Guidian

There is a food street at Dongzhimen in the imperial capital, known as Guijie Street.

In fact, this street was not called this name before, but had a homophonic name: Ghost Street.

Yes, the haunted ghost.

There are several gates in Beijing.

The imperial court had to go through Deshengmen when it sent troops, and it had to go through Yongdingmen to withdraw troops, and it had to go through Xuanwumen to execute criminals.

The old people living in the imperial capital said that Dongzhimen used to transport timber and the dead outside.

Before the imperial capital developed into the developed city it is now, standing on the top of the Dongzhimen tower and looking in, you could see the Drum Tower, and looking out, you could see a barren cemetery.

At that time, there were a group of unlicensed hawkers selling snacks and groceries outside the city gate, forming a city of its own.The markets in other places open their doors to welcome guests in the morning and close their stalls in the evening to thank visitors.But this Dongzhimen is different. They start to become popular at nightfall, and there is a lot of people in the middle of the night.Looking at it at night, the street inside the gate is full of coffin shops, paper tie shops, shroud shops, and brightly lit outside, so it is called a "ghost market" by the common people, and this street is naturally called a ghost street.

This street is very evil. It is said that there is a lot of traffic and the location is good, but there are all yellow stalls. Clothes sellers and furniture sellers open large shopping malls.Later, I found that there was only one kind of business on this street, and that was restaurants.

Moreover, the restaurants here are also evil, very close to the bustling Drum Tower Nanluo Shichahai, but there are not many people here during the day, but at night, it seems to have changed places, and the two sides are buzzing. They are all people, restaurants big and small are all open, and they can stay open until two or three o'clock in the morning!

But the word ghost street is not very catchy and unlucky after all.Civilized people in civilized cities, the word ghost is too taboo, what should we do?So the leadership team at the top pondered for a long time, and found out a homonym, gui.

Gui, which sounds the same as ghost, is an ancient bronze tripod for cooked meals, which looks like a modern steamer.

This word has something to do with food, and there is still such a Guiding at one end of Guijie Street, which has become a landmark building.

So Ghost Street became Gui Street.

There is an alley on Guijie Street. It used to be called Coffin Alley. You can tell what it does when you look at it. It sells coffins and makes coffins.Now the name has been changed to Jincai Hutong, which also means getting rich by raising the coffin.There are also some small shops in Jincai Hutong, which are next to the old residents here. The boss can say hello when he comes in and out on weekdays, and he is very warm and familiar.

Walking a hundred meters into this alley, you can see a shop. There is a plaque at the door that looks like it has been around for a long time. The two big characters of "Guidian" are written on it. The inscription is blurred, and the red seal is blurred into one Group, only the name of the store seems to have just been painted with gold paint, shining golden.

According to the old ladies who have been sitting and chatting at the entrance of the alley for a long time, this store is a whole two-entry courtyard. The two guys with dyed colored fur are usually happy when they come out and see people, plus they look good and smile happily, so the old people here know each other.

The boss is a seller of antiques, and there are all kinds of things in it, such as crystal string jade bracelets that girls like nowadays, and a lot of bottles, cups and bowls, which are piled up in the courtyards of those houses like grocery stores.But I haven’t seen that young man selling antiques, but sometimes the young man’s boss likes to squat at the entrance of the alley to read palms for these old men and old ladies, and spread all kinds of auspicious words like no money, and sometimes he even makes some by himself. The little snack came out to give away, so many people wanted to introduce someone to this young man.

However, I heard that the young man has a childhood sweetheart who is in love with each other. Although he has never met him, it is not easy to break up the long-distance relationship. This group of old men and women have given up their minds.

At night, Gui Street is ablaze with lights.

In Jincai Hutong, old men and women sit at the entrance of the alley fanning cattail fans, watching the men and women coming and going chatting and kowtowing.The big and small shops in the alleys are also open for business, and the small door faces decorated with neon lights are gaudy, for fear that they will not attract the attention of others.

The two big red lanterns at the entrance of the Guidian flickered twice and then lit up.It's just that the door is still closed, it should not be open yet.

In the innermost wing room of the yard is a very large green gauze cabinet, and a macaw more than one foot long stands on the bird stand outside the green gauze cabinet.

This parrot looks very beautiful and majestic, I saw it stretched out its head from under the wings, turned around, opened its golden mouth and shouted: "Oh my god, it's time, hurry up and open for business, open for business!" shouted When it was over, the fluttering wings flew down from the shelf, and they grew when they landed in the wind, and fluttered into a handsome guy with a height of more than 1.7 meters, hair dyed with colorful flowers, and wearing a big Hawaiian shirt and flowered pants.

The young man, Balabala, pulled his hair through the bronze mirror in the room and looked left and right. When he was satisfied, he lifted the blue bed gauze on the green gauze cabinet, "Boss, get up, it's time to get up!"

