Chapter 77: The Toad Lama

  No matter how hard you try to be nice, it's either a scam or a theft. No wonder this guy is so enthusiastic, after messing around for half a day, he has an ulterior motive towards us.

  "Old Xie, if you have something to say, just speak up. I'll definitely help if I can." He had spoken too confidently earlier and was now being taken advantage of, so he could only pretend to be a tough guy.

  "Thanks for your help, I'm overjoyed! This matter can't be helped by anyone else except you."

  "Just say it directly, don't beat around the bush." Jin Gang Pao had been ignored for half a day and couldn't hold it in anymore.

  "This, this..." Dean Xie hesitated with a difficult expression.

  "It's okay, he's my junior fellow apprentice, not an outsider. Whatever it is, just say it." I was eager to know what this guy wanted from me. But I already had a vague feeling that it should be something tricky. Otherwise, the director of the police station wouldn't have come to ask for help in such a shameless manner.

  "Have you eaten?" Principal Xie suddenly blurted out.

  "I've had lunch." Jin Gang Pao answered again.

  "Let's go, let's eat out first and talk at the dinner table. This isn't a place for conversation," said Director Xie as he opened the door.

  "Old Xie, just speak your mind, I'll definitely do what can be done." I and Jīn Gāng Pào followed Director Xie into a dumpling restaurant. Mù Róng Zhuī Fēng and Bái Láng enjoyed special treatment and took the police car back to the hotel.

  "It's just that if it weren't for you today..." The sour cabbage dumplings couldn't stop Jin Gang Pao's mouth, and he was about to spill the beans. I quickly kicked him under the table.

  Who would have thought that at the dinner table, Director Xie didn't mention anything serious, instead he kept chatting with us about old times and drinking beer with Jin Gangpao, only after getting drunk and full did he tell us the truth.

  It turned out that this guy responded to the call of the country's western development last year and actively requested to be transferred to Tibet for work. The actual purpose is very clear, no more than wanting to take a shortcut to promotion. After coming to Tibet, although the working environment was a bit hard, it also fulfilled his wishes, and he was promoted twice in a row, directly becoming the director of the police station.

  Who would have thought that just a few days after taking office, the three fires had not yet been extinguished, and something happened. The township where he is located is called Guo Ri Township, and the residents of the jurisdiction are Tibetan and Han Chinese living together. The place where the incident occurred was a Tibetan village called Twenty Li Pu. Originally, Twenty Li Pu was a remote village, but later, with the support of the national government's Western Development Program, many highways were built in Tibet and other places, including one that passes through the small mountain at the entrance of Twenty Li Pu Village.

  "Fixing the road is a good thing!" Jin Gang Pao said with his mouth full of toothpicks.

  "It all started with this road." Director Xie's face was full of helplessness. "Since the highway was repaired last year, strange things have been happening in Erli Pu Village. Every now and then, someone in the village would die, and later the villagers were so frightened that they went to the temple to ask for advice from the lama. The old lama told them that when the mountain was excavated during the construction of the highway, something evil was pressed under it, and after the mountain was opened up, the evil spirit came out, resulting in deaths."

  "What monster?" I asked, raising my cup of water.

  "I didn't know, the villagers were all Tibetans, I couldn't understand what they were saying at all, and had to find someone to translate. Director Xie sighed and stretched out his hand "These guys really listened to that old lama's words, in one night they filled up the highway so high, how could the county agree to it? They sent us over to catch a few of the ringleaders."

  "Have those guys been rounded up?" I took out a cigarette and handed one to Director Xie, lighting one for myself as well.

  "They know how to converge and scatter, Tibetans are different from us Han people, they're united. Catch one and a group will come, surrounding the police station with their families, if you don't release the person, they won't leave."

  "Isn't there a leader above you, please ask for instructions, it's not wrong to do things according to the leader's intention." Dumplings have been eaten and beer has been drunk, after all, one should help others make decisions.

  "When the leader speaks, it's like farting." As soon as I mentioned the leader, Director Xie's face turned red with rage. "Let me perform my duties without affecting national unity. It's simply a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If we arrest people, it affects national unity; if we don't, we're not doing our job. Shit! No matter what we do, it's always wrong." Director Xie cursed under his breath, but only he knew whether he was cursing the Tibetans or the leader.

  "Then don't catch those villagers, just catch that toad who came up with the idea." Jin Gang Pao also wanted to help share the worry.

  "What's a lama? That's called a living Buddha. Besides, you think this is inland China, but in Tibet, the lama has a higher status than the village head. Whoever dares to touch the lama will be an enemy of all Tibetan people." Director Xie pinched his cigarette butt and took several fierce puffs, his emotions very agitated. "In the past year or so, every time they fill in the highway, I have to go catch them, and who knows how many black-headed Tibetans have been beaten?"

  "What's the situation now?" It's getting late, I want to know something useful.

  "What else can I do, fill it up at night and dig it open during the day. Didn't they catch a few again yesterday, those Tibetans came again, pointing at my nose and scolding me loudly. Although I couldn't understand their language, that tone was there." Yesterday when we left the police station, we indeed encountered some villagers from Ershili Village, wearing Tibetan robes, with knives hanging from their waists, blowing raspberries at Director Xie and staring at him while saying something.

  "Tomorrow we'll take a look, it's really a mess. We'll just help you get rid of it directly." Before I could react, Jin Gang Pao started patting his chest.

