Chapter 13: Ghost Shop
Liu Maosheng didn't continue, but he knew it, and N seemed to know it too.
He took out something like a biscuit from his pocket with a smile, glanced at N's face, and handed it to Tu Lanxun, "Little boss, thank you so much for this time."
It was a gold coin, similar in style to N's, worn and worn, but the brilliance of the gold was unmistakable. Tu Lanxun didn't dare take it.
Liu Maosheng looked more like a living person at this moment, the kind who stuffed red envelopes into the hands of the younger generation during the New Year. He deliberately put on a stern face and scolded:
"You have to get paid for the work you've done. Small business owners need to follow some business rules. Take it quickly, don't be afraid."
Tu Lanxun turned her head away, waved one hand repeatedly, and opened her pocket with the other hand. The heavy gold coins fell into it, making the corners of her mouth curl up wildly.
Hey, another hundred thousand has arrived.
She was a little worried. Where did these ghosts get so much money? Could they be tomb robbing? Is that really legal?
"Just take it if I give it to you." N said calmly.
Liu Maosheng picked up his own body and said goodbye, saying he would find a place to bury it. Tu Lanxun suddenly had an idea and chased him to give him a bag of bread and drinks. He smiled and shook his head, "Thank you, boss, but I can't eat this."
Tu Lanxun was puzzled. Can't N eat food from living people? He can eat soda, instant noodles and bread very quickly.
N spoke from behind them: "Your food is hard for ghosts to taste, and it doesn't quench their thirst or fill their stomachs, so it's the same as not eating at all."
Tu Lanxun raised his eyebrows, the subtext being, why are you so picky about the flavors of instant noodles and bread? How pretentious.
Three incense sticks suddenly appeared in N's hand, igniting without fire, and curling green smoke floated out. He raised his wrist slightly, allowing the incense mist to penetrate into the bag of snacks and linger with the bread and sausages inside.
There was no change in the food, but Liu Maosheng's eyes became eager as he looked at it, and he couldn't help swallowing.
Tu Lanxun quickly tore open the plastic-wrapped chicken leg he had been eyeing for the longest time, handed it to him, and paired it with a bottle of tea. "Eat it, eat it."
Liu Maosheng no longer cared about anything else. He tore the chicken leg meat, chewed it and swallowed it with big mouthfuls. His mouth was full of oil. In a few bites, only a bone was left. He even bit the softened bone into pieces and ate it.
His eyes were a little moist, and Tu Lanxun put the whole bag of food in his hands.
"I haven't had a full meal in a long time since he died. Thank you, thank you."
Liu Maosheng didn't refuse this time. He searched all over his body, trying to find something valuable to repay him, but unfortunately he had nothing left. "If the boss could sell some extra food to the ghosts, that would be..."
He was halfway through his words when he saw N's expression and stopped abruptly, realizing he had made a mistake. The two sides said goodbye, and Liu Maosheng disappeared into the daylight with a smile.
There were only two people left in the convenience store. Tu Lanxun held up his chin and asked, "Is Uncle Liu going to be reincarnated now?"
"How can it be so good? His business is not over yet. Besides, ghosts like us don't have the blessing of reincarnation." N sat in the shadow, collected three remaining incense sticks, opened the wordless book again, and lowered his eyes indifferently.
He was really cruel to himself. Tu Lanxun had never seen him burn incense for his food. Thinking about it, he asked, "Is this incense expensive?"
Before suppressing the ghosts that night, N also lit a kind of incense at the door of the convenience store. The smell of that incense was quiet and restrained, like a stone screen in front of an ancient tomb shaded by pine and bamboo; and the smell of this kind of food that can give life is sweet and warm, with a hint of sadness, like the longing for family.
Tu Lanxun guessed that the former was an incense used to conceal some kind of existence, while the latter was an incense used for memorial services.
"Not expensive. Three for one gold coin."
She almost fell off the stool. A gold coin of the same weight was worth about 100,000 yuan, and a stick of incense cost more than 30,000 yuan. N had just burned one and a half sticks, which was close to 50,000 yuan. It was too extravagant.
So Liu Maosheng stopped talking halfway because the cost was too high.
But if every ghost is as rich as N, it doesn't seem impossible.
Tu Lanxun looked around the store. It took about a stick of incense to fill one shelf. She quickly calculated the cost and profit and found that even if the channels were opened up, the price of the products would still be 800 times more expensive than that of airport stores in scenic spots and theme parks if she wanted to break even.
Who would buy something so expensive? This is such a rip-off!
Tu Lanxun decided to first get a handle on the supply. "Mr. N, is this incense a prop in the game?"
She had long realized that the gold cookies given to her by N and Liu Maosheng were actually the appearance of game gold coins.
The male ghost in front of him, with an exquisite but inhuman appearance and as cold and sharp as a weird adult doll, isn't he the final BOSS of the game?
"Yes." N turned on the single-word mode again.
Tu Lanxun's eyes lit up, and the corners of his mouth widened and turned up. Wouldn't that make it very convenient for N to purchase goods?
Moreover, the currency exchange rate in the game is different from that on Earth. Maybe pure gold coins there are almost the same as coins!
No, it's not possible.
Tu Lanxun hugged his head and slumped over on the shelf. He could no longer deepen his cooperation with N. It turned out that he had planned to pay N back and sever all ties with him once he made enough profit from the wallet.
"I need to contact a friend," she reported. That friend had connections with gold shops and could buy back gold at a good price without being regulated or tracked.
