No taboos

Chapter 317 Printing Work
Longjiao City occupies three entire streets.

The core area is in the middle of the "Jumping Fish Street" in the middle, near a half-broken stone tablet.

It is said that the stone tablet was used to "record merits" after being awarded to Jiaozhi by the Zhengzhou Dynasty more than a thousand years ago.

When the Ming army besieged Luocheng, the local natives smashed the stone tablet and only half of it remained.

So this place is now called "Ancestor Monument".

Anyway, they are all left by our ancestors.

The further you go outside, the quieter it gets, but the quality of the shops gradually improves.

"These shops can't squeeze into Qianjinfang," Xiang Qinghuai explained to Xu Yuan, "They don't do business with these random people who just wander around. Most of them have their own regular customers."

Xiang Qinghuai is still the inspector.

Back then in Shanhe County, the second group of people who came to support were led by him, and Xu Yuan had met him before.

This person is one of Mr. Ma’s trusted confidants.

Ma Tianshou asked him to be Xu Yuan's guide and take him around Longjiao City.

Xu Yuan guessed that the result calculated by Mr. Yan might be reflected in these peripheral shops, so the focus was on these deserted shops.

After looking at more than a dozen shops, he found nothing. Xu Yuan frowned secretly. The things in these shops were quite high-end compared to those in "Longjiao City", but he still couldn't find a single thing worth spending gold nuggets on.

This is just a simple calculation of the value of the gold nugget "treasure".

If Xu Yuan superimposed commercial law on the gold nugget... these things would be even less worthless.

Seeing that Lord Xu was dissatisfied, Xiang Qinghuai led the way to the largest store on the street.

As soon as he entered the door, the waiter came up to greet him with a smile, but Xiang Qinghuai waved him away and said, "Call Liu Laoqi out."

"Oh, it's Mr. Xiang. Please wait a moment. I'll go call the boss out."

The waiter recognized Xiang Qinghuai.

"Longjiao City is a mixed crowd. People from the government office often come here looking for clues when investigating cases." Xiang Qinghuai explained.

After a while, Liu Laoqi came out and served us with good cigarettes and tea.

Some customs in Jiaozhi are gradually moving closer to those in the southwest of Zhengzhou, such as smoking water pipe.

Xiang Qinghuai still refused: "Don't show us these low-quality things in the store. My brother is here to find good things."

"Yes!" Liu Laoqi agreed immediately: "Several adults, please follow me upstairs."

Liu Laoqi really took out all his secrets, but Xu Yuan kept shaking his head.

These things are barely enough to pay the bill with gold nuggets.

"Liu Laoqi, you know who else has good stuff in Longjiao City. Please make a list for me so that I don't have to run around in vain."

"This..." Liu Laoqi hesitated for a moment, and then saw Xiang Qinghuai's eyes become sharp: "Okay, I'll write it down right away."

Xiang Qinghuai took Xu Yuan and went to each house according to the list.

No one dared not give Xiang Qinghuai face.

After all, when everyone "receives" something on a daily basis, there are always some prohibited items.

I’m afraid of suddenly being “serious” with adults.

But after searching through all the items on the list, there was still nothing that Xu Yuan liked.

When they came out of the last one, Xiang Qing said dissatisfiedly: "Longjiao City is so big, but there is not a single truly good thing!"

The shop owner was embarrassed and didn't dare to speak. However, a young and inexperienced shop assistant muttered to himself, "If you want to find the real good stuff, go to Qianjinfang. Why come to Longjiao City?"

Xiang Qinghuai was furious: "What did you say?"

The boss slapped the young man back, making half of his face swollen: "Didn't your master teach you the rules?"

The young man covered his face with his hands and cried, not daring to say a word anymore.

Xu Yuan held Xiang Qinghuai, shook his head slightly and went out.

