Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 20 So this is the signboard?
Xiao Ran looked at the amount of money that had arrived in his account, then looked at Uncle Li standing beside him.

He understood clearly what Lao Zhou said.

Translated, it means: "You are saved face by not breaking your promise. You are keeping the money to hide it and not share it with others. Be careful not to lose your job. You should give the money as much as you deserve. Whatever your employer gives you later is what you have earned."

Well, no wonder you don’t want to draw your head.

Seeing Xiao Ran looking at him with a strange look in his eyes, Uncle Li explained calmly, "I didn't tell you clearly before, 13,000 is the deposit, and this is the final payment, a total of 43,000, I won't take a cut this time."

"Uncle Li, you are so kind to me!"

Xiao Ran looked like he was moved.

In his heart, he was very grateful to Old Zhou at the door. He had no relationship with him at all, but the fact that he could help him was a big favor.

Xiao Ran kept this favor in mind and planned to repay it if she had the chance in the future.

As for Uncle Li.

Ah……

If I were an outsider who didn't understand Chundian and couldn't understand the conversation between the two, I would probably be confused and would attribute this favor to Uncle Li.

In the future, I might be sold out by Uncle Li, the middleman, and I would even help him count the money.

Uncle Li wanted to say a few more polite words, but he was stared at by Old Zhou, so even though he was thick-skinned, he was too embarrassed to respond to Xiao Ran.

"Stop wasting time. I'm almost off work. If there's nothing else to do, hurry up and pack up. Don't delay me from getting off work."

Old Zhou waved his hand, urging them to quickly put the body into the freezer.

"Is your skill so good? Is it a family inheritance?"

Old Zhou's niece followed behind, pulled Xiao Ran's sleeve, raised her head and extended her hand to Xiao Ran: "Hello, my name is Zhong Yi, Zhong as in bell, Yi as in wishful thinking."

"Xiao Ran."

Xiao Ran looked at the little hand Zhong Yi handed over and shook his head, "Sorry, I didn't wash my hands."

"I just crawled out of the morgue, same thing."

Zhong Yi smiled and took the initiative to step forward and hold Xiao Ran's hand, without any sign of avoidance or disgust.

This girl looks two years younger than Xiao Ran, but she has a very fierce temper. If other girls see the corpse, the timid ones may take a month to recover.

Instead, she took the initiative to move forward. There were actually quite a few girls in the funeral home, but this was the first time Xiao Ran had seen someone as bold as her.

"You have such good skills, why don't you come to the funeral home and work as a formal worker?"

"I own a shop outside, so part-time work is more suitable for me."

"What about you?"

"I'm studying forensic medicine and I'm here for a holiday internship. It's almost over."

Xiao Ran looked back at He Zhongyi in surprise: "A forensic doctor is here for internship?"

"Well, my senior thesis was about dead bodies, and where can there be more dead bodies than in a funeral home?"

Both of them were young people with similar professions, so they were not shy about chatting. After sending Guo Lingfei's body into the cold storage, they left each other their contact information, and Xiao Ran followed Uncle Li out of the morgue first.

Walk out of the morgue and follow the forest path towards the funeral home gate.

On the way, neither Uncle Li nor Xiao Ran spoke. Xiao Ran was fiddling with something on his cell phone in one hand. Uncle Li glanced at him from time to time, and no one knew what he was thinking. Just looking at his expression, it seemed that he wanted to say something, but he couldn't open his mouth several times.

"Ding, 12,900 yuan has been deposited."

At this time, it was Uncle Li who received the notification of the arrival of the money. He picked it up and took a look. The corners of his mouth could not help but rise: "Hey, Xiao Ran, you are too polite. I said I don't want to take a cut of this order."

Although he said that, he couldn't suppress the joy on his face.

"Rules are rules. In our line of work, we must abide by the rules."

Xiao Ran narrowed his eyes and stared at Uncle Li: "I'm afraid that some people will forget the rules because of personal connections, right Uncle Li?"

"Yes, yes, that's the kind of people I hate the most."

Uncle Li nodded with a smile, but as he was smiling, he suddenly couldn't laugh anymore. He glanced at Xiao Ran with a sidelong glance, and suddenly felt a little uneasy in his heart.

"Uncle Li, it's getting late. I'll treat you to dinner next time."

Xiao Ran waved his hand, scanned a shared bicycle, and rode slowly away into the night.

Return to the store.

Just opened the rolling door.

Before I could even enter the house, I heard someone calling me from behind.

“Xiao Ran!!”

Xiao Ran looked back and saw a bald uncle riding an electric bike parked in front of his store.

"Brother Xiaoran!"

A little head popped out from behind the electric bike. It was a girl of about seven or eight years old, with two buns tied on her head. Her round apple face, with two missing big front teeth, showed to Xiao Ran.

