Chapter 5 Section 4 The Lady of the Beggar Gang

Here, I am like a silent dog all day long, and I will not say a word unless it is absolutely necessary.To be honest, from the first day I walked into the inspection well, I wanted to escape here as soon as possible.There are murderous intentions everywhere, and terror shrouds every inch of the inspection well. However, I have no chance to leave.There are people around me all the time, both visible and invisible.When I was begging during the day, I looked at the ants by my feet and felt very envious. They can come and go freely, and they can go wherever they want, but I can't. The manhole is the home of the important leader in the beggar community, and it is also my home, but this home makes me fear.

The inspection well is warm in winter and cool in summer, and the heat and cold outside cannot penetrate the thick ground. It is indeed a natural and excellent place to live.However, only a group of people who are completely strangers to us will choose to live here.We don't know anything about their lives. When I was sleeping in the manhole, I still thoughtfully slept on the outermost side, with the leader and the woman on the innermost side.One night, I was suddenly awakened by that crazy woman's cry, no, it should be moaning.During these days in the inspection well, I was half asleep every night, and I was worried that something unexpected would happen in my sleep.The woman's groans mixed with the dog's panting sound came in waves, but I didn't respond, fear had already wiped out my desire.I heard from my ears that the bosses were all sleeping soundly, and some were still snoring.They had probably gotten used to the madwoman's nighttime respite.

I also saw that the bosses seemed to be very afraid of this crazy woman, and they looked at her with evasive eyes.The crazy woman is the only scenery in the manhole, but they dare not appreciate it. How did this crazy woman come here? Although I am in a city full of red dust, I am out of tune with this city.I don't know what happened outside the beggar colony.I believe that the newspaper office must have been looking for me, but they couldn't find me. They didn't know that I was underground, in the manhole, in a place that no one could find, in a secret corner that no one knew.

I have completely lost touch with the outside world.Here, I can only seek self-help. The boss who sleeps next to me every night has just been promoted.He was only eligible to sleep in the manhole two months earlier than me.He was already very old, with dense wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks, as if he had been brushed, and his waist was bent, like a shrimp.Later I learned that he had been begging on the street for five or six years. He also told me how the finances died in the past and the background of the gang leader.He also secretly told me: "The boss is a big bastard, and he has a murder case in his hands." At that time, I always thought that the murder case the boss was talking about was a case of killing finances, but I didn't know what he was talking about.

Now I have forgotten how I got together with this boss in the first place, and I can't remember it no matter how I think about it.Anyway, there is a thing called induction between people. When you see a certain person, you feel close and want to associate with him. This is induction; I don't even want to hear the sound, this is also induction.When I first saw those bosses, I decided that this person was a good person.There are two sad lines at the corners of his mouth, like a pair of parentheses.He is not as vicious and domineering as they are, he is like a farmer who just came back from the field, beat the dust on his trousers, and lit his dry pipe.In fact, he was a farmer. After being bullied (he never told me the situation of being bullied and what kind of bullying he was suffering), he ran to the city and became a beggar.These are also what he told me later.He said he wanted to leave, but he couldn't get the "commission" that was in the hands of the gang leader.

His surname is Wu, and I always called him Angkor at that time. There are six beggars under Angkor's men, most of whom are teenagers pretending to be disabled.The gang leader assigned the teenagers the task of begging for 100 yuan per day.If someone under the other bosses fails to complete the task, they will be punished by beatings, starvation and other punishments, and they will have to work as usual the next day; but Angkor never beats these teenagers, and when he fails to complete the task, he will pretend to be The blind man went to the street to beg, holding a broken bowl and leaning on a bamboo pole, leaning on the bus platform and saying over and over again: "Master and brother, please do me a favor, one yuan is not too little, and you can pick up gold ingots when you go back..."

Once, Angkor told me about his going out in the future.He said that he has a couple of sons and daughters, and after we all go out, let his son learn to write and settle accounts with me, "Forget about the daughter, the daughter is always someone else, what do you do with the spare money?" I vaguely agreed. Suddenly, I remembered that time when the gang leader said to a boss, "Don't come again", the boss was so frightened that he sifted through the chaff. I asked why this happened?Angkor said: "That is to say, he must be done." It turned out that the gang leader was so insidious and terrifying.

I asked about the two disabled children who were begging across the street from me.Angkor's expression suddenly became very sad, and he secretly told me the secrets of the gang. Angkor said that there are still a few thugs in the gang, usually wandering in the urban-rural fringe area, seeing those children who are not taken care of by anyone, or children who run out of the house, they steal out and go to a place that even Angkor does not know , These poor children have broken legs or arms.After a while, the children were brought out to beg. I was sweating profusely. I don't know if these are true, because I have never seen a scene of thugs mutilating children, I hope these are just legends.

