The wind is as cold as a knife and the snow is flying.
As soon as Lu Sheng opened his eyes, he saw that he was sitting on a yellow-gray carriage. The carriage was shaking a little, and there was the voice of a little girl talking softly beside him.
Outside the carriage, there was a lot of noisy people.
There were shouts, shouts, cheers, and the laughter of children.
Lu Sheng sighed deeply.
He knew that he could not go back. From an old man who was waiting to die in a state-owned enterprise, he woke up and came to this world after getting drunk.
It has been five days now.
He sniffed his nose, and there was the smell of wine, pancakes, and fried fruits in the air.
"Oh, the white osmanthus wine in Guihuafang is getting more and more fragrant."
The maid in the carriage is small and has a soft milky voice.
Xiaoqiao is only twelve years old this year. In addition to her natural baby face, she is also small in stature. She looks no different from a ten-year-old child.
Her little face was chubby and rosy, and she was wearing a green cotton skirt. In her little hand, she was still twisting Lu Sheng's hair rope in preparation for getting out of the car.
This kind of hair rope is made from the bark of a very expensive tree. It naturally emits a light fragrance, but the only disadvantage is that it will become hard when the weather is cold and needs to be rubbed with hot hands to soften it.
Lu Sheng smiled but said nothing.
The carriage stopped quickly.
He opened the curtain and stepped out of the car. The gray-white street was paved with bluestone bricks, each one the size of a basin.
Cars were coming and going on the street, and people were leading horses back and forth.
The female relatives did not shy away from the vendors and the girls who came out to hang out. They showed their faces and laughed happily.
Lu Sheng raised his head and glanced at the wine shop in front of him.
The white plaque is rectangular, with three characters written in the middle: Osmanthus Fragrance.
"Master Lu is here! Please come inside! I've reserved the number A wing for you!"
A boy came over with a smile on his face.
Lu Sheng nodded, acting like a rich man, and took the silver-edged white paper fan from the small hand next to him. He shook it gently and unfolded the fan. On it was a picture of mountains and rivers with smoke and waves. The mountains and rivers were rising one after another, with light and dark overlapping.
There is an inscription that looks like everyone’s style.
He followed the boy into the wine shop with ease.
The wine shop is divided into two floors. There are many people sitting in the lobby on the first floor, listening to singing.
A young girl in green stood in the empty space with a melodious voice, and beside her was a middle-aged woman playing the pipa.
The song is a song called Sanhui Zhuan, which tells the story of the poignant love between a general who goes on an expedition and a fox girl in the mountains.
It's a pity that the drinkers present are all rough people. Only a few literati can understand it. The rest of them turn a blind eye to the two girls.
The rewards are not much.
Lu Sheng stopped and saw how busy the first floor was, so he simply found an empty seat on the first floor and sat down.
"Who ordered the Sanhui Chuan?"
He asked the boy casually.
His status in Guihuafang is different. If Guihuafang is equivalent to a high-end entertainment club on earth, then he is the supreme VIP customer here.
Someone who spends at least hundreds of thousands a year.
With such an expense, in a small northern town like Jiuliancheng, he is already considered a top customer.
"It's Mr. Zhou. Mr. Zhou Que." The boy replied in a low voice.
Lu Sheng didn't give him any trouble, so he waved his hand and let him go.
After he took Xiaoqiao to sit down, he glanced around the crowd on the first floor and soon saw a pale and thin young man, dressed in white, holding a coquettish golden ruffled folding fan in his hand.
Shake gently.
"I guess he fell in love with the little girl who sang again." Lu Sheng shook his head.
"The eldest son just warned him last time, this guy is really a bad guy!" Xiaoqiao pouted and said dissatisfied.
Lu Sheng smiled and stopped talking.
Start listening to the music quietly.
A table of wine and food was quickly served on the dark red wooden table. Lu Sheng picked up a handful of fried shredded pork with lettuce and put it into his mouth.
Take a sip of white cinnamon wine, which is similar to a drink. The faint sweet floral aroma is mixed together, and it is almost like drinking fruit juice.
"It's such a corrupt life to live in fine clothes, fine food, no worries, and little beauties and maids to warm the bed."
Sometimes Lu Sheng would wonder if he should live like this for the rest of his life. Anyway, this kind of life was what he had been pursuing in his previous life.
