The girl was squatting on the ground and crying, while the big Nanjing guy sat on the ground with an expressionless face. The ground was covered in beer foam and broken glass, but he didn't seem to notice it. Both of them were badly battered.
The whole room had been rifled through and almost no corner was left untouched. Black Glasses sat on the edge of the table, opened a bottle of beer, and started drinking. "Don't cry," he said. "Its already happened. We have to face reality."
"All of our materials and equipnt have been taken away. Weve been shooting here for three months, but now everything is gone." The big Nanjing guy looked at the door, still expressionless.
Black Glasses pointed to his neck, "Look on the bright side, weve still got our heads.
"We got approval from the Myanmar governnt to shoot here. They have no right to take away my materials," the big Nanjing guy said.
"Can't you see that theyll shoot you? Theyre not just trying to scare you," Black Glasses said. "If youre thrown into the minefield, youll be killed."
"I know its a possibility." The big Nanjing guy turned his head and looked at Black Glasses. "You didnt have to help them beat us." He started sobbing as soon as he spoke.
Black Glasses looked at the mute girl, who was staring at him with eyes full of extre hatred. Black Glasses laughed, "Your sister's quite the character. How was she raised, to go up and grab soone's AK47 like that?"
"So you an to say we have to thank you? What about our project? My sisters been waiting for the money to treat her throat."
Black Glasses looked at the door and saw that all of the ard villagers had left. He turned and moved to leave, but the girl suddenly got up and grabbed his hair from behind. Black Glasses reached behind, grabbed the girl's hand, and threw her over his shoulder. She flew through the door and landed on her stomach.
The big Nanjing guy imdiately got up and rushed over, "Sister!" Black Glasses smoothly followed the guy's movents and threw him out as well. The two people landed on top of each other, unable to get up because of the hard fall.
Black Glasses squatted by the door and looked at them, "I am not a good person. But were all fellow citizens here, so I saved your lives. You shouldnt be so ungrateful." The big Nanjing guy protected his sister as they both huddled there in despair. Black Glasses stepped over them.
Just now, he thought that he wouldn't be able to stay in the village, but he was relieved to see that things had been resolved. He wanted to go find a villager who would be willing to let him stay with them, but he suddenly thought of sothing and turned to look at the two siblings.
When the big Nanjing guy was begging for rcy as Black Glasses hit him earlier, he said that they were filming a docuntary on a few disorders related to dysphonia (1) for National Geographic. There was a total of three people in their teamone assistant in another house and the two of them in this house.
It suddenly occurred to him that the sign language here wasnt standard international sign language, so he couldnt communicate with the villagers. But that girl seed to know the sign language here. He went back over to the girl and squatted down next to her with a smile on his face, "The materials are very important to you, yes?"
The big Nanjing guy nodded like he was pounding garlic, while the girl looked at Black Glasses with red-rimd eyes, as if she wanted to eat him. Black Glasses said, "Lets make a deal. One, add another bed in the assistant's room so that I can stay here with you guys. Two, Ill help you get the materials back so long as you help with day-to-day translations until I leave here."
"Can you really get it back?" The big Nanjing guy didnt believe him.
"You must have fild sothing at the funeral that they don't want revealed, Black Glasses said. Ill talk it over with them and delete that segnt. Everyone will still be good friends. Plus, I'm good at fighting and I have a lot of money.
"Then how long will you be staying? We can't live here for a year."
"Rest assured. One month at most. And you wont be working for nothing. Ill give you a hundred thousand yuan."
The big Nanjing guy's eyes lit up and he looked at the girl, who was still very angry. "Sister, since this elder brother wants to make up for it, it's better to"
The girl was very stubborn and didn't answer. Black Glasses sighed, with this character, she probably wouldnt live long in turbulent tis since her brother spoils her too much.
The big Nanjing guy saw that his sister didn't respond and imdiately said, "I can persuade her, I can persuade her."
Black Glasses sat down on the threshold and said, "Ok, now tell what you know about this village."
The big Nanjing guy sat on the ground and told Black Glasses a lot of things. During that ti, his sister got up and went upstairs. The stairs creaked as she stomped her way up, but he didnt know what she was protesting.
Mute Village was surrounded by minefields, with only one dirt road leading in or out. Luckily, the road had already been demined. The villagers made a living by hunting and fishing, and hardly left here because they were mute. Since their sign language was so unique, they couldnt communicate with the outside world, and it was extrely difficult to marry outside of the village.
However, so villagers could understand Chinese, because Mute Village was very close to the Chinese border. But the Chinese they could understand was a native language unique to the border region.
The surrounding area was all primitive jungle, so it made sense that they relied on hunting. But fishing was very strange. Black Glasses rembered that when he first entered the village, he really did see a lot of fish drying outside. The big Nanjing guy told him that the fish here ca from an underground river.
The people here had the ability to fish in underground rivers. It was said that there was a huge cave under Mute Village that had a big river full of fish running through it. All of the fish were caught in this underground river. Moreover, it was said that this underground river flowed from China and was very long. But the cave entrance to this underground river was a secret hidden deep in the village, and outsiders werent allowed to know about it.
After listening, Black Glasses fell deep in thought. According to the data Wu Erbai had sent, the South Sea country he was looking for was in an underground river. But the underground river here was too far away from Wu Xie's location. Were the underground river systems all over China connected?
After that, Black Glasses really gave the two siblings a hundred thousand yuan. When Xiao Hua got to this part, he fell silent again and glanced at .
This look was enough to make my back tingle. I looked at Fatty, who said, "Master Hua, you didn't lend this hundred thousand yuan to him, did you? Youre a living bodhisattva, a real blessing to this world. Were all your children."
Xiao Hua ignored him and continued, "Wu Xie, do you still rember the map your Uncle Three ntioned in that listening-to-thunder incident?"
****
TN Notes:
(1) Dysphonia is any impairnt in the ability to speak normally, like from a spasm or strain of the vocal cords.
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