Chapter 465 The City Knows His Secret

Balum continued walking through the market, not knowing where he was going.

As soon as he stepped out into the street, he found it all quiet. He saw some people sitting in hammocks smoking, and others lying on the ground sleeping.

The eagle was circling over the house. Suddenly, a strong wind carrying the smell of buffalo came towards him.

Everyone knows there's a slaughterhouse somewhere in Old Delhi, but not many have seen it firsthand.

It is one of the wonders of Old Delhi, a row of roofless cowsheds, each filled with plump buffaloes.

Each one of them turns its butt toward you, its tail swatting flies like a car wiper, its hooves treading in pyramid-like piles of excrement.

Balum stood there, breathing in the smell of their carcasses. It had been so long since he had smelled a buffalo!

The smell drove the horrible city air from his lungs.

Balum heard the rumbling of wooden wheels and saw a buffalo coming along the road, pulling a large ox cart behind it.

There was no one sitting on the cart with a whip, but the buffalo knew where to go.

It was coming along the road and as it passed him he stood aside and saw that the cart was covered with the faces of dead buffaloes.

Yes, it was the face of a buffalo, or rather the head, because even the skin had been peeled off, leaving only a little bit of black skin on the tip of the nose.

The nose hairs stick out from the nostrils, like a dead buffalo still trying to maintain its last bit of dignity.

The rest of the face was missing, even the eyes had been gouged out.

Yet, despite having no owner, the living buffalo continued to move forward, dragging the cart full of dead souls to where it knew it should go.

Balum followed the poor buffalo for a while, his eyes fixed on the faces of the skinned carcasses.

He could have sworn the dead buffalo's face suddenly opened its eyes and spoke to him.

"I know what you want to do?"

"No, you don't."

"Your father will be beaten to death. Are you happy?"

"This is just a nightmare. I don't believe it."

"Your sister was raped and then beaten to death. Are you happy? Your grandmother was kicked to death. Are you happy?"

The buffalo glared at him.

"How shameful!" it said, then took a big step forward and the ox cart slowly moved away.

At that moment, the skinned faces on the oxcart looked like the faces of his family to Barum.

Barum stayed out late, his heart filled with resentment.

The city knew he was filled with resentment, and in the dim orange light cast by the streetlamps, she was filled with resentment too.

The next morning, Barum was waiting outside the door. Satya was fiddling with a red travel bag, getting ready to go out.

Lamar was whispering on the side, occasionally looking up at Barum, his eyes seemed to be on guard against something.

They spoke in English, making sure the conversation was overheard by only the two of them.

At this moment, the phone suddenly rang. Satya answered it and went into the house.

"Barum, take the bag down and drive the car to the door to wait for us." Lamar ordered.

"Yes, sir."

Barum closed the apartment door, walked to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited. The bag was heavy, and he had to shift his hand from time to time to hold it.

The elevator has reached the fourth floor.

He turned around and took a look at the view outside the 13th floor. Even in broad daylight, the shopping malls in Delhi were still brightly lit.

With a new shopping mall opening in the last two months and another under construction, the city is developing rapidly.

The elevator went up very quickly and was almost reaching the eleventh floor.

Barum turned and ran.

He kicked open the door to the emergency stairwell, hurried down two flights of stairs in the dark, and then opened the red travel bag.

The entire stairwell was immediately filled with a blinding light, the kind that only money could produce.

If he were an ordinary servant, he would have been scared to death by so much money.

They will rush to close the bag as if it were a hot potato.

But Barum didn't, he admired it for a while.

Twenty-five minutes later, the car was heading towards a minister's residence.

When he stopped at a red light, Barum glanced in the rearview mirror and saw his bushy beard and chin.

He touched the rearview mirror, and the image in it changed immediately. He now saw two fat figures, and his eyes became bright, the eyes of a cat staring at its prey.

A voice sounded in his mind, and two people asked and answered each other.

Barum, now, peeking into this red travel bag, that's not stealing, is it?

He shook his head.

Even if you did steal it, Barum, it wouldn't be considered stealing.

How could that be?

He looked at the creature in the rearview mirror.

Sir is giving money to the politicians in Delhi, who will then exempt him from paying taxes.

Who should these taxes ultimately belong to? Of course, they belong to the ordinary people of this country, to you!

"What's the matter, Barum? Did you say something just now?" Satya asked.

