pocket of his felt coat, and swung back to the square again, bought two pounds of corn and hazelnuts from a vendor, and walked slowly to the alley at the edge of the square.

The thin midday sun was soon obscured by dense clouds, and snow began to fall in the sky, and the wind was blowing.

The weather was so cold that when you walked out of the square, there were few pedestrians on the street, and they were all in a hurry in the fluttering goose feather snow.

Balma walked and stopped, circling in the middle of the soft mud and tiles, looking back from time to time, as if he were a thief.

At last he came to an old two-story apartment, where the landlord was a short, strong man with a fleshy face and a rough beard on his brown face.

He had just finished dinner, and was standing at the doorway with his eyes squinted, picking his teeth, and when he saw Balma coming, a glint of ill intent flashed in his eyes.

Balma wanted to deliberately pretend not to see him, but the strong landlord's nose was more than that of any dog, and he smelled the slightly bitter smell of the liquor, and stepped forward to block him.

"Balma, it's time for you to pay your rent for the second half of the quarter."

Seeing the undisguised greed in the landlord's eyes, Balma's disgust was about to reach its peak, but he couldn't resist because the landlord's surname was Vaishya, and it was said that he was still a descendant of the former Rajput people.

Nepal is a very strict caste system, even after being abolished by law in 1962 by King Mahendra, the caste system that has existed since the 14th century has been imprinted on the Nepalese people, and this surname hierarchy still exists today.

As an alien and decrepid member of the family, Balma, like the petty traders, was a scavenger at the lowest level of society, one level lower than the Shudras, and was also called a pariah.

Balma whispered, "Didn't I pay the rent for the second half of the quarter a few days ago?" ”

"Oh, then hand over the next quarter." The strong landlord didn't care what he said, he just found an excuse to deliberately humiliate the poor pariah.

The strong landlord himself was at the bottom of society, but he still looked down on people of lower status than him, and even if Bamal paid to rent a house, he would only rent him a small basement.

Bamal didn't want to give him money so easily, so he could only ask him for a few days.

The strong landlord immediately yelled impatiently, "Hurry up and pay the money, otherwise I'll kick you out of my territory right now and let you be arrested by the patrol!" ”

No homeless people are allowed to stay at night near Durbar Square, and if they are found, they will be directly locked up in prison, and they will not want to get them out without guarantors and money.

Balma's eyes flashed with cruelty, and when he raised his eyes again, his face was full of pleading and flattery, and he took out the bottle of wine from his pocket and handed it to the strong man landlord, and said in a flattering tone: "If you don't give me some time again, oh yes, I sold a painting today, and I made thirty rupees, and I bought this bottle of wine in total, you see, can you be accommodating." ”

The strong landlord snatched the wine bottle, unscrewed it and sniffed it, and said in disgust: "How can such an inferior wine be worthy of my stomach." ”

As he spoke, his hand gripped the bottle tightly and didn't let go, "Okay, then I'll give you another week." ”

Balma watched him stagger back upstairs, laughing to himself, and went around to the back door of the apartment, where there was a half-man-high iron door, which was the entrance to the basement.

Balma walked to the door and was about to push the door, when his eyes suddenly saw something, and he quietly put the bag on his back into the broken jar at the door, and then carefully retreated step by step Five or six meters away from the iron gate, he immediately ran away.

The neighborhood is very chaotic, full of narrow alleys and crevices, and Balma has lived here for a long time and is all too familiar with it.

His escape was purposeful, he wanted to lead people to his former big house, where there were traps enough to get out of himself.

But he clearly underestimated the strength of the enemy this time.

As he quickly ran through a fork in the road, and the large house was already in his sight, a heavy blow suddenly struck from the side and behind, and Balma's whole body flew out uncontrollably and hit the wall, spitting out a pool of blood from his mouth.

Two faint footsteps were heard from behind, rustling on the snow that had accumulated on the ground half a foot thick.

Two ghostly figures jumped down from the wall and walked towards Balma.

Balma struggled to turn over, and when he saw the two black shadows, his pupils suddenly constricted, his eyes straightened, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably, as if someone had choked his throat in an instant, his face turned from flushed to pale, his breathing was short, the base of his tongue twitched, and his throat let out a few short strange screams.

It's "them"!

It's "them" -

"They" came, and "they" finally found themselves.

"Quick, let's do it quickly." A cold female voice said.

Another dark shadow stepped forward, and the cold light flashed like lightning, but it was not Balma who screamed.

A splash of blood red splattered across Balma's face, and a few drops of blood flowed down his cheeks into his mouth, which was wide open in astonishment.

In the heavy snow, four black shadows were entangled together, the cold light and snow flew sideways, and the strong wind brought by the fight carried a cold murderous aura, whipping Balma's body like a whip.

The bloody breath rushed to his nose, he felt a little dizzy in his head, his heart was suffocated with a dull pain, and his face was full of dazed and sluggish when he looked at the sudden change in front of him.

The battle began suddenly, and ended suddenly.

After only a few breaths, the last person standing in front of Balma was the white young man who had bought him a thangka for two thousand rupees, and a stranger with a cold face.

