Evil Awe-Inspiring

After a pause, he lowers his voice: "You can rest a.s.sured that when we go back, we will not say we have seen you."

I smile. This guy is not bad. He"s pretty smart. But I"m not worried at all. He says or not, it won"t be any matter to me, and I"m not going to stay in Hai City for a long time.

I take out my wallet and give them the remaining half of the money. After thinking about it, I hand them two more notes and say, "Take more money, not to cause any further trouble. Come outside, wallet is human courage, you cannot have no money."

The long-face man declines for a moment and take it finally. Then they get on the truck. The fat man waves to me in the truck and drives away.

Dorra and I are standing on a small street in the suburbs of Hai City. There are no pedestrians on the way. Her face is tired and she leans close to me with a bag in her hand. She looks weak and helpless.

I take her searching on the street. I have a leg and knee injury, so I"m limping a little when I"m walking. I can only grind my teeth hard and stiff. Early in the morning, when the temperature is the lowest of the day, I drag such a girl on the street and finally find a small hotel.

This small hotel, that is, like a regular hotel, has a lobby with seven or eight clocks hanging behind the counter, including Beijing time, London time, New York time and Manila time. It"s all marked - but most of the clocks have stopped, and at most only half of them are still running meters. The waiter dresses up in uniform, but it"s all dirty. The room is the same standard room as a star hotel, but the sheets don"t change for you every day, and there"s no room service. Although there are televisions, there is absolutely no cable TV. There is only soap in the toilet without the bath fluid. Hot water for bathing is supplied regularly time. Out of that time, there"s only cold water for you.

There"s also a water dispenser in the room, but the bucket inside doesn"t know how long it hasn"t been changed. You dare to drink, resistance is poor, you must have diarrhea!

The floor was covered, but it is greasy. I don"t know how many days it had not been washed. Wallpaper was also pasted on the walls, but some of them had fallen off.

The only advantage of this dilapidated hotel is its lax management. The waiter who is woken up by me from his sleep does not even glance at the registration form I filled out. He takes it and throws it directly into the drawer. Then he takes a bunch of keys and leads us into the room.

"Bath water is supplied from six to nine every night." Then he goes back to sleep.

Looking at the dirty room, I throw my bag at the bedside, pointing to one of the beds and say to Dorra, "Just take some sleep."

The girl gives me a timid look and opens her mouth as if want to say something, but she dares not.

I smile and say, "Why? Do you think it"s inconvenient to stay in a room with me?"

"No..." She bites her lip: "Chen Yang... I"m sorry." Her voice is soft and weak, somewhat imploring.

I sigh, "Don"t thing too much. Just take some sleep. We need to be energetic."

It"s not that I"m stingy or unwilling to forgive her, but that such a big thing has happened. I"m really in a bad mood, very bad! Obviously I"m not in the mood to coax this girl. I have too many things in my mind.

She bites her lip and seems to want to cry, but dares not, and sits silently on the bed. Then she pulls over the quilt, takes off her coat and lays down wrapping in the quilt.

I debug for a while, the air conditioner is working, can make heat, but the noise is very big. This is no idea. The brand of the air conditioner is a brand that existed more than ten years ago. After that, the manufacturer went bankrupt and did not produce it. Looking at this antique that makes as much noise as a tractor, I give a bitter laugh and say to Dorra, "Hold it up, it"s cold at night, you"ll get frostbite without air conditioning, and if you feel noisy, put a tissue in your ear."

She utters an "Umm" without saying anything.

I sit down and begin to clean up the injuries, b.u.mping in the truck, and there were outsiders. I just took care of it in a hurry. Outside, the body is money. If the wound is not handled properly, once I fall down, the girl will die with me too.

My fingers are already swollen out of shape, and it"s hard to bend my thumbs and index fingers, especially where the nails are. The nail caps are already purple.

I find a pair of scissors and carefully cutting off the broken nails. When I lift my fingernails, I"m so painful that I"m inhaling. As soon as the scissors cuts, congestion comes out and it takes two three paper towels to stop it.

Dorra sits up silently from the bed, looks at me carefully and say, "I... Let me do it for you." Looking at the girl"s pleading eyes, my heart softened, holding the medicine and gauze in my hand: "Do you know how to do?"

