The strange story of Huai'an Inn

Chong Liu has been working as a waiter in Huai'an Inn for three months.

Huai'an Inn is located near the Bianhe Wharf. Regardless of the continuous stream of peddlers, pedestrians and tourists in the middle of the day, it should be a prosperous business and a wealth of money.But the God of Wealth seemed to have some grudges about this place, walking up and down the whole street, but refused to enter the door of this inn.

The restaurants and restaurants on both sides are obviously so prosperous that there will be long queues at meal times, but the huge Huaian Inn lobby is still full of people, and the 24 rooms are rarely full.

Although the business is not booming, it is not crowded, and there are still peak hours for breakfast, dinner and snack time.Huaian Inn is like some kind of weed that can live without watering and fertilizing. It exists quietly, and it is naturally a part of this Bianhe Street.None of the residents living in the surrounding area can tell when this store opened. Even an old man in his 80s or [-]s can remember that this inn has a faded signboard that has remained unchanged for thousands of years, and it is quiet. stand in that fixed position.

When business is not busy, people are also leisurely.But the strange thing is that the wages paid by Huaian Inn to all the workers, from the chef master to the helper in the back kitchen, are all double that of other inns.Chong Liu wondered at the beginning, how could there be such a generous owner, considering the number of customers on weekdays, it is impossible to pay such a high salary.It was only later that I heard from another waiter named Zhu Yi that the main income of the Huai’an Inn came from another business run by the shopkeeper—being a toothbroker for people.

The so-called Yalang is an important link in charge of connecting buyers and sellers.For example, a wealthy businessman has just arrived and wants to hire reliable workers, but he is not familiar with the place and does not know how to recruit people, so he will hire a dentist to help him find suitable helpers.If the employer agrees to hire the person, the person gets a small commission.In addition to acting as an intermediary for recruiting workers, there are also Yaren who are responsible for helping to set up fields, purchase goods, transfer ownership of shops, draft contracts, and so on.

There are many Yamen in the city, each with its own strengths.As for what kind of business the shopkeeper is wooing, no one seems to be able to say clearly, only that it seems to be helping to introduce suitable craftsmen to some customers who need help and have enough money in their hands.

After waiting for three months, Chong Liu always felt that the people in the Huai'an Inn were a bit strange.

Zhu Yi, who was running the hall with him, was younger than him, only eighteen or nineteen years old. He liked to talk and laugh on weekdays, and he was also a diligent and lovable character.It's just that at night... the situation is a little different.

Zhu Yi sometimes talks in his sleep at night.

There was nothing strange about talking in sleep, but the content of the talk in his sleep made people feel a little creepy.

The first time Chongliu heard Zhu Yi talking in his sleep was the third day after he started to wait at the Huai'an Inn.He and Zhu Yi shared a hut in the backyard, and there was a dining table between the two beds, so when lying on the bed, one couldn't see clearly the person on the opposite bed at a glance.At that time, Chongliu had been busy all day, and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, but in the middle of the night, he was suddenly dragged out of the dream by a burst of chattering.

"Don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes."

Chong Liu shuddered and woke up suddenly.The moment he opened his eyes, Zhu Yi said, "Look, I told you not to open them."

Chong Liu tentatively asked, "Xiao Zhu?"

"Hush! Don't talk! You'll be found out!"

Chong Liu was stunned, got up from the bed, and looked around.The room is quiet, the wind is as thin as a whisper, shaking the branches outside the window, reflected on the paper window.

"Little Zhu? What are you talking about?"

"Hehehehe, don't look under the bed! @#￥%￥......"

Zhu Yi's voice was very soft, but the speed of his speech was very fast, so fast that he was almost nervous, and all the words behind him were blurred into a ball.Chong Liu felt a chill spread down his spine to his whole body, and shivered fiercely.

what's under the bed

He froze in place, his mind was full of thoughts, his voice trembling with fright, "Zhu Yi! What the hell are you talking about! What under the bed!"

"You don't know, do you? You can't get out of this inn once you get in."

After saying this, Zhu Yi turned over and started snoring.

Chong Liu was stunned for a while before he vaguely realized that this brat was talking in his sleep.He breathed a sigh of relief, but he was always worried that it wasn't just a dream, and he couldn't fall asleep after tossing about half the night.

Talking in sleep twice in three days is not counted, occasionally this Zhu Yi will sleepwalk.Once Chongliu was woken up by urinating in the middle of the night, and when he opened his eyes, he was so scared that he almost urinated on the kang.

Zhu Yi was squatting beside his bed, staring at him with his eyes wide open and a strange smile on his face.

