Lantern: Reflection of the Peach Blossoms

— about this "unprecedented situation".

Four days ago, at the China-Nepal border, at a border railway station.

A young man with a strong figure and a handsome face squeezed from the crowd to the front desk and said, "Two tickets to Larilang, hard seat."

The conductor stretched out his hand lazily: "ID card --"

The boy took out his ID from the cloth bag, and the man glanced at it and asked, "Is there another one?"

The boy remained silent, took out a few banknotes, and stuffed them into his hand.

The surrounding area was bustling with muddy, dark-faced Tibetans yelling loudly, and the bundles covered with dirt and dust crowded around, and poultry croaked and croaked outside.

The conductor took the money tacitly, and handed him two hard-seat tickets after a while.

The young man squeezed out of the crowd, straddled the large and small luggage all over the floor, came to the small and dilapidated waiting area, walked straight to the back row of seats, threw the seat-occupying package on the ground, and sat down.

A man wearing a jumper with a large hood turned his head around him, revealing half of his beautiful and fair face, with a mocking smile on his lips: "It's really hard work for you, dear brother."

The boy said coldly: "Put back the sunglasses, Maha."

Maha's gray hoodie covered most of his face, and a small half of his face and neck were exposed under the sunglasses, which were as white as ice sculptures and snow.The long hair was tied into a ponytail, hanging from under the hood to the side of the body, very smooth and black, looking like a beautiful woman.

His slender and graceful fingers tapped on the armrest, seemingly casually looking around, his eyes turning around on the passing passers-by, focusing on observing their body shape and fat thickness.

Garuda is wearing a fake sports T-shirt, black jacket and trousers, and black fingerless leather gloves. His short hair is stunned, revealing a boy's stiff and silent side face, and a refined physique trained on the snow line for a long time .

He lifted the package onto his lap and checked his belongings one more time.

Two days ago, he took out the things his parents had stored for him in the only "bank" in this mountain.That was the last time his parents visited him in the Himalayas. They agreed on a mechanism. If one day Garuda decided to go out of Tibet, he would go to the designated place to take out the safe that his parents kept for him. Help him integrate into human society faster and more conveniently.

Of course, human society is constantly changing, so parents will re-deposit it every certain year, and the location is not limited to that small local bank, but covers more than a dozen different banks and credit unions on the surrounding railway network.

Garuda rummaged through the bag.

The things that Zhou Hui left him must have been exchanged only two years ago, including a key for an off-road vehicle, but he couldn’t open it because he didn’t know how to open it; Can't even sell one; a mobile phone, no battery, no card, malicious almost overflowing the screen.

The safe left by Fenghuang to his second son has not been touched for several years. Inside it is neatly stacked 8 yuan in cash, a set of identity certificates, and the most complete Tibet railway map that could be found back then.

The long-held question once again appeared in Jialouluo's mind, how did his mother fall in love with his father back then, was it really just because of his good looks?

"It's so fat," Maha sighed as he looked at a chubby boy who was being held by his parents not far away.

Garuda immediately gave him a warning look: "Don't mess around."

Maha's overlapping long legs swayed restlessly. Sitting among a group of food probably made him endure very hard. He said coldly, "Didn't you talk so much nonsense when I was eating people on the snow mountain that day."

"That's different, that's a snow leopard poacher."

"What's the difference?"

"They poach snow leopards, snow leopards are rare animals, even if you don't eat me..."

"Why can't rare animals be hunted?"

"Because if the rare animals become extinct—" Garuda choked on his forehead and said, "Why should I argue with you about this kind of issue..."

Maha was born with no concept of right and wrong, and his thinking was completely different from that of human beings. Garuda, who was already highly personified, felt that he really had no way to communicate with his own brother.

The peacock wants to steal Dapeng's divinity, and the two brothers fight against each other for seven days and seven nights on the top of the snow mountain.In the end, Garuda didn't want to go on like this, so he discussed with Maha, and he went down the mountain to find his father and transferred Zhou Hui away. Maha took the opportunity to go to his mother, and see if Phoenix can save King Kongqueming's godhead first.

Maha has lost his godhead, and he is not flattering in the process of fighting against his younger brother. All he can rely on is experience.It is really hard to predict the outcome of this fight, so he could only agree to Garuda's proposal, and the two brothers embarked on the same journey hand in hand for the first time in hundreds of years.

This is indeed a milestone in their family relationship. However, Garuda has to purchase items, calculate money, plan trips, distribute supplies, and always keep an eye on his brother not to run out to eat people. Hard work is not enough to understand outsiders.

Half an hour before the train began to check tickets, Maha looked around boredly, seeing the red-faced Tibetans in different clothes shouting and pushing each other, and suddenly asked: "How broken is this place?" , why do you want to practice here?"

