Chapter 187
When the child wanted to get out of bed but was held down by his parents and could only stare at the window, the bootlicker who had picked a fight with Bei Qiao in the afternoon was struggling outside the window of his room, trying to climb along the window frame to the room on the floor above.
Not long ago, he squatted by the window and listened for a long time, but he couldn't identify which room upstairs housed the person he was looking for. As time slipped into the middle of the night, the waiter, nearly dozing off, wiped his face vigorously, opened the window, and poked his legs out: "Never mind, no matter which room he's in, let's get upstairs first! If I don't act now, it's almost dawn."
The ship's security measures were comprehensive. When the lickspittle man leaned out of the window, the night shift immediately received the news. They quietly opened the window of the fourth-floor dormitory a crack and quietly sat inside, waiting to catch the man in the act.
This was the first time the staff had encountered a criminal who had no martial arts skills but still insisted on climbing through the window. What was even more outrageous was that this person looked very poorly armed. Just the simple action of flipping his body out of the room took him a whole incense stick of time. The staff almost fell asleep while waiting, and they didn't see him take the next step...
The staff member who was so sleepy that he held his eyelids open with his hands said: He is not afraid to climb at all.
The staff member's guess was correct. The slavish man regretted his decision the moment he climbed out the open window. While the shrewd shrewd man in the storybook climbs through a window with ease, the situation is different for the lazy slavish man. For him, climbing through a window is the limit. As for what to do next, he has no idea.
He didn't have the Qinggong (lightness skill) skills, nor did he have the abdominal strength. The window frame was right next to him, and the third floor was right above his head, but the lickspittle man had no idea where to climb. He felt his feet slip everywhere he stepped on, and he couldn't keep his footing.
After lying outside the window for a while, the slicker buried his face in his elbow and sneezed. He finally gave up on the idea of climbing back inside. However, he overestimated his arm strength, and his tentative steps found no support. Despite several attempts, he couldn't get back into the room. If his roommate hadn't been awakened by the cold night wind and found him trapped when he got up to close the window, who knows how much longer he would have struggled outside the window before being rescued.
The staff member who had been on standby on the fourth floor said: "Of course I wouldn't stand by and watch someone die. It's just that those who are causing trouble have too much energy. If we don't waste their energy, they'll continue to cause trouble, disturbing everyone else. It's the same principle as saving a drowning person. Especially when you can't tell if the person is a human or a ghost, it's necessary to consume their energy."
The bootlicker who nearly fell out of the window shivered as he crawled back into the cold bed. He sneezed four times in a row and started to have a fever before dawn. He was delirious and occasionally talked nonsense.
Bei Qiao didn't know that someone tried to climb through the window to pick a fight with her last night. When the lickspittle man was being helped up to drink medicine, she had already gotten off the ship with other passengers who had the same destination.
The weather in this otherworldly world wasn't kind today. When the ship docked, it was raining in Chuzhou City, the sky was foggy, and a bit cold. However, even in such weather, there were still laborers working at the port. They carried sacks, shuttling back and forth between the ship and the shore, and as they walked, they began to feel warm.
Although the rain was heavy, it wasn't widespread, and the wind wasn't strong near the coast, so the weather wasn't too bad. As long as the ship loaded up the people and cargo and set off in time, and sailed a certain distance, it would be able to leave the area covered by the rain.
The port here still has a separate layout for passengers and cargo, with passenger boats concentrated in one area. While Bei Qiao was disembarking, staff were also loading supplies onto the ship for the sea. Compared to the laborers, the staff were much better protected from the rain and warmth, and they didn't need to disembark to collect the goods themselves; they could just wait for the laborers to bring them aboard after inspecting them.
The stowaways were the first to disembark, and the staff gave them no chance to cheat, not even untying their ropes before pushing them off. The port staff were somewhat accustomed to this, as they didn't prohibit people from seeing them off, and some skilled swimmers would try to sneak onto the ship in various ways to save on a ticket. However, the port staff weren't completely inactive. If these stowaways were discovered, they would be banned from re-boarding for a short period of time, and if caught a second time, they would be directly arrested and handed over to the authorities.
Following the stowaways, Bei Qiao held up his umbrella, wrapped his cloak tightly around him, and walked toward the shore. Worried about his expensive clothes getting damaged by the rain, Bei Qiao changed into casual clothes and took off his mask. At first glance, he looked no different from the other people at the port.