The boss kept scolding the waiter from behind: "Do you want to kill us all? Do you know that we are living on the edge of the knife of the filth removal department? Who recommended this person? Send him back to me? Where is his master? Deduct all his salary this month!"

Xu Yuan did not interfere in the affairs of the store.

It is enough to stop Xiang Qinghuai from caring about it anymore.

Every industry has its own rules. If you keep a young and naive guy like this in the store, you never know when he might get into trouble with a really vicious person. He might even bring disaster upon himself and the whole store because of his words.

"Forget it," Xu Yuan said, "There's no need to look for it deliberately. Let's just look around casually."

So the few of them walked into the depths of Longjiao City, and Xu Yuan finally understood why they said "anything can be bought" here.

There is a row of blue and white porcelain vases on the roadside stall, each of which contains a female ghost.

The youngest one looked no more than ten years old.

These are all ghost soldiers.

And the "procedures" are complete!
There are indeed "procedures" issued by the government office, proving that they voluntarily became ghost soldiers after their death.

Xiang Qinghuai explained: "Some young men from wealthy families have some problems with their brains due to studying too much. They like to play the game of scholar and female ghost, so they come to buy these ghost soldiers.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s just a stall, the prices are not cheap at all.

These ghosts are also pitiful people, hoping to have a good master. If they serve the master well, the master will take care of their relatives who are still in the world of the living. "

On another stall, bundles of wild vegetables were neatly arranged.

The "wild vegetables" are alive. Whenever someone walks by, the leaves will flutter, revealing a row of sharp serrations on the edges!

A long "talisman" is placed on the wild vegetables to suppress these strange things.

The stall owner held a "talisman sword" in his hand and greeted enthusiastically: "Sir, would you like to try it? It's freshly killed and guaranteed to be fresh. Just blanch it in boiling water when you get home, and mix it with onions, ginger, garlic, chili peppers and sesame oil. It's especially delicious."

The most important thing is that food helps you improve your cultivation."

Xu Yuan shook his head repeatedly and declined the offer.

There was also a fat yellow dog with two heads, as big as a tiger, lying lazily on the side with a straw stuck on its head.

Xiang Qinghuai explained: "I'm just too lazy to hunt, so I want to find someone to raise it..."

"This thing... is evil!" Lang Xiaoba found it hard to accept: "Doesn't our Exorcism Department care about it?"

"Why bother?" Xiang Qinghuai said, "If someone really buys it, as long as they feed it, it can guard the house and help the owner resist other evil spirits, and our Exorcism Department can save some effort."

"This..." Lang Xiaoba was still wondering, "What if it gets out of control..."

"Don't worry, whoever dares to buy it will definitely have a way to control it."

As they were talking, they walked to the door of a big store. Xu Yuan looked up and saw: Jichengtang.

The name seemed familiar. Xu Yuan thought for a moment: Yes, it’s the company that reprints the almanac in Jiaozhi.

Jichengtang not only printed almanacs, but also various books.

There were several large carts parked in front of the door, and porters were loading some bound books onto the carts.

"This is the main branch of Jichengtang Jiaozhi." Xiang Qinghuai said, "The old man likes to come here to shop. He always buys some rare books at a good price. Do you want to go in and try your luck?"

Xu Yuan shook his head.

If Ma Tianshou was not the commander of the Southern Office, do you think he could have picked up these shares in Jichengtang?

The three of them had just walked a short distance when they suddenly heard a loud crash behind them, followed by someone's scream.

"Run! Another person has died in Jichengtang!"

The three of them looked back and saw that a carriage had been smashed in front of the Jichengtang gate. A black shadow was lying on the broken carriage, with a porter under its sharp claws.

Li Fu was covered in blood, with a hideous wound on his neck and his eyes were wide open.

The black shadow raised its claws, tore off a piece of flesh from Li Fu's body and stuffed it into its mouth!

Xiang Qinghuai's face changed, and he gritted his teeth and said, "The printer at Jichengtang has changed again!"

(End of this chapter)