"Brother, do you want a lollipop? It's delicious, strawberry flavored."

The girl took out a lollipop from her pocket and handed it to Xiao Ran.

"Hahaha, Xiaoqi has gained weight again. Don't eat so much candy, or you'll get tooth decay."

"I'm not afraid. I can get new teeth anyway."

Xiao Qi raised his head proudly and handed the lollipop in his hand to Xiao Ran.

Xiao Ran took it and said, "Thank you. I'll buy you something delicious next time."

After saying that, Xiao Ran put away his smile and looked at the bald man in front of him; "Uncle, do you want to talk to me about something?"

It is said that competitors are enemies, and the bald man in front of me is one of them.

The bald man is a colleague of his who also runs a funeral supplies store across the street.

It may just be because it is more convenient there, and the business with customers is much better than that here.

"Recently, there has been a severe shortage of goods. I have some goods here, but I can't wholesale them for the time being. I'm looking for you to transfer the goods."

"How much?"

"Here, that's about it. As usual, I'll take one out of ten."

The rule for transferring goods among peers is that it is impossible to give the price based on the purchase price, and Xiao Ran himself also has to take a certain commission.

That is, if an item costs 100 yuan, Xiao Ran sells it to him for 110 yuan, and he sells it to the customer for 120 yuan.

This kind of thing is very common among peers.

Xiao Ran picked up the list and looked through it. There were all the items, not too many. "Yes, wait a minute and I'll get them for you."

As she spoke, Xiao Ran walked into the store, and after a while she came out carrying two large black plastic bags and handed the contents of the bags to the man.

"345 in total."

After saying that, Xiao Ran glanced at the lollipop in her hand and said, "Come on, just give me 340, and I'll use the remaining amount as collateral with this lollipop." "Hahaha, fine, fine, my daughter is still the one who has face."

The man was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling. When he came here, he was worried that Xiao Ran would not be willing to help him adjust the goods.

"Brother, next time you come, I'll give you a discount too."

Xiao Qi's eyes turned into crescent shapes and she said to Xiao Ran with a smile.

"That's called 'zhé', a polyphonetic character!!" Xiao Ran corrected with a grin. In fact, he didn't have a good impression of the bald man, but he liked Xiao Qi very much. He remembered that the first time they met was in the wholesale market.

The seven-year-old Xiaoqi dragged his younger brother to bargain in front of the vendor, just to save one dollar and buy an extra candy for his younger brother.

At that time, Xiao Ran felt that this girl was particularly attractive, so he suggested that he buy it for her. As a result, the little girl turned around and took her brother away, saying, "I have my own pocket money, I can't take other people's things."

When we met again later, I found out that this little girl was the daughter of the Jixiang Funeral Shop in the back street.

Although the two families were in the same business, they didn't get to the point of being jealous of each other when they met. Xiao Ran often passed by there, and after a while, the kid remembered him.

So even though Xiao Ran didn't like the bald man, he was still willing to give Xiao Qi some face.

"Oh!" Xiao Qi nodded his head, remembering the word firmly so as not to make the mistake next time.

I can only say that it’s hard to say whether someone has good eye contact or not!

"Okay, I'll go back first. Come to my house for dinner when you have time." The bald man said the standard Chinese polite words, and then rode back on his electric bike.

Xiao Ran shook her head, walked back home, sat at the counter and began to think about Guo Lingfei.

"Cursed objects, curse patterns, these things are a bit beyond the ordinary. What if someone uses this method against me in the future?"

"It may be necessary to restrict the other party to kill Guo Lingfei, but some abilities do not require it. For example, who would have thought that those gold bars could actually suppress a person so that he could not move?"

Xiao Ran was thinking about the old lady's methods in this mystery city trial, which was really hard to guard against.

After all, no normal person would be on guard against the glittering gold.

"Well...what if I meet him again next time?"

Thinking of this, Xiao Ran frowned slightly, and suddenly felt an uneasy sense of crisis in his heart.

So he got up and walked to the front of the store, closed the rolling door, and instead of going upstairs, opened the door to the backyard.

I saw that the backyard was very messy, with leaves everywhere. In the center of the yard there was a big tree with lush branches and leaves, which cast the entire yard in shadow. There was also an old house further back.

The door was locked and even the windows were sealed.

Xiao Ran took out the key from the iron can beside him and opened the door carefully.

"Om..."

As the door opened, a faint light shone in through the crack in the door. The room was fully furnished with tables, chairs and benches.

"Looking back at the prosperity, it seems like a fleeting dream, and the remaining life is left to the raging waves..."