Have a bite of food and a sip of wine.
Open your mouth again and let Xiaoqiao stuff a peeled saltwater ice shrimp.
In Snow City in the North, ice shrimp is a specialty here. If you fish in the thick ice holes at will, you can get a large number of small shrimps with translucent bodies.
This is ice shrimp.
The body length of ice shrimp is half that of ordinary shrimp, but its taste is extremely delicious. The shrimp meat melts in your mouth and is extremely delicious.
Of course the price is also extremely expensive.
For ordinary people, eating once a month is considered a luxury, but how can they have it every day like him?
While Lu Sheng was eating delicious food, drinking fine wine, and listening to small songs, he was thinking about other things.
He has been in this world similar to ancient China for so many days. But according to his observation, there are many weird things in this world.
At first he thought he had returned to ancient times, but later he found out that was not the case.
The customs, festivals and climate here are far different from any other dynasty area he created.
While I was thinking about something, the door of the wine shop opened again.
A group of strong men in short-sleeved uniforms walked in one after another and found a table near the corner and sat down.
It was obvious at first glance that these strong men were not locals. They were dressed more like they came from the Central Plains area, and their clothing and temperament were not as rough and arrogant as those here in the North.
"well."
The strong man in front of him had a bald head, wore copper earrings, and had a sinewy face, but he was sighing at this time.
"This life is unbearable."
"Brother, what are you worried about? We can't get through Lijiacun. We can take the second road. It's also okay to go around Zhangcun."
The other man frowned.
"What do you know? When I came here to meet up, I walked through Zhang Village. The situation is similar to that in Lijia Village, where many people died."
The flesh on the bald face trembled, and his expression became even more sad.
"Brother, tell me what happened, and it will help us gain some insights." A man urged.
The bald man sighed again.
"I don't know the specific details. I just know that troubles have occurred in several fishing villages near Suiyang Lake. It seems that water ghosts are causing trouble."
"Water ghost!? Isn't it?"
Lu Sheng's table was not far from them, and they could hear their undisguised chat.
Originally, he was just listening and playing, but he didn't expect these people to actually talk about mysterious things.
In his current life, the Lu family was one of the largest families in Bingcheng in the North, and their wealth was still small.
To compare on earth, he is at least a wealthy person with assets of over 100 million.
In the past few days when he was out drinking, he also heard a lot of rumors about monsters and ghosts in the wine shop, but most of them were legends.
This is the first time that these people have had such a personal experience.
So Lu Sheng pricked up his ears and listened carefully.
Fortunately, those few people did not hide it and continued to chat loudly about the strange things in the fishing village.
"I saw that water ghost with my own eyes. It's more than a foot tall, has a green face and fangs, and is covered with a lot of water plants. Be good, if it weren't for your big brother, I can run fast, and you wouldn't be able to see me now."
Baldhead still has lingering fears.
"Brother, is there really such a thing as a water ghost?"
A man doesn't believe it.
"I'm afraid it's not a story you made up, brother?"
The other man chuckled.
Lu Sheng also felt funny when he heard this. He was probably just another braggart coming out of nowhere.
He has seen so many people like this during this time.
After eating and drinking, he asked the waiter to bring over the singer's playlist and browsed through it at will.
Although Sanhui Zhuan was good, it was not suitable for the occasion, so he planned to change it to a more cheerful one.
Snap!
But at this moment, the bald man blushed and slapped the table.
"Do you really think that I, Boss Hu, can only brag!? Look, look what this is! A bone that the water ghost dropped on the ground! I secretly picked it up afterwards!"
He carefully took out a jade-like green stone from his arms and slapped it on the table.
"Isn't this just a piece of jade!" A man laughed.
"Zayu? This is Zayu?! What the hell are you talking about!"
The bald man blushed.
"Brother, can you show me this thing?"
Suddenly a gentle voice came from the side.
Lu Sheng stood at the table with a smile on his face and glanced at the green jade on the table.
"You dare to ask for this thing? This is something left by the water ghost." The bald man said in surprise.
He just took it out to show off now, planning to throw it away soon.
After all, this is not a thing left behind by humans. If it really attracts water ghosts and causes trouble, it will really be more than worth the gain.
