135 The Outpost (6)

Cloud Flower Shop

A few minutes later, in front of the caravanserai, someone quickly set up a pork stall.

Qin Fu'an casually hung the lamp he had bought on the shop floor. He watched as the pale white incandescent light illuminated the blood-dripping, scarlet pork, making it look eerie and unsettling. He smiled with satisfaction.

Then he looked up and first glanced at a familiar figure hiding in the darkness, smiling politely as he asked, "Buying meat? Freshly slaughtered pork."

Rat Ghost: "..."

It emerged shakily from the darkness, carrying a package in its arms. With barely enough courage and strength, it walked to the makeshift pork stall and asked for a piece of pork belly in a trembling voice.

They give you money in one hand and meat in the other.

Qin Fu'an watched its ghostly, desperate flight disappear around the street corner, then turned his gaze to the other ghosts also lurking in the darkness.

"Gentlemen, would you like to buy meat? Freshly slaughtered pork."

The demons: "..."

Seeing that no one was there, Qin Fu'an looked back at the colorful sign of the Desperate Inn and suddenly realized, "Or, do you have any packages you need to send or receive?"

The demons: "..."

It was so quiet that the only sounds on the street were the stench and the sharp, piercing wind.

Qin Fu'an waited for a while but no new customers came. He shrugged, casually placed the blood-stained pig-slaughtering knife on the equally blood-stained cutting board, and walked into the inn while wiping his fingers.

Xie Yunhuai sat on the only stool in the room and witnessed the whole process. He even took out a boning knife from his person and gave it to Qin Fu'an.

Seeing Qin Fu'an walk in, the young man's eyes softened, and he said softly, "If you're so fierce, you might not get any business for the next few days."

After Qin Fu'an dispelled the bloodstains from his body, he walked over and pulled the boy, who was sitting steadily on the stool, up. After sitting down himself, he pulled the boy into his lap, chuckled softly, and said nonchalantly, "Isn't that perfect? ​​No fools will bother us."

Xie Yunhuai: "..."

He shifted uncomfortably, but dared not struggle too much. He remained silent for a while, not responding to Qin Fu'an's words.

Qin Fu'an put his arm around him, playing with his pale, bloodless fingers, not caring whether customers would come in next.

After all, there are countless rules at the fugitive inn, but none of them stipulate that he cannot kill customers who cause trouble, nor does it stipulate that he cannot work part-time as a pork stall outside the inn.

Finally, the rules of the station do not stipulate that employees cannot engage in romantic relationships during work hours.

Qin Fu'an was extremely familiar with exploiting loopholes in the rules, so generally speaking, the more dangerous the rule-based dungeon, the more adept and skillful he became at it.

After all, the most fatal loophole he exploited was the rule of Heaven.

How can the rules of a mere instance compare to the laws of Heaven?

He waited at the fugitive post station until almost dawn, but no new customers came.

As he himself said, Qin Fu'an didn't care at all. Instead, he took the opportunity to hold the well-behaved boy in his arms and rest for a while.

As dawn approached, he woke up, carefully placed the equally sleeping Xie Yunhuai on a stool, and then got up and went to the shelf.

He found a package on the shelf, took it down, and opened it without much hesitation.

Inside was an invitation.

It was another very familiar invitation.

Qin Fu'an glanced down at the image of Rose Castle engraved on the invitation, his eyes flashing slightly. After storing it in his spatial storage, he then looked at the address on the box.

Then, he went to the counter, printed a mail order for himself, and after receiving the package, he took a pen and paper, bent down, and wrote a letter on the counter by the light of dawn and lamplight.

Fold, pack, and place in the shipping area.

By the way, I gave myself a five-star review.

As dawn broke, more and more strange things appeared on the street, and the surroundings gradually became lively.

Xie Yunhuai also woke up. He was still wearing Qin Fu'an's coat. After waking up in a daze, he sat on the stool and turned his head to watch Qin Fu'an selling pork outside.

Indeed, as dawn broke, more and more ghosts, lured by the smell of blood, came to buy pork.

At Qin Fu'an's small pork stall, the piles of fresh pork were dwindling.

He doesn't pluck the hair or debone the meat; he sells it to each customer with the skin and meat on, proving that it's absolutely fresh pork from a freshly slaughtered pig, and thus earning praise from many customers.

Of course, the praise was for his fresh pork, and had nothing to do with his job as a deliveryman.

But being a deliveryman means working 24/7, having to fawn over customers to earn good reviews, and receiving no salary or benefits whatsoever.

Being the owner of a pork shop is different. You can sell or not sell as you please, and customers can buy or not buy as they please. You don't have to put on a smiling face, and you can make money easily.

Even the pork is delivered fresh to their door, making it a completely risk-free business with huge profits.

After all the meat in the pork stall was sold out, Qin Fu'an cleaned up the stall but didn't put it away. Instead, he left it out in the open at the entrance of the outpost.

Every ghost passing through the Outpost can hear from other ghosts the chilling story of the porcupine that came to pick up a package and caused trouble, eventually becoming a victim of the deliveryman's butcher knife.

This pork stall, which sold pork by weight, also served as a silent warning to many cunning individuals harboring dangerous intentions.

As the pale sun hung high in the sky, Qin Fu'an received the first customer of the day at the Desperate Inn.

