Chapter 72
The next day, Qingxi got up early.
After making breakfast for the crows in the crowhouse, she took off her apron and went out.
"Hey! Mr. Harada, are you ready for the mission?"
I didn't expect to meet Harada Shinnosuke, who was being urged to hurry up by the crow, at the door of the clinic. Looking at the Nichirin sword worn on his waist and the Demon Slayer Corps uniform worn neatly under his haori, Qingxi blurted out.
"Yes, my injury was not serious originally, and my eyes have healed, but the Nichirin sword was broken, and it takes time to reforge it, so I waited a few more days. Now the new Nichirin sword has been delivered by the swordsmith, and the mission has also arrived, so it's time to set off." Harada Shinnosuke said as he shook his arms, moved his feet, and did warm-up exercises.
"Then, I wish you good luck in martial arts." Qingxi said to Harada Shinnosuke.
This is what the medical staff of the clinic always say to the ghost hunters who are about to embark on the road of killing ghosts again after their injuries have healed.
It is a blessing and also a prayer.
I wish them a successful mission and pray that they can successfully kill the ghosts when they encounter them and survive.
Harada Shinnosuke waved his hand and said, "I'm leaving now. I'll bring a gift for Aki when I come back. Well, it'll be octopus balls."
When Qingxi heard the name of octopus balls, he decisively refused, "No, I've been eating too many snacks like this lately, I'm a little tired of it."
After watching Harada Shinnosuke and the crow standing on his shoulder leave for a while, Qingxi turned around and slowly walked along the side of the road in the opposite direction of him.
She came to the shop of Grandma Su and Old Man Qin with familiarity. Just as she was about to go in and say hello, she saw a woman in her twenties with a bun on her head, holding a boy in each hand and asking the two old men for money.
The woman dressed herself well enough, but she didn't care about her two children at all. Her face was gray, and there were two shiny slugs hanging under her nose. She seemed to have seen lice jumping around on her short hair. Her clothes were greasy and black, and were covered with starch. It looked like she had worn them for several months without taking them off and washing them.
Yesterday I heard the two elders talking about their son and daughter-in-law, but after all, it was just words, and the description contained personal subjective feelings. If someone else were to listen to them, they would have to take their words with a grain of salt.
But after seeing the real person, Qingxi felt that the two elders were really being polite.
The daughter-in-law and grandson are in such a state, so the son is probably just as Uncle Qin said, "cannot be helped", "has no hope", and "I give up on him".
Noticing the look Grandma Su gave him, Qingxi immediately swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth, and then walked past the shop pretending not to know her.
Only after the woman got ten yen from Grandma Su and happily asked her two children to leave did Qingxi turn back.
"Grandma Su, are you guys okay?" Qingxi asked as she slipped into the shop like a little fish.
Compared to her cautiousness, the two old people seemed to be used to it.
Old Man Qin glanced at her, then went to the kitchen to get the breakfast made by the old woman. He slurped a mouthful of porridge and picked up a few pickled mustard heads to eat. Then he said, "What can happen to us?
Anyway, this is the last time she can ask us for money."
"Axi, have you had breakfast?" Grandma Su asked Qingxi to sit down. After living here for so long, some of her old habits have been slowly changed.
It's not that they are pretentious, but those habits in their lives that seem normal to them look strange in the eyes of others. In order to avoid trouble, they have changed them little by little.
"I've already eaten." Seeing that Granny Su was about to prepare breakfast for herself, she stopped her and said, "Granny Su, you should sit down and eat too."
Qingxi's eyes fell on the table. There was white porridge with pickled mustard greens, a small plate of peanuts, and a cut preserved egg with a little soy sauce on it. This was a very Chinese breakfast.
Maybe it had been left out for a while, so the porridge was no longer hot. Old Man Qin quickly finished his portion, put down the table, stood up, took the real estate information that had been prepared long ago, and called Shang Qingxi and the old man and the child to go out.
Following Old Man Qin all the way, Qingxi suddenly remembered something, "Grandpa Qin, at my age, can I transfer my real estate or something?"