N agreed without caring. Tu Lanxun quickly sent a message, and his friend replied promptly, sending an address and asking Tu Lanxun to come over at any time and tell him his name.
Since it is impossible to open a store for the dead, then open a store for the living first. Tu Lanxun taps the phone, and the physical distribution store registered online will quickly pass the review.
She thought about it and didn't use the name of 24h Sunshine Convenience Store directly. It happened that the emoticon package sent by her friend was a smiling broccoli, so she typed the words "Broccoli Store".
Taking advantage of the review time, Tu Lanxun took stock of the goods in the store, entered the remaining items into the electronic shelves, and cleared out a bunch of expired and short-shelf products, threw them into cardboard boxes, and placed them at the door of the store, preparing to throw them away later.
Finally, there's logistics. If someone places an order online, they need a courier to pick it up. But the problem is, no couriers are willing to come to the development zone because all the outlets there have withdrawn.
Forget it. If someone places an order, she will pack it and send it outside the development zone.
While Tu Lanxun was busy running around, N stayed in the shadows, like a handsome sculpture, but his eyes moved subtly with her movements.
He turned his shattered eye slightly and locked onto her, but because the pupil was obscured by the cracks, there was no sense of focus. His voice was cold and hoarse, "Who is that?"
It was a nonsensical sentence, but Tu Lanxun understood it. It referred to the friend who recycled gold.
"He's a friend of mine." She said frankly.
N's presence was as elusive as an incense stick. "The price he offered you was higher than the underground gold circulating price, with very little profit margin. It defies common sense. There's only one explanation... He had other motives."
That last sentence was probably what he wanted to say, but Tu Lanxun thanked him for the reminder. She smiled and said, "Don't worry, he's a very reliable friend. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do this job. He won't tell anyone about us."
N's face was expressionless, a hint of sneer passed through his thoughts, and a subtle and indistinguishable irritation appeared - he interpreted it as the feeling of being held back because the objective partner was too credulous.
Although she looks smart, she can do stupid things. She blindly trusts so-called friends whose true identities she doesn't know, but she doesn't think about who is truly reliable. She doesn't realize that this will only hurt her.
Although it had nothing to do with him, he was still dissatisfied with her wording.
Is there something going on between them?
Speaking of gold coins, Tu Lanxun suddenly couldn't figure something out, so he asked softly, "Oh, Uncle Liu also has gold coins. Does that mean he's also a character in 'Gray City'? But his remains are clearly on Earth."
This is strange. How can a fictional character have a corpse? And even if we take a step back, why would N send the headless man's skull? It's hard to say there's a connection between them other than murder, but he doesn't seem like the kind of person who would provoke the police.
After a long moment, N's voice rang out from the shadows. "It's not just the game characters that are merging with the Earth; it's also the game world itself."
He used the neutral word "fusion" instead of the more commonly used words "advent" or "invasion".
Tu Lanxun naturally imagined that since the game BOSS N was acquainted with the indigenous ghost Lao Liu, then Liu Maosheng's gold coins must have been obtained from other game characters. Maybe there was a social system between the character ghosts and the indigenous ghosts.
Where there is social interaction, there is circulation, and where there is circulation, there is a market. Unfortunately, she cannot and dares not to expand the ghost customer base, Tu Lanxun sighed.
After receiving the information that the outlet had passed the review, Tu Lanxun immediately went to work. The second step was promotion. Today was not the time to buy traffic for promotion, so she opened several online forums in the region and decided to post an advertisement herself.
Among them was the provincial forum where the computer ghost girl’s revelations were read.
Tu Lanxun registered an account, edited the post, and was about to send it out when he found that the color of the forum interface was wrong.
It was originally supposed to be a pastel color, clichéd yet a bit warm and old-fashioned, but now it has turned into a light cyan blue, a cool and dull tone.
The change started when she clicked to register an account. She thought it was an easter egg to welcome new users, but she didn't expect that the color was still blue when she exited. The whole forum felt cold, and the posts on the homepage were different from before.
[Excuse me, has anyone recently made offerings to the wild graves in Lucheng Huan Village? (I've been hungry for a long time, but I'm allergic to gluten.)]
[Twenty-digit ghost money for gold, the host is willing to lose 10%, come quickly near Yunbei University City.]
When will the ghost market open? It's been closed for decades, and it's too much trouble to buy anything. I might as well go through the lottery and be reborn!
Tu Lanxun's eyelids twitched. Did she accidentally enter some kind of gathering place for enthusiasts?
There is a button in the corner of the blue forum, which is in the shape of an incense stick. Clicking it will automatically jump back to the pink forum. Those weird posts will be instantly cleared and refreshed, turning into normal travel guides for the province, as well as titles about selling second-hand furniture.
Wait, she didn’t find the online store ad she edited here.
Tu Lanxun had a bad feeling and jumped back to the Qinglanse Forum with trembling fingers, only to find that the post he had just posted was floating at the top.
Hello! Our online store, "Broccoli Shop," has opened! Loads of convenience store gourmet food and trendy finds! Get a deal on group purchases, and get discounted shipping within the province!
She wanted to delete the post, but when she clicked on it, the number of replies was refreshed to 3. Many green users asked below how to buy it, and some had already found her online store and were complaining that the price was not converted to the internal exchange rate of Ghost.
But perhaps, as the Qinglu forum had complained, it was inconvenient for these user groups to buy things. So someone quickly placed an order on Tulanxun's online store.
The address filled in is local and is a location in Lucheng Cemetery.
Tu Lanxun was stunned.
They... should be alive, right?
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