Chapter 20 Chapter 20 The untied red satin cloth grew in the wind,
Most of the sheds at the provincial capital train station were empty, as most of the workers went home to spend the winter before the snow fell.
Dirty Beard's place was surprisingly easy to find, but the smell was simply too strong. Without Tu Xun's guidance, Lin Xinghuo could smell the suffocating stench the moment he got closer.
Unable to resist, he lifted the sable a little further away from him with one hand. Lin Xinghuo felt a little disgusted.
The cubs immediately stopped peeking out and huddled tightly in the basket. The eldest fox, who usually slept on top of her younger siblings, now relied on her status as the eldest sister to bury her head in the furry bellies of the second and third foxes.
Lin Xinghuo grabbed the caracal's long tail and covered his nose with it. He asked it in a muffled voice, "Are you going in?"
A mask of pain twisted up on Fangyuan Fangyuan's fat face and he squeezed out an "ow" from his throat.
Perhaps because the caracal had tickled him so much, the sable didn't run away even when it was released. Instead, it led Lin Xinghuo straight to the iron cabinet with great tact.
A bunch of keys was hanging on a wooden strip nailed to the wall. The sable climbed up sleekly and took off the key chain, giggling at Lin Xinghuo in a flattering manner.
The caracal's ears twitched in dissatisfaction, but he resisted the urge to wag his tail.
Lin Xinghuo, still wearing gloves, opened the drawer, which was crammed with all sorts of things. Sable slipped inside, pulled out a small wooden box, and chirped softly at Lin Xinghuo, sometimes clucking and sometimes buzzing.
When I opened the box, there were five shriveled and blackened lotus seeds and half a broken one inside.
I picked up the half and examined it. It looked as if it had been opened with pliers. The skin of the lotus seed was shrunken, but the green core inside still retained its emerald green.
Lin Xinghuo felt a circular mark on the bottom of the wooden box. When he turned it over, he saw that it was a Chinese character "金" in Chinese characters.
This "gold", and the "gold" in "Xuexiang Gold" on the small yellow croaker, it seems that I have encountered more things from the Jin family today?
"Ugh." The caracal, whose sense of smell is a hundred times more sensitive than that of humans, lay on Lin Xinghuo's neck and couldn't help but vomit.
Lin Xinghuo only then realized that the cat's thick tail was still dutifully blocking his nose. He hurriedly said, "Let's go now—Ugh!"
After locking the drawer and hanging the key, the shed's door curtain fluttered once, then returned to normal. A neighboring worker, who had gotten up for the night, poked his head in for a peek and couldn't help but curse, "What a stinker! Is Hu Zi looking for a wife? Even if he were a regular employee, no woman would marry such a filthy fellow!"
The black sable followed Lin Xinghuo closely. Lin Xinghuo, who was in the Qi Refining Stage, ran so fast, but the black sable could actually keep up with him.
Lin Xinghuo stopped, took out the small box and asked the caracal, "Is this a spiritual lotus seed? There's a hint of spiritual energy in the lotus core, and it seems to be more water-oriented?"
The caracal didn't know how it got provoked again, and said lazily: "Humans are blessed by nature, while monsters like me only know how to swallow things that benefit our blood and flesh." Humans divide water, one of the five elements, into "sea water", "river water", "Heavenly River water", "stream water", "well spring water" and "long-flowing water", each with its own characteristics and attributes. In terms of cultivation alone, the great monsters in ancient times were far inferior to human cultivators.
Lin Xinghuo grabbed a handful of clean snow and rubbed the lotus seeds, then picked up one and stuffed it into the caracal's mouth, coaxing, "Eat it. It will nourish your blood vessels and body."
The caracal was stunned, and saw Lin Xinghuo crush another one, divide it into three parts and feed them to the fox cubs in the basket.
After thinking for a while, Lin Xinghuo squatted down and looked at the sable. He pushed the half broken lotus seed in front of the sable and took out a piece of dried meat: "Go back to the woods." Reform yourself and be a sable again.
