It was approaching midnight, and there was only one bullock cart moving slowly along the quiet street.
Zhou Shi held a waist-high cabinet and sat behind the coachman.
"It's just around the corner."
Under his guidance, the ox cart stopped in front of Fengde Tower.
The door panel of Fengde Building had been closed. Zhou Shi jumped out of the car and knocked on the door six times.
After a while, Liu Xiaosi's voice came from the door: "Who?"
"I, the shopkeeper."
Liu Xiaosi opened the door. He and the shopkeeper agreed to wait in the front hall for a knock on the door at night, and they have waited until now.
"Here, give me a hand and help me get this cabinet in."
"Shopkeeper, this is..."
"Here, you carry the things I brought from home."
Xiao Si paid the bill to the owner of the bullock cart, and carried the cabinet into the backyard with Zhou Shi, and placed it in Zhou Shi's room.
"Okay, just leave it here. You can rest quickly."
"Shopkeeper, I'll boil a kettle of water for you. You can wash it off."
"No, no, no, I'll make do with it."
As a waiter, Liu Xiaosi does not have his own room, so he usually puts the tables in the front hall together as a bed, and even sleeps as a janitor. So when Zhou Shi comes home late, he always greets Liu Xiaosi and asks him to give him a bed.
Open the door.
Zhou Shi sat down on the kang, wiped his sweat, and opened the lock of the cabinet after confirming that Liu Xiaosi had left the backyard.
"Mr. Mo, are you okay?"
An old man with sparse long hair, one strange eye and one blind eye, and a severely deformed face slowly crawled out of the cabinet. Who else could it be if he wasn't Mr. Mo, the owner of the Yinhun Inn!
Zhou Shi helped Mr. Mo sit down on the bench and let him take a good breath - he was too short and lame to climb up the kang.
"Mo Lao, I feel wronged to you."
"Ahem, we are just walking around, walking on the yin and yang with bare feet, there is nothing wrong with us."
The most fatal problem when moving the Yinhun Inn to Fengde Building is Mr. Mo. He is blind in one eye and lame in one leg. He cannot walk on the hundreds of miles of wild roads and can only take a car. But if he looks like this
Who would dare to pull them away if people see them? Besides, there is only one door in Fengde Building, and he cannot climb over the wall, so he can only enter with Zhou Shi, so he must deceive Liu Xiaosi who opens the door.
The final solution they settled on was to modify the counter of Yinhun Inn and let Mr. Mo hide inside, all the way to Fengde Building.
"Where's the flag?"
"Don't worry, I'll take it with me."
Zhou Shi took out the "wine" flag of Yinhun Inn from his arms.
"Well, if you hang this up tomorrow night, the ghosts will know to come here."
As a symbol of an inn, the wine flag is often used with red characters on a black background. However, the wine flag of the Yinhun Inn has black characters on a white background. This is because red is most eye-catching to the living, and white is most visible to the dead.
"Where should I sleep?"
"I have arranged everything for you. Come here."
Zhou Shi walked to the wall, groped for a while, and opened a secret door.
"This is the secret room where money is hidden in the restaurant. No one knows about it except me and the boss. I put a bedding for you in it to keep it warm in winter and cool in summer."
When Fengde Tower was founded, Jiangdu was heavily invaded by bandits. This secret room also had the function of hiding people when bandits came to rob, so ventilation was not a problem.
"If you really have it, then I'll live here."
It was past midnight, and Mr. Mo went to sleep in the secret room, while Zhou Shi practiced the tablet hand for a while on the kang.
After several days of practice, he has already faintly felt some inner strength. As long as he breathes and exhales according to the method recorded in "Stele Hands", he can feel a warm current flowing through his body according to his mind.
He stretched out a finger and stabbed it at the paper covering the window.
The first knuckle had clearly passed through the window paper, but when he pulled it back, there was no hole in the paper!
This is the most wonderful one among the three postures of the Monument Hand - the Stele Piercer!
However, with Zhou's level of experience, he can only master some superficial knowledge. To reach the point where he can let his whole hand pass through the stone tablet, he still needs to practice diligently.
He lay on the kang contentedly, thinking that the conditions in Fengde Tower were much better than those in the countryside.
However, when he recalled the battle last night, he still had lingering fears.
"If Xiao Lin hadn't appeared in time, I wouldn't have been able to deal with that poison master with my three-legged cat skills. It's really hard to sleep and eat well to be worried about such a guy.
"How many accomplices does he have? What is their purpose? These are all unknown. Coupled with the curse of the iron abacus... it is really a mess.
