Welcome to the Bizarre Games

Chapter 378 Opening the Port
Travel around here.

After slapping the man so hard that even his own mother didn't recognize him, Uncle Chen finally remembered that he should properly thank his savior.

They really didn't have any money; they searched the entire village and couldn't even scrape together half a tael of silver. But then he suddenly remembered what Zhou You had said before.

—I want to buy some food.

So soon, Chen Bowei, with trembling hands, found the last bit of millet stored in the village and stuffed it into the hand with heartfelt sincerity.

"Sir, look at this."

However, Zhou You simply shook his head and quietly retreated.

"Forget it, I was just mentioning it casually back then. Since you don't have much food left either, consider this my help for nothing."

In this day and age, are there still good people like this?

Uncle Chen still couldn't believe it, but after he stammered and handed it over several more times, he finally understood.

—This person definitely doesn't want it.

But while Uncle Chen was in a daze, Zhou You suddenly spoke up again.

"But there's something else I need your help with, sir."

Uncle Chen said hastily.

"Sir, please speak!"

Zhou You frowned, revealing a troubled expression for the first time, and then spoke.

"Excuse me, sir, do you know where this place, Bei'an City, is?"

Old Man Li had previously instructed him to meet at the Ghost Market in Beian City. The name of the place seemed normal and nothing special, but the frustrating thing was that he had inquired all the way and no one had ever heard of such a city.

He had considered whether he had been transported too far by the Yin Road, making it impossible for him to reach this place. But the problem was that he was still clearly in the North. If Old Man Li wanted to set a meeting point, he couldn't possibly set it in the Jiangnan water towns, which were hundreds of thousands of miles away, could he?

Unfortunately, as expected, Uncle Chen also looked bewildered.

"I've lived in this area for decades, and I traveled to many places when I was conscripted as a laborer, but I've never heard of any Mr. Bei'an City. Could you have misremembered his name?"

Zhou You gently shook his head at the question.

That's unlikely. Although Old Man Li is unreliable, he's unlikely to be wrong about this crucial point.

Seeing that this person also didn't know the answer, Zhou You could only sigh, cup his hands in greeting, and was about to go into the house to clean up the mess—but soon, another voice came from the side.

"Young man, why are you looking for Beian City?"

Turning around, I saw that it was the middle-aged man from the caravan who spoke.

This person appeared unexpectedly beside me, startling me—but his expression was very friendly, with that characteristic ingratiating quality of a businessman.

"Why are you asking this, my friend?"

The middle-aged man laughed.

"It's nothing, young man. You probably don't know the specifics of this place, do you?"

"I really don't know."

The middle-aged man coughed lightly, then continued.

"Beian City isn't actually a fixed place name. It's a location that's randomly chosen each time the Ghost Market is held. After all, Ghost Markets are something that can't be done in the light of day, so it's not fixed each time, just to prevent people from being wiped out in one fell swoop. So if you want to find it, just asking around won't help."

Zhou You looked at the middle-aged man for a while before speaking.

"Please enlighten me, brother."

"It's very simple. Just find the chamber of commerce in charge. I remember that the one leading this time is the Qu family of the Eight Great Families, right? They have a branch in Tonggang. If you want to inquire, you can go and ask them."

Immediately, his tone changed.

"But as you know, they certainly won't easily give you information from a complete stranger—luckily, I have some connections with the Qu family, so I can introduce you to that shopkeeper."

Zhou You pondered for a long time.

But in the end, unexpectedly, he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I appreciate your kindness, but I'm not used to traveling with other people. So I'll just go and ask myself."

The reason for the refusal is quite simple.

—That's too suspicious.

The saying goes, "If someone offers help for no reason, they're either up to no good or a thief." The timing of this middle-aged man's approach was far too coincidental.

And the main thing is.

Even if Zhou You had never met them, he had heard of the Eight Great Merchants of Shanxi. They were all renowned and each one of them was a force to be reckoned with, capable of shaking the entire Qing Dynasty's commercial sector. How could an ordinary merchant like him possibly know any of these eight great families?
Since his identity as the chosen one couldn't be revealed, it was better to be safe and handle it himself.