Garuda said, "I'm used to it."

"Habit?"

Garuda was silent for a while, playing with the mobile phone that had no battery or card, and then said after a while: "When you swallowed the Buddha, I knew it but didn't stop it. Afterwards, you were condemned by God, and I was taken to I was imprisoned in the Xueyuan of Tibet for 100 years, saying that it was to hone my punishment and understand the Dharma... Now that I think about it, it should be to protect me, after all, no one knows whether the divine punishment will kill me by the way."

"It's been a long time since 100 years," Maha said.

"I've been staying in the Himalayas, moving in the glaciers on the snow line, so I'm used to not wanting to go down the mountain." Garuda Luo paused, and said, "Besides, I work as a tour guide, and my life is not bad. Although I'm not a regular God, at any rate, has received incense from the human world, so there must be a way to repay the merit, and occasionally saving a climber on a snow-capped mountain is considered a good deed."

Maha suddenly remembered that he had received much more incense than Garuda—as the authentic Peacock Daming King, his merits and virtues may be several times more than those of Phoenix, but he has never done anything, and now he has to pay back When and what month?

"My mother repays her merits very quickly. Doing things for the human world is the fastest way, and my father repays it with him. In about three to five years, the incense debts accumulated in the previous thousands of years will be completely cleared." .” Garuda turned to look at his elder brother: “What are you going to do?”

Maha was stunned for a moment, then covered his face with the hood: "—Forget it."

But forgetting is definitely not the solution to the problem.

But all heavenly beings, who have been incensed by believers, must return their merits to the world in a relative way.Phoenix is ​​an immemorial divine bird, and there is no dedicated Phoenix Temple to offer incense to him, but after all, he has lived a long time, and the incense in the human world accumulated over thousands of years is not a small amount. Helping state agencies is his way to quickly repay his merits on a large scale Form; Garuda is relatively young and not a righteous god, so in fact, there is not much to pay back. Being a guide for others on Mount Everest, which is very Buddha-like, is also a way to pay back merits while practicing.

As for Peacock Daming King, he is not only one of the genuine Ming Kings, but also has a large number of believers, and the number of incense sticks is hard to measure.In addition, he was only concerned with swallowing Buddhas and cannibals before, and he never thought about the matter of repaying merit.

If he can't regain his godhead, and he has too many debts, he may be reincarnated after the six realms of reincarnation—if he turns into a domestic animal, pig or dog, then the fun will be great.

"You want me to..." Garuda wanted to ask if you want me to pay you back a little by the way, but he stopped suddenly before he could speak.

He turned his head and saw a few people walking outside the low and shabby gate of the station.

Those people are obviously a big brother with a few younger brothers. The big brother is walking in the front. He is a tall Han man in his 30s. He wears a black windbreaker and black leather shoes. .

The three younger brothers each have a big backpack, which is bulging and stuffed with something. Although it looks heavy, the people with the backpack are very tall and straight, as if they have been specially trained.

Garuda's eyes fell on the backpack, and he smelled the smell of gunpowder and gunpowder.

--arms?

Which underworld boss took the train with smuggled arms in his backpack?

"—Too lazy to pay back, let's talk about it after finding the godhead," Maha said lazily.

Garuda ignored him and stared at those people vigilantly.

The boss in the black windbreaker came to the waiting room and stopped.He wandered around the crowd full of people, but he couldn't find a seat, but his eyes happened to collide with Garuda.

After a while, Garuda turned his eyes away calmly and continued to play with the old mobile phone.

The boss stared at him for a while, and then took advantage of the situation to look at Maha beside him.

Maha has been used to being watched since he was a child, and he is not sensitive to eyes at all.But the boss in the black windbreaker really had a strong sense of presence. After a few seconds, Maha finally turned his head, revealing half of his face, and looked back at him without emotion under the sunglasses.

He looked the man up and down, stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

——This action is quite tempting no matter what angle you look at it from, the boss's eyes suddenly flashed with astonishment.

However, what he didn't know was that after Maha finished licking his lips, he turned to his younger brother, his eyes were full of longing, and he said two words softly: "I want to eat."

"..." Jialouluo supported his forehead, and after a while he said weakly: "Get in the car and buy you a box lunch, okay?"

·

The train finally arrived late, Garuda queued up to check the ticket and got on the train, carrying luggage alone, followed by Maha, who was empty-handed, found a compartment in the crowded aisle, pushed the door and entered, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

However, he didn't take it back after that.

I saw the compartment door opened again, and the boss in the black windbreaker walked in with a ticket, followed by a younger brother carrying a big bag.

