There were a few sparse people sitting at a few tables in the hall downstairs.
Seeing Matthew, the hotel owner Truger immediately greeted him warmly:
"Are you okay? When I passed by your door this morning, I smelled something terrible. Do you need me to buy you some holy water?"
Matthew smiled and shook his head:
"No need, Mr. Truger, I'm fine now."
Truger glanced at Matthew in surprise, then pouted towards the corner of the hall and said:
"The guide you need has been found. Well, that's Lao Jitou, the best guide in Zeshui City. He has traveled through the rainforest 78 times without any damage. He was also the one who took Li Weiqi to the Arun Inland Sea.
road."
When Matthew heard this, he looked around and saw a dark-skinned, taciturn old man.
He looked to be in his fifties, almost sixty, with a light and white beard and sharp eyes. He was sitting quietly at a table smoking a cigarette.
Catching Matthew's gaze, he nodded slightly.
"Matthew, you have to be careful, this man has several lives on his hands!"
Matthew's chest suddenly bulged, but it was Ella who popped out a little head from her clothes and reminded him loudly.
Matthew nodded to show he understood.
But he didn't particularly care. How could someone who could survive through the rainforest many times be a good person?
And when it comes to human lives, Matthew has a lot on his hands.
So he walked over openly and stretched out his right hand:
"Hello, Mr. Guide."
Lao Jitou glanced at him, moved the direction of the dry smoke, blew out a circle of smoke, shook his head and said:
"Just call me Lao Jitou. In addition, young man, I want to give you a piece of advice - in Zeshui City, don't reach out to people casually. Normal people will not shake hands with you. Anyone who shakes hands with you will usually infect you with the plague.
.”
Matthew showed a teachable expression:
"I understand, thank you, Lao Jitou."
"Truger told me that you are going to Arunaihai?" Lao Jitou asked:
"What are you going to do? Is it convenient to reveal it?"
Matthew thought for a while:
"Just take a stroll and look at the scenery on the sea?"
Lao Jitou chuckled: "You might as well say that you want to see the hotness of the jungle woman - at least the last customer told me so, I believed it."
As he spoke, his face became serious:
"I can take you there, but you have to listen to me completely along the way! Remember, don't provoke the Jango people, don't put anything in your mouth, and don't fall in love with a woman when you see her throwing herself into his arms."
Matthew said with great interest:
"Do you have any explanation for these three prohibitions?"
Lao Jitou gently tapped his cigarette butt on the table:
“There’s no explanation, it’s just three lives. The guest who offended the Jango people had his head cut off, and you can still see works of art made from his skull in a headhunter tribe in the east of the rainforest;
The one who grabbed the wild berries and ate them has been rotting in the swamp for seven or eight years;
As for the last guest, he spent several nights with a Jango native, but later he abandoned the woman who begged him not to leave. In the end, half of his face and the entire penis were eaten by a poisonous insect.
.”
Seeing a look of horror on Matthew's face.
Lao Jitou changed the subject: "But as long as you listen to me and don't cause trouble, then the road I take you will be very safe. It's a pity that based on my experience of leading the road for so many years, it is really difficult for the employer to stay out of trouble."
It’s a very difficult thing, and some people just don’t know how to do it.”
As he spoke, he kept looking at Matthew:
"I hope you are not that kind of person."
Matthew pondered: "In the rain forest, I will listen to your opinions to the greatest extent and will never cause trouble unless necessary."
Laojitou put away his dry tobacco:
"That's best. Here is a list of essential items for traveling through the rainforest. You can take it to the market and buy it yourself. We will set off tomorrow morning. By the way, I will not only have you as my guest this time traveling through the rainforest, but there is also a guy I found yesterday.
I am the one who claims to experience the hotness of the jungle woman, and he will go with us for a while."
Matthew asked curiously: "What kind of guest is that?"
For the first time, Lao Jitou showed a complicated expression on his face:
"Indescribable, he is a poet."
At this moment, a young man with a short head, bare feet, and an open mind walked in from outside the hotel.
As soon as he entered the door, he walked towards Matthew with a bright smile:
"Oh, dear old Jitou, is this the companion who is about to travel through the rainforest with us?"
Before Lao Jitou could agree, he came over and wanted to give Matthew a big hug:
"Lao Jitou taught me yesterday that I can't shake hands with people casually in Zeshui City, so I think I can only express my uncontrollable excitement with a hug.
Hahaha!
The genius poet Loren is about to embark on a journey through the terrifying rainforest with his fellow stranger.
This is so exciting!”
Matthew glanced at the other party's unusually thick chest hair and avoided it calmly.
"Hello, Matthew."
He briefly introduced himself.
"What a name, Matthew, you are the name of the protagonist of my next work!"
