The fat guy said again, “Well, either these people are still in the temple, or they damn well went to the place where the little brother came from?” I shook my head; it was impossible. It didn’t make sense at all. We hadn’t left Zhang Haixing and Zhang Haike for long; how could they reach a consensus and set off so quickly? Unless they all grew up on Viagra and were particularly restless.
Moreover, it wasn’t just them who had disappeared; those lamas were also missing. Surely, lamas wouldn’t be taking Viagra, right? The fat guy clicked his tongue a few times, suddenly realizing that he still had someone on his back. He exclaimed, “Almost forgot about him! It’s useless to just think about it; let’s wake this guy up first. He might know something. I’m feeling a bit gloomy; I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off, like these people are actually ghosts putting on a show for me here.”
It was too cold outside, so we returned to the temple. The fat guy said, “Since everyone is gone, there’s no point in going back to your room; it’s too dangerous. We can’t go to the woodshed where we were earlier; it’s too messy and awful there. Let’s go to the big lama’s place instead; the big lama has great conditions. Let’s check his back room; maybe there are lots of treasures in his bedroom.”
I replied, “Here you go again. You can go down the pit, but you can’t steal living people’s things; that’s too low.” The fat guy retorted, “Come on, I’m just taking a look. Besides, in this situation, we’re also considered rescue personnel. It’s not unacceptable for rescue personnel to use the property of those being rescued to raise funds.”
I knew it was pointless to argue with him any longer; he would surely come up with more twisted logic. So I went straight inside.
We returned to the big lama’s courtyard and went to the place where we had chatted before. I laid the lama we had knocked out onto the ground and went to light all the charcoal stoves and oil lamps. The person we had knocked out seemed to be in worse condition; although the blood from his nose and ears had coagulated, his eyes started bleeding continuously. I felt a bit dizzy, wondering if we had really killed someone this time. But why did I feel that when I hit him with the lamp, I didn’t use much force? In fact, I had held back. Even though the sound was frightening, it shouldn’t have been enough to kill someone. The little brother had hit people before, and his hands were truly vicious, yet he hadn’t killed anyone. Was there a trick to using a weapon without actually killing someone?
I went to the courtyard to grab some snow and melted it on the stove. I found a piece of cloth, dampened it, and wiped the blood from the lama’s nostrils and ears, then covered his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t continue to bleed. During this process, I could hear his breathing and heartbeat, which relieved me for the moment.
The fat guy rummaged through the room, searching for valuables, but unfortunately only found a few bankbooks. He kept cursing, saying that today’s lamas had no taste at all; they didn’t stack up some gold at home but instead stored everything in the bank. Didn’t they know that the RMB was depreciating domestically? While he complained, he didn’t give up, continuing to search, not even sparing the jars in the corners.
I asked, “What are you doing? Do you think the big lama is a miser, hiding all his money in these places?” He said I misunderstood him; he was just hungry. Since he couldn’t get any money, he wanted to at least see if there was something to eat. After a few days of eating local food, he was almost sick of it.
After a long time, the fat guy really found a bag of something. When I opened it, it seemed to be some kind of dried plant, and it smelled very fragrant. The fat guy took one and chewed it, then sat down next to me and said, “You should try some too. Once we’re full, we can figure things out. Haven’t you heard? Three big guys can match a Zhuge Liang.”
I also took a few bites, and it really tasted quite good. At that moment, it started to get warmer around us, with the doors and windows closed, making the room feel pretty safe. I said to the fat guy, “Let’s start from the beginning and think about what’s going on. You mentioned before that there was something you hadn’t told me. Can you tell me now?”
The fat guy took a sip of tea and said, “Do you remember when I pretended to be a Menba person with Zhang Haixing and spoke a few sentences in Tibetan? Actually, I was speaking a local dialect that’s very obscure, called Galai, which sounds a lot like Menba but isn’t.
There are currently fewer than 3,000 people who can speak Galai. It’s not a language I know; I just memorized it. Any local person would recognize my accent and know I was just reciting it, but outsiders who might know Menba wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my accent. I really racked my brain to memorize those meaningless words. At the time, Zhang Haixing asked me in Menba, so I planned to pretend to be a local who couldn’t speak Menba to get by. Galai people are even less numerous than the local ethnic minorities, so they definitely wouldn’t understand.
“But I thought she would tell others that she didn’t understand, yet she not only didn’t show any sign of not understanding but also made up some nonsense to explain what I said in Menba,” the fat guy said with a burp. “That’s where things get a bit strange.”
I frowned and asked, “What do you mean?”
The fat guy continued, “Let’s assume she really fell for it and thought I was a local. She would definitely tell Zhang Haike that she didn’t understand what I was saying, but she didn’t. Instead, she pretended to understand and relayed the meaning of the Menba words. That indicates something is off with Zhang Haixing. There are a few possibilities. The first is that she doesn’t want others to know she doesn’t understand Menba.”
“Why would that be? Is she a particularly vain person?” I asked, thinking that such a low-level character flaw would have been overcome by the Zhang family during childhood. So, it must be another situation: that others know she can speak Menba, but in reality, she cannot.
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