  "If there's really something fishy going on, we'll definitely lend a hand." I nodded in agreement. Looking at the hapless Director Xie in front of me, I still felt a bit of sympathy for him, even though he had kicked me a few times before, but I hadn't let him off either. Today's events were all thanks to him, and on top of that, he was treating us to dinner and drinks.

  "There must be something wrong, the village has only about 300 people, and yet more than 30 people die every year. It just doesn't add up." Director Xie's face lit up with joy when he saw that we agreed to help.

  "Why didn't that old lama go and help them drive out the evil?" I've always had a bad impression of lamas and monks, and took the opportunity to mock them.

  "He didn't just go there, he even set up a shed by the roadside to live in! The director's response was quite unexpected: 'He started living there from the dead body and has been living there for over a year.'"

  I furrowed my brow, Tibetan Buddhism has many accomplished monks, and the one mentioned by Director Zuo is so persevering, with a bit of an air of a high monk. If even a monk with great abilities can't handle it, then we two going there won't necessarily guarantee success either. Looks like I spoke too confidently earlier.

  After chatting for a while, Director Xie sent us back to the hotel, arranged tomorrow's itinerary, and drove away with a thousand thanks.

  We returned to the inn and found Murong Zhuiyun already asleep, while Bailang was lying on the floor waiting for us. After feeding Bailang, I chatted with Jingangpao for a bit before falling asleep.

  The next day, before dawn, Xie Shouzhang arrived, pulling me and Jinggaon to finish breakfast, and drove with several police officers from the station to Ershilipu.

  Because we didn't go out for fun, Murong Zhui Feng and Bai Lang stayed in the inn to watch our luggage, and the food was personally delivered by the inn owner.

  After traveling north for about twenty miles, we saw the Twenty Mile Inn that Mr. Xie had mentioned. The village was not large, surrounded by mountains on three sides, and a highway ran south-north at the entrance of the village. There were many vehicles stuck on the road, and a large excavator was busy clearing the mud piled up on the road.

  "That horn is over there." After getting off the car, Xie Shuo pointed to the fork in the road leading to the village.

  I took a closer look and indeed there was an old lama wearing a cassock sitting in a simple hut with his eyes closed.

  "Old Yu, there's something below!" I looked at the Lama's work, and the Diamond Cannon didn't idle either. After pinching the key to take a look at the surrounding aura, he finally discovered a hidden cave under the highway.

  "He's also in trouble!" I pointed at the old lama "Old Cow, look at his breath, does he look like a living person?"

  The old lama under the thatched shed not only didn't have the auspicious aura that a high-ranking Buddhist monk should have, but his whole body was also shrouded in a thick grey aura, with only a hint of yellow spiritual energy left on his chest.

  "What's gotten into you?" Jin Gang's nose twitched and his face turned unpleasant.

  I slowly shook my head. "It doesn't seem like that, if it were a ghost possession, his whole body should be covered in black energy, but there's still a strand of yellow energy at his chest. Besides, the aura surrounding him is gray, which doesn't look like the symptoms of being possessed by a yin spirit."

  As I spoke, I walked towards the thatched hut. When I was a few steps away from the hut, the old lama who was sitting cross-legged opened his eyes.

  The lama in front of me is not young, probably not eighty but at least seventy or so. His face is covered with dust, his clothes are worn out and tattered, his beard is long enough to cover his mouth, and his eyes lack spirit. It seems that he has indeed been staying here for these days.

  The old lama opened his eyes and saw me and the cannon, surprisingly with a smile on his face. He beckoned to a middle-aged Han man standing outside the grass shed, who looked like a villager, and said a few words in Tibetan in a low voice. Then he closed his eyes again.

  The middle-aged Han man listened to the lama's words, looked at me and Jinqiang with a puzzled expression, turned around and flew back to the village.

  "What did he say?" Director Xie turned around and asked a nearby police officer who understood Tibetan.

  "He told the villager to go back and call the village head, saying he was going back to the temple." The police officer translated in a low voice.

  "It's all over, Old Yu. Someone has gone to call for people to come and beat us up." Jin Gang Pao said with a half-joking tone. The middle-aged man who had run back to the village earlier looked at us with an unfriendly gaze.

  "Don't worry, there are police here, what's to be afraid of." I said with my mouth, but my heart didn't think so. The conflict between the villagers and the police seemed quite deep, and it was not impossible that they would really fight. I quietly gave a signal to Jin Gang Cannon, making a gesture with my fingers, meaning: If something really happens, let's run.

  "Master, hello." I made a polite gesture by clasping my hands together in front of the lama. The old lama opened his eyes and smiled at me as he returned the greeting, then closed them again.

  Not much effort, a group of villagers came running over, with a horse cart following behind. The villagers arrived in front of us and loudly said something to the few police officers at the police station, guessing that they misunderstood the arrival of the police station and were driving away the old lama.

  The old lama, who had been silent all along, opened his eyes and beckoned to a village elder-like person, calling him over. He pointed at me and the golden cannon, muttered a few words, then stood up, walked forward and bowed to us again before turning around and getting into a carriage, which was led away by a young boy.

  I stared at Jin Gang Pao, and the old lama was gesturing and saying something that neither of us understood. And then he just got up and left, leaving us both bewildered.

  The same policeman who understood Tibetan walked up and said, "Just now that old lama told the village chief that the person who helped them has arrived, he can go back..."