The sable quickly stuffed the dried meat into its mouth, picked up the lotus seeds, buzzed softly a few times, rubbed Lin Xinghuo's ankle, and quickly jumped into the snow pile and disappeared.
Putting the remaining three away, Lin Xinghuo patted his waist bag and said, "Let's try to grow them next year. Let's try one first. If we can grow them, we will have lotus seeds to eat. If not, I'll keep them for you." Lin Xinghuo felt that it was 80% possible to grow them. After all, the vitality was still there, and his five elements tended to be 'pine and cypress wood', and the basic skills on the wooden sign were also based on wood attributes. If he worked hard, he might be able to contract the lotus pond.
This lotus seed, which contains a trace of water spirit, has little effect on her foundation, so it is better to keep it for small animals to chew on.
"This is our spoils of war!" the caracal was furious. "You're giving my dried meat to the stinking mink?"
What animal in the woods would have the nerve to eat and take the spoils of a fight? The caracal was furious. The stinking marten even dared to rub against the caracal's human and mark him!
The two times they encountered Black Sable, Black Sable never attacked them. Especially this time, he took the initiative to "turn from darkness to light", preferring to play dead rather than respond to Dirty Beard's call. Lin Xinghuo's impression of Black Sable was not that bad, and - "That's half of the pill that Black Sable had eaten. Would you like to eat it?"
The caracal choked, then stretched out its sharp claws to hook the fox cubs, meaning that feeding them was better than feeding the cheap sables.
Lin Xinghuo put her right foot in the snow to rinse her boots. The cage where Dirty Beard kept the sable was extremely dirty. She was really a little disgusted: Lin Xinghuo even doubted whether the sable's shiny black fur was its real color. Would it fade if it was brushed in the snow?
Hiding the backpack under his hood again, Lin Xinghuo picked up the caracal and said, "Since we're here, the local product company in the provincial capital is bigger. Let's go buy some medicinal herbs."
Lin Xinghuo had her own plans for cleansing her bones and strengthening her foundation. In her previous life, when she was practicing with her master in Wangxian Cave, the traditional medical formulas were passed down by her sect.
Back when Lin Xinghuo was poring over prescriptions, she was baffled by many of the bizarre ancient recipes recorded. Some required adding the same herbs for each of the four seasons: the Spring Equinox, the Summer Solstice, the Autumnal Equinox, and the Winter Solstice. Others required "treating three things ten thousand times" to create a miraculous elixir. Yet, each boasted more and more about its efficacy. Even her master didn't take these recipes seriously, teaching them as mere relics of their own ancient history. Her master had once told her that reciting the several ancient texts passed down by their sect was enough to live up to their ancestors' teachings; the most important things were acupuncture techniques and pulse diagnosis.
Now that Lin Xinghuo was thinking about it carefully, he felt that it had some truth to it and wanted to try it out.
Lin Xinghuo went to the black market like he knew the place well, twisted two small yellow croakers apart, and rolled them into several round golden beads.
Patting the familiar black wooden door, Lin Xinghuo said, "Aunt, I'm here to see Auntie."
Qiao'er gathered her double-breasted jacket and said unhappily, "My mother-in-law is gone! She left a message to return to her roots, and her grave is buried on the east mountain of your Huomiaozi Village. You can go there to visit her!" Go to Huomiaozi Village, that fierce girl called her aunt again, how could she act like an aunt?
Lin Xinghuo covered herself up even more tightly than last time, and didn't even carry a load or basket, which made Qiao'er even more unhappy. It had been snowing all day and all night, and early in the morning, she was relaxing on her warm kang when this foolish young man bumped into her again.
Lin Xinghuo stretched out his hand, and a little golden light shone through the gap of his gloves, making the gloomy and dark sky seem a bit brighter.
Qiao'er's eyes widened a little, and her eyeballs followed the movement of the golden beads. After a while, she hummed, "Come into the house."
