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墨書 Inktalez
The drinking session lasted until after ten o'clock at night. After I sent Zhou Shu downstairs, I quickly tidied up the place and planned to go to bed. Tomorrow is my first market day, and if I don't get enough rest, how can I attract customers?
A little tipsy, I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.
Wait? Why is it getting colder? I curled up under the covers, yet still felt cold. Although I was drowsy and reluctant to wake up, my mind was racing. It wasn't just the chill of early winter; even in the depths of winter, I've never been afraid of the cold. Besides, I had drunk alcohol last night—why was I feeling so cold?
Suddenly, I opened my eyes wide; something was off!
Through the window, a faint light illuminated the room, revealing a thin layer of white frost covering everything. Under the light, it shimmered with an eerie brilliance.
In a rented room like this, where could such resentment come from? It had actually condensed into Hun Shuang.
No wonder a person like me, who usually doesn’t feel cold even after drinking strong liquor, was jolted awake. I reached out to touch Fo Zhang beside me and felt the warmth radiating from him. Only then did I feel reassured enough to sit cross-legged on the bed and began reciting Buddhist Scriptures.
Since this Gui Wu hadn’t shown itself and didn’t seem intent on harming me—only trying to drive me away with this Hun Shuang—I felt puzzled.
This was Zhou Shu's son's room, and given Zhou Shu's strange behavior today, something just didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
But that’s just who I am; I’m persistent and love to get to the bottom of things.
As I recited the Buddhist Scriptures, they transformed into symbols that gradually caused the white frost in the room to recede at a visible pace, like water retreating from the shore.
I watched as all the Hun Shuang retreated to the wall on my right side before disappearing completely.
I spoke into the air, “Considering you haven’t harmed anyone, I’ll let you off this time. But if there’s a next time, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
In the dark room, there was nothing but the echo of my own voice. I glanced at the time; it was two forty-four in the morning. After finishing, I lay back down on the bed. There were still several hours until dawn, and I needed to catch up on some sleep. Otherwise, I would end up going out with two panda eyes to read fortunes, and no one would believe me.
"Dinglingling..."
I reached over to turn off the alarm clock by the bedside and sprang up from the bed like a carp leaping out of water. The sunlight outside was as warm as spring.
I took a basin and headed to the corner of the stairs to wash up. My room was on the far west side, while the washbasin was at the far east, so I had to pass by the doors of four other households.
The door next to mine was tightly shut; they probably hadn’t woken up yet. Then there was a young couple with a child who had rented two rooms and turned them into a suite. The farthest east was a bespectacled gentleman, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. I smiled politely at everyone as a greeting.
The young couple and the bespectacled man looked at me as if they had seen a ghost, their expressions filled with panic as they returned my smile before hurriedly retreating to their rooms. With a loud "bang," they slammed their doors shut, as if fearing I would devour them at any moment.
I shook my head in resignation. Could it be that I was too handsome and scared them?
After washing up and getting ready, I grabbed my breakfast items, which consisted of just a Ma Zha and a Bagua Diagram. When I went downstairs, I initially wanted to greet Zhou Shu, but seeing his door tightly locked and the Shaobing cart missing from the yard, it seemed he had gone off to do business.
As I stepped out of the courtyard, I looked up and caught sight of my neighbors peeking at me from behind the railing on the upper floor.
"Someone actually dares to live in that house?"
"Salty Eating Radish, Light Worry; why bother with so much?"
I shook my head. They probably knew a thing or two about what had happened last night and were just curious about how I could spend a night there without any issues.
The train station in H City, located in the northern part of the urban area, serves as a major transportation hub for the central region. The flow of people at the station is quite substantial. As I watched the crowd coming and going, I calculated that if out of a thousand people, ten asked about my services and one paid, then by the end of the year, I would...
I knew that setting up a stall in front of the train station was not allowed. So, I found a ramen shop next to the station and set up my Bagua Diagram under a large tree across from it. With a calm demeanor, I sat on my mat and closed my eyes, waiting for business to come.
Feeling that the Bagua Diagram wasn't prominent enough to highlight my services, I wrote two phrases beside it. On the left side, I wrote: "Exorcise Evil Spirits and Ensure Safety," and on the right side: "Zhen Zhai Zhuan Yun Zhao Tao Hua."
I sat there from morning until noon. Only a few curious passersby stopped briefly to glance at me in my monk's robe. A couple of people even tossed some coins in front of me.
I stubbornly returned the coins to those few individuals, thinking to myself: "You can insult me, but how can you insult my business?" Opening a shop meant earning a living through my own skills—if there was food, I would eat; if not, I would drink water. Accepting charity from kind-hearted people would only make me a beggar.
In the evening, a young woman selling accessories set up her stall nearby, along with an older man selling roasted sweet potatoes.
Watching the two busy stalls next to me while I had nothing to show for my efforts severely dented my confidence, and I was ready to pack up and go home.
Suddenly, the old man selling sweet potatoes dashed away with his cart, while the young woman quickly gathered her cloth from the ground and followed suit like a gust of wind.
Just as I was curiously watching their retreating figures, someone suddenly grabbed my shoulder firmly. Instinctively, I turned and caught hold of that person. "What are you doing?" I asked.
The person shouted back confidently, "What do you want?"
"You started it first! How dare you ask me what I want?" I tightened my grip on his arm without realizing it. He let out a pained cry.
Perhaps his shout was too loud; it attracted his accomplices who quickly surrounded me. One of them, dark-skinned and seemingly their leader, said sternly, "Let him go now, or I'll call the police."
“I’ll just call the police then. I’m sitting here perfectly fine, and he’s the one who provoked me,” I shouted defiantly, pushing the person I had pinned down forcefully away.
The leader chuckled again, “This is a train station, and it’s clearly stated that setting up stalls for business is not allowed. What you’re doing is…”
He glanced at the Bagua Diagram on the ground. Although I wasn’t sure if what he said was true, seeing them all in uniforms made me retort, “I’m just sitting here to take a break; these things aren’t even mine…”
I disdainfully kicked the Bagua Diagram away, adding, “As the saying goes, ‘To catch a thief, catch the stolen goods.’ Have you ever seen someone as young as me setting up a stall for fortune-telling?”
The onlookers chimed in to support my plea.
The leader gave me a long look before turning around and leaving with his subordinates.
What bad luck! I hadn’t gained anything from this encounter and was left feeling frustrated. It seemed I had also made an enemy of that group.
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