Old Man Qin glanced at her lazily and said slowly, "Back then, as long as we had money and wanted to buy a house or shop, we could just go to the government office to register and stamp the house and land deeds. Here, we have to go through other channels. Besides, it's just that one shop, so it won't attract the attention of the higher-ups."
Seeing that the destination was about to be reached, Old Man Qin changed the subject: "Wait a moment, when we go in, cooperate with me. Be smart and don't be stupid."
"I know, I know."
It was such an obvious hint that Qingxi had no choice but to agree.
An hour later, when an old man and a young boy came out, the owner of Old Qin and his shop had changed.
Walking back, Old Man Qin hummed a tune in a good mood, "Well, our business here is basically over. After saying goodbye to the neighbors today, my wife and I will leave tomorrow."
Qingxi was stunned. "Didn't you say it would take two days?"
Old Man Qin said confidently, "Leave early and get rid of the blood-sucking bugs."
Thinking from the perspective of the two elders, Qingxi felt the same way. Who would want to be sucked blood by their own children when they are old?
"That's fine."
Returning to the shop, she continued, "Tomorrow I'll have the white-haired man who came with us yesterday come and escort you."
"No need." Old man Qin waved his hand to refuse.
"Grandpa Qin, don't refuse yet. Listen to what I have to say first." What can you do if the old man is too stubborn? You can't beat him up, so Qingxi can only say patiently. "You may not believe it, but there are ghosts in this world.
It is not the ghost that the soul of a person turns into after death as we know it, but a ghost that is transformed from a human and feeds on humans.
This kind of thing has existed in Heian-kyo a thousand years ago, um, during the Tang Dynasty. I came here two years ago and encountered one when I got here. Later, I killed one together with others. Last winter, it was almost eaten but was rescued by someone. This is the third one.
Don't underestimate them. Both of my arms were broken last winter and I spent the whole year in bed.
Ghosts are afraid of sunlight, wisteria flowers and the Sunlight Blade. Sunlight is only available during the day, and you don't have the Sunlight Blade. I feel that having only wisteria flowers is still a little unsafe, so let my, um, retainer take you there.
I can't possibly dump my son and his wife and start a life together, only to have bad luck happen to them.
"Pfft, pfft, pfft, little girl, please don't curse us." Old man Qin said with a sullen face. "I still want to live another twenty or thirty years."
However, he took Qingxi's words to heart and no longer had the nerve to refuse Qingxi's kindness.
"I went back yesterday and prepared some medicine for you." Qingxi took advantage of the fact that no one else was in the shop at the moment and took out the medicine he had sorted out overnight. "I put a label on the outside of each medicine, with instructions on how to take it and a simple instruction manual. If you get sick, you can take the medicine according to your symptoms."
"Next, there's this." Two wine jars, taller than she was, appeared, making the shop's ground floor seem crowded. She patted the walls of the jars. "Medicinal wines. One strengthens the body, invigorates the spleen and removes dampness, and the other prolongs life and nourishes the liver. Everyone who drinks it has to say it's good... Just drink it yourself, don't share it with others."
Regardless of whether this wine is really as magical as it is said to be, the medicine alone is what they need.
Grandma Su didn't say anything and put them all away.
"There are also wisteria flowers." As someone entered the shop, Qingxi changed the subject and asked, "Besides wisteria flowers, do you have other hairpins?"
Granny Su blinked. "Are you going to wear it yourself, little guest, or are you buying it as a gift?"
"For Mom. Her birthday is in a few days." Qingxi lied without hesitation. She said a little embarrassedly, "Um, is there anything cheaper? I'm afraid the money I saved is not enough..."
The guest who came in was a woman. Judging from her clothes, she should be the wife of a wealthy family. After hearing the conversation between Qingxi and Grandma Su, she looked at her with a look of pride that she thought others could not notice.
It's just a pity that the three people she met today were smart people who had lived longer and experienced more than her.
Granny Su asked Old Man Qin to look after the shop while she walked out of the counter. "There are still some hairpins in the shop that were not sold a few years ago. If you don't mind, young customer, I can take you to the small warehouse in the backyard to take a look."
Qingxi followed Granny Su without saying anything. She said softly, a little embarrassedly, "S-Sorry to bother you so much."