The harbor was packed with people, not just those getting off the boat or boarding it, but also those seeing off their loved ones. Umbrellas were stacked and spread everywhere. The natives of this other world weren't feudal. Bei Qiao saw several couples saying goodbye to each other on the way off the boat. Some had childish faces, while others had slightly frosted hair. They were of all ages. There were even more families seeing off their loved ones. The most common sight was the elderly seeing off their younger ones. They couldn't help but chatter before parting, and as the boat left, their eyes welled with tears as they waved goodbye... Huh? That group over there was so calm.
A group of girls and boys with a completely different style from others caught Bei Qiao's attention. While others were reluctant to leave, they gathered in twos and threes, standing on the shore with expressionless faces and even a bit of complaints on their faces, not knowing who they were waiting for.
Only a handful of them held umbrellas, and even sharing one for two or even three wouldn't have been enough. To keep out the rain, those without umbrellas used straw mats to prop their heads up. Due to the limited availability of mats, they barely covered their heads, leaving them drenched from the waist down, their faces turning pale with cold. Perhaps feeling the lack of warmth, the few who had a free hand pulled a stack of pancakes from their bags and nibbled on them expressionlessly.
People passing by were puzzled as to what these children were doing. The weather was inclement, and it was class time. Normally, they would be in the classroom with the stove lit. But they were out at the harbor on the edge of the city in their school uniforms, carrying bread and straw mats. Someone who didn't know them would have thought they were on an autumn outing... Wait, they weren't really on an autumn outing!
"Shu'er, it's so cold, what are you doing here?" Granny Chen, who had just put her child on the boat, recognized her youngest in the crowd and quickly pulled him under her umbrella: "Your face is frozen blue."
"I don't know either." The little girl named Shu'er covered her nose and sneezed: "We were in class, and the teacher suddenly called us out. He gave each of us some food and a few mats, and sent us here without saying anything... Achoo! It wasn't raining when we just went out, but who knew it would start raining as soon as we got off the carriage, and it was getting heavier and heavier... Achoo!" She brought an umbrella today, but she didn't bring it with her, and forgot it in the hole in the table.
"I think I know a little bit... We're here pretending to be tourists!" The know-it-all in the class pointed to a few people squatting under an umbrella playing cards in the distance: "They're pretending to be tourists just like us, but they have umbrellas and they get money!"
"Huh? Why don't we have money?"
"Uh... maybe it's because we have bread." In addition to bread, each student also received a bag of dried bacon. It's not particularly nutritious as a meal, but it's definitely filling.
"Who are we waiting for, then?"
"It is said that it was that person."
"Ah! It's him! When will he come?"
"It seems he's gone."
"Huh? Then when can we leave?"
"Just wait, someone should tell us."
Before Bei Qiao left, the boys and girls were still waiting in the rain. Bei Qiao had no idea who the "someone" they were talking about was, but he could only guess that it was a celebrity or an official, otherwise the teacher wouldn't be so bold as to let so many children run by pretending to be passersby and get wet in the rain.
The person who called these students here probably wanted them to show their admiration and welcome for someone, just like a real-life poetry recitation. Regardless of whether the emotions were genuine or not, the atmosphere and mood were there.
But then again, why did they refuse to change their plans in such heavy rain? Did they think they were stupid? They pretended to be tourists and came to the pier. Is there no other place to try to scam people?
Bei Qiao: Formalism is unavoidable everywhere. I wonder if these students will catch a cold when they return home...
Because the rain kept falling, Bei Qiao gave up on renting a horse and found a shelter to wait for nearly twenty minutes before finally lining up a vacant carriage. There were a lot of people taking the carriage today, and many people were trying to squeeze onto the carriage to save time. The driver didn't care, as he charged per person anyway.
The weather was terrible today, and everyone's mood was so sour, so things got really bad. A few bad-mannered people tried to cut in line, but were scolded and nearly thrown into a shoving match. Another dishonest man boarded a bus and tried to rub shoulders with some young women, only to be ganged up on by them, beaten up, and kicked off.
"I'm already annoyed, what the hell are you touching?" The little girl rolled up her sleeves and glared at him: "If you don't accept it, keep gesturing!"
"Oh my god!" Lecher rolled and crawled, waving his arms like a windmill to avoid rolling all over the mud. But the effort only made him get a little wet again.
Lecher was kicked off the carriage, and there was just a vacant seat for one person in the carriage. Bei Qiao, who was sitting behind him, ignored Lecher's murderous look and bought a ticket to get on the carriage.
The lecher steadied himself, pulled up his face, and tried to make a scene. But the driver saw the rickshaw was full, whipped it, and drove off without giving him a chance.
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