"What are you looking for this time? Let's make it clear. If you want to trade for books or old items, just go out and find that stool you've seen! I don't have those things here!" Although Chang Liang was in charge of the entire alley, the black market transactions were handled by each individual. For example, the last time Qiao'er brought Lin Xinghuo to Chang Liang's place, although she was the instigator, she only got five pounds of meat and bones. But if she had accepted Lin Xinghuo's things herself, she would have taken the lion's share.
Lin Xinghuo said: "Exchange money for some food and daily necessities."
Qiao'er then became enthusiastic and even brought a porcelain cup of water over: "Let me see the quality."
Each of these gold beads can be pinched to make an imprint, and they are pure gold of the highest quality.
After weighing it several times with a small scale, Qiao'er's face was full of smiles: "It's quite a lot, two taels!" It is exactly the weight of two small yellow croakers.
Lin Xinghuo knew she was referring to the old scale of two liang: prescriptions often measured in "qian," with ten qian equal to one liang, roughly 31.25 grams in modern terms. Lin Xinghuo regretted not grabbing any gold, which would have given the black market some whiff.
But these days, many people secretly hoard small yellow croakers, and those whose ancestors were wealthy might also have large yellow croakers. Qiao'er didn't care, saying, "I'm not going to lie to you! The public bank charges 265 yuan for one ounce of gold. Since you come to us, you'll have to pay twice as much, so it should be 424 yuan. Since you're a regular customer, I'll give you 430 yuan for two ounces of gold beads."
The current gold price is shockingly low. Lin Xinghuo frowned and took the gold beads from her hand: "Five hundred yuan."
Qiao'er raised an eyebrow, took a sip of tea, and after a while, said, "For the sake of being a regular customer, it's fine."
Lin Xinghuo had only one thought in that instant: "I lost money selling it!"
In reality, the loss wasn't that great: the black market price was determined by the buyer. Some, desperate for gold, would bargain for 50% of the price, while others, dealing among themselves, would mark up the price by 10%. Lin Xinghuo's price was nearly 95% of the official price, and that was because Qiao'er was willing to pay her a good price, considering she would still be buying from him and could make a profit.
It was all Lin Xinghuo's fault for consciously bringing in the little life experience from his previous life: when buying things, you have to bargain for a 50% discount. If the boss agreed, you would definitely lose money! Maybe he could get another 50% discount to make it okay!
She applied this experience to selling gold beads.
Fortunately, Monk Lin still cared about his own reputation and did not do anything that would cause him to regret after both parties had reached an agreement.
Lin Xinghuo became even more alert. Qiao'er's soft tactics were harder to guard against than Boss Chang's, who was clearly trying to trick people.
Qiao'er suffered a great deal in the latter half of the afternoon!
No matter what he was looking at, this silly kid would bargain the price in half, and some would even go so far as to directly ask for a 10% discount.
Obviously, Lin Xinghuo was a customer who farted after three beatings, but Qiao'er was so angry that her stomach was bloated.
"Look carefully! This is a whole jar of good honey. How much do you want?" Qiao'er held the honey jar tightly.
"Five dollars."
"The supply and marketing cooperative pays one yuan per pound for honey, and you only gave me five yuan for these ten pounds of honey!"
Lin Xinghuo thought for a moment, then looked at the bag where she hid the gold beads and repeated, "Five."
"Mom!..." Qiao'er calmed down and pointed at the things she had picked out, "You want all of them?"
Lin Xinghuo nodded.
Qiao'er waved her hand: "Okay, if you can take it, I'll sell it to you!" There is also a sewing machine here, and she wants to see how this young man will take it away.
Lin Xinghuo counted out twenty-five Great Unity notes and stuffed them into Qiao'er's hand.
I packed the scattered items into the two sheets I had just bought and placed them in the large basket by the wall. I smoothed out the tangled straw blanket and tied it around the sewing machine, one strand at a time, covering it as tightly as possible.
After testing whether the bottom of the basket was firm, Lin Xinghuo put the small basket hidden under the hood into the basket.
