Millennium Babylon

"I'm afraid that those people will trouble you yesterday. To be on the safe side, Captain Lin, you'd better come with me tonight." Jimmy told the story perfectly, and coaxed the captain into the back seat of the motorcycle. Hastily added, "I have an empty bed at home, not for you..."

It got darker and blacker, and Jimmy shut up.

The dirt road was bumpy, but he had never enjoyed riding a small broken motorcycle like this.

Every dirt slope gave him ample reason to get close to the captain.

The captain's hands were gripping his seat tightly, but he gradually gave up because the focus was too small.While waiting for a red light, Jimmy pulled the captain's hands over and wrapped them around his waist generously.A warm feeling with a little electric shock spread from the waist to the limbs.

"Safety first, safety first." Jimmy said to himself like this when he got a bargain.The captain didn't respond either.

Jimmy drove on the dirt road for more than ten minutes, and finally saw the shadow of the city gate.The old-fashioned towering adobe city walls, planted with some of the locals' favorite big-leaf palms, are whirling in the night at this moment.

The huge wooden door more than five meters high was wide open, and he rode a motorcycle and carried the trees at speed: "Welcome to Taal—the oldest capital in the desert."

After entering the city gate, the most spectacular building in front of you is Taal Castle.In ancient times, there was a land lord here, and only then did castles and city walls be built.Originally, he was only protecting his own family, but gradually overshadowed the entire village, and his power gradually penetrated into the desert.

Jimmy pointed at the windows, window lattices, and window grilles of the castle like a tour guide, and finally laughed at himself: "This is a world cultural heritage. Have you ever seen such a dilapidated world cultural heritage?"

I didn't hear the captain's answer, but felt his stomach growl through two layers of clothes.

"Didn't eat?"

"Ah."

Jimmy braked suddenly and leaned the motorcycle to the side of the road. After letting the captain get off the bike, he locked it and pointed to the cobblestone road leading to the gate of the castle: "Here we are."

It turned out that he lived in the castle, and he was a real modern land lord.

Except for the two rooms on the first floor of the castle, which opened onto the garden courtyard, the other rooms were locked. In the semi-darkness, Jimmy led the captain through the long corridor familiarly, leading him to the inner and outer rooms where he lived.

The inside is Jimmy's bedroom, and the outside is the living room, study and dining room, with a folding bed.

The hot pot smell has almost dissipated since the window was opened to ventilate in the afternoon.Even the remaining savory warmth still made the captain unbearably hungry.

But he was just holding the door frame at the door, standing wearily but politely, as if this was a queue to go through customs, and he was the captain that everyone counted on.For the mental health of his passengers, he can only always be restrained and decent.

"These are new slippers, never worn." Jimmy took out from the closet the scarce personal slippers he had reserved for next spring, compared the sizes, and reckoned that the captain was just enough to wear them.

Coincidentally, their feet are the same size, and if they live together in the future, they can wear slippers together.

Jimmy invited the captain into the house.

The lights were not turned on in the room, and the captain almost stepped on the sleeping sheep when he stepped over the threshold. Jimmy pulled his elbow and dragged him into his arms for two steps before landing safely.

Yang was awakened by the sound of the two opening the door, and bleated and bleated dissatisfied, but only got a cute effect, and the captain stretched out his hand and gently pressed his neck.

Sheep gasped in dissatisfaction, turned around and found a corner of the sofa that he thought was the most comfortable, and sat down angrily, staring at the ceiling.

As soon as he entered the door, the captain calmly opened his arms.

He shakes it off, and Jimmy understands.

There is no such meaning, really no——as described in ancient Chinese culture, the white moonlight falls on a clear jade plate.

Jimmy thought, he is just a passerby, how could he be kept?Trees are also planted for water, but this place is full of hustle and bustle, leaving only desert.

Jimmy raised his hand to turn on the light.

Slap.light is not on.

Another snap.The lights still don't come on.

He curled his lips and ran to check the electrical box, only to find that there was another preventive city-wide power outage tonight.And the oil stored in the generator was all used to power the electric hot pot just now.

Jimmy was a little embarrassed, so he explained to the captain: "Your co-pilot is right, we are quite broken here. I'm sorry, the weather forecast for tonight is a strong wind of force six, and the power plant is worried that the three parallel power lines will be damaged by the wind." Scraping together will cause a short circuit, and it will be more troublesome at that time. So in order to nip the trouble in the bud, now the whole city has a power outage."

