Zhang Luo subconsciously looked at the bearded face and the two female cashiers. Everyone thought she was waiting for them to reason with the boss, Mama Li. Everyone is a small person, and they have to take care of their jobs, so they naturally shrank.
Seeing that Zhang Luo had no words to say, Mother Li picked up her shaved and newly painted thin eyebrows, and shouted at the domestic servant: "Are they all dead? Won't you wrap up her things and send them out?!"
At this time, a little girl opened the cotton curtain and came out, and whispered back: "Sister Shishi said that the Chinese New Year is coming soon. Mom, why not treat it as a good deed"
"It's not that I don't care about my sister's face. She is like this now, how can she stay? If she wants to stay, she can only sprinkle water and sweep the floor and clean the toilet!" Mother Li knew that this could drive people away.
The little girl went in and came out again, holding a snow-green ribbed handkerchief roll: "Mr. Jia, this is an additional five taels of silver from the teacher and sister. Don't let it go to you, just go."
Zhang Luo looked back again, and the bearded face and the two female cashiers had already left. With trembling hands, she took the two pieces of silver and followed the boy to get her luggage roll. I just wanted to know about Mr. Jia's past, but my heart seemed to be frozen by the icy wind of the twelfth lunar month, and I couldn't move.
She had just carried a roll of bedding on her back, and when she left the gate of Qianqian Lane-Zuixinglou, she saw a palace carriage paved with brocade, pulled by four tall white horses. On both sides of the car, there were a few beardless men, all walking slowly, holding palace lanterns that could only be seen during the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The servant behind Zhang Luo saw it, and rushed to report to the inside. Then, Mother Li, who was still raising her eyebrows to chase people away, ran out, squeezed Zhang Luo behind the door, and drove down towards the palace.
"Mother Li, great news!" When the people in the car saw it, they lifted the curtain to reveal their face. It was a handsome man in his forties, with no beard, but his voice was unusually loud: "Master Tong just now Having regained the Yanyun Seven States, the Holy One was overjoyed and asked to immediately welcome the empress into the palace."
"Master Tong deserves to be selected by the officials. Not only did he flatten Songjiang Fangla before, but now he has conquered the southern capital of Liao Kingdom. Now, from the twelfth lunar month until the New Year, this Bianliang City must be lively and lively?!" Mother Li smiled and blessed again.
"That's not it, the Holy Majesty even asked the Sa family to bring you a reward. After all, Empress Li has entered the palace, you Zuixinglou" The beardless handsome man stopped talking.
"Being able to serve the official family is the blessing of this old slave for several lifetimes." Mama Li almost fell to the ground this time. Then she smiled and closed the curtain of the handsome uncle's car, and asked people to open the door and let the palace car in. When the gate is closed again, the road in the whole alley is too dark to see clearly, although there are still various lights on the high places.
Zhang Luo had no choice but to move on. She had to find a place, at least for a night. It's a pity that everything in Bianjing is expensive, and the hotels that are open at this time are all preparing to do business with officials who come to Beijing, and the prices are especially high. Even a bowl of noodles in clear soup costs half a tael. She asked all the way, and there wasn't a single store that didn't want a couple of three or four for one night. Moreover, every store looked at Zhang Luo's appearance, and curled their lips:
"It's full!"
"My lady, turn right when you go out!"
"The servants are also full. Now there is a great event, and officials from all over the world have come to Beijing to celebrate. There is no room for even the stables."
Zhang Luo looked at the rows of lanterns outside the storefronts. In the end, she didn't even dare to ask the price of "one night in the stable", after all, she only had seven taels of silver. She also had to get lost in the streets and alleys of Bianjing among the cavalcades and sedan chairs carrying boxes and cages everywhere. When it was almost midnight, all the shops closed their doors, and the street became quiet. She rolled up her bed and squatted down under the eaves behind a bathhouse called "Xiaoge".
Then, like ghosts and ghosts, some men and women appeared from nowhere, all of them were not in rags, but they all lowered their heads, and each of them was squatting or sitting under the eaves of the shops on the street. Just as Zhang Luo was about to close her eyes, a kick kicked her:
"Hey, newcomer, have you paid the rent yet?"
In front of him is a man with a hooded head and a short shirt, holding a braised dog leg in his hand, which has been eaten to the bone.
"Rent money? What kind of rent?" Zhang Luo looked around. Now that he was sleeping on the street, what rent should he pay? !