Loren didn't mind Matthew's dodge. He leaned against the wall pillar elegantly, with a confident and sunny smile on his face:
"You don't look good. Do you have a fever? Do you need holy water? I bought a lot of it."
Matthew wanted to refuse.
Unexpectedly, the other party conjured up a set of light blue glass tubes like a magic trick, and then forced them into Matthew's hands:
"It's okay even if you're not sick. Keep it as a spare. There are many insects and snakes in the rainforest, so you'll always need it. Don't worry about me harming you. Look at the package of the holy water. I just bought it from the "Feathered Serpent Temple".
It hasn’t been opened yet!”
"Don't shirk it. Lao Jitou also accepted my holy water. If you don't believe me, just ask him. Just treat it as a gift for the first time."
Matthew looked at Lao Jitou in confusion.
The latter shrugged.
Matthew hesitated for a while. This set of holy water was indeed unopened, and the price tag was not even torn off. It said "20 gold coins/6 bottles" on it.
Loren's enthusiasm made Matthew uncomfortable.
He declined several times.
But the other party's look of threatening to fall out if he didn't accept it finally made Matthew accept the meeting gift.
"That's it!"
Lorraine happily patted Matthew on the shoulder and said:
"Accept the gift, and you will be my true friend, Lorraine!
I once stayed in "Cloud City" for a while. As you know, the cloud elves there are always known to be arrogant and rarely interact with humans, but they got along very well with me.
Later, someone couldn't help but ask me: Luo Lan, what is so special about you that can make the proud cloud elves be friends with you?
And my answer is only one sentence——
I’m super rich!”
These words attracted the attention of several people in the hall.
A pair of pairs of malicious eyes cast their gaze over.
However, Luo Lan was not afraid at all. He smiled and opened his robe, revealing the scrolls and charms on his belt, and said to the others:
"Don't think about attacking me just because I'm rich. Did you see the "Forbidden Curse Scroll" and "Legendary Spell"? Don't risk your life for a little money. It's not worth it."
"You know, real rich people have many things to protect their lives. Don't use your life to test my wallet."
In the hall.
Lao Jitou smoked silently and said nothing.
The others slowly withdrew their greedy gazes.
Matthew looked at Lorraine with some curiosity. Are all the rich people in this world so flamboyant?
Lorraine also seemed to be somewhat interested in him. He pulled Matthew to sit down, asked Truger to bring some local specialties, and then they started chatting non-stop.
Most of them are Lorraine's eloquent words:
"Why should I become a bard? Because I have no talent for anything else!
I come from a super-rich family. My grandfather is a great mage and my father only knows how to wield swords and guns. I am the only son of this generation, but I am incompetent in both magic and martial arts.
My mother was very worried about this. She was afraid that I would not be able to keep the family business, so she found her first love, a romantic and legendary poet, and asked him how to train her son to become a powerful bard.
The man replied: Give your son a large amount of money, let him go to a big city and wander around, and let him go among women. The more he experiences, he will naturally become a poet.
My mother had no doubts about her first love, so when I was seventeen years old, I took a large sum of money and went to the rich and glamorous "Deep Blue Harbor" alone.
What that person said was indeed true.
After more than ten years of hard work, I achieved nothing, and then I became a poet."
"Before coming to Zeshui City, I stayed for a while in "Smandi", which is rich in perfumes, spices and beauties, and is also known as the "City of Flowers".
I am doing well in Simandi and have many friends.
To be honest, I really don’t want to leave there. There are many fascinating women in Smandi——
The scent of a lady makes me linger, and the fragrance of a girl also makes me intoxicated.
But the distance was calling me, and I encountered a revelation from God in Simandi——
Afterwards, I clearly realized that if I wanted to write better works, I had to experience more novel things, so I had to reject the tearful lovers and came to this mountain town in the north of the rain forest. Speaking of us
We are about to enter the rainforest, which is really exciting.”
…
Hearing this, Matthew couldn't help but ask:
"A revelation from God?"
Lorraine replied lazily:
"On one occasion, I was having an affair with a noble lady and her daughter, and the man of the house discovered it. The family immediately fell into madness."
Matthew suddenly took a breath of cold air.
"That must have been an embarrassing scene," Matthew said.
"Indeed."
Lorraine said with emotion: "Especially when the male host asked me in front of his wife and daughter, 'Who am I?' I instantly realized that this was God giving me a revelation - it was time to leave.
It’s a city of flowers.”
This time it’s not just Matthew.
Even Ella, who was lying on his chest and listening with great interest, was stunned with shock!
"just kidding!"
Luo Lan suddenly laughed:
"You don't really believe that I can sleep with their whole family, do you?
Even the poorest poet will put a hook at the end of a piece of work, which is necessary to attract the audience.
As for the real reason why I left the City of Flowers, I will tell you in detail next time.
It's getting late, we should go to the market to buy the things on the list, hey, where is the old Jitou man?"