Maze - Tay Ninh Online Newspaper

Town N… was established for a few years when a land fever broke out. At that time, gold was very rare. Ordinary families were blinded by the hope of earning five taels as a dowry for their daughters. Yet, the price of a meter of road surface skyrocketed every week. From five taels to two or three taels, people still competed to buy. Some cunning “locals” seized the opportunity to act as brokers, blinding both buyers and sellers. The leader was Crocodile Heng, the owner of the porridge shop at the beginning of alley N. He became a tycoon from that chaotic service. In the eyes of people in remote areas, anyone with a few taels of gold in their hands was already extremely rich.

The Crocodile Porridge Shop is located at a crossroads, the intersection of two roads leading to the province, the district and the communes. Every day, customers sit at dozens of tables. One morning, two strange customers appeared. They were both wearing jeans, both wearing dark sunglasses with lenses like the rim of a beer glass covering half of their faces, both wearing giant shoes with shiny black rubber soles.

That morning, all the diners stopped talking and looked at them strangely as they strutted down from the bright red Thai Dream motorbike. At first glance, one would think they were cast from the same mold. But upon closer inspection, one was tall and the other was short. The tall one had a tuft of long, reddish-brown hair growing out from under his right jaw like a goatee (let’s call him Goat’s Beard).

The short man had a birthmark that looked like a lizard clinging to his four legs near his right ear (we also called him The Lizard for easy remembering). Two pairs of huge shoes clattered into the shop. Not in a hurry to find a seat, both stood attentively observing the shop owner who was looking down at the chopping board full of liver.

He was shirtless, with a greasy towel draped over one shoulder, and a tattoo of a fierce indigo-blue crocodile head with a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth on the other. With a look of satisfaction at having found the partner he had been waiting for, the lizard, acting like a senior, nodded toward the owner and asked loudly:

- Do you intend to transfer this restaurant?

The crocodile's throat did not even bother to look up, his hands kept scooping up the entrails and dividing them into bowls of porridge, and he asked in a hoarse voice:

- Where did you get this information, big brother?

- Just a question. May I have the honor of inviting you to have a few drinks with us?

Leaving his wife and children to carry things, the owner of the restaurant, wiping his hands carelessly on a dirty towel, slowly approached the table of the two strangers. They shook hands eagerly like old friends meeting again after a long time. After a few rounds of gulping down several glasses of wine, no one knew what they were whispering and agreeing on, only hearing the three mouths say in unison "Okay, okay" after clapping each other's hands loudly. From that day on, an alliance of three swindlers was quickly born. This alliance had been operating for a long time, actively searching for advantageous plots of land from the majority of foolish owners, with large plots of residential land but empty pockets. Crocodile Heng had lived here for several years, was familiar with many people, and had the advantage of his restaurant having many people coming and going every day with all kinds of stories in the world, unintentionally helping him have a long list of plots of land from owners who were more thirsty for money than for water. From that morning, every afternoon he wandered around to investigate the details, in his mind he had already grasped five or seven delicious pieces of land as firmly as a bowl of thick blood pudding that he could not bring home without slipping. The first “shot” he fired to start the game and grab a gold bar was the case of secretly buying cheaply ten meters of land that Mrs. Bay had just divided for her third daughter and her husband. Then came the land of her second sister’s son and continued to add many other pieces of land from many people who wanted to sell but could not find buyers. No one knew that the three-way alliance was just a group of brokers. The real buyers were the owners of sugar mills, flour mills and sawmills in other localities. Ten years ago, this place was still a new economic commune. Now it has been upgraded to the level of a town in the center of a district with great promise for economic development. Many owners flocked to find business opportunities. The land suddenly turned into gold. But in the hands of the landowners, it was only a small amount of money. That fat difference went into the pockets of the Crocodile Heng. With gold and money, the three pimps bought three gold necklaces as big as chopsticks, hanging from their necks to their fat bellies. With money, they constantly changed to new models of motorbikes, and in the afternoons, they revved their engines loudly, going hunting for land and prey in every nook and cranny. Every night, if they didn't hang out and party all night in dimly lit bars, they would hang out at Heng's bar, drinking and screaming until late at night. After dinner, Ms. Heng and her daughter had to wrinkle their noses and clean up the piles of dirty dishes and the stinking vomit all over the floor. Her poor stepdaughter was in puberty, growing up so fast, her clothes were always too short, making the goats in the house sick. Every time she caught their animalistic eyes eagerly staring at her exposed skin and flesh, she was absent-minded and afraid. Every night, the weak mother could only lie and hug her daughter tightly, like a mother hen spreading her wings to protect her chicks from hungry hawks.