"I'm covering this under the eaves. Do you think you can live in vain?"
Just as Zhang Luo was about to open his mouth, he heard a man in a short shirt shoot himself like a machine gun: "Don't you know that even Tong Daguan paid the rent to get back to Youyun Qizhou?!"
"Didn't he win the war?" A man under the opposite eaves looked at a man and woman in a nearby family putting their children to sleep, making loud noises on purpose. Immediately, the little dolls began to cry, and behind himThere were also a few beeps from the wall.
"Outside, keep your voice down, what's the noise!"
"That's right, didn't Tong Guan set out to take back Yanjing?" Another sleeper also asked in a low voice.
"Bullshit! He bought it from the gold man with 30 million coins." The man in the short shirt knocked the dog leg in his hand and grinned at Zhang Luo. "Fuck! Pooh, do you think you are better than Master Tong?"
Zhang Luo had no choice but to get up with the bedclothes in his arms.
"Hey, wait! Why did you leave before asking the price?" The man in the short shirt didn't expect that the dark and thin woman would not even tell the price.
"Should I still sleep on the street if I have money?" Zhang Luo drooped his head.
? On the other side, there was a person who delivered drinks during the day. He looked at Zhang Luo and asked, "Are you Jia Yi, the accountant of Zuixinglou?"
Zhang Luo really didn't know Mr. Jia's name, so he turned to look at him.
"That Li Shishi from Zuixinglou is a celebrity in the capital. Why don't you give you a few hundred taels of money when you are kicked out?" The man in the short shirt waited for Zhang Luo to find out how much money he had. He forgot that both Zhang Luo and Mr. Jia are accountants, and they are the tightest when it comes to money.
"Brother, it would be great if you opened Zuixinglou. If I have a job, can I still hang out on the street in the middle of the night?"
"Mr. Jia, what you said is wrong. Which of these neighbors has a serious job during the day? It's just that the rent in Bianjing is too expensive. If you live in the suburbs of the city and go back and forth to work, the transportation fee is also expensive, and the time will not be delayed. Everyone just came here to live." The man in the short shirt wiped his mouth with his sleeve, stretched out his sleeve to Zhang Luo, and wanted to trade in private: "How about this number?"
Zhang Luo's sleepy mind was numb: "I really don't have any money."
"Then get out!" the man in the short shirt yelled angrily in a low voice.
As expected, Zhang Luo carried the blanket and walked to the eaves of the next intersection. It was different from other places, there was only a man wrapped in a cloak under the eaves, holding a long knife with a sheath in his hand. Other homeless people dare not approach. However, a cat who didn't know where it came from was lying at his feet. Zhang Luo decided to follow the example of stray cats.
"Alas you are a poor woman. It's a good thing your father was the Taoist leader of Lingxu Palace back then."
The man in the short shirt just wanted to send Zhang Luo away again. But when the man in the cloak with the knife raised his head slightly, the man in the short shirt had to mutter across the road, and went to cool off by himself.
Zhang Luo was able to lean against the mud wall behind him and fell down. As soon as her butt touched the ground, she fell asleep. Although she was also beeped several times in the mud wall behind her, and the men and women who were a little closer to her also thought that her snoring was too loud, and Zhang Luo didn't know that she had changed places or stuffed toilet paper in her ears. . She didn't even know how many male and female thieves tried to steal the bedroll she was carrying while she was asleep, but after seeing the cloaked swordsman, they wisely avoided it. At dawn the next day, a little boy from behind the mud wall ran out and slapped Zhang Luo awake with the door latch.
"Eldest sister, you made a lot of noise tonight. It's dawn, so let's go separately, don't delay people's business."
It was only then that Zhang Luo realized that the people who slept with him in the middle of the night had already woken up, packed up their things, and were about to leave. And the swordsman disappeared. She touched the two bags of money on her chest, they were still there.
"My little brother, how do I get to Lingxu Palace?"
Since the man in the short shirt said last night that Mr. Jia's father is the Taoist priest of Lingxu Palace, Zhang Luo decided to go there to hang out, and inquire about Mr. Jia's story by the way. After all, the empress of the small temple at Wuli's construction site is also surnamed Jia, so she might be one of them.
"Lingxu Palace? Don't talk nonsense. It has been closed by order for several years. The Taoist priests in it were either exiled to Qiannan or executed." Xiao Er was shocked and yelled in a low voice.