The middle-aged man was also taken aback, seemingly not expecting this answer at all, but a smile quickly appeared on his face.

"It's alright, it's alright. After all, the world is not peaceful. I just wanted to borrow your help, young brother, so that I wouldn't suffer an accident like this time. By the way, since you're not willing to come with me, young brother, take this first."

The middle-aged man reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card.

This is quite a rare find.

In later times, this might not be a big deal; you could easily find a stationery store and print a bunch for ten yuan. But this is the Qing Dynasty, and the Empress Dowager was known for disliking foreign things, so something like this was indeed rare.

And most importantly, this is something that cannot be obtained through trade.

Is this guy just carefree and doesn't care at all, or is he doing this on purpose?

Zhou You glanced at the middle-aged man, took it, and then casually glanced at it.

Unlike modern brightly colored products, this thing is just white with black lettering, and has a few extremely simple characters written on it.

Feng Qianlin, courtesy name Shangjun.

That was all. There was no identification, name card, or position written on it; only a name and a courtesy name.

Seeing Zhou You's puzzled look, the middle-aged man smiled and said again.

"When the old manager of the Qu family sees this, he will know that you were introduced by me, and he will definitely help you in the future. I won't say anything more, I just wish you a safe journey, young man."

After saying that, the middle-aged man didn't say anything more and turned to call his companion—this man was actually disregarding the fact that it was already late at night and planned to travel through the night to leave this place.

Chen Bo, who was standing nearby, didn't recognize any of these things, let alone the Eight Great Families. He just watched the departing figure, scratched his head, and muttered to himself.

"That's strange. When the evil spirits were causing trouble, these guys were willing to risk being eaten rather than leave. Now that the evil spirits have been eliminated, they're in a hurry to get going. I don't know what they're thinking."

Zhou You gently rubbed the words on the business card with his thumb. After a while, he smiled, then turned and left in the opposite direction.

The next day.

The so-called Tonggang actually dates back to a little over a hundred years ago. It was just an ordinary fishing village where the villagers made a living by fishing. They rarely saw cargo ships – people usually headed straight for Quanzhou Port and Guangzhou Port. However, after the Empress Dowager issued the sea ban, she inexplicably chose this as one of the three designated ports for foreign trade, instead of those major ports.

Although those foreign devils had no choice, they couldn't bear to give up such a large dumping ground for goods from the Qing Dynasty, so they had no choice but to accept it. They then spent a lot of money to level the fishing village and build a city on top of it.

Of course, the Qing Dynasty wouldn't spend a single penny; at most, it would demarcate the entire port as a concession for those foreign devils to do business.

This is the origin of the port opening.

Zhou You was standing on the street at that moment, looking completely bewildered.

Thanks to sea transport and cheap food from abroad, this place was not like the places he had passed through before, where starvation was rampant.

But the problem is
Abstraction is manifested in another aspect.

The entire city was shrouded in smoke, making one almost mistake it for 18th-century London, the Foggy City, instead of China!
Moreover, this haze is not a byproduct of industry—in fact, Zhou You has never seen a factory since he transmigrated—but is generated by people smoking all over the streets.

To put it more simply...

In this city, from eighty-year-old men to clueless children, almost everyone is smoking opium!

Basically, there was an opium den every three steps and a drug den every ten steps. The unique smell of opium lingered around his nose and even made Zhou You feel somewhat dazed.

—No, I'm sworn enemies with gambling and drugs. Don't fucking get addicted to opium before you've even finished your mission.

He used the Jing Shen Food Potion to barely filter out the smoke, but then he immediately felt a sense of unease.

Also, I am absolutely certain that the time I traveled to is after the Opium War, after the Taiping Rebellion was over. Where did all these drug addicts come from?
I randomly grabbed a vendor selling opium and asked him. This guy was clearly high on drugs, staring blankly at me as he stammered out his answer.

"The Opium War? What nonsense are you talking about? This opium is a commodity personally approved by the Empress Dowager. It's said that inhaling it prolongs life and smoking it brings good fortune and health. Want some?"

—Thank you, no thanks, you can get lost now.

Zhou You rolled his eyes, tossed the shop owner aside, and then fell into a deeper state of contemplation.