"Wow! This fox skin is really good!" Qiao'er noticed and asked quickly, "If you're willing to sell it to me, I'll give you thirty yuan a piece! Tanned skins only sell for thirty yuan, what do you think?"
Lin Xinghuo glanced at her, put the basket on his back without saying a word, put his left arm through the big belly of the sewing machine to support it, picked up the base and walked away.
Left.
Qiao'er held the warm stack of big unity notes in her hand, and her heart ached with regret.
"Hey, Sister Qiaohong, why are you already fiddling with the abacus beads before noon? Can you still do business on a snowy day like this?" The clattering sound of the abacus could be heard on the street outside. Wuzi wondered how much money he had made.
Qiao'er paused while moving the beads, and raised her face with a mournful expression: "According to the price she mentioned, the total is really two hundred and fifty!"
"What the hell?"
"Brother Wuzi," Qiao'er wiped her face, "I'm talking about myself! I sold two music boxes and a sewing machine to someone for fifty cents..."
"Huh?" Wuzi took a step back in fear. "Sister, you've been possessed by Huang Xian'er! One opera box costs one hundred and fifty!"
Not only that, she also took away a large basket from me and walked away right in front of me, carrying the sewing machine. Qiao'er said weakly, "You have to be a fairy to do this kind of business! I beg the fairy to bless that girl and stop her from knocking on my door again!"
Wuzi went back and told Chang Liangyi, sighing: "I couldn't see the girl's appearance clearly, how could she be so evil? Even someone like Qiaojie, who is more cunning than a fox, fell into her hands!" So don't mention the fact that I asked her to pick out two hundred yuan worth of old books. This time, Sister Qiaohong was so stupid that she asked people to carry three hard things for her.
Boss Chang had just taken a breath and was talking about what happened today when he heard the words, "Call Qiao'er over and I'll ask her."
"So she sold you two small yellow croakers?" Chang Liang said, "Let me see."
There were many nail marks on the gold beads. Chang Liang picked one out with tweezers and used a flashlight to carefully examine the small pattern left on it.
Chang Liang was one of the few people in Xue Province who were best informed. He'd received a call this morning after the Sanshi Forest Farm cracked a major theft case in the provincial capital last night. He didn't know the details, but someone had warned him that strong winds were coming soon and told him to be careful.
Chang Liang wasn't too worried. He'd heard of the gang, but he'd never sold the stolen goods. It wasn't that Chang Liang was particularly noble, but rather that the gang's previous boss was incredibly cunning. He never sold the stolen goods in surrounding cities, often taking a hit on a train and then selling them at a larger station. He'd heard about a change in leadership a while ago, and Chang was still wondering who would end up with the previous boss's hidden treasures. He hadn't expected to be busted right away.
Wuzi had been with him for a long time, and had heard Chang Liang muttering for a long time in the past year, saying that the Municipal Bureau had set up a "trace inspection room" and that business would be getting worse and worse in the future. He told them to be more vigilant when collecting things, so as not to get dragged into the ditch. Now, seeing Chang Liang looking at the gold bead with a flashlight, he asked, "Can these few traces really tell who it is?"
"You're so ignorant! I told you to learn a few more words, but you didn't listen." Chang Liang shone a flashlight into his eyes. "In 1960, the big brother in the north helped us develop a set of criminal technology. Last year, Beijing City used this fingerprint technology to solve a major case..."
Qiao Er stepped forward awkwardly: "This might have been caused by me. When she gave it to me, her hands were still covered in gloves."
Qiao Er complained: "Then shouldn't I pinch it to see how good it is?"
Chang Liang tossed the golden bead back to Qiao'er and said coldly, "Alright, don't feel bad about it. I know about that batch of Peony brand music boxes. They were all leftovers from 1966. My uncle bought them for 45% of the price. Add to that an old Butterfly brand sewing machine, and at 250 yuan, I'm not going to lose anything, let alone make a profit!"
