seven relics

The weather in Shihezi in May is generally mild, but on the day when Lian Jiangyue visited the military reclamation museum in the city, before leaving the hotel where he was staying, he checked the weather forecast. High temperature warnings were put up for the whole city, and the air humidity was very low. A sandstorm warning was issued.

The weather outside is indeed a bit confused, the sun is scorching, and it is indeed very hot.When Lian Jiangyue saw Director Wang of the logistics department in the small courtyard behind the museum, both of them were sweating profusely.

Lian Jiangyue has been waiting for Director Wang for some time.When he arrived at the Military Reclamation Museum, he first asked the ticket seller if anyone had received a package addressed to "Wu Linglong" a while ago. The ticket holder couldn't tell, so I contacted the personnel for him.The personnel said, there is no such person, Lian Jiangyue was going to leave, the logistics department called the ticket center and asked if someone came to Wu Linglong and asked this person to wait in the yard of the logistics warehouse. Director Wang would Take him to see Wu Linglong.Lian Jiangyue went to the logistics warehouse to wait for Director Wang.

After waiting for about 10 minutes, the door of the logistics warehouse opened, and a shirtless, middle-aged man in army green trousers and leather boots came out from inside.The warehouse is deep, and looking in from the outside, only the outlines of some shelves can be seen.The shelves seemed to be full of cardboard boxes, and there were boxes on the floor.

Seeing Lian Jiangyue, the man waved to him, lit a cigarette, and stood in the sun to smoke.

"Director Wang?" Lian Jiangyue greeted him.

The man nodded and said, "It's me," he asked, "You're looking for Wu Linglong?"

Lian Jiangyue nodded, Director Wang narrowed his eyes, raised his hand and wiped his face: "It's too hot."

He said, "Wait a minute, finish this cigarette."

Lian Jiangyue glanced at the warehouse, and asked curiously: "Wu Linglong is a logistics person? You pack things with her? She...is a woman, right?"

Director Wang smiled, flicked the cigarette butt away, patted Jiangyue in pity, and said, "Let's go!" and led him into the warehouse.

This warehouse is indeed very deep. From the outside, it is about a hundred square meters, with a high ceiling, but it may be because there are too many and too many things inside, and the piles are still very high. Walking in it, I just feel very crowded.There is really everything in this warehouse, except for the many boxes that Lian Jiangyue glanced at just now, there are also stone millstones, iron plows, and various animal specimens randomly placed, including buffaloes, donkeys, and horses. There are also many crocks and stone bottles.There are no windows in the warehouse, and two energy-saving lamp bulbs hang from the ceiling. The light is very bright, illuminating all the tall and low sundries.Some dust was floating in the air, and the smell of old things was strong.It was eerily quiet in the warehouse.

It's not like there's a third person here.

"Here." Director Wang suddenly stopped in front of a black horse.This horse is also a specimen. Like the yellow goat specimen not far away, it stands on the concrete floor with its head raised and one front hoof bent.The black horse's hair is dull, its eyes are dull, like made of plastic, and its tail is drooping, looking listless.Its limbs are a bit too slender.

"This is Wu Linglong." Director Wang stroked the horse's back and said.

He casually picked up a small wooden comb from a nearby shelf, and combed the black horse's mane: "My office is right next to the personnel department. After I asked the personnel department, I said, what's the matter, who is looking for Wu Linglong? I I have a little impression of this horse, mainly because the name is very unique, but I can’t confirm it for a while, so I came in and searched for a while before I found it.” He picked up a tag hanging around the horse’s neck, “There are many specimens of horses here. Look, it's Wu Linglong, right?"

Lian Jiangyue was a little surprised, but not surprised. Looking at the black horse, she laughed: "Wu Linglong is a horse."

Director Wang asked him: "Why are you looking for it? How do you know about it?"

"It might be my father's horse." Lian Jiangyue thought for a while, then said, "He never told me that Wu Linglong is a horse."

"Your father?" Director Wang raised an eyebrow: "He used to herd sheep in Gurbantonggut?" He put down the wooden comb, sat on a wooden box, and signaled Lian Jiangyue to sit too.

"Maybe." Lian Jiangyue still looked at Wu Linglong, could this be the most handsome wild horse that Lian Wuchen said?But it looks so thin, its hoofs seem to be unable to withstand the torture of a little gravel, its horseback seems to be unable to bear the weight of a child, and his four legs seem to break when he runs.

Lian Jiangyue asked Director Wang: "Did it die of old age? Was it a very handsome horse before?"

Director Wang smiled, picked up a tin bowl on the ground, wiped it with his sleeve, raised it up to look at it, and asked him, "Did your father tell you?"