There was no one sleeping on the bed, but two big cats were lying there. The big one had black and white flowers and long hair, with its four paws facing the sky and its white belly exposed, purring.The smaller one is a ball of fur, with short white fur, and there seem to be some dark silver patterns on its back, like tabby.

The big black-and-white cat stretched its paws, turned over and stretched its waist, and jumped to the ground with its hind paws, and then turned into the beautiful little boss with long hair in the mouths of those old men and women.The little boss smacked his paws on the back of the blonde-haired boy's head, and muttered, "You're the only one with such a loud voice, oh, you've woken up all your good dreams."

The young man held his head aggrievedly, "Isn't that what you said? It opens at 06:30, and it's already 35:[-]."

The chiming clock at the height of a person in the corner rattled, and the pointer pointed to 35:[-].

"Tsk!" The little boss ran his fingers through his hair, and the waist-long hair was automatically tied into a ponytail. The smooth black hair was winding around his shoulders, as beautiful as a strand of silk.After tying his hair, he took out an Hermes wallet from his trouser pocket, took out a few red bills and handed it to Huafa, "Yingzi took it, went to Huda to buy some crayfish, and brought back beer by the way, the remaining change Buy some brine peanuts from Uncle Ma, I’m starving to death.”

"Deling! Let's go!" Yingzi, that is, the boy with the flowery hair, took a few tickets and ran away as if flying.

"Liu Liu, wake up!" The little boss hung up the gauze curtain by lifting the gold-encrusted jade bed hook beside the bed, stroking the little white cat a couple of times, humming a little tune and walking towards the front yard .

When Yingzi returned with a plastic bag in his hands and a box of frozen beer in his arms, the Guidian opened its doors and began to open for business.

When you enter the door, there is a wall with a picture of a pine and a crane prolonging its life, walk around the wall along the bluestone road, lower your head to avoid the grape trellis with large strings of purple pearls, and pass through the goldfish tank with a large blue and white tank. Wheezing and panting, he put things on the stone table next to the pomegranate tree in the yard.

"Eat! Eat! Eat!"

"Excuse me, is the boss here?" A questioning voice came from the door.

Yingzi washed his hands and rushed out, "Yes, yes, yes."

Standing at the door was a middle-aged man in a suit and tie, with a Mediterranean hairstyle, a briefcase tucked under the creaking nest, and a small shopping bag commonly found in supermarkets.Maybe it was too hot even at night, and he kept wiping the sweat dripping from his bald forehead with a handkerchief.

"Uh, may I ask that you are..." The bald head looked at the gaudy child in front of him, unfolded the wet note in his hand, and said in a hesitant tone, "Are you the boss Xuanyuan Xiaotao?"

"I'm a buddy, do you want to sell or buy? Or do you want to check your face, palmistry, Fengshui and Chinese characters..." Before Yingzi finished introducing her business, she was interrupted by the other party.

"Sorry, I want to find Boss Xuanyuan. I was introduced by an acquaintance. Yes, there are some things that are hard to tell..." The bald forehead looked very anxious, and the sweat dripped even more.

"Oh..." Yingzi turned his head and shouted back: "Don't eat, boss, come to business!"

Classmate Xuanyuan Xiaotao walked into the room with a toothpick in her mouth, saw the bald head and smiled and said hello: "Hello, I am Xuanyuan Xiaotao, the owner of Guidian, how can I help you?"

The bald head was taken aback!

He always thought that even if this Xuanyuan Xiaotao was not an old woman, she must be a young woman.Who knew that it wasn't a woman at all, but a beautiful and outrageous man!This kind of man should exist on TV to shoot idol dramas, why would he come to show Fengshui and palm reading...

He was a little dizzy.

Xuanyuan Xiaotao seemed to be familiar with this scene, walked into the hall by herself, sat down behind a huanghuali desk, opened her mouth and said, "Yingzi, show this gentleman a seat and serve tea."

"Come on, sir, please." Yingzi shook his head in front of the bald forehead, and stretched out his hand to lead to the chair in front of the desk.

"Ah, thank you, thank you." The bald head went to the chair and sat down. After touching the armrest of the chair with his fingers, he was stunned again.

The big huanghuali armchair, with well-proportioned and thick patina, must have been old, and the things in this shop... He looked around and felt that he was going to be blind.

Let’s not talk about the authenticity of the items in this store, just look at the piles of cheap bracelets hanging next to the Ming and Qing porcelains, and a pile of exaggerated silver rings and even gold chains as thick as little fingers. It's a bit unpredictable to understand the taste of the boss.

"I still don't know the gentleman's last name." Xuanyuan Xiaotao said lightly.

"Ah..." The bald head quickly looked away, took out a silver business card case from his pocket, and then took out a business card from it, with a slightly smug voice, "My surname is Zhang, and it is the foreign trade company of Tengda Company under the Zhong family." manager."