Jimmy waved his hand, and was about to use the moonlight to distinguish whether the captain's bright eyes were full of surprise or joking, when he heard the other party say: "It's okay, I'm used to it. When I was a child, there were often power outages at home."

Why is there a power outage?Are there frequent power outages?Is the line broken?Is the power supply unstable at home in the mountains?Or is there no money in the card?

Many questions flashed by, and only one thing remained in Jimmy's head: did he get hungry because of the power outage?

He took out a square picnic stove from the storage cabinet, unpacked a new gas tank, and put it on.

"It shouldn't be used in the house, but today is a special situation, just pay attention to ventilation." He pulled Lin Mu to sit on the sofa, while he himself sat at the dining table to adjust, unscrewed the picnic stove, and the cheerful blue flames were on both sides. There was a jump between people.

"What do you want to eat? I have Samyang Turkey Noodles, which are very spicy. It depends on whether you can eat spicy ones. There is also Korean-style Jajangmyun. Although the sauce is mixed with powder and water, the taste is similar to our domestic ones. .I still have tonkotsu ramen, Ichiran’s, which was stuffed with a lot of money by the customs before I was allowed to bring it in. When I have time, I will make a fortune here by reselling Ichiran ramen, reach the pinnacle of life, and marry—— "

"That's it." The captain has completely sank into the sofa.While staring at the sheep on the other side of the sofa in confusion, he took out the bag closest to him on the table - snail powder.

Jimmy: "Are you sure? Don't think about anything else? Samyang turkey noodles are very delicious. If you can't eat spicy ones, I will put less spicy ones for you. Finally, sprinkle some cheese powder on top. The ones that can be shredded Seed it, take a bite, wow, it's very fragrant—”

"Then let's do that." The captain was very sleepy and casual, and after listening to the salesman Jimmy spare no effort to perform a one-person cross talk, he silently agreed: this is fine, and that is fine.

Is he a southerner?Don't like spicy food?Or people from Sichuan, who specialize in spicy turkey noodles?

Jimmy pondered with himself for a while in his heart, and quickly put it all behind him.

People who have stayed in Taal for a long time do not ask where they came from and where they are going.The lives of ordinary people will never be derailed to this place, and those who can go to Tar must not be ordinary people.

Every second counts in Tar, because of the war, there will be no tomorrow after today.That's why people here don't ask about the past. The past is just a fait accompli, and the present is what matters.

The desert, where the temperature difference between day and night is [-] degrees, seems to last forever every day and night, but winter will come, and even snow will fall.If you miss it, it will be another year.

How many years can life have?This year guards the land lord, next year the colonists come, what about the year after?Technology has liberated the world, and the Tal people have used mobile phones.

Changes are too fast, and if you can't grasp it, it will flow away forever.

Jimmy grabbed the instant noodles and said, "Okay, then just wait, you can squint for a while, but don't fall asleep too much."

Actually, Jimmy wanted to make Samyang Turkey Noodles.He fetched two fresh eggs from the kitchen and pried open a can of mixed peas and corn.

"After World War II, Tal Khan's elite soldiers unified the sixteen tribes in the desert by eating canned corn left by the British army. Can you believe it?"

He washed his face while the water was boiling, and saw in the mirror that he had stuck a dead leaf to his hair when he was climbing a tree.

When the water boiled, he threw the noodles into the pot, put in only half of the seasoning, ordered a few drops of soy sauce, laid two eggs, and patiently separated them with chopsticks.

The moonlight slanted into the stone windows of the castle and fell on the empty silver plate, becoming the only light in the house other than the crackling gas stove.

The silver plate was full of moonlight, and the turkey noodles in the pot were fragrant. Jimmy just wanted to wake up the captain and say that it would be better for his stomach to eat something before sleeping, but found that the man was already reclined on the sofa, rubbing the woolen One corner, fell asleep.

Lin Shu's sleeping appearance is very beautiful.

The pair of eyes that could only be high-spirited when playing the captain were closed, the eyelashes were long and drooping, and the lips were whispering something, as if answering the call from the control tower.

Lin Mu's hands were still in the posture of trying to unbutton his uniform jacket, but he fell asleep after all because he was too tired.