"Yes." She immediately runs down from the bed, comes to me and squats down. She raises my leg and looks at the b.l.o.o.d.y wound on my knee. Suddenly, she blushes her eyes. She turns her face and wipes the corners of her eyes. She take the medicine from my hand and carefully applies it to the wound. Then she cut off the gauze and wraps it up for me layer by layer.

Her movements are so astringent that she hurts me several times, but I don"t say anything. After all this, she looks up at me and says, "Do you want to drink water? I"ll pour you a gla.s.s of."

I look at the water dispenser with a thick layer of ash. The liquid in the bucket is really suspicious. I grin bitterly: "No. You cannot drink that water too. It must be out of date." She claps her tears. Then suddenly buries her head in my leg and cring in a low voice, "Chen Yang... I"m so scared. I"m really so scared."

I look at her quietly for a while, then put my hand on her back, gently pat her twice, and say lightly, "Don"t be afraid. You"re safe now. I"ll protect you."

"I"m so sorry!" She"s cring and sobbing. Her face is full of tears. Her eyes are filled with regrets: "It was all mine faults. I"ve done you such a disservice."

When the little girl finishes saying, she raises her hand to slap herself. I squeeze her wrist and say lightly, "I have tried all my best to protect you. Do you want to hurt yourself in front of me?"

I stare into her eyes and say slowly, "If you really feel sorry for me, you should live well and be responsible for yourself. You are eighteen years old, not a child. Before you do anything in the future, you should think about it with your brain. Do you understand?"

She nods desperately and wiping her tears at the same time.

I sigh and relax my volice: "OK! Just go to bed and keep your spirits up."

"We... Where are we going?" She blinks at me like a helpless chick.

"Let"s talk about it tomorrow. I haven"t thought about it yet." I meditate for a moment and do not elaborate with her.

I can at least guarantee that the people who chase us now don"t know we"re here. But I don"t know how long it will last. Maybe they will find here soon. They can"t find me in the original city and they will certainly search the surrounding cities anyway.

At least last night at the railway station, they must have known that I was ready to flee. So according to normal speculation, on the one hand, they will continue to block the search at the local terminal. On the other hand, if there is no news, they will expand the search in the surrounding cities.

I chose to come to Hai City for a reason. This is an international metropolis, with a large number of migrants, and it"s convenient to hide - looking for someone is like looking for a needle in a haystack!

I"m a little sleepless, the whole person is very alert, always feel something outside. Blurr to dawn, I feel some soreness in my neck and swelling in my fingers. I move a little and they don"t hurt so much when I bend them. But after sleeping, my knees hurt even more. I know it"s a normal reaction, so just get up.

This room is on the second floor, next to another building. Even if the windows are open in broad daylight, the sun can"t shine in at all. Dorra is still sleeping. The girl is tired both physically and mentally. She even snores slightly in her sleep. She seems to be very tired.

The antique air conditioner in the room is still roaring. I sigh, wear my coat and go out.

Out of the hotel gate, I feel the air is somewhat cold, and the weather is not very good today. It"s cloudy, and the sky is very grey, as if it is going to rain. I tighten my clothes, lower my head and walk a few steps and find several breakfast stalls at a small road junction. I buy two snacks and a bag of soybean milk back.

I walk with my head down along the corner, and look carefully to the nearby before I enter the hotel.

When I return to the room, Dorra hasn"t awake yet. The girl sleeps a bit dishonest. The quilt is wrapped tightly around her. She is curled up like shrimp, but she"s half across the bed and the pillow falls to the ground.

I ignore her, just go into the bathroom, close the door, take out my cell phone and dial a number.

This number was left to me after Jim had come to find me last time.

He left an envelope with Dorra"s information, money, and this phone number. But he said, don"t call when it"s not necessary, and this number can only be called during the daytime on weekdays, and don"t call at other times. I tried to make a phone call last night, and it turned out that the phone could not be connected.

I thought it was strange at that time. Why did they make it so mysterious? But Juan and Jim are surrept.i.tious in movements. I can"t find them at all. Their phone numbers had changed long ago, and if Jm hadn"t come to me last time, I would have lost touch with them.

I think about it and dial this number.

The phone rings three times and gets through.

"h.e.l.lo!" It"s a man"s voice, very thick, very deep.

"h.e.l.lo." I"m probing saying: "Jim asked me to make this call."