After a heavy rain, the weather became cooler.People on the street are all wearing long clothes and trousers. It may be the beginning of autumn, but I don't know what day it is today.The life of a beggar is the same every day, and the time of a beggar stands still. Sometimes, sitting on the side of the street, watching people passing by, looking at their disdainful eyes, and listening to their voices berating me, I don't feel the slightest grievance.I have completely regarded myself as a beggar. A beggar is the thickest-skinned person and the most numb person in the world.They don't care about any ridicule for money, and the so-called self-esteem and self-improvement have disappeared in their hearts.

Sometimes, seeing those people throwing a dollar into my broken bowl, I think: If this is not money, but a book, it would be great, any book will do, even if it is a book with words Paper is fine too.My eyes and soul are too hungry, and I need words to nourish them too much. Those square characters are square and upright.I think of Zweig's novel, if you can give me a chess record, I can become a master chess player now; if you give me a divination book, I will become a master fortune teller.Now, no matter how hard it is to understand books, I am willing to read them, and I can fully understand them.I believe.

One day, I saw two new begging faces suddenly appear at the entrance of the shopping mall across the road.They were a man and a woman, dark complexioned, and appeared to be well built.Men wear green jackets, women wear red jackets; men wear camouflage pants, women wear jeans.Their clothes should be worth a lot because they look solid.There are also two bulging hiking bags at their feet, and the two hiking bags are also very valuable.They knelt on the ground and begged. The two seemingly rich people actually begged, and soon attracted passers-by to watch from three floors outside, and some people kept throwing money at their feet.My business was severely affected that day because of their presence. In the afternoon, while no one was paying attention, I quietly packed up the broken bowl, put it in my clothes, walked across the road, and walked towards them.I want to know, why do these two "rich people" compete with me for business? I squeezed into the crowd and saw this pair of men and women kneeling on the ground with their heads bowed, as if in repentance.There was a piece of paper in front of their knees, and a few lines of words were written on the paper. The tone was quite humorous and sensational: "Look at our embarrassment, do you think we are liars? In fact, we are not liars. We Travel buddies. We came to your city and lost our wallets and we just want some money to go home. When you leave work, why do you rush back home? Because there is a home waiting for you. Now , There are also families waiting for us, but we have no money to go home. Kind people please lend a helping hand and leave your phone number, we will definitely return the money to you when we get home.” This piece of paper is very new, It seems that it should have been written just now, so they should have just lost their wallets.Their phone numbers were also left on the paper, and some onlookers dialed this number, and they were able to get through. Then, someone looked at the couple with sadness, took out money from his pocket, and put it on the piece of paper.No one is willing to leave their phone number, and it has always been the traditional virtue of the Chinese nation not to ask for anything in return.Besides, if you give someone a little money to solve the urgent need, how can you ask them to pay back the money? The couple had a good harvest that day, and they earned several hundred yuan.At dusk, they left. Are they real travelers, or scammers pretending to be travelers?I can't figure it out. However, when I saw them packing their bags, their eyes were full of uncontrollable excitement. Moreover, after they walked for a while, they saw that no one was paying attention to them, so they hurriedly left. These two must be fake travelers. This couple only appeared on the street where I was begging for one day, and they disappeared the next day.Since then, never seen again. Why didn't the boss chase them away when they were begging?Why not treat them the way Scar treated me?I still can't figure it out. The traveler left, and after a few days, two more monks came. Both monks are bald, but there is no ring scar above the bald head.When they came to this street and saw a middle-aged and elderly woman with a benevolent face, they chanted Amitabha and took out a piece of paper for alms.I saw that someone actually pulled out the money and gave it to them. Someone robbed me of business again. I was a little unconvinced, so I decided to find out. I put the broken bowl in the corner, tidied up my clothes, and at least made myself look like a normal person. I walked up to them, clasped my hands, and chanted Amitabha.They were very surprised, looked at each other, and hurried to Amitabha. I asked, "Where are the two brothers from?" They said: "Wutai Mountain." I continued to ask: "Why did the two brothers come here?" They said, "I don't have any money to rebuild the temple on Mount Wutai. Come and ask for some money." Then, a tall monk asked, "What do you do? Why do you still recite Amitabha?" I said: "I am a disciple of lay people. I have been studying recently and read that 'Bodhi does not have a tree, and a mirror is not a stand. There is nothing in the first place, so where does the dust come from?'