The two of them went to the backyard, and Qingxi took out the things that he had not taken out before because someone had come.
"This is wisteria perfume. Basically, one spray can keep the scent for half a day. Here are ten bottles, which should last for a long time. In addition to these ten bottles of wisteria perfume, these wisteria fragrance bags and wisteria incense are available for purchase around here after you settle down.
And this." Qingxi took out the things one by one and told Grandma Su to put them away. Finally, she took out a cloth bag the size of an adult's palm.
The cloth bag itself is not big, but it is filled with things so that it looks bulging and very heavy.
She opened the bag, and a flash of gold caught their eyes. She explained, "It's about five pounds. It felt a bit glaring when I took it out as a whole, so I smashed it with a hammer this morning. That way, I won't be targeted when I take it out to exchange for money."
"I originally wanted to prepare some diamonds for you. They're more valuable than gold back home, but the diamond market in Japan hasn't been opened up to foreigners yet. No matter how beautiful it is, it's just a piece of stone. So I only put one in there. I'll keep it for another ten years or so until the diamond market opens up. I can sell it or give it to someone you like so he can use it to get married. It would be a very prestigious thing."
Even though Granny Su and Old Man Qin were guarding the things on the three ships that came with her, they were not the kind of people who would let themselves suffer. Apart from what they entrusted to Qingxi, they had also saved enough money for their retirement in the next few decades. Not to mention that Qingxi didn't prepare these for them today, she also prepared a box of gold in her mustard jade token. If the gold was spent after they died, it would be spent, but if there was anything left, it would also return to the mustard jade token along with the mustard jade token.
Even if she didn't tell Qing Ximing about these things, she would understand them just by thinking about them.
But she prepared these for them.
From this point of view, Grandma Su admires her husband's perspective on people.
After Grandma Su accepted the bag of gold and diamonds, Qingxi didn't forget to add, "If you're not extremely short of money, don't sell that red diamond. By the 1980s or 1990s, the price of natural red diamonds would be unattainable worldwide."
Born into a royal merchant family and having the courage to follow her husband out to sea, how could Granny Su be a dull person?
"Finally." Qingxi handed her a wakizashi, "The Nichirin sword of the Demon Slayer Corps is basically a tachi unless otherwise noted, but there are exceptions occasionally. My Nichirin sword was reforged by a swordsmith using the broken Nichirin sword of a dead Demon Slayer Corps hunter who was killed by a demon.
This is a knife that will be recycled, and it's the only one I have, so keep it for self-defense."
"This is very necessary for my husband and me, so, mother-in-law, I won't be polite with you." Grandma Su took Qingxi to the warehouse.
The warehouse is not big, only about ten square meters, but it is kept very clean. The wall facing the gate is made into five-layer shelves. There are two or three medium-sized boxes on the first layer of shelves. There are boxes on the left and right walls as well, but those boxes are a little big, and even the path in the middle for people to enter and exit is very narrow.
Qingxi followed Granny Su in. Granny Su reached out and patted the boxes on both sides. "Here are the fabrics and kimonos that I've found to be good over the years. On the shelf over there are mostly the laces, embroidery, and clothes that I made myself."
She casually opened a box and took out a plum blossom hairpin of a rather dull color. "My son and daughter-in-law are both short-sighted. The things in this warehouse are just for them. Except for the things on the shelves in front, my husband and I packed everything else here yesterday. You should collect them too."
Granny Su pressed the plum blossom hairpin into Qingxi's hand and said, "I'm worried that after my husband and I leave, when he comes back and hears the neighbors say we sold this place, he'll climb over the wall and steal everything, or maybe he'll get angry and burn this place down."
Qingxi took the hairpin and looked through it for a while, then looked up in surprise and said, "It can't be that exaggerated."
"Who knows?" Granny Su smiled bitterly and shook her head. "Didn't we say this before? The roots are completely rotten and can't be straightened out. Otherwise, why would my husband and I give you, an outsider, everything we have in our lifetime and not him?"
Qingxi was speechless.
The topic ended here. According to Grandma Su's instructions, Qingxi put all the boxes in the warehouse into the food backpack. Then the two of them went out, and Grandma Su closed the wooden door on this side again.
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