There was another aftershock of magnitude [-] in country K this afternoon. I don’t know what kind of twists and turns the captain went through before he and his plane returned to Tal safely, but he just said to him lightly—“You can ask me why I must go with you.” ?"

Because... I saw... saw you?

On the abstract radar map, in the thousands of clouds, in the gaps of the Tal war, I see you.Seeing this, I realized that what is going forward and what is going backward are just a foil, they are all improvised, and they can do whatever they want without any scruples.But for you——

I want to hug you willfully and never let go, but I don’t care if I can get a response, I don’t even care if you are by my side, or if you are sincere enough to promise each other, I only care, the most important thing, and the only thing I care about is that you must rise and fall safely .

Jimmy put down the silver tray, turned off the picnic stove, put the chopsticks back in the drawer, put the hot tea in to cool, and just looked at the captain quietly.

Then he stretched out his hands, stretched the captain's hands to his side, unbuttoned his uniform one by one, raised his shoulders slightly to peel back the clothes, put one hand under his body, and put the clothes on with the other. pull out.

After thinking about it, he folded his clothes and placed them on the stone bench next to him, just to hold the moonlight from the window.

The captain, who only had a shirt left, sank limply on the sofa, and slept more soundly, with the limp, grumpy sheep coiled at his feet.

Jimmy saw that he was still frowning and refused to stretch it in the dream, and found that the belt was cutting his fair skin, and there was a red mark at the end of the shirt.So he held out his hand—

Is it too much?Will it scare him?

But trees are not sheep, so why not scare them?He is one of the few heavy helicopter captains on the territory of the Three Kingdoms in the South, and his career can be summed up in one sentence.

Thinking of this, Jimmy's hand moved further.

He had never taken care of anyone before, but at this moment, as if he knew it without a teacher, he gently peeled off the captain's belt buckle one at a time, pulled out the belt inch by inch, and put it on the folded coat.

After doing this, Jimmy rummaged through the box and found the woolen blanket his mother sent him from London—the brand of the woolen blanket was about "Your mother thinks you are cold", and it traveled thousands of miles, as if there were no sheep in Tarr, so he had to send one Tarr's wool blanket exported to London's Harrods was returned to him - obviously he had a sheep in the house.

The wool blanket perfectly fit the captain's figure and fell, with deep and shallow geometric patterns on it, in many shades of gray, like a maze.

Jimmy looked at the man's sleeping face indifferent to the world, and thought, how many cute little lambs were shaved at the best time, just to let you sleep peacefully.

And if I'm one of them...

I would too.

Early the next morning, Lin Shumi woke up in a daze.

He was jet-lagged, yet he slept soundly in the desert residence of a strange man.

He remembered that the owner of the room was Jimmy, who was young and hot, full of energy and chatter, and when he sat in front of the radar screen in the central control room, he was so proud that the world was at his fingertips—this was a slight headache he had just got off the helicopter when the air pressure suddenly changed Below, through the long tarmac, seen through the glass of the central control room.

The control towers of other airports in the world have already installed single-sided glass, so that people inside can see the outside, but those outside can't see the inside.Only Tal, because of poverty, or war, plus corruption and weather, can only rely on outdated civilian glass.

When he woke up, he saw the alarm clock beside him, it was only five o'clock.

Jimmy set the alarm clock, and so did the cold glass.His heavy coat was carefully folded on a chair that was within reach, and he also took off the belt that hung around his waist.

Lin Shu was a little dazed.He struggled to sit up, and accidentally kicked the limp sheep off the sofa.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." He kept apologizing to the air, quickly picked up the sheep, stroked the wool in a strange way, and left without looking back after being picked up by the sheep.

He puts his coat back on and is the all-pervasive pilot again.

Today I saw that the letter did not arrange a flight mission for him.

After the earthquake in country K, the hydropower project will definitely be shut down in the short term. No matter how snobby the company is, it will be necessary to express condolences to the relatives of the workers who died in the earthquake. Maybe the vice president of Henan will make a decision and be willing to donate more disaster relief materials.

These are not things he can manage.

He flies to the three southern countries all year round, and has not been back to China for several months.

It's not that there is no chance to go back. I saw a letter on May [-] Labor Day to commend model workers at the headquarters. I wanted to pull him over to be a model and frame a certificate, but he pretended that the signal was not good on the spot, and hung up the phone before finishing the call.