"Little Zhu... why the hell are you crazy!" Chong Liu shrank back while grabbing the quilt.

Zhu Yi looked at him, made a series of meaningless strange noises, and then suddenly said, "Hu Yuntong, 31. Zhang Erniang, [-]. Qian Xi, [-]."

After finishing speaking, he stood up with stiff movements, turned around and crawled back to his own bed, covered himself with the quilt and fell asleep again.

Chong Liu knew the three names he mentioned, and they all belonged to several families who lived near the inn or did small businesses.Therefore, when the news came that Qian Xi was hit and killed by a speeding carriage on Bianhe Street three days later, Chong Liu's heart skipped a beat.

Boss Hu Yuntong of Mipu suddenly fell to the ground and died suddenly, exactly twelve days later.

A month later, Zhang Erniang, who delivered wine to the inn, did not show up for a long time, but another guy came instead.He told Chong Liu that Zhang Erniang had a cold and had just passed away.

Is it a coincidence?

Chong Liu asked Zhu Yi sideways, but Zhu Yi always scratched his head, embarrassed to say that he didn't remember anything at all.

Chong Liu now sleeps with cotton plugs in his ears, and stays up at night as long as he can, because he is always afraid of hearing his own name from Zhu Yi's mouth.

Master Liao, who is in charge of the kitchen, is also a weirdo.

This Master Liao was tall and thin like a bamboo pole, taciturn and reticent, he often held a small purple sand pot in his hand, and sipped two sips of strong tea at the spout for nothing.While his culinary skills are excellent, he also has an aura of not being angry and threatening others. All the helpers under him have been trained to be agile, quick-witted, and have sharp eyesight.Occasionally, there were drunk guests in the lobby making trouble, Master Liao would come out of the back kitchen with a teapot, a kitchen knife on his waist, and he would stand there and watch the troublemakers without speaking or doing anything.Nine times out of ten, the troublemakers will retreat on their own.

Chong Liu heard from regular customers that Master Liao was an executioner when he was young, and he had countless lives in his hands.Although I don't know whether the rumors are true or not, it is true that Master Liao has a kind of evil spirit that no one else has.

Chong Liu was a little afraid of Master Liao.Not only Chongliu, but even the boss is afraid of Master Liao.

Moreover, Chongliu noticed that Master Liao seemed to have never added tea or water to the pot...

Such a small purple sand teapot is held in the hand all day, and can be drunk in a few sips.But Master Liao never added water.

Maybe he added it when he didn't pay attention, but when the whole inn was eating spring pancakes in Lichun before, Master Liao didn't add water for a whole hour, but kept sending spouts to his mouth.

Is the tea in the pot really?Why does it seem like I can never finish drinking?

Chong Liu's curiosity arose, and he always wanted to take a look into the teapot when he had time.But it happened that Master Liao never left his hands, so he never had a chance.

Xiao Shun, one of the helpers, is a very introverted boy. Although he works very hard, he can't fart like a bore.However, this little Shun has a strange habit of always setting aside half of his own portion and putting it aside when eating, saying that it is for his friends.

The problem is who has never met his "friend".

What's even more weird is that half of the meal always disappears at the end of the meal.

At first, Chong Liu thought it was Xiao Shun who ate it, but one time, after Xiao Shun set aside the food, he was suddenly called by Master Liao to help move the food from the vegetable cellar. one person.Chong Liu's chopsticks fell off, and when he lowered his head to pick them up, when he raised his head, the bowl containing the half portion of rice that Xiao Shun set out was completely gone.

Chong Liu made sure that the rice was still there before he picked up the chopsticks. He was the only one in the hall, where did the rice go?

After several careful observations, Chong Liu noticed that as long as someone's eyes are on the half bowl of rice, the rice will not disappear, but as long as there is a moment when no one pays attention to the bowl of rice, it will immediately evaporate into the air .So Chongliu made up his mind to have dinner together after closing, and kept his eyes on that dinner.

But when the dinner was about to end, the shopkeeper suddenly asked him to go behind the counter and bring out a jug of wine, so he had to do so.He gradually realized that everyone tacitly looked away at a certain period of time, as if deliberately wanting that dinner to disappear.

Chongliu tried to ask Xiaoshun, but Xiaoshun didn't say anything, just buried his head and continued to work.Chong Liu had to ask Zhu Yi again.

"No one has seen his friends, but Brother Six...it's best to let that dinner disappear smoothly..." Zhu Yi lowered his voice, with a trace of tension in his eyes, "If it hasn't passed the meal There will be trouble after eating."

The slightly frightened tone of Zhu Yi's speech gave Chong Liu goosebumps.

"What... what's going on?"