The opportunity to satisfy the animal instincts of one of the three animals came one afternoon, Crocodile and Lizard went out to find prey, leaving only Goatbeard alone at home, yawning on a hammock hung behind the house near the bathing tent, which was only covered by a few loosely tied coconut palms. With his eyes closed, Goatbeard suddenly heard the sound of rushing water, he stretched his neck and shivered to see half of the head of the landlord's wife's stepdaughter, black and shiny, wet, sticking out through the bamboo screen. Hastily tiptoeing closer to peek through the leaves, his whole body immediately trembled when his wild eyes caught sight of a mass of white, pink, plump flesh of the pubescent girl being doused with buckets of clear water flowing from her long, loose hair that covered half her chest, down to her round belly. Thinking that the golden moment had come, he rushed into the tent, hastily hugged the young body, intending to destroy the little girl's life. Unexpectedly, the little girl let out a heart-rending scream that echoed far and wide outside. And immediately her mother appeared in time, causing the goatee to only have time to jump out into the garden and run. The consequences were so terrible that more than ten years later, whenever the poor child suddenly saw a man wearing jeans, wearing terrorist shoes and wearing dark glasses, he would have a fit of fear, his face would turn pale, his legs would tremble, and his two arms would be folded together tightly covering his chest. If he hadn't come to his senses and let go, even if he broke his arms, he wouldn't be able to free them.

After that depraved act, Rau Go was afraid that Heng Ca Crocodile's wife and children would report him to the police, so he did not dare to go to the porridge shop again. But he was still like a ghost lurking somewhere in this town. Less than a month later, for some reason, he had an affair with Mrs. Bay Boi's eldest daughter and brought her and her children to live together as husband and wife and opened Chieu Tim coffee shop about a kilometer away from Heng Ca Crocodile's porridge shop. Chieu Tim became more and more bustling and crowded as the night went on. Its reputation spread far and wide, attracting even the party-goers from the town and the district to flock there.

The three-way alliance now has only two. The demand for land has also gradually subsided, Crocodile Heng and Lizard Heng are pursuing bigger deals, making money faster beyond the border. Only later, when the matter was exposed, did his wife and children find out that they went to a casino in Cambodia to gamble. These days, they are often away from home for a whole week. Every time they come back, Heng throws his backpack bulging with paper money on the bed, then the two of them laugh heartily and sit down to count and divide it. Having earned money so easily, Heng no longer cares about the porridge shop, leaving his wife and stepdaughter, who are paralyzed with fear after the recent severe shock, to sell it however they want. Perhaps Ms. Heng also vaguely realized that there were too many uncertainties in her husband's business, so one day she timidly said to him:

- I'm worried, you keep hanging out with them, I'm afraid...

Before she could finish her sentence, her husband gave her a slap like thunder and a curse that she will remember for the rest of her life:

- You want to earn those rusty coins now? If you can't sell them, then get rid of them. I can easily support you and your children. Be smart and keep your mouth shut.

Not caring how his wife reacted, he angrily grabbed the bag of money and walked away.

She did not expect that to be the last slap and curse that she had to endure many times in her life as his wife for more than ten years. Just one week later, in the morning, she heard the guests gossiping about the Lizard who had just had one arm cut off while running away from a gang of gangsters chasing her near the border. In the afternoon, she received the bad news that she had to go to a Western province to claim her husband's body. Just two days ago, when she saw her husband with a pale face hiding in his room, at the slightest noise he would furtively look around, appearing extremely frightened and confused, she had suspected something but did not dare to ask. That night, waiting until late at night, he gently whispered to her:

- I'm on this trip and probably won't be back for a long time. I don't have any money left. Luckily, I bought this house. We'll try to keep it as a place to do business and raise our children. If anyone threatens us, we'll report it to the police and ask them to protect us.

Having said that, he hurriedly slipped out into the darkness, walking as quietly as a cat. He had no idea that his life would end so tragically. When she arrived at a motel far away in the West, the police there told her that her husband had hanged himself two days ago. After burying her husband, one late night she had to face a horrifying truth when a group of fierce strangers secretly broke into the house and told her that Crocodile Heng and Lizard Heng had just lost a big gamble and still owed the owner several dozen taels of gold. Lizard Heng had lost an arm while running away. Crocodile Heng, knowing that he could not escape, had taken his own life. They came here to announce that the owner's order was that she must vomit up all the money her husband owed her, if she refused to pay, they would take her child to sell her organs in Thailand, Malaysia, where there was always a demand. If you report to the police, learn a lesson from those two guys.

Early the next morning, she hurriedly went to find Rau Go to see if she could learn more about the situation, but was shocked to see that Chieu Tim restaurant had been closed down by the authorities for organizing prostitutes for customers. Rau Go's mistress was currently detained in the district, and he had already fled far away, only God knew where he was.

VTK

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