"Hey," the boss seemed a little surprised when he saw them, but then he laughed: "—Han people? Are you here for a tour? Hello, both of you!"

His accent is an authentic northeast accent, which is very rare in Tibetan areas.But Maha Dama sat behind the table with his hands in his pockets, put on a hood and closed his eyes to rest his mind; Garuda settled his luggage and sat down in silence from beginning to end. Everyone completely ignored the existence of the black windbreaker boss.

The boss was not embarrassed, smiled and asked the younger brother to put away the backpack, took out tea eggs, instant noodles, ham sausage, chocolate, and handed a bottle of mineral water to Maha: "Miss?"

Garuda: "..."

Maha didn't even think that it was calling him, so he didn't even open his eyes.

The boss persisted: "Miss? Would you like some water, miss?"

Garuda stretched out his hand from the side, took the water bottle, and gently threw it into the boss's arms: "Thank you, we don't need it."

The moment the young man made a move, the bones of his knuckles protruded, the muscles in his arms were strong, his eyes were flat but sharp, and his face was swept across like a cold wind.

The boss paused, picked up the mineral water and put it on the table, and said with a smile: "It's okay, we are friends when you go out. I advise you to have a glass of wine, and go west to Yangguan without any old friends—ah, this vast and magnificent frontier! How can you not arouse the urge to drink to your heart's content?" He unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip.

Garuda: "..."

With the sound of the flute, the train is fully loaded with passengers and starts slowly from the railway tracks on the Tibetan plateau.

The platform receded to the back, and the scenery outside the car window quickly turned into a vast land with undulating plains.

"Miangui's surname is Wu, you can call me Brother Ang or Old Wu." The boss in the black windbreaker made a cup of instant noodles and asked while peeling tea eggs: "Where are you two from? Are you going to hike Mount Everest?"

Garuda played with his old mobile phone without saying a word, and seemed to turn a deaf ear to everything around him.

The boss stared at him for a while, and suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, and he took out the power bank from his bag: "Do you need this, little brother?"

Garuda: "..."

"You put your phone on it, that's right, this cable is connected... It will take about three or four hours to fully charge, but you can turn it on and use it later..."

Boss Wu enthusiastically taught Garuda to charge his mobile phone step by step, and carefully looked up and down his old and outdated clothes, and said with a smile: "There are still many new things in the outside world, and the little brother will gradually see them. The two of you are going to Where? Lhasa?"

"Thank you." Garuda said simply, "Go to Geri Lang."

"Oh—what are you going to Gerrand for, and change trains?"

"Ah."

"Where to transfer to, Lhasa? Xining? Sichuan?"

"...Sichuan."

"Sichuan is a good place!" The boss of Heifengyi suddenly lifted his spirits, looked ahead, and said with emotion: "I have been to Chengdu - Sichuan Basin when I was a child! The land of abundance! Dujiangyan, Wuhou Temple! The lively Jinli Long Street in the afternoon Come on, warm and simple people, hot-tempered girls!——what are you going to do in Sichuan?"

"transfer."

"..." The boss in the black windbreaker asked, "Where should I transfer to?"

Jialou Luo lazily said: "Gansu."

"Oh—Gansu! The Hexi Corridor, the Silk Road!" The boss in black windbreaker immediately became excited again, and raised his big hand into the air: "—Ming Great Wall, Jiayuguan! Dunhuang Grottoes, Flying Buddha Statues! My lifelong dream is to abandon All the money and the secular world, wearing a long veil and wandering in the desert, reciting Buddha silently and settling in the scripture cave, looking up at the majestic and broad history, following the waves of the long river of time!"

"In meditation! In dialectics! In repeated scrutiny and washing! To achieve detachment and sublimation of self-consciousness!" The boss put the instant noodles on the table and was moved: "Little brother, why don't we go all the way together?" , go to Dunhuang to worship!"

"No." Garuda Luo said, "I'll go to Gansu to change trains."

"..."

The black windbreaker boss decided to ask for the last time without shame: "...where are you going?"

Garuda sat back, folded his arms, and showed his strong and sharp arms behind the fingerless gloves.

He stared at the depressed face of the boss in the black windbreaker, and said with interest for a while, "Beijing."

He waited for the boss to enthusiastically introduce the moonlight of the Great Wall, the magnificence of the majestic imperial city, and by the way, popularize the current prices, transportation and hotel accommodation in Beijing, etc. Unexpectedly, the boss in black windbreaker just looked at him quietly, with a particularly troubled expression on his face. describe.

After a long while, he asked: "——you have traveled half of China, what are you doing in a place where the PM2.5 value is 90 for [-] days a year?"

·

The brown leather train roared across the plain, and in the aisle outside the compartment, the conductors pushed the dining car back and forth, yelling loudly in Tibetan.