Lian Jiangyue said: "He died before he could say anything, I just want to see what kind of person Wu Linglong is..." He smiled, and stretched out his hand to touch Wu Linglong's spine, its bones were also very tender to the touch. Fragile.There is a suture mark on Wu Linglong's neck, which may have been left when the specimen was made.Lian Jiangyue stroked the suture, and continued, "Now I want to know what kind of horse Wu Linglong is."

Director Wang said: "The horses were collected from a herdsman in Gurbantunggut. There used to be a horse farm there, which was an important base of the Army Reclamation Corps. We went around to collect some farm tools and put them in the museum. For the exhibition, I went to a herdsman’s house. As soon as I entered, I saw such a lifelike horse standing in his house. Now it is wilted. Wear a red cape for it, and children from every household love to take pictures with it.”

"Who named this horse?"

"Don't interrupt, I haven't finished yet. Our curator saw that the horse was good, so he asked if there was any story about the horse and could it be sent to the museum. The herdsman said that the horse did not belong to him. He saw the horse At that time, the horse was already dead. There was a man with the horse. He brought the man and the horse back from the edge of the desert. That day, as soon as the sandstorm that lasted for three days passed, he wanted to go out to release the horse. As soon as they were herding the sheep and getting some air, they saw this unconscious man and horse on the side of the road.

"The man was rescued. After he woke up, he looked for Wu Linglong everywhere. Only then did the herdsman know that the dead horse still had a name. He took the man to see the horse's body, and he was planning to bury it. The man gave him a handful of gold coins and asked him if he could make a stuffed horse. The herdsman said that the man probably saw the stuffed sheep in his family. The sheep was his daughter's favorite lamb and died of illness. They stuffed it and kept it at home. The herdsman saw that this man really liked his horse, otherwise why would he name the horse? Right? The herdsman agreed to the man, but didn’t want him He asked the man for an address, and said that after making a specimen, he would send it to him. The man did not give him the address, but asked him for his address, saying that he would come back in a month, but in a month After that, the man did not appear.

"That man never appeared again."

That's the end of the story. Director Wang asked Lian Jiangyue: "Is your father that man? Why didn't he come to collect the specimen?"

Lian Jiangyue shook her head.Director Wang scratched his neck, touched the bottles and cans at hand, lowered his head, and said in a soft voice, "Is he leaving suddenly? It often happens..."

Lian Jiangyue asked: "Is the racecourse still there?"

"It's long gone. It's been changed to an animal protection base, and the people who lived there have moved away long ago."

At this point, Director Wang took out his mobile phone and said, "Do you want to go and have a look? I'll find you a car, my cousin, and it happens to be delivering goods to the base today."

He just made a phone call, chatted in a whisper, and finalized with Lian Jiangyue: "Go to the gate and wait, small pickup, blue, and it will be there in 10 minutes."

Lian Jiangyue was very grateful, and after thanking Director Wang, she went to wait for the bus outside the gate of the museum.Just after he went out, he suddenly saw a familiar figure of a young man on the road, and he shouted: "Qu Jiuchuan!"

The young man was standing in front of a fruit stand. When he heard this sound, he turned around and saw that it was indeed Qu Jiuchuan, still with the aggressive, clever and intelligent appearance.Seeing Lian Jiangyue, he showed a big smile, grabbed a thing hanging around his neck, stuffed it into the collar of a short-sleeved T-shirt, and waved vigorously at Lian Jiangyue.After a while, he trotted to Lian Jiangyue with two bags of strawberries and one bag of plums.

"What a coincidence!" Qu Jiuchuan handed a bag of strawberries to Lian Jiangyue, "Are you traveling here alone?"

"What a coincidence!" Lian Jiangyue also said.

He didn't expect to meet Qu Jiuchuan in Xinjiang.After the farewell to Pingyang, he tried to contact him a few times, but all the phone calls and WeChat messages he sent were all gone, and Qu Jiuchuan was implicated for no reason. After experiencing such an unexplainable adventure, maybe He didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore, and Lian Jiangyue didn't want any heroes or righteous men in the world to disturb him in order to find out the truth, so he didn't pursue Qu Jiuchuan's whereabouts anymore, and didn't talk to anyone else I mentioned that Qu Jiuchuan was also there the day Wuzangtong made a big fuss in Bian's house.Now reunited in the northwest frontier, seeing Qu Jiuchuan in good spirits and radiant, Lian Jiangyue was very happy, and hurriedly said: "Let's have a meal together."

Qu Jiuchuan said, "I still have something to do, let's do it next time."

"Come here to promote a new type of funeral culture?"