Unfortunately, it was another time to pick up a package.

After the other party obediently and cautiously recited the last four digits of the package number, Qin Fu'an, maintaining a professional smile, took the package from the shelf.

Amidst the other party's gracious five-star review, Qin Fu'an released his grip on the struggling, writhing package.

The rest of the day was filled with customers picking up their packages.

One after another, five-star reviews were flooding the shelves, and packages piled up on the shelves were being taken away one after another.

No single package required Qin Fu'an, the courier, to personally deliver it to the door.

Even the guy who grinned and told Qin Fu'an yesterday that he absolutely had to deliver the goods to his door called before dawn to say he would come to pick them up in person.

As the undelivered packages were picked up, the chilling atmosphere in the entire outpost gradually subsided, and even the lights seemed to become softer and warmer.

Xie Yunhuai left for a while, and when he returned, he brought Qin Fu'an a sumptuous dinner.

Qin Fu'an once again experienced the joy of living off his partner.

By evening, the shelves in the escape station had been completely emptied, but the parcel drop-off area still only contained the single package that Qin Fu'an had placed there himself.

He stared at the empty fugitive post station for a moment, then turned to Little Cloud, who was sitting there eating, and asked, "It's such a big place, it's such a waste to leave it empty. Why don't we use it to do some other small business? What do you think?"

Xie Yunhuai, with a fried dumpling in his mouth, looked around the empty fugitive inn after hearing this, nodded, and asked him, "What kind of small business do you want to start?"

"No rush." ​​Qin Fu'an patted his head and said gently, "Let me study its rules some more."

Qin Fu'an leaned against Xie Yunhuai, holding several documents in his hand and reading them at least four or five times.

After a long silence, he shook the documents in his hand and asked in a subtle tone, "Boss, when you made the rules, didn't you ever think that an intern might break up the company halfway through?"

Clearly, he wasn't asking Xie Yunhuai, who was eating at the time.

So who else is in this room?

Who will be the "boss"?

Amidst the audience's bewildered questions, Qin Fu'an remained leaning there, as if he were merely talking to himself.

But when he put down the papers filled with rules, took Xie Yunhuai outside after he finished eating, and personally took action to dismantle the ugly, scrolling lantern-shaped signboard of the Desperate Inn, the entire Desperate Inn finally stopped remaining indifferent.

It started to move.

Yes, the audience was absolutely certain they weren't seeing things—this desperate stairwell...it moved!!!

It retreated about a meter, and that one meter was filled with the terror that the fugitive post station felt towards Qin Fu'an.

Qin Fu'an's hand, which had been reaching out to remove the plaque, froze in mid-air.

He looked down at his snake tail slithering on the ground, his thoughts drifting for a second: if he were standing on the ladder in human form right now, Little Cloud would probably witness his fancy death firsthand, right?

Or perhaps he was simply swallowed up by this strange post station?

Qin Fu'an remained silent for a moment. While the innkeeper was frantically writing on the white paper, he still approached it and easily removed the signboard of the "Desperate Inn" just a second before it took off running.

Fugitive Station: "..."

Silence is the resting place tonight.

Qin Fu'an tapped the plaque, which had lost all its color after being removed, with his fingers, and looked thoughtfully at the small house that was still hanging in place, maintaining its crooked running posture.

“You removed its heart.” Xie Yunhuai stood beside Qin Fu’an, exposing the other party’s weakness to Qin Fu’an with just one sentence.

They showed absolutely no self-awareness as fellow human beings; every word they uttered was a betrayal of the treacherous.

Qin Fu'an held up the plaque in his hand and asked, "Its heart?"

Xie Yunhuai nodded: "Yes, just like humans, ghosts also have an important organ similar to the heart. Once it is removed or injured, we will lose most of our ability to resist."

In the eyes of all the onlookers, Xie Yunhuai was probably the most repulsive person at that moment. After all, the gazes falling on him were so sharp and ruthless that they wished they could tear him apart inch by inch.

But in Qin Fu'an's eyes, the little cloud that was seriously answering his questions was especially cute, and the more he looked at it, the more...lovable it seemed.

A gentle smile flashed in his eyes. After his snake tail coiled around the slender boy and confined him to his protective range, he lowered his head and tapped the "heart" in his hand. Then he took out two props that he had never used before.

Oil pastels and drawing board.

Under Xie Yunhuai's curious gaze, Qin Fu'an held an oil pastel and drew a new plaque on the drawing board.

The only difference is the name on it.

Cloud Flower Shop

The moment the last stroke was made, the plaque on the canvas became a real thing, held firmly in Qin Fu'an's hands.

Even its size and style are exactly the same as the signboard of the outpost on the ground.

Qin Fu'an, holding the new plaque and Xie Yunhuai in his arms, swam over to the small house that was frozen in place.

Then, without hesitation, it was hung up.

Nothing happened within three seconds.

Qin Fu'an waited patiently.

After a dozen seconds, the signboard of Cloud Flower Shop gradually lit up with red and green scrolling lights.

Qin Fu'an retreated with satisfaction, watching it reluctantly and slowly return to its original position.

[Author's Note]

Anzai: The rules don't say you can't change your boss.

Good night, there will be a 10,000-word update tomorrow.

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