Chapter 36: The Wrong Line 1

◎The obsession of the devil is unknown◎

Nan Qing said that night, she saw two ghosts following Yan Yue.

She is a demon, and her hearing is much better than that of ordinary people. She heard Yan Yue calling Shen Xuezhou's name to the smoke, so she turned back. The reason why he chose to go with Yan Yue was not only to repay his gratitude, but also because he was curious about why Yan Yue, an ordinary mortal, could talk to ghosts.

Nan Qing pointed at the three puffs of smoke and asked, "The shorter one is Mr. Jiang, the original owner of Dahei. The thinner one is Zhou Lin, the eldest son of the Zhou family. The fatter one is Mr. Shen, right?"

Yan Yue couldn't help but sigh with Qi Zhaoyang beside him: "The demon is really smart!"

Qi Zhaoyang said: "I have already said that the goblin is cunning."

Yan Yuebai glanced at him and said: "Being cunning is also smart! I wish I could be so cunning."

Nan Qing didn't care about Qi Zhaoyang's hostility towards her, and only asked Yan Yue: "But even if you can see ghosts after you die once, it doesn't make sense why your blood can restrain monsters!"

Yan Yue did not hide anything: "I just found out about this too. After all, fairies are not common, right? Maybe I have bad luck in my life, so I can control ghosts and fairies?"

Qi Zhaoyang did not stop her and had to let her tell how the evil ghost wanted to hurt her but was hurt by her instead.

Nan Qing thought thoughtfully: "No wonder these ghosts have kept their distance from you for the past month and no one dared to approach you. What is going on with this evil spirit?"

"What kind of evil spirit?" Yan Yue asked.

Nan Qing untied the cloth tied around his hand, pointed at the burnt dots on the back of his hand and asked, "Can't you see it?"

“I can see it!”

Yan Yue blinked: "I'm not blind, my blood burned a small hole on the back of your hand!"

Nan Qing asked: "Can't you see anything else?"

Yan Yue leaned over, looked carefully left and right again, and asked, "Anything else?"

Nan Qing said: "There are wisps of black air on the wound. It is said that only people in the underworld will carry this kind of black evil spirit."

Yan Yue rubbed his eyes hard, and called Qi Zhaoyang and Chu Zhi to come and look, but no one could see the black air.

Yan Yue remembered and asked Zhou Lin: "Didn't you say that there is evil spirit on me? You can't see it?"

Zhou Lin shook his head and said, "I can't see it. I felt the evil spirit from you because I was close to you, not because I saw it."

Nan Qing stretched out his finger again, and the spoon in front of him suddenly floated up by itself!

"Oh my!" Chu Zhi almost jumped up in surprise. He stretched out his hand between the spoon and the table and tried it. "Amazing! It floated up by itself!"

Nan Qing asked Yan Yue: "Can you see the red demonic power?"

Yan Yue stared at it for a long time, then shook her head and said, "No! I can only see the spoon floating by itself."

Nan Qing collected his demonic power and caught the spoon: "Strange! There are things I can see but you can't."

"I should be able to see that."

After Qi Zhaoyang chanted the spell, he could indeed see the demonic power released by Nan Qing, as well as the evil spirit left by the drop of blood, which made Yan Yue extremely jealous.

Qi Zhaoyang said that Nan Qing was not very powerful among the fairies. He had only been able to transform for four years and was considered a "little fairy." Knowing that Yan Yue's blood could restrain monsters and that Nan Qing had no intention of harming anyone, he allowed her to stay with Yan Yue. He warned her again that if she dared to hurt anyone, he would never let her go, no matter where she went.

Qingxu Temple is also quite famous among the goblins. Nan Qing is dissatisfied, but does not dare to offend it.

But Yan Yue was the first to quit and started to criticize Qi Zhaoyang, saying that he was killing innocent people without any discrimination and was very protective of Nan Qing.

At night, Qi Zhaoyang knocked on Yan Yue's door, checked the talismans pasted on the doors and windows, and handed her two new ones, asking her to string them together with a red string and wear them around her neck.

Yan Yue knew that he was still worried about Nan Qing, so she accepted his kindness.

When sending Qi Zhaoyang out, Yan Yue suddenly thought of the day when Nan Qing first arrived and brought her water for washing feet, but she inexplicably dropped it outside the door.

She held the two talismans in her hands and thought, maybe it was because of these talismans that Nan Qing couldn't enter her room? If I carry this talisman with me, will it hurt Nan Qing?

The two of them went in and out together all day long, and Nan Qing would always run into her, so Yan Yue would just fold the talisman and put it in her pocket.

*

The next morning, Nan Qing specifically told Yan Yue that she didn't need to get up early, but to accompany Qi Qi Zhaoyang, the "distinguished guest", and go to the teahouse later.

Yan Yue slept in happily and it was already noon when she woke up. Before she finished washing up, Qi Zhaoyang had already prepared the meal and asked her to come over to eat.

Qi Zhaoyang doesn't cook much.

When he first moved into the courtyard, the two of them always went out to eat, and one time they discovered that Yan Yue liked to eat boiled lamb. Boiled lamb requires almost no seasoning. After the water boils, skim off the foam and stew it in water for an hour and a half. Then take it out and eat it with pepper salt and chili oil.

This thing is really simple and they learned how to make it at a glance. After that, they would buy lamb and cook it at home from time to time.

The soup cooked with mutton is delicious when pepper and salt are added. The cabbage cooked with the soup is coated with a sauce made of sesame oil, minced garlic and chili powder. It is not only refreshing and greasy, but also has the unique sweet taste of cabbage.