The word "idiot" sounded particularly harsh, and Qiao'er pounded her chest and walked out with her head lowered.
After the others left, Chang Liang called Wuzi, "How did you get on with your inquiries?"
Wuzi scratched his head. "I've checked every black market in the provincial capital, but no particularly powerful strangers have shown up. Could it be that they're involved in a fight with another gang of thieves?"
Chang Liang shook his head. "No, that doesn't seem like the way thieves would do it. If they really did it, they would probably just bury their fellow thieves in the mountains."
"The girl selling gold has come to our alley twice now. Each time, no one saw her come in, and no one could follow her when she left. Could it be that...?"
Before Wuzi could speak, Chang Liang shook his head and said, "What happened at the forest farm happened last night. The Sanshi Forest Farm is so far away from the provincial capital, it can't be her."
Wuzi chuckled: "The trains have stopped in this heavy snow. She can fly! What are you thinking, brother?"
Lin Xinghuo can't fly, but she can run fast, especially if she can walk in a straight line.
Lin Xinghuo had another basket in her right hand. As expected of a local product company in the provincial capital, they had a large quantity and variety of medicinal herbs. Lin Xinghuo showed the salesperson her barefoot doctor training certificate, and the salesperson, without asking for a ticket, readily sold her a large quantity of herbs.
"Are you stuck in the city because of the snow?" The saleswoman stretched her head to look at the pile of things wrapped in straw blankets outside the door, and said sympathetically, "If you can't make it, just go to the train station and spend the night. It's warm there and it's free." If the snow stopped, there might be a car in the middle of the night.
Lin Xinghuo thanked her. The elder sister watched as the girl loaded a basket onto her back, then slung a straw blanket over her left shoulder, still clutching the basket in her right. She shook her head and sighed, "You have to bring bedding with you to bring in herbs! This village must be so poor they won't even cover hotel bills." As she spoke, she wrote "Fangmaji Commune, Bushiantun Production Brigade, Lin Xinghuo" on a notebook, ticked the name, and that was it—they were a local product company, not a herbal medicine company. They collected local herbs from various villages, carefully selected by the herbal medicine company, so there was no need to record the amount of each herb; they could just write down the total weight.
Later, when the provincial capital and Sanshan City conducted a joint investigation of educated youth from the communes near the forest farm, this small sales receipt made Lin Xinghuo the first person to be ruled out with a definitive alibi. The only two people who remained skeptical, the old Party secretary and the team leader of Buxian Village, testified: "We're short of medical care and medicine here. Comrade Lin Xinghuo was so lucky to be leading basic training students that our team sent her to the city to buy medicinal herbs. She's honest and didn't go to the county. She paid for her own trip to the provincial capital, and she tore up her train ticket because she was afraid we'd have to reimburse her travel expenses."
The old Party Secretary's face lit up as he told the investigator, "Comrade Lin won first place in the 'barefoot doctor training' preliminary exam! The training instructors at the county hospital all praised him! Comrade, please remember what I said."
The investigator's serious face showed some helplessness, and he finally got out after much persuasion.
After crossing out Lin Xinghuo's name and blacking out the note "Ticket?", he complained to his colleagues: "It was windy and snowy on the day of the accident, but it was still far from a blizzard. They misreported a blizzard for fear of a bad impact, so they resumed the trains as soon as the snow stopped. The people who had been stuck at the station for a day and a night were afraid that the trains would be suspended again, so they squeezed onto the trains like crazy. Two ticket inspectors were even injured by the squeeze. It's impossible to check the tickets." The investigator suspected that Lin Xinghuo was also one of the people who didn't buy tickets.
"Well, another wasted trip! I heard that Comrade Lin is quite capable, and the director is urging us to come and investigate. Do you think a little girl of sixteen or seventeen can be that capable?"
A colleague got on the sled and said, "He got first place in the exam, and he dared to go to the provincial capital to buy medicinal herbs. This is not considered a talent!"
