Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 530: Strange Talk Tea Array
The Minjiang River has waves at the beginning, and the Tuojiang River has sand in the night tide.

This doesn't sound like underworld jargon. Xiao Ran was also stunned when he heard it. As for Xu Yan and Wenwen, they were even more confused.

Fortunately, Xiao Ran was an old hand in this world. After thinking about it for a while, he guessed that this should be the jargon popular in this teahouse. After thinking about it carefully, he roughly understood what it meant.

The so-called underworld jargon is always the same in essence. Except for the jargon of a few specific professions which is difficult to understand, the others are metaphors based on their appearance.

Minjiang River The Minjiang River has been regarded as the main source of the Yangtze River since ancient times, and it is also the first wave. Combined with the sign outside the teahouse, it is clearly asking you whether you are here to inquire about the news.

Now that you understand the first sentence, the meaning of the second sentence is self-evident.

Trying to understand the mystery, Xiao Ran said calmly: "Stand on the mountain and watch the river waves, stand by the water and see the tide sand!" I have both, and I will accept everyone!
The waiter immediately understood what was said and took Xiao Ran inside, finding a seat near the corner for the three of them.

After sitting down, without waiting for the waiter to ask what to drink, Xiao Ran said, "Green mountains and white water."

The waiter glanced at the three coins in his pocket, a smile spread across his face, and he took off the rag in his hand and wiped the table a few times: "Wait a moment, everyone. I'll be right there."

Then he stood up and shouted to the hall behind him: "The green mountains are stacked with thousands of peaks, the white water flows through thousands of valleys, bring me tea~~"

Only after the waiter left did Xu Yan ask in a low voice, "Brother Xiao, what does this mean?"

"It means boiled water." Xiao Ran explained.

The so-called green mountains and white water means that you can see the bottom at a glance.

When traveling outside, and in a place like this, Xiao Ran wouldn't dare to drink any tea, so he just asked the waiter to bring him boiled water.

After hearing Xiao Ran's explanation, Xu Yan couldn't help scratching his head: "Boiled water is just boiled water, why do you have to shout about it so... poetically, with green mountains and flowing water? I thought he had joined some poetry club."

Xiao Ran smiled and said, "Every industry has its own rules. Business cannot be done without shouting, but there are rules for shouting. You can't just shout whatever you want."

Imagine if the waiter had just called out, "Boiled water for the table, tea."

It's not nice to shout.

After all, a teahouse sells tea. If people come and don't drink your tea but drink plain water, you're damaging your own brand.

Secondly, when customers come to a teahouse, they want to save both their reputation and their money. If the customer is simply asked for boiled water, the customer will lose face. If the customer is a difficult one, the waiter’s life may be in danger.

So there is a skill to shouting, and both the substance and the appearance are equally important.

After saying that, Xiao Ran looked around. There were six or seven tables around, with three or two people sitting at each table.

There was another floor above, and there was an unknown number of people sitting there, looking towards the three of them from time to time.

Since this place is a market for evil spirits, this teahouse is naturally more than just a place for people to drink tea and rest.

From what the waiter said just now, Xiao Ran guessed that this place was most likely a market, but unlike the stalls outside, the things sold here were probably more valuable, and of course there were probably more tricks.

After a while, the waiter came over with the teapot and put down the teacup.

The teapot stands in the middle, but there are four teacups.

Xu Yan looked at the four teacups and his expression changed. He seemed to recognize something, but the waiter was not willing to say it out loud.

In fact, there is no need to say anything about Xu Yan.

After the waiter put the teacups in a row on the table and put a copper coin in the last teacup.

Xiao Ran and the other two received a reminder of the side quest.

"Trigger side quest 2, tea-fighting!"

Task description: Please follow the teahouse rules and complete the tea-fighting contest. After each tea-fighting contest, regardless of success or failure, you must drink a cup of tea.

Failure in the tea contest: There will be a strange curse in the tea.

If the tea contest is successful, there will be a strange blessing in the tea.

Until the last copper coin in the cup of tea was spit out, the tea became cold and the formation was successfully broken!

Mission Reward: D-level Cursed Item
Failure penalty: ? ?

Looking at the side quest that appeared before them, Xiao Ran and the other two looked at each other.

"Brother Xiao, I do know a little about the tea formation, how about I give it a try?"

Xu Yan looked at the four cups of tea on the table, raised his head and said to Xiao Ran.

"You also know about tea formations?"

"Well, as for the culture here in Sichuan, even if I am not from the martial arts world, I have heard about some of the tricks from others."

This tea formation became popular in Bashu because the Bashu Paoge Society was extremely powerful in Bashu.

Everyone is from different gangs and is not familiar with each other. Sometimes when you need help or ask for directions, you can't just walk into a teahouse and shout, "Brothers from the Pao Ge Society, come."

This kind of person is either a fool or is just waiting to be stabbed when he goes out.

So when entering a teahouse and wanting to find someone, the first thing they would do is set up the tea array, and the Pao Ge Society had as many as forty-three kinds of tea arrays.

Although Xu Yan didn't know the underworld jargon, he did know something about the Pao brothers' tea formation. How could Xu Yan be timid when the time came to demonstrate his value?

Xiao Ran just waved his hand: "Don't be anxious! Take it one step at a time, why are you in such a hurry?"

It would be fine if it was just an ordinary tea array, but I’m afraid this tea array is extraordinary.