Before entering the house, he heard the sound of opera singing coming from the TV. Xiao Ran closed the door, stood at the door for a while to adjust to the light, and then said, "Grandpa, I have a problem."

“Everyone is troubled.”

An old man walked slowly past Xiao Ran behind him, sat on a rocking chair, and when he tapped his feet, the chair began to rock. He squinted his eyes and listened to the song "The Peony Pavilion" on TV, looking intoxicated and fascinated.

After a moment, he said, "Tell me, what's the trouble?"

"I..." Xiao Ran organized his words, "I'm worried that someone will cast a curse on me, so...is there any way to hide my horoscope and help me avoid disaster?"

If an ordinary family member said this, they would probably say that he was crazy.

However, the old man just opened his eyelids, glanced at Xiao Ran, shook his head and said, "I can't do this."

"That's why I came to you for advice. I'm worried that someone might get my horoscope and do something bad to me."

After all, this is the information age, and hospital files, police station information, and even bank, insurance, student records, etc. all contain relevant information.

If the other party really wants to kill you, there is no guarantee that he will find out your fortune from other channels, especially if he is very rich. In short, it is best to have an extra layer of insurance, even if it may not be used.

The old man tapped his feet and rocked in the rocking chair, as if he was asleep. Xiao Ran was not in a hurry, so he just stood aside and waited. After a while, he heard the old man slowly say, "Go find Paper Man Zhou. Their family can do this, but I can't."

Paper figures are everywhere, percussion instruments are loud, but when the suona sounds, all the parents’ raising of me has been in vain.

If the elderly people are old, they will recite this sentence.

These two companies were the big names that controlled the funeral industry back then.

Although this industry is inconspicuous and even a bit unlucky, the huge profits here are no less than those of the gangs that relied on collecting night incense in the past.

But now it has long been eliminated from the stage of history.

"Okay, by the way, Grandpa has one more thing. What is this thing?"

Xiao Ran took out the [Evil-Suppressing Order] and put it in his hand to show the old man.

The old man was stunned when he saw the rusty iron plate. "Why did you bring this thing back?"

"I just swept it out while cleaning."

The old man looked at the iron plate with disdain, but after thinking for a while he said, "Forget it, let's find a place to put it. It's not a valuable antique. In the past, we were not allowed to hang signs in our business, so we hung this sign at the door. When people who know us see this sign, they will know what our family does."

"So... this thing is actually our family's signature?"

Xiao Ran felt a little disappointed as he weighed the [Evil-Suppressing Order] in his hand. He thought it was some kind of extraordinary heirloom, but he didn't expect its origin to be so simple.

Seeing his disappointed expression, the old man mistakenly thought that Xiao Ran thought it was an antique, and immediately grinned and comforted him:
"Almost. This thing has been around since my grandfather started his career. Without this badge, you are not an officially recognized corpse sewist. If you sew corpses privately and are caught by the government, you will be exiled at the least and beheaded at the worst. Since ancient times, dynasties have changed, but badges have not changed. So if you say this thing is an antique, it's not bad, but I'm afraid no one will buy it."

"I wouldn't want to sell it even if someone wants it."

Xiao Ran thought to himself that he was able to survive until now only thanks to this brand, so how could he possibly sell it.

Putting away the [Evil Suppression Order], Xiao Ran changed the subject: "By the way, I will go to the Zhou family. Why should the Zhou family help me? Do we have a relationship with them?"

"No, look at the goods in the shop, I didn't even take them from them, so how can we have a friendship?" The old man snorted coldly, as if he was not very fond of the Zhou family.

"So they... owe us money?"

After Xiao Ran finished speaking, he found it a little funny.

Although the Zhou family has long lost its former glory, a lean camel is still bigger than a horse. When it comes to money, they are much richer than them.

Sure enough, the old man rolled his eyes at him and shook his head, saying, "We don't owe any money." He then closed his eyes and said, "But the Zhou family owes our family a favor. It seems to have happened more than 20 years ago."

Xiao Ran's face fell when he heard this, and he stared at the old man: "Are you serious?"

Xiao Ran had no idea where the old man got so much confidence from. He didn't even have any friendship with the old man, so would it really work if he just relied on one favor?

What's more, even if there are favors, it is a matter of their generation. If the Zhou family refuses to acknowledge it, I can't just sit there and act like a rogue.

Originally, Xiao Ran wanted to ask for clarification, but seeing the old man's expression, with his eyes closed, rocking in the chair, listening to the sound from the TV, and shaking his head, Xiao Ran knew it was useless to ask, so he turned around and walked out the door.

"Om..."

The door opened, and the sunlight from outside shone in through the crack in the door, reflecting in the room. The song on the TV in the room seemed to have reached its end, and the empty rocking chair gradually stopped rocking...

(End of this chapter)