What are you doing back home?The lessons from two years ago were not painful enough?When I go back to the headquarters of the letter, I will definitely see that person's hypocrisy and long-sleeved skills again, so why bother.Make trouble for yourself and make trouble for others.

Lin Mu drank the water Jimmy left for him in one gulp, and still felt thirsty, so he got up and walked around the room.

The picnic stove was still on the table. He didn't know if the gas tank was a rare commodity here, and he didn't want to waste it, so he found it next to the earthen stove.Open the oven door, it's empty inside.

Lin Shu pushed the door out, and walked through the dark corridor of the castle with the one-time memory of last night, and came to the courtyard.

After five o'clock, the desert has gradually begun to wake up, and the thin sunrise will cross the outline of the city tower into a layer of brilliant Phnom Penh.

Lin Shu squatted down in that layer of splendor, and picked up a basket of dried sheep dung from the ground.There is a shortage of water and trees in the desert, and there is no firewood. The locals can only rely on dried animal dung as fuel for cooking.

When the water boiled, Lin Mu got up and walked around the room, wanting to see if there was anything he could do for the master. He was unfamiliar with the place, and even if the other party was willing to take him in with good intentions, he felt worthy of it.

As soon as you enter the kitchen, the first thing you see is a pool of pots and pans. It seems that you had a big meal of hot pot yesterday.Dishes that wouldn't fit in the sink were left on the counter.

I'm afraid it will take a while to wash... Enough to fly from Tar to Saltwater City.

The captain sighed, went to the sink and unscrewed the water pipe.

But not a drop of water.

He quickly figured it out: Even power supply in the desert is a problem, and perhaps 24-hour water supply cannot be achieved.And the buckets they hid in may be the bar's water reserves for an unknown number of days.

Pity.There was a burst of gunfire, I don't know what it was for, and I don't know how many people's livelihoods were cut off.

At that time, the young man named "Jimmy" behaved so calmly that he was almost indifferent. He hugged his body tightly as a leaning, just so that the hand with the gun could aim the direction of the battle more precisely.

Of course he... also felt his heartbeat.Surging out is the unique unconcealment of young people, but he pretended not to hear it.

Lin Mu couldn't wash the dishes and turned back to the living room, and suddenly saw that the laptop screen was not turned off.

He walked over and wanted to turn it off, after all, he didn't know when the power would be restored here - but he accidentally saw the news on the screen.

That's a rotten piece of BBC news.

——On Independence Day six years ago, Edison Chan, a British arms dealer, suffered stomach bleeding in country Z. He was rushed to the capital hospital and died after rescue failed.

He is a notorious image in the international media. He made a few windfalls through the border war between country Z and country Y. Everyone said that he contributed the most to instigating the flames, but he tried his best to deny it in vain.

He argued that guns are innocent and can be used to kill or defend the country, it all depends on who is holding the gun.

Lin Mu remembered the arms dealer.

How can you not remember?

He has an unexpectedly kind face.His head is full of silver hair, but there are not many wrinkles between his eyebrows and eyes. The old man's figure is a little fatter, so he looks more kind-hearted.

Coincidentally, on Independence Day six years ago, he brought the arms dealer from Tar to the capital.

At that time, he landed steadily on the tarmac of the American Aid Hospital, keeping in mind the instructions of the letter, pretending not to know who he was saving, and not caring about the media shooting short shots outside the airport fence, while the ambulance drove by. Distant neighing.

Not long after, Jianxin suddenly stopped a business with Country Z, and he knew that Edison Chan would never recover.

But is he alive or dead?He didn't see the answer until today, six years later, on a laptop on the edge of a desert.

Lin Mu took it too seriously.The time and place of that day, how he received an emergency call, and even how he passed through the clouds and landed in the capital of country Z—all of them are still vivid in his memory.

He didn't notice that Jimmy came out of the bedroom, leaned lazily against the door frame, and cleared his throat.

"woke up."

Startled, Lin Mu raised his head, and then they were face to face.

Jimmy was still wearing the Ultraman pajamas that day, with the neckline open very low, revealing a large area of ​​pale skin that seemed never to have been exposed to the sun.

He pursed his lips to give him a good morning grin, and then saw the laptop in front of him.

Jimmy: "Are you watching my dad's news?"

They just stared at each other silently, and neither of them spoke again until the whistle of the kettle on the clay stove kept ringing.