Of course, this little episode never reached Lin Xinghuo's ears, as it had already been intercepted by the old Party Secretary. This is a story for later, so I won't go into it for now.
·
At this time, Lin Xinghuo, who was running in the snow carrying a small mountain, was stopped by Mr. Mao.
Lin Xinghuo saw the caracal jump down from her neck and rummage through the long hair on her chest. After a while, it took out a ball of red satin the size of a quail egg.
"What is this?" Lin Xinghuo thought it looked a bit like the handkerchief Grandma Wei used to wrap money, but it was a little smaller.
The caracal carefully extended its claws and untied the knots at the four corners of the satin. Such a small amount of cloth, and yet it was tied into a bundle in a proper manner?
Lin Xinghuo was squatting and watching, when suddenly - the untied red satin grew in the wind right before her eyes, and only stopped when it was a meter wide.
The caracal licked his paw proudly and raised his round, furry face: "Put the sewing machine and other things up here."
"Is this a storage bag?" The legendary mustard seed bag that can hold Mount Sumeru!
"That's about right." The caracal took great effort to tie the knot again, but probably felt that the action was not good-looking, so it said, "Just untie one corner when you need it." The caracal took the trouble to demonstrate it so that you, a human, can see it clearly.
The knotted red satin bag shrank into a small bundle like a quail egg, and the caracal hid it in the fur on its chest.
"Won't it fall off? How about I hang a red rope around your neck?" Lin Xinghuo asked worriedly.
The caracal glanced disdainfully at the fox cubs clinging to the edge of the basket to join in the fun, with his furry mouth turned up to the ground: "It's like these three stupid foxes have bells hanging around their necks?" The caracal said that those were useless pets or things that would only be worn by hard laborers.
Lin Xinghuo secretly touched her small wooden token - even though she recognized its owner, she was still used to hanging the wooden token around her neck.
Before it was completely dark, Lin Xinghuo successfully returned to his yard.
The caracal helped her take out the new things she had bought, and only then did Lin Xinghuo feel like sorting out the things she had bought from the black market last time.
Lin Xinghuo placed the wooden box containing the spiritual lotus seeds and the snail gourd on the kang table, and his hands, which were flipping through the books, suddenly stopped.
"Hmm, these two give me a similar feeling?"
The curled-up caracal struggled to pry open one eyelid, then slowly closed it.
Lin Xinghuo used two fingers to prop up its eyelids: "Look, why do they look like this?"
The macaque is so angry!
Shaking off the human's hand, the caracal jumped onto Lin Xinghuo's head, retracted its claws, and gave its little friend two cat hammers.
Lin Xinghuo, feeling guilty, shouldered the heavy weight on his head and carefully chiseled a small hole in the gourd's mouth with the tip of his fanged dagger.
Suddenly, a stream of pure wood spirit energy overflowed from the gourd mouth...
So, after all the trouble they had to travel from the forest farm to the provincial capital, their most precious treasure was already at home?
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The author has something to say: See you tomorrow~
Note:
① "Water from the sea", "Water from the big river", "Water from the sky river", "Water from the stream", "Water from the well", and "Water from the long flow" are water elements in the five elements of Na Yin.
Wood: mulberry, pine, cypress, big forest, willow, pomegranate, flat ground. "Pine and cypress" is not afraid of Jianfeng Metal, because it is a pillar of talent and cannot be made into material without being cut.
The original five elements of the stems and branches are called the regular five elements. In addition to the regular five elements, there are also the evolved five elements that combine the sixty Jiazi and the five tones and twelve musical notes, with each two annual stems and branches of the sixty Jiazi representing a special nature. The ancients called it the Na Yin Five Elements.
② In 1956, the "Criminal Registration Ten-Finger Fingerprint Analysis Method" and the "Ten-Finger Fingerprint Operation Procedures of Custody Departments" were promulgated, standardizing the ten-finger fingerprint analysis method nationwide. — "A Brief History of the Development of Criminal Science and Technology in New China"
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