"You don't want to know..." Zhu Yi kept secret.

However, the weirdest thing is still the shopkeeper.

The owner of the inn is surnamed Zhu, but Chong Liu still doesn’t know what his first name is, because everyone calls him shopkeeper Zhu or “Old Zhu”.In fact, the shopkeeper is not old at all. He looks like he is in his 20s.If there is a "The Most Appearing Pan Andong Family Conference" held in the city, I wish the shopkeeper would definitely win the first place.

It's just a pity that although the shopkeeper Zhu has a good skin, he is a money fan and clean-minded, and he is extremely incomprehensible.Chongliu saw with his own eyes a beautiful, glamorous lady with considerable wealth and a widow who almost sent the whole Bianhe's eyes to the shopkeeper's arms. Before leaving, she deliberately "lost" her handkerchief next to his abacus , even wrote his name and address on it, but the shopkeeper threw the handkerchief into the lost and found box in the lost and found box without hesitation.

As an inn waiter, one of the core accomplishments is to be familiar with all kinds of gossip within a few streets around, and to know the details of the people you know, so that when guests come from afar to inquire about the news, the waiter In order to take this opportunity to earn a lot of reward silver.Chongliu came to Liangcheng for three months, and he had almost inquired about the details of all the residents and businesses on Bianhe Street, but it was the people around him who couldn't find out too many secrets.The first to bear the brunt is the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper gets up very late every day, looks at the ledger in the lobby, and occasionally helps entertain guests.But most of the time, the shopkeeper is always in the dark, and he doesn't know what he is doing every day.Occasionally, guests came to him, and there were not many similarities between these guests. Some were high-ranking and even aristocratic confidants, but there were also peasants in coarse linen.When the shopkeeper saw them, he would often lead them to the private room on the second floor above the lobby, and ask Chong Liu or Zhu Yi to bring some refreshments, and chat for an hour or two.

These guests end up staying at the inn for at least one night, and some for several days.

Chongliu suspects that these guests are related to the shopkeeper's dental business. The problem is that he has never seen the craftsmen introduced by the shopkeeper come in and out of the inn.

What's even more strange is that no one knows the details of the shopkeeper.I don't know if he is a local or when he bought this inn.Chongliu had inquired about it with some old men in the neighborhood who liked to get together to play elephant opera, and the news he heard surprised him even more.

"What? Are you working there?" An old man surnamed Cui stared his not-so-big eyes to the limit, "You are brave enough."

"Okay, old Cui, stop talking nonsense and frighten the young man." Another old man surnamed Bai looked away from the chessboard and glanced at Chong Liu while talking, "Don't listen to him. of."

"Why am I talking nonsense. Tell yourself, when did you move to Bianhe Street?" Old man Cui was very dissatisfied with being questioned about his credibility.

Uncle Bai rolled his eyes at him and said nothing.

Uncle Cui turned to Chongliu and said, "Let me tell you. I moved here 30 years ago, and this old white moved here with his family 16 years ago. Since we came, the shopkeeper of your inn is the same person. So He hasn't changed a bit in years."

Chongliu paused for a moment while chewing the hummus, then waved his hands, and sneered with a "don't tease me" attitude, "impossible, our boss is only in his early twenties, when you moved here 30 years ago He hasn't been born yet."

"If I lie to you, I'll eat all these chess pieces!" Uncle Cui swore, "Your boss, I think it's probably an alchemist who practices some kind of immortal magic. Where there are those alchemists, there is no clean What? Young man, you are young, what is wrong with you, why do you have to be in that kind of place, what a pity, what a pity..."

Folk views on magic and alchemists are very polarized.Some put alchemists on a par with gods and immortal officials, others called them witches and sorcerers, and some were very scared and curious.Uncle Cui is obviously the second kind of person.

Chong Liu didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Mr. Cui, I'm just running around for a while, and I'm not going to Yihong Courtyard to sell my jokes."

"Old Cui, pay attention to your mouth. If any god hears it, you won't know how to die!" Uncle Bai warned.

Chong Liu was thinking about these too weird news, and asked casually, "Then... you guys have lived here for so long, do you know the waiter I used to be?"

Uncle Bai said, "I know him. His surname is Bai. He is a very clever young man. He is taller than you and has a round face. He used to come out to fight with the little widow surnamed Hua in the cloth shop, but then he disappeared suddenly for some reason. Did you go back to your hometown? Anyway, the day before, I had a good chat with us for a long time, but I didn't say hello to us."

"The waiters in their shop, except for the one surnamed Zhu, have all been in business for a while." Uncle Cui muttered meaningfully, and ate a chess piece from Uncle Bai.