"It's okay. I'll just take a look." Lu Sheng didn't believe in water ghosts. He just saw that the jade looked good and didn't look like ordinary jade.
You should know that ordinary jade can be bought everywhere in shops and stalls. It is made from the scraps of jade that are randomly polished, and the price is extremely cheap.
But for some reason, when he saw this piece of jade, he felt something was wrong.
Boss Hu, a bald and muscular man, looked at Lu Sheng and saw that he had an extraordinary temperament and was dressed in an elegant manner.
He wears a blue robe with white fox fur, a green jade outer hat, and black-soled boots with moiré patterns embroidered with silver thread.
A complete outfit can be spent in Guihuafang for several months. It can even cover the living expenses of an ordinary family for more than a year.
"Young master, if you want it, it's not impossible. Well...just one tael of silver will do!" The strong man hesitated for a moment and then tried to speak.
"Okay." Lu Sheng asked Xiaoqiao to take out a tael of silver and put it on the table.
"This is yours." The bald man decisively picked up the jade and stuffed it into Lu Sheng's hand. They exchanged looks, got up and left.
Lu Sheng didn't say anything and watched the others leave. He held the jade in his hand and picked it up to look at it carefully.
"One tael of silver, if exchanged in China on Earth, would have a purchasing power equivalent to one thousand yuan. That means you can be so wealthy in this life."
He shook his head. One tael of silver was nothing to him. According to this body's memory, his monthly expenses on weekdays were at least a hundred taels of silver.
Occasionally, it may cost more than a thousand taels. That’s millions!
Thinking of this, he secretly thought of losing his fortune.
Holding the jade in hand, he ignored the gazes of the guests watching the excitement around him and left the wine shop with his feet small, heading towards the carriage waiting outside.
But as soon as he left the wine shop and was not halfway through, he was suddenly startled and picked up the jade and put it in the palm of his hand.
The jade stone actually melted in the palm of his hand, in the palm of his right hand.
The originally hard stone turned into a ball of dark green mucus in just a few seconds, and a faint scream could be heard from the mucus.
puff!
The entire mucus suddenly exploded and turned into a cloud of green smoke, which slowly floated away from Lu Sheng.
He stood there in astonishment, and when he glanced at it, he found that the jade stone was still in his hand, but the green color inside had quietly disappeared.
"That was just now..."
He stood in a daze, recalling the previous scenes for a while.
"Young Master? Young Master??"
Xiaoqiao kept calling him from the side.
Lu Sheng came to his senses and looked at the jade in his hand. It was just an ordinary pebble, not even jade.
He felt a little confused, but he vaguely understood something.
"Let's go back home!"
Xiaoqiao blinked her eyes, a little unresponsive.
"oh...."
The two got on the carriage, the driver picked up his whip and cracked it a few times, and the two black horses with long hair began to move slowly.
In the carriage, Lu Sheng said nothing and kept looking at the pebbles in his hand.
Xiaoqiao also discovered something strange about the stone at this time.
"I've been fooled again!" She muttered in her heart, and didn't say much. The eldest son was doing well this time. The biggest time he was deceived before was for a so-called antique wine flask, which cost him thousands of taels of silver.
, almost made the master angry to death.
This time it was only one tael of silver, and the young master sometimes spent more than this amount on a meal.
The carriage went all the way back home. When passing by the city gate, Lu Sheng heard someone shouting outside.
"...I heard before that the water ghosts were eliminated! A wandering Taoist took action to relieve the crisis in the fishing village!"
"Is there anyone from the imperial court?"
"I've been here for a long time. I heard that even Ouyang Shaotou of the prefect's office in the city was almost trapped. Fortunately, I met a wandering Taoist. It is said that as soon as the Taoist made a move, a golden light flashed, and the water ghost screamed and turned into a
Green slime, then exploded into thick smoke."
"Didn't a master from the imperial court do it?"
"Of course not!"
Lu Sheng heard that it was the officers guarding the city gate chatting.
He would often pass by this city gate on purpose. The officers and soldiers here were well-informed and liked to brag about strange things.
"It's a coincidence..." Lu Sheng's face remained calm.
He recalled the piece of jade from before, and his heart sank.
The carriage drove slowly towards the busiest Kurong Street in the city.