Qu Jiuchuan laughed loudly, pointed at the museum and said, "Are you here to visit this museum?"

Lian Jiangyue said: "Old Lian sent a relic here."

"Oh, yes, did you find the recipient? Nothing happened, right? Is the person still alive?"

"It's a horse."

Qu Jiuchuan laughed again, Lian Jiangyue laughed too, and the two sat by the flower bed at the entrance of the museum and gnawed on plums.After eating two mouthfuls of plums, the thing hanging around Qu Jiuchuan's neck fell out of his collar. It turned out to be a pitch-black stone.Lian Jiangyue couldn't help but be attracted by it, staring at it.Qu Jiuchuan hurriedly stuffed the stone back, cleared his throat and said, "My girlfriend and I are traveling together. Is this museum interesting? Let's take a look if it's interesting."

Lian Jiangyue was still thinking about that stone, pointing to the collar and asking him: "What is that?"

"Oh, that's a souvenir from the Mineral Museum next door. We just came out of that museum. I'm here to buy some fruit for her. It's hot today, so we're going back to the hotel." After taking out the phone, he stood up with a smile, "I'm sorry, she urged me, I have to go."

Lian Jiangyue was still sitting, eating plums and asked: "Is your mobile phone number still the same as before?"

Qu Jiuchuan nodded, and walked towards the road, still looking at Lian Jiangyue: "Have you been here for the past few days? Where are you planning to go next?"

"I plan to visit the horse farm near Gurbantunggut later."

"Oh, oh, okay, we will go to Urumqi in the afternoon, and we probably won't meet. The schedule is really tight, so let's get back in touch!"

He stopped a taxi and quickly disappeared from Lian Jiangyue's sight.

Not long after, a small blue pickup truck stopped in front of Lian Jiangyue, with the windows down, the driver waved at Lian Jiangyue, and asked twice: "Is that you? Are you going to the base?"

Lian Jiangyue got into the blue car.The driver's Mandarin is far worse than Director Wang's. His skin is black and shiny, his hair is curly, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and he has a strong musky smell. He is about thirty years old.

On the way to the base, the driver asked him again: "Why are you going to the base?"

"Go and see."

"Are you also engaged in animal protection?"

Lian Jiangyue smiled and asked the driver: "What kind of animals are there in the base?"

The driver smiled and counted with his fingers, and said: "Birds, hedgehogs, monkeys, mice, snakes, wolves," he asked again, "Do the people at the base know where you are going?"

"I'm not engaged in animal protection, I just go and have a look."

"Oh..." The driver responded, "Then when do you plan to go back to the city? If it's too late, it's too dangerous, no good, no good."

His voice became tense, and his expression also became very tense: "Little brother, I'm not trying to scare you. The base is too close to the desert. It's fine during the day, but at night, you're a man, and people don't worry about it."

"There are horse thieves?"

"Horse thief? What year is this?" The driver laughed and patted the steering wheel, "There are wolves!"

But after finishing speaking, he frowned, smacked and whispered: "There are no horse thieves, but maybe you will meet bandits..."

He didn't go on, and Lian Jiangyue didn't ask.Anyway, he is not afraid of bandits or horse thieves.

When they arrived at the base mentioned by the driver, Lian Jiangyue saw that their car was parked in front of a concealed iron gate. There were two concrete pillars standing beside the gate, with the sign "Animal Protection Base" on one side and the other on the other. "Working Together to Build a Harmonious Society".About ten kilometers behind the gate, there stands a small two-story building—probably the base.There is a van and two off-road vehicles in front of the building. Behind the building is a yellowish background. It is hard to tell whether it is the desert or the sky. To the east of the small building, you can see two small slopes surrounded by barbed wire.The iron net was stretched high, and it seemed to be electrified.

The iron gate was very broken. When the driver got out of the car to open the door, he heard a strange creaking sound, as if the iron gate would fall down at any moment.The road leading to the base building was full of potholes, much more dilapidated than the road outside, and even bumpier than the dirt road in Baojia Village.

Their pickup truck had only driven about ten meters in, when they saw a group of burly men rushing out of the base, divided into two groups, jumped into two off-road vehicles, and drove towards the gate at high speed.Immediately afterwards, a group of men and women also ran out of the base, some chased the car, some jumped on the spot and waved.The driver poked his head out and asked loudly, "What's going on??"

Some of the group who ran out after that spoke dialects, and some spoke Mandarin, shouting from a distance: "Xiao Xing! Hu Laobiao and the others have captured Xiao Xing! Stop it!"

The driver saw the off-road vehicle, swung in the direction, and was about to block the front of the off-road vehicle, but the off-road vehicle avoided him nimbly, broke through the iron gate and drove out.