"We still have to focus on improving our strength. Fortunately, Jiangdu City is so big, so we don't have to worry about the dead people..."
Thinking like this, Zhou Shi slowly fell into sleep.
The business at noon the next day proved that Fengde Building was indeed gradually getting back on track. After the regular customers at the last table went back after finishing their meal, they brought back many familiar faces and ordered a large table.
"The shopkeeper, look, it's him. Last time he said, 'I'll never come to Fengdelou again', but this time I ate more happily than anyone else."
"Oh, shopkeeper, I'm so sorry. I didn't know your master was sick. Come on, this meal is mine!"
"Why do I count it as yours? I'll treat it as promised!"
The regular patrons at this table are all nearby businessmen. They have been eating at Fengdelou for more than ten years. To be recognized by them means that Fengdelou’s products are of good quality.
Zhou Shi asked Lao Zhao for the account books and found that there was a surplus in the past two days. In a few days, he should be able to repay last month's account.
After closing for the night, Zhou Shi watched Xiaosi and Agui tidy up the front hall, and he and Lao Zhao recorded today's accounts before closing the door.
As a shopkeeper, some things can be left to the people below, and I only need to be responsible for the things on the counter. But shopkeeper Zhou Da has always done it himself, and Zhou Shi has no intention of changing this habit for the time being.
He used the latrine as an excuse and sneaked into his room to report to Mr. Mo, saying that everyone would have a rest soon and could prepare to "open".
When Zhou Shi came out, he happened to see Liu Xiaosi taking out his quilt and getting ready to sleep, so he stopped him and said:
"Xiaosi, I told Agui that you two will sleep in the same room from now on."
"Ah? Then who is watching the front hall? What if a thief comes?"
"What kind of thief would come in through the gate? Isn't it better to just climb over the wall? Besides, with your body, it's just a thief. Can you stop him?"
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
"Uh..."
"You have been sleeping in the front hall for so many years. Have you ever been burglarized? You have made the table covered with sweat. What do you want the guests to think?"
"Then, then I'll go sleep with Brother Agui."
Zhou Shi had discussed this with Agui before. Liu Xiaosi had been in Fengde Building for many years and he had always done his best and could not let people sleep outside all the time. Agui agreed, so that the front hall could be freed up.<
/p>
Hearing the sound of the watch outside the door, he quickly went outside the store to wait.
After a while, a donkey cart appeared at the corner of the street, and Zhou Shi hurried to meet it.
"Senior Ruan, you have worked hard all the way."
The Yin wine from the inn could not be brought over, and it was too late to make it freshly made at Fengde Building. Mr. Mo had no choice but to send a letter to Ruan Hunxiong, asking him to bring some ready-made Yin wine from his inn, which was regarded as a loan.
Zhou Shi moved ten jars of Yinjiu into the store and whispered: "Thank you, Senior Ruan!"
Ruan Hunxiong nodded and said, "I'll come get the money the day after tomorrow."
After that, he poked the donkey's butt with a whip and left.
This senior is still the same...
At midnight, Zhou Shi put the "wine" flag of Yinhun Inn outside the door. Mr. Mo came out and sat behind the counter. It was now open.
The ghosts quickly filled the first floor. Zhou Shi really didn’t expect there to be so many guests.
After eating beans - Mr. Mo explained that this thing is called "dead man's rice", eating it can produce yin energy in the body, thus contacting the ghosts - Zhou Shi began to serve them wine table by table, while listening to their conversation.
.
"Where did my brother come from?"
"Xibian'er, I got entangled in water plants while taking a bath two days ago and drowned."
"Oh, I burned to death because of a fever..."
"I never thought I could still drink wine after death. Come on, have another bowl."
The three men pulling the cart didn't come the day before yesterday and seemed to have "dispersed"... Listening to the ghosts' conversation, Zhou Shi couldn't help but recall the three brothers who helped him pretend to be ghosts to scare Zhang Yuanwai.
Those who can come to the inn to drink are those who burned paper money after death. Most of those ghosts who have no one to care about after death have no care for the human world, so they generally do not stay long.
At three o'clock, the ghost left, and only a fat middle-aged man remained in the store.
It’s time to live! Zhou Shi took the iron abacus and stepped forward to ask: "My guest, is there anything else you can’t let go of?"
"Uh, so I'm really dead?"
"Guaranteed replacement if fake."
There were tears on the man's face, he had clearly cried just now.
He sighed and said: "Well, if I had known this, I shouldn't have gone to Yichun Garden yesterday..."
Yichun Garden?
Zhou Shi became interested, put his arms on the table, and said, "Elaborate."