As far as he knew, the land of the Qing Dynasty was now divided into two extremes. One was extreme poverty and hardship. The Dingwu Famine seemed to have lasted much longer than he remembered, resulting in starving people everywhere in the affected areas. The other was a relatively wealthy place like Tonggang. According to them, such cities were basically rife with opium, and every day several people were dragged out of the city just for smoking to death.

so.

Zhou You scratched his head.

What exactly is this old lady trying to do?
In Zhou You's view, the entire Qing Dynasty was now in a state of complete neglect. Aside from the Taiping Rebellion, the crucial wars of the late Qing period were indeed missed, but correspondingly, the central government gradually lost control over the local areas.

To put it more simply, the Qing Dynasty is now a nominal ruler. Although the provinces and regions are still accepting the Qing Dynasty's administration out of inertia, in reality, if there is even the slightest spark, the Qing Dynasty would probably collapse more than a decade earlier.

However, after racking his brains for a long time, he still couldn't figure it out—the final bosses of the dungeons he had experienced were all incredibly abstract, how could he possibly deduce the thoughts of these lunatics—so he could only sigh and walk towards the other side.

Should we go find the Qu family first?
No, we should eat first.

It's the dead of winter now, and although he has some survival skills, he's not Bear Grylls or Ed Stafford. In this kind of weather, prey is becoming increasingly scarce, and the only food he's caught in the past few days is a rabbit.

Moreover, it was a rabbit that was clearly malnourished, so thin that it was just skin and bones.

Although this port has only been built for a few years, it covers a considerable area. While there are an absurd number of opium dens, there is no shortage of restaurants.
However, Zhou You was not in a hurry to find a place.

It's normal for people to eat, and it's normal to pay for food, but unfortunately...
He had no money.

Normally speaking, given his status as a funeral director, he shouldn't be short of money. Nowadays, there are many deaths, ghosts, famine, and plague. If Zhou You wanted to, he could work non-stop all day and make a fortune.

However, he is a man who can't stand the poor, and usually only accepts an egg as a reward for helping with funerals. Secondly, he now seriously suspects that he himself has been cursed.

—The five deficiencies and three lacks that Old Man Li mentioned back then were probably not self-selected, but completely random.

Zhou You feels his luck with money has plummeted. He struggles to earn a little, only to be met with people selling their children and needing his help, or he manages to get the money, only to lose it all as soon as he sells it.
In short, he's penniless right now. He has absolutely no money to eat out.

Fortunately, this also triggered a bottoming-out mechanism.

The curse of severing evil will not work in cases where the person is about to starve to death.

The person strolled around and found a restaurant that looked popular, suggesting they probably wouldn't haggle over a meal. Seeing that no one was around, they sneaked into the kitchen, skewered two steamed buns with chopsticks, picked up a plate of half-eaten salted fish that someone had left behind, and then found a dark corner where they wouldn't be easily spotted to start eating their lunch.

"(Swallows) ...I think I'm currently suffering from a lack of money. This inexplicable constant lack of money is probably a manifestation of that. The remaining issues are the fate of being widowed, orphaned, and alone."

Zhou You counted on his fingers, then sighed.

"I don't care about power, since I'm not planning on taking the civil service exam anyway. But I don't want any of the other options. No, wait, it seems like I'm a good candidate. My parents died when I was young, but I don't know if that still counts since it's already happened."

But just then, an angry shout rang out.

"Hey, what are you doing here!"

Zhou You's first thought was that he had been caught stealing food, and he was about to grab the food and make a quick getaway when he realized that the voice was not coming from behind him, nor was it even directed at him, but rather from an argument that had started in the front hall.

Seriously? There's drama involved in stealing a meal?
The person initially didn't want to get involved, since it was a rare treat during this period, but the noise grew increasingly intense, and in the end, they had no choice but to helplessly put down their bowl and chopsticks.

Seeing that no one was around, he groped his way out, then leaned against a shady spot and peered out.

Sure enough, a fierce curse erupted not far away.

But only one side of the dispute was a Chinese person with black hair and black eyes, while the other side...
He's a foreign devil.

(End of this chapter)