The driver hurriedly turned the car around and said, "Hurry up! I'm going to chase someone!"

Lian Jiangyue grabbed the seat belt and asked, "Someone has been kidnapped? Don't you call the police?"

The driver stared at the off-road vehicle: "People from Hu Laobiao, it's useless to call the police!"

Lian Jiangyue asked him: "Is Xiaoxing a boy or a girl? How old is it?"

He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the window.At this time, the second off-road vehicle that sped out also overtook them, the driver accelerated to catch up, and howled at Lian Jiangyue: "What are you doing?! Sit down! Seat belt!"

Lian Jiangyue asked again: "Is it a boy?"

When the driver saw him, Lian Jiangyue fell out of the car window and climbed onto the roof of the car. He heard the driver shouting in the car: "Man! Eighteen! On his neck..."

Before the driver could finish his sentence, the pickup truck shook violently, something hit the tires, and Lian Jiangyue was thrown off the roof by a surge of inertia. He quickly took two steps in the air and jumped to the front off-road vehicle superior.This car was very quiet, so he switched to the roof of the off-road vehicle that was driving in front, and heard many people in the car talking at the same time.

A man said, "Second! Show him the keys!"

Another man said: "Did you see such a key?? Just a thing like this! Ever seen it??"

Another man said: "Fucking mother, if you keep messing around, believe it or not, I'll kill you with one shot! The last time you saw where our boss is, take us there!"

The other party had a gun in his hand, and Lian Jiangyue couldn't judge the position of Xiao Xing. He was afraid that the bullet would blind him and accidentally injure him, so he waited, wanting to wait for Xiao Xing to speak, so as to clarify his position.But after waiting for a long time for a reply, I heard a scream, and then, boom, the gun went off!A bullet pierced the roof of the car!

Lian Jiangyue avoided it, and looked in through the hole made by the bullet, and saw a group of people wrestling together, and couldn't tell which one was Xiaoxing.Lian Jiangyue planned to start with the driver.At this time, someone in the car suddenly shouted: "Sandstorm!"

Lian Jiangyue looked up, and at some point, the off-road vehicle had driven into the desert, and the off-road vehicle stopped.At this moment, the wind seems to have stopped, and the continuous sand hills just sit quietly under the yellow sky.

Not far away, a huge veil made of sand flitted towards him.

In the next second, only hearing the fury of the hurricane, Lian Jiangyue quickly rolled up her shadow to wrap herself up, jumped off the roof of the car, her feet seemed to touch the ground, but he could only see him stepping on his own dark shadow, and the surroundings were also It was pitch black, and the sound of flying sand hitting hard objects could be heard all over his ears. He squatted under the protection of this black shadow. After a long time, the sound of flying sand and rolling stones suddenly disappeared. Lian Jiangyue put away the shadow, but someone else arrived where?There is no mobile phone signal, and there are sand mountains in the southeast, northwest, and the off-road vehicle is gone. He climbed a hillside, and he could not see the base or the road. Instead, he saw a man with short hair and wearing loose short-sleeved shorts. The dark-skinned boy was squatting on the ground with a human hand in his mouth. The boy kept turning his head and moving his jaw like an animal, looking around vigilantly.

Is this Xiaoxing?

The boy's eyes fell on Lian Jiangyue.Lian Jiangyue asked him: "Are you Xiaoxing?"

The boy tilted his head, as if he didn't understand what he was talking about.His eyes were emerald green, and he stared at Lian Jiangyue like a beast staring at its prey.

Lian Jiangyue took a few steps closer to him, the boy's Adam's apple slipped up and down, two fierce lights burst out from his green eyes, he jumped back, landed on all fours, shook off the man's hand that was biting his mouth, and looked at Lian Jiangyue. Jiang Yue bared her teeth.

"Were you taken away from the base?" Lian Jiangyue asked, wanting to get closer to the boy, but unexpectedly her feet stepped on the ground, and she fell straight down.In desperation, he hurriedly protected his head, but fortunately, the shadow helped him, supported him firmly, and gently lowered him to the ground.

Lian Jiangyue got up and looked up. This fall, he had to fall more than 20 meters.He wanted to use his strength to jump back to the ground, but just when he was about to use his strength, he heard a snoring sound from behind him, and when he looked back, the boy also fell down, and he was sitting on the ground licking his elbow. scrape.

Lian Jiangyue said: "I will take you up together."

The boy ignored him, moved his ears, turned his head, landed on all fours again, and ran into the dark place behind him where he couldn't see his fingers.

"Where are you going?" Lian Jiangyue hurriedly chased after her.