Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
They naturally could not expect to get to stay in a luxury hotel in such a small mountain town.
The hotel the Markelov brothers took them to was a townhouse, a three-story building built on a hill, with the first floor for the owner’s bedroom, a kitchen and a dining room, and the second and third floors for rent.
The owner of the hotel was the mayor of the town. Little Markelov knocked on the door and a head popped out. The man rubbed his eyes the instant he saw him. Then he shouted happily in Myanmar.
Big Markelov turned his head, smiled and said, “This is mayor Miao Angdeng. Someone wanted to take advantage of the war to rob the town, and we saved their family because we happened to stumble upon them by coincidence.”
Unlike most of the people in Myanmar, the mayor was pale-skinned and delicate, with gold-rimmed glasses and a touch of literati aura in his demeanor.
Li Du did not judge wrongly. Young Markelov introduced them to him, and when he heard that Li Du was Chinese, Miao Angdeng smiled and communicated with him in Mandarin “Hello, classmate, very glad to meet you.”
Li Du was stunned when he heard this.
Miao Angdeng laughed and pointed to himself, saying, “I once studied in your country, in Dian Zhou university. I spent four wonderful years there, so I think we have a kind of classmate relationship.”
Li Du stretched out his hand and said, “Hello, Mayor Miao, it’s a pleasure to meet someone who speaks my language so well.”
It was late at night when Miao Angdeng arranged for their accommodation.
The small hotel could not accommodate so many of them, so Miao Angdeng took his wife and children to the neighbors’ house to spend the night and gave them all his family’s bedrooms.
Li Du felt bad about it, but what made him feel worse was seeing how Miao Angdeng was busy delivering water to each room, preparing food for them, and preparing fruit for them before the meal.
The hotel had Internet, so Li Du and Sophie had a video conversation.
Sophie was anxious to see Ah Meow and the other little ones. She had not seen them for a long time and naturally missed them a lot.
Ah Meow and the other little ones missed Sophie, too. They got excited when they saw her on the computer screen and rushed toward it.
Ah Bai was the most intelligent. It has seen many videos, and knew the computer screen was able to send their appearance to the opposite side, so it did not go to the computer screen but popped its head up so that Sophie could see him.
All of a sudden, the whole screen was occupied by Ah Bai’s head.
When Ah Meow and the other little ones saw that their images had disappeared, they were instantly worried. They did not know what had happened, but only saw Ah Bai on the screen, and understood it might be because of Ah Bai.
So Ah Meow turned around and gave Ah Bai a scratch, and Ah Bai flew off from the attack…
Sophie called Crispy Noodles and Ali over. Li Du did not take all the little ones with him. He only took fierce animals such as Ah Meow and Ah Ow, and Ah Bai who was familiar with wild life in the mountain areas.
When the little ones met each other, both sides became more excited, and then Ah Meow scratched the screen with his claws so that the pricks and rattle sound of the screen being scratched were the only sounds heard. There were a few rows of claw prints on the screen!
Li Du took a look quickly. Fortunately, the claw marks were superficial. Ah Meow’s claws did not scratch deep into the screen and spoil the microchips inside it.
After a busy evening, it was already midnight when they were about to go to sleep.
Hpakant had a busy nightlife and many wealthy people who did business there. In contrast, there was no nightlife in Wooku Town. They had an early market, and there were noises coming from outside the house early in the morning. Li Du rubbed his eyes and opened the curtain to look outside. He saw some stalls on the road in front of the house.
Without Sophie by his side, Li Du had been living a life of abstinence since he came to Myanmar, so his energy was abundant and five hours of sleep were enough for him to feel refreshed.
He took Ah Meow in his arms, carried Ah Bai on his shoulder, had Ah Meng in his bag, and was followed by Ah Ow behind him. Ah Fei was flopping over his head and he went out like an animal trainer.
Big Markelov woke up and asked, “Boss, where are you going so early in the morning?”
“To get some fresh air and look at the morning view of this town,” said Li Du.
Big Markelov rinsed his mouth with mouthwash, laughed and said, “That’s a good idea. It’s a beautiful morning on Mount Dena.”
Even if it were not beautiful, Li Du had to go out and take a look. Hpakant was full of potholes, with no green, no insects or birds, and almost no other living things except humans, which made him feel very bored.
This town was different, and its appearance was much more serene. The main street was more than 100 meters long, and both sides of the road were full of stalls.
Li Du’s appearance attracted a lot of attention as he took many animals with him.
He was used to it, ignoring people’s looks of curiosity, shock, or panic and taking it in his stride, calmly and naturally.
The stalls sold all kinds of stuff. There was a stall of braised meat in front of the house, which sold pork head, beef, roast chicken, roast duck, bacon, sausage, and other dishes.
Li Du asked the price of braised beef, and the owner held out two fingers and said, “Two thousand.”
After his stay in Hpakant, he had a new understanding of the prices in Myanmar. The boss did not say the price unit, so Li Du asked Big Markelov, “Ask him, is it RMB or Kyat?”
Big Markelov said, “Of course it’s Kyat.”
He took out two bills of five thousand Kyat, handed them to the boss and showed him that they wanted five pieces. The boss happily took the money and cut the beef.
Looking at this, it showed that the local prices were very low. If it were in Hpadant, the estimated price would be no less than 500 RMB per piece!
The beef was cheap, and the spiced pork, chicken and duck meat were even much cheaper, that Big Markelov paid hauled away half a cart of things to the house.
Their party was big, so they had to prepare more food.
Besides the braised meat stall was a vegetable stall, with some vegetables such as celery, turnip, spinach and so on that Li Du recognized, and some that he did not.
Most of the stalls offered vegetables and fruits, in addition to some local wild stock, and the place was filled with Myanmar’s aura.
There was a variety of river fish in the fish stall, some big and some small. The largest fish was about two meters long, and it was sold by pieces like pork.
There were also freshwater shellfish and crabs, which had thick shells and struggled against the nets that were holding them in place.
Besides, some of the stalls were selling game birds such as wild geese, pheasants, ducks, etc. Li Du asked Big Markelov to buy some of them.
These were the foods that were commonly seen. At the end of the market, several stalls were selling rare goods, such as deer, wild boar, squirrel, turtle, tuatara, snail, crab, etc. Li Du was dazzled by the variety as he looked around.
There were also some more exotic goods, such as big frogs, crickets, silkworm chrysalis, beetles and other rare ingredients.
Knowing that Li Du was a rich man because of the way he was spending, a stall owner beckoned him to look at a box covered with black cloth. “Would you like to eat something good?”