After Xiao Ran finished speaking, he looked at Wenwen; "Your name is Wenwen, right? Are you locals?" Wenwen shook her head: "He Jun and I are from Nantong. We came here to study. We said we were going to Foshan together this morning. We were waiting for a bus nearby, but ended up coming to this place without knowing what was going on."

"Oh, you are from Jiangsu." Xu Yan suddenly realized, "No wonder you are so small."

“Jiangsu is Jiangsu, and Nantong is Nantong.”

Wenwen spoke up to remind her.

"Oh, oh." Xu Yan didn't understand why it had to be divided so detailed, but he was too lazy to ask more.

"Can we still get out of this place?"

Wenwen looked around, her eyes full of uneasiness, especially on the second floor, where she felt a strong sense of being watched from time to time.

The desire in his eyes was scanned over her without any concealment, and every time he glanced at her, she felt as if she was being stripped naked by the eyes.

Wenwen is different from He Jun. She is not interested in places like the Lost City at all. She even thinks that such places should be as far away from her as possible and should not have anything to do with her.

I just never expected that one day I would actually come in.

Wenwen doesn’t know much about the Lost City, and now she just wants to leave as soon as possible.

"You can go out, but you should have seen the mission instructions. Completing the mission is a prerequisite for leaving."

"so……"

Wenwen lowered her head. Although she wanted to leave immediately, she knew that this task might not be so easy to accomplish.

After all, He Jun’s previous experience is obvious to all.

The three of them sat at the table and chatted for a while.

Xiao Ran took advantage of this gap to think about it and felt that this maze city was not big, or to put it another way, compared with the maze cities he had encountered before, it was pitifully small.

The only trouble is that this place is full of traps and weird rules.

At this time, an old man came down from upstairs. He was covered in sacks, and each of the sacks on his body was bulging.

Walking downstairs, the old man tilted his head to glance at Xiao Ran, then turned and sat down at another table.

He glanced at the tea arrangement on the table and smiled contemptuously: "You are brave to attend the meeting alone!"

The guest at this table was a middle-aged man wearing a blue gown, a braid on his head, a pale face, and a bowler hat on his head.

Xiao Ran took a glance and found that the corpse aura on this person was very strong, even stronger than his own. With such a strong corpse aura, it was clearly not a living person. He might be a zombie.

The middle-aged man clasped his fists towards the old man and said, "Please ask for medicine and a prescription that can cure my aging disease."

The old man said nothing when he heard this. He just waved his hand and three cups fell on the table. The three cups were stacked in the shape of a V, with a piece of paper underneath the cups.

"The good remedy is there, and you can get it based on your ability."

He said this and made a please gesture.

"The Three Talents Formation."

Xu Yan watched the old man set up the tea formation and explained to Xiao Ran: "This formation is actually very simple. Drink first... Hey!!"

Xu Yan was halfway through his words when he realized that this formation seemed different.

I saw a dark green liquid oozing out of the upper cup, a black mist pouring out of the left cup, and only the right cup was empty.

The middle-aged man frowned upon seeing this, then stood up suddenly as if he had made up his mind, unbuttoned his clothes to reveal his blue-gray chest, pulled out a jade knife from his waist, stabbed it into his chest, and slashed it with force!
Wenwen, who was standing by, immediately turned her head away and didn't dare to look.

But the middle-aged man remained calm. He opened his chest, took out a drop of bright red blood from it, and then flicked it into the empty cup.

Fresh blood fell into it, and suddenly there was a flash of blood, which attracted the attention of everyone around, and even surprised voices were heard from the second floor.

"Zombie blood, there really is such a thing, a rare treasure, nine bags, I'm afraid you're in trouble this time."

"Hahahaha..." A baby's silly laughter came from upstairs. The sound was cheerful, but it was extremely torturous to the ears.

Xu Yan's head was buzzing, but he could still bear it. But Wenwen beside him couldn't stand it anymore and covered her head. She felt her chest was churning and her vision was black.

Seeing this, Xiao Ran frowned, quickly took out a Yin banknote from the space, folded it a few times, made a not-so-good-looking paper flower, rubbed it with his fingers, split it into two, and put it on the chest of Xu Yan and Wenwen with his backhand.

I saw the paper flower slightly open, and a ray of faint light lit up from inside.

This is exactly the magic technique [Paper Flower Heart Lantern] in Zhoujiadu Lingjing.

Just like the Half-Men Yin-Yang in his own Record of the Exorcist, both are techniques used to save lives.

It's just that half of the Yin-Yang technique relies on pretending to be dead. This technique uses one's own energy and spirit to ignite paper flowers, and through the blessing of Yin banknotes, one can protect oneself. The larger the amount of Yin banknotes, the better the effect.

Xiao Ran's methods naturally attracted the attention of some people in the dark to look over here, and the strange laughter gradually faded away at this time.

The old man called Jiubao snorted coldly: "It's still uncertain who will win or lose!"

He tapped the table with his fingers.

With two "bangs", the positions of the three cups of tea in front of me quickly turned upside down. Then one split into two, two split into three, and in a blink of an eye, a six-layer tea tower was formed standing on the table.

The old man smiled evilly and pointed at the teacup with the prescription on top. "One gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives birth to each other. Even a flying zombie like you probably can't bear the weight of this cup of tea..."

(End of this chapter)