Qi Zhaoyang is not good at cooking. Apart from cooking noodles, he can only cook this boiled lamb. Fortunately, he hadn't been here for the past two months, and most of the time it was Chu Zhi who cooked or bought food. It had been a long time since Yan Yue had eaten boiled lamb, and she was very satisfied with the meal.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, they went out for a stroll and unknowingly walked to the riverside.

Qi Zhaoyang teased, "It is said that on the riverside in the snow, a woman in black clothes held up a black umbrella and released a thousand-year-old fish monster. She was really compassionate to the people!"

Yan Yuebai glanced at him and said, "This is all Nan Qing's way of being mysterious and attracting customers to the teahouse. She also asked me to behave calmly and talk less to keep a secret. Now no matter where I go, people are staring at me. I don't even dare to eat on the street! It's really miserable!"

Qi Zhaoyang smiled gently: "It is not without benefits. It is not like summer now. If the cold wind and air get into your stomach, you will have abdominal pain."

Yan Yue took out a piece of the still hot snack from her arms and stuffed it into her mouth as if to provoke her.

Qi Zhaoyang sighed helplessly: "You really are..."

The two walked along the river for a while, and Yan Yue finally threw the problem that she had been thinking about to Qi Zhaoyang.

"Tell me, is there a ghost that doesn't know what its obsession is?"

She told Qi Zhaoyang about Shen Xuezhou's origins, and Qi Zhaoyang was very surprised, because the Shen Xuezhou he heard about was very different from the Shen family's Second Master that Yan Yue thought.

It turned out that the two of them were on the same route a few months ago, and Qi Zhaoyang went to Rongshan City at the invitation of the Shen family.

The Shen family is indeed the richest family in Rongshan City, but that has nothing to do with Shen Xuezhou. Most of the merchants in Rongshan City know that Master Shen is the real head of the Shen family, and Master Shen II is a prodigal son who is overambitious and incompetent!

It is said that when Shen Xuezhou was young, he was more favored than the eldest uncle of the Shen family. He is very intelligent and learns things very quickly, while the eldest master of the Shen family is honest and dull, and is not as smart as the second master.

Many people thought that the future head of the Shen family would be the second master Shen Xuezhou. Even the daughter of the Han family, who was originally scheduled to marry into the Shen family, ended up marrying this Second Master Shen.

Unexpectedly, after Old Master Shen let Shen Xuezhou try to take over the shop, he destroyed every one of them. The reason is simple: he insisted on overturning the original model and carrying out drastic reforms.

It was difficult for the imperial court to implement new policies, and the same was true for small shops.

The shop owner, clerks, suppliers, etc., none of them were willing to cooperate properly, and the business would always go out of business within just a month.

I changed four shops of different trades, and the final result was, without exception, failure. Old Master Shen had no choice but to send the uncles of the Shen family one by one to reorganize the shop and restore its original model.

Uncle Shen was an honest and law-abiding man, and he worked diligently to put his younger brothers' shops, which had been in a mess, back on track one by one. This move not only won the appreciation of the old man, but also won the unanimous praise of the cooperating merchants and the trust of the Shen family's servants. From then on, he completely took over the Shen family.

Although Shen Xuezhou lost his power as the head of the family, he still received profits and dividends from the shop.

But he was not reconciled and had a big quarrel with his family. Finally, the old man gave him three shops and said that if he did a good job in the business of that shop and doubled the profit within three years, half of the Shen family's assets would be given to him and he could do whatever he wanted.

As a result, no miracle happened.

Of the three shops, two were suffering terrible losses. The only one that made a profit with his reform plan was the small shop that he could not manage and thus gave to Nan Qing.

It’s a pity that it took Nan Qing too short a time from learning how to do business to taking over the shop. Although the business turned losses into profits, it did not double, and the three-year period agreed upon by Shen Xuezhou and the old man was up.

Shen Xuezhou analyzed the reasons for failure and rectification plans overnight, trying to persuade the old man to give him more time. However, he overworked and died suddenly at his desk.

Old Master Shen regretted pushing him too hard, which led to the death of his youngest son. He fell ill and died three months later.

At the beginning of the autumn of the previous year, Mr. Shen’s wife suffered an acute illness and suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. She died after a few days of high fever. Then Shen Xuezhou died suddenly in winter, and then Old Master Shen passed away in the early spring of the following year.

In less than a year, three people from the Shen family died. Uncle Shen began to wonder if there was some evil spirit in his home. Therefore, I sent a message to Qingxu Temple and paid a large sum of money to invite the immortal master of Qingxu Temple to come and take a look.

In addition, Uncle Shen was entrusted by his brother's wife, Han, to manage three shops on his behalf. Unexpectedly, the three shops had clearly returned to their previous plan, just like the other shops of the Shen family, but they were still making losses.

He tried everything he could to turn around the business of the three shops, but failed. He became more certain that there was something evil at work. Finally, at this time, Qi Zhaoyang arrived.

Qi Zhaoyang stayed in Rongshan for a few days and indeed discovered a ghost. But the ghost had no intention of harming anyone, so they gave it some earnest advice and performed some exorcism rituals to drive the ghost away.

Yan Yue thought that maybe Shen Xuezhou had nowhere to go after being driven away, so he ran into her outside Linjiang City.

She said to Qi Zhaoyang, "If Shen Xuezhou's obsession is to prove that he can do business well, then Nan Qing used what he learned from him to successfully turn around the teahouse business, which should be considered as fulfilling his long-cherished wish, right? But he didn't break his obsession, what's the reason?"

Qi Zhaoyang pondered, "That means his obsession is not to do business well."

Yan Yue couldn't figure it out: "But he was wandering around those shops, and all he talked about was how to do business. What could his obsession be?"

Qi Zhaoyang asked: "Could it be that he just wants to prove himself to his family? The teahouse business is booming, but his family doesn't know about it!"

Yan Yue thought it was possible.

"It seems that I have to go to Rongshan City again."