The two devil-like guys who had made Balma infinitely frightened were now lying in a pool of blood, their breathing was gone, and their dilated pupils seemed to be filled with disbelief.

The tip of his nose was filled with a strong smell of blood, and Balma felt as if something was about to rise up in his empty stomach, and nausea and hunger were mixed with hunger.

But what is the situation now, how can the white young man have a knife around his neck? The knife is the cold-faced man, and at the same time, the knife of the white young man is also on the other party's neck, could it be that these two people are also hostile?

Balma's brain was running wildly, and while the two were still facing each other, he looked at the big house not far behind him, and immediately decided to run away.

However, as soon as he stood up from the ground with difficulty against the wall, his back suddenly felt cold, as if a poisonous snake had crawled down his back into his neck.

Slowly turned around, only to find that the two of them were staring at him intently, and with just one glance, Balma was directly frozen in place.

Seeing that Balma was no longer running, the two men began to stare at each other again.

"Who are you?" The cold-faced man spoke.

Zhang Qixun's eyes didn't turn in shock, "Little brother! How did you end up here? ”

The little brother frowned slightly, staring at the eyes of the person in front of him, catching a familiar look from it, and a touch of surprise appeared between his eyebrows, he moved his lips and called out a name silently.

Seeing that he recognized himself at once, Zhang Qixun bent the corners of his eyes, and a smile suddenly spread on his face and stretched to the tips of his eyebrows.

He rolled his wrist and withdrew the antler hunting knife on the little brother's neck, inserted it into the bamboo sheath stuck behind his waist, and looked at the little brother whose face was buried in the furry scarf, and laughed out loud, his shoulders were shaking, and the laughter was full of unexpected joy and happiness.

Smiling and laughing, he crouched on the ground and covered his face with his hands.

The little brother stood quietly beside him, blocking the place where the wind blew in at the mouth of the alley, blocking the falling snowflakes.

Time seems to stand still at this moment, the snow is still falling, falling very lightly, like thousands of white butterflies flying in the sky, floating to the shoulders, falling overhead, tactfully silent.

Snow is conquering the world with the softest means, and it is going to sprinkle into the dark corners, to all the places that need white.

Balma shrank in the corner and looked at the two silently, he could feel that the white young man was obviously very happy, but he seemed to be extremely sad, he didn't want to cry, so he laughed, but in the howling wind, there was still a faint choking sound.

It's an unexpected reunion, winter turns the water in the sky and the heart of the world into ice, but the temperature of the overlapping palms always melts the cold.

Zhang Qixun squatted on the ground for a long time, after the initial emotional outburst, he felt a little embarrassed, but then he thought about it, he was a junior, crying in front of the elders, embarrassed, embarrassed, and the little brother would not say it.

Sighing heavily, Zhang Qixun grabbed the snow that had just fallen in the corner of the wall and was still clean, covered his eyelids that were a little hot for a while, shook off the melting snow in his hands, stood up and looked at the little brother, and met his eyes, Zhang Qixun couldn't help laughing again.

Seeing that there were still a few snow slags hanging on Zhang Qixun's eyelashes, the little brother's eyes gradually softened, and he stared at Zhang Qixun's face several times, obviously not used to his face facing Wu Xie now.

In order to avoid laughing too stupidly, Zhang Qixun turned his back to cover his lips and coughed before suppressing his smile, turned his head to look at Balma, and asked the little brother, "Are you here to find him?" ”

The little brother said "um", "Looking for something." ”

After a pause, he took the initiative to ask Zhang Qixun for the first time, "What about you?" ”

This question mark contains a lot of questions, how did you get out of the ancient building, why did you hide yourself, why did you use Wu Xie's face, why did you come here...... What the hell are you doing.

Zhang Qixun was silent for a few seconds, and then replied, "I have to go to another door to see." ”

The little brother looked at him fixedly, "It's dangerous." ”

Zhang Qixun nodded and said solemnly: "This is a necessary ring, I will be careful." ”

In just a few moments, the two corpses on the ground were about to be buried by the heavy snow.

Zhang Qi went over and squatted down, swept away the snow with his gloves, directly cut the clothes on the back of the corpse with a knife, and took out a small hand stove from his pocket to warm his hands and put it close to his skin.

In the snow, the residual temperature on the two corpses was already cold, and it was really a bit difficult to show off the tattoos, and the wind here was too strong for the lighters to be lit.

"Why don't you drag them in." Zhang Qixun raised his chin at the big house of the Ma family and said to the little brother.

The little brother nodded, and the two of them took the body to the house, cleaned up the traces on the ground, and pulled Balma over.

The Ma family's house is an obvious combination of Chinese and Western structure, and the combination of Han-style buildings and Western palaces is very large, but unfortunately the things inside have long been emptied.

The main hall also collapsed, and the redwood beams fell halfway down crookedly, as if they had been plundered.

There was a wall in the way, and the wind could not blow in, so the little brother brought the dry firewood collected and made two fires next to the corpse for them to roast.

Zhang Qixun rekindled a fire on the other side, setting up a pot to boil water and cook instant noodles.

The two of them were busy with their own affairs, and they didn't care about Balma, who was left to the side and was uneasy.

It was too late at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, and I sent out until seven o'clock sharp.

(End of chapter)