. I don't know how to explain it. Please tell me clearly." They looked at each other with embarrassing expressions. The short monk said, "I don't know what you are talking about." Then he dragged the tall monk and fled. What I am talking about is the most common gatha in the Buddhist scriptures. If you don’t even know this, you must be a fake monk. After the two fake monks disappeared from this street, they still never came back. I have always been puzzled by these two pairs of fake travelers and fake monks.Why are they able to beg here?Doesn't it mean that each group of beggars has its own territory?Why are the gang leaders and bosses able to indulge them? I didn't understand until one day I asked Angkor. Angkor said that the begging methods of fake travelers and fake monks are called "pending orders" among beggars, because they cannot "go to work" in a fixed place. If they are still begging in place the next day, they will be exposed.So, they shoot one shot and change another place. After defrauding a sum of money in the first place, they hurry up and go to the second place to repeat the same trick and continue to cheat. Pending order originally meant that Monk Yunyou temporarily lived in a certain place, and later became a stock term.Unexpectedly, the "pending order" was used on beggars again.Those who want to invent this term and use it in the beggar community must be "high-level intellectuals" among the beggars. When the "hang order" beggars are begging, the boss will go to them. If they understand the rules, they will take the initiative to pay the protection fee; if they don't understand the rules, they will be expelled, and begging is not allowed anywhere. In the beggar community, there is a lot of knowledge. After the fake monk left, I never saw any strange things again. The days passed peacefully, like flowing water.I work every day like a mindless machine. One day when I went back to the manhole, I didn't see the man who was frightened by the gang leader.I asked Angkor, and Angkor shook his head.I never saw that man again, and I don't know whether he was assassinated or escaped. I hope that he has escaped, and then he can wear clean clothes, walk comfortably and comfortably under the warm sunshine of the city, buy whatever he wants to eat, such as pulled noodles, steamed noodles, and Big plate chicken, eat as much as you want, you can eat as much as you want; supermarkets, shopping malls, street shops, clothes sellers and toy sellers, you can enter whichever you want, if you have a wife and children, you can bring them all.To be a normal person who can hold his head up and walk in the sunshine is the happiest thing in this world. I didn't sleep that night, thinking about how I could escape.The bosses around were all asleep, and the candlelight was slowly dimming. At this moment, just above the ground, people's nightlife had just begun, but the underground was completely dead.The crazy woman got up naked, her body looked extremely thin in the candlelight, erratic and unreal like a shadow puppet.She quietly, without any sound, her figure projected on the cave wall, very big, like a dark cloud.Her hair was very long, and as her body swayed, an extremely pale face emerged from the hair, without blood, only long, pointed teeth.I suddenly remembered those old novels I read before, and the female ghost only woke up in the middle of the night.Is this crazy woman a ghost?She has been hiding underground and dare not go out.These men may have been human before, but after being sucked by this female ghost, they gradually turned into ghosts. These days when I walked into the manhole, I never saw a crazy woman say a word, ghosts don't speak, and ghosts can't speak.It turned out that there were really a group of ghosts around me.I've been living with a bunch of ghosts these days. The candlelight dimmed even more, and then with a vigorous jump, it was completely extinguished.I felt the female ghost approaching me slowly, knelt down beside me, her long hair drooping to my belly.I wanted to get up, but I had no strength and was as soft as mud.The female ghost grinned grinningly in the dark, and I saw her two rows of teeth gleaming horribly in the dark, and then she slowly fell on my neck.I wanted to yell, but when I opened my mouth, no sound came out.There was a sharp pain in my neck.The female ghost raised her head, her mouth was covered with blood... "Ah..." I finally shouted and opened my eyes, only to find that it was a dream.The candlelight was still flickering, and there were still a few bosses sleeping beside him. Scar stood up, his figure looked unusually tall in the manhole.He stomped on me, kicked and kicked, and cursed fiercely.I didn't dare to resist, I just curled up into a shrimp and held my head in both hands.Scar stepped on a few times, still not letting go of his hatred, he put his toe between my arms and kicked my head, and I let out a cry of pain.Angkor also got up, he crawled to the leader of the gang, and said to the leader: "You are also a poor child, so let me forgive you this time." He said it over and over again, and kowtowed over and over again, and the leader finally spoke He said, "Stop, if you hit again, you'll be killed." Then Scar stopped. Scar said angrily: "I just dreamed that I found my wife, and you scared my wife away." There was blood coming out of my face, and my palms were sticky to the touch, and my whole body was in burning pain, and I didn't know where I was injured.The manhole slowly quieted down, Dao Scar lay down, and Angkor also lay down.I turned my head and saw that the leader was sleeping face-to-face, while the crazy woman had been sleeping soundly and motionless. I must get out of here, staying here will kill me sooner or later.