Barum touched the rearview mirror and his beard reappeared in it.

"No sir, there was a guy ahead of us running a red light."

The city knew his secret, and that morning, smoke enveloped the main barrel palace.

You couldn't see any trace of it on the streets, and it felt like Delhi had no government that day.

Obscuring the president, all the ministers and bureaucrats, the thick cloud of pollution outside said to him:

They won't see anything you do, I can guarantee that.

He drove past the Capitol and saw a sentry post on the red wall. An armed guard was watching him, but he put down his gun as soon as he saw him.

The soldier seemed to be saying: Why should I stop you? If I could, I would do the same.

At night, a woman was walking on the road, holding a cellophane bag in her hand. The headlights of a car shone into the bag, turning it transparent.

Barum saw four large dark fruits in the bag, each of which said: You have done it. You have already taken the money in your heart.

The car lights flashed by, and the cellophane bag turned black again, and the four fruits inside disappeared.

Even the road, the smooth, smooth road of Delhi, the best road in India, knew his secret.

Barum heard the alarm and turned around to see a car slowly driving by, pulling a bunch of chicken coops behind it.

The chicken coop alarm is going off, the wheels are turning, and the red lights are flashing!

A rooster is about to escape from the coop!

Ramal returned to Uttar Pradesh to sort out some matters there. Satya continued to move forward, always carrying a red travel bag with her.

At night, Barum lay in bed unable to sleep, so he pricked up his ears and listened quietly.

Outside, there was the thumping of sticks on the concrete floor; the night watchman from Windsor Apartments was patrolling with his long stick.

As the knocking sound of the wooden stick gradually faded away, the room was silent, with only the rustling sound of cockroaches gnawing at the walls and flying around.

It was another damp, muggy night, and even the cockroaches must have been sweating.

Barum couldn't even breathe, he felt something stuck in his heart.

He couldn't fall asleep, his heart was beating fast, so he got up and went to the garage.

He took the rag and scrubbed the car three times, with the bottle of wine lying on the floor inside the car.

Johnnie Walker Black Label, even an empty bottle fetched a good price on the black market. Barum picked it up and headed towards the servants' quarters.

A man with vitiligo lips wouldn't mind being woken up if he was given a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.

As he walked, Barum turned the bottle with his wrist, feeling its weight. Even though it was empty, it was still quite heavy.

He noticed that his pace had slowed, and the bottle was spinning faster and faster in his hands.

The key to his soul that he had been searching for for years

The sound of smashing bottles echoed through the deserted parking lot, and it must have reached the tower lobby, bouncing off the floors and even reaching the thirteenth floor.

He waited a few minutes, expecting someone to come running down.

No one, he was safe.

He held up the rest of the bottle to the light. The long, jagged notch looked like a claw, revealing a hint of ferocity.

It's perfect.

Barum kicked the broken glass from the wine bottles scattered around into a small pile, wiped the blood off his hands, found a broom, and cleaned the place thoroughly.

Then he knelt down to see if there was any more broken glass that he hadn't picked up.

The parking lot echoed with his repeated mumblings: But the door was always open

Two nights later, Barum heard the bell ring in the servants' quarters.

"Country mouse, hurry up! The bell is ringing like crazy!" Vitiligo urged him from the side.

Barum walked to the car, inserted the key and started the car.

Satya stood at the gate, an umbrella in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

He got into the car and slammed the door, but the phone never left his ear.

"That villain raised the price at the last minute. I only have forty lacs."

Their first stop was downtown, to another bank he frequented.

He took the red travel bag and walked in.

Barum saw him standing in the glass booth, pressing buttons on the ATM.

When he returned, Barum could feel the added weight of the bag in the back seat of the car.

They went from bank to bank, and the bag grew heavier.

Barum could feel its weight on his back, it was heavy and made his heart beat fast.

Four million and five hundred thousand rupees.

Enough to buy a house, a taxi, a small shop, and enough to start a new life.

My four million rupees!

"Barum, go to the Sunshine Hotel now."

"Yes, sir."

There were few vehicles on the road and the drizzle was falling continuously.

If they continued like this, they would reach the hotel, the most opulent hotel in the nation's capital, where the great stayed.

But Delhi is one of those cities where civilization can appear and disappear in five minutes.

Now, there is only wasteland and garbage on both sides of the road.

(End of this chapter)