Garuda sized up the boss in the black windbreaker, then glanced at his younger brother, and then moved his gaze to the bulging bag they put down in the corner of the compartment.

"Where are you going?" he asked interestingly.

The younger brother seemed to move uncomfortably, but then the boss in the black windbreaker sighed and said, "I'm going to Beijing too—hey, it's not easy in this world! Being a big brother has to support his subordinates, toss around a little business, I have to go all the way from the northeast to Nepal to buy goods..."

Jialouluo said indifferently: "Being a big brother is still so literary?"

"Where is that! My little brother, thank you." The boss in the black windbreaker looked out of the window, and his eyes suddenly showed sadness: "Actually, being a big brother is not my original intention. My dream is poetry and the distance, and the traveler's journey has no frontier..."

He silently picked up a ham sausage on the table, tore off the cover casually, squeezed it into a bowl, and cut it into several sections with a fork.

The next second, Maha suddenly took off his sunglasses and stared at the ham sausage with piercing eyes.

"..."

There was silence in the carriage, and the beauty's shocking face appeared in front of her eyes without warning, making everyone lose their voices at the same time.

The boss in the black windbreaker opened his mouth and couldn't make a sound, and the younger brother's eyes straightened in an instant.

Maha turned to Garuda: "Didn't you say you were going to buy food?"

Garuda had no expression on his face, he got up and walked out, but before he took two steps, he heard the excited voice of the boss in the black windbreaker behind him: "Come on... miss, it's an honor to be chosen by you for this sausage , please be sure to appreciate it..."

Maha reached out to pick up the ham sausage, put several pieces into his mouth together, without chewing, just swallowed it like jelly, squinted his eyes in dissatisfaction, and scanned the man in the black windbreaker in front of him up and down.

This is actually his favorite type of food - unlike some monsters that like to eat women and children, he appreciates the strong taste and a small amount of fat, and it will be even more delicious if the object to be eaten has a small amount of mana.

And he can see that this man does have mana, if he roasts it on a low fire until he is mature...

"Hello miss, may I take the liberty to ask your name?" The boss in the black windbreaker was a little flattered by Maha's fiery eyes, but he still bowed very gracefully, and said skillfully and smoothly: "Hello, my surname is Wu, 33 years old, casually running a small business in the Northeast, with [-] or [-] younger brothers, and a family fortune of a few hundred million, maybe not much..."

Maha didn't listen to him.

A steak sizzling on the plate means little to the diner.

Maha stretched out his hand, with long, slender fingers, white and graceful, like a reserved lover condescending, reaching towards the chest of the boss in the black windbreaker.

The next second, "Crack!" With a crisp sound, Garuda grabbed his hand in the air.

The boss's voice stopped abruptly, and I saw Maha and Garuda looking at each other, the former's eyes were strangely shining, but the latter's face was firm and unshakable, and he spit out two words: "No."

Maha narrowed his eyes dangerously.

However, Jialouluo turned a blind eye, maintained the posture of grabbing Maha's hand, turned to the boss in the black windbreaker and said in a deep voice, "Have you asked Mr. Wu's name yet?"

"Oh," the boss said inexplicably, "I'm in Wubei, little brother, you..."

"Mr. Wu Bei," Jialouluo interrupted him, "please change carriages immediately, or get off at the next station and transfer, don't ask why. If you don't leave, you may not be able to get off this train alive. It would be troublesome for me if this happened in many places."

Wu Bei: "..."

Wu Bei blinked his eyes with a puzzled expression, and tentatively opened his mouth for a while: "I said you—"

boom!

The carriage suddenly shook, and then the surrounding people were in chaos!

The four people in the cubicle looked out the door at the same time, and saw someone screaming and running past in the aisle, and then was knocked down by a "bang!" shot, and blood splashed on the old dusty glass.The next moment, heavy footsteps came from the other side of the carriage, and someone roared something in Tibetan, screaming one after another, and was suppressed by several loud gunshots.

"Over there! There are more over there!"

The sound of footsteps came from far to near, and then a lama in a red cassock kicked open the door of the compartment, pointed a gun at Garuda and Maha and others inside, roared loudly in Tibetan, and gestured for them to go out .

Wu Bei's eyes fell on the cloth tied around the lama's neck, and he took a light breath: "Snow Mountain Lion Banner..."

He suddenly got up, and turned to the young "man and woman" sitting next to him with a sullen face. Just as he was about to quickly order them to back away, he was surprised to find that the "girl" had stood up and was staring straight at the Lama, with an extremely beautiful face. There is an indescribable excitement and evil color.

And the young man stood in front of him stubbornly, angrily said:

"No, Maha! I'm going to buy you a box lunch now!"