When Chen Yan said that someone in his friend's house was actually doing business with ghosts, Du Jun and I both thought we had heard wrongly.
Is it because we have fallen behind in the mountainous area of Dajin Village and the world outside has changed like this?
We just destroyed a ghost valley a few days ago, and now there are people in other places who dare to do business with ghosts!
If this continues, can I treat King Yama to a drink tomorrow?
Chen Yan also felt that what he just said was too alarmist, so he hurriedly explained a few more words to us.
This ghost is not the kind of evil ghost that we common people say turns into after death, but that their children are doing business in the ghost market.
When he said this, we both understood that what had been going on for a long time was a ghost market—the kind of special trading market that Du Jun had always longed for.
In fact, it has another name, called night market or underground market.
But why does Gui have such a scary name?
That's because this kind of market can almost only be entered at night, and many things inside are not visible to the light.
Both setting up stalls and doing transactions are very sneaky, hence the name.
This kind of market exists more and more in special periods, such as those years during the movement to destroy the four olds.
At that time, private business was explicitly prohibited, forcing many people to find places on their own initiative to conduct private transactions in secret.
In the end, almost every city in the country, including Fengtian, had this weird underground market.
But none of them are truly ghost markets.
Ghost markets in the standard sense only exist in a few unique places such as Sijiucheng, Luoyang, and Yanjing.
Among them, the Four Nine Cities are the most famous, known as the Four Cities and Eight Ghosts.
In addition to the famous Panjiayuan, there are ghost markets outside Tianqiao, Xixiaoshi, Dongxiaoshi, Gaoliangqiao, and Chaoyangmen that start in the early morning and close at dawn.
Tianbao Road in Nankai District, Yanjing, is a ghost market as famous as Panjiayuan in Forty-Nine City.
This good friend, Chen Yan, lived in Nankai District, Yanjing. His ancestor was a very powerful man, but he had gone through many twists and turns since the Republic of China. He was fucked several times during sports, and he was once very depressed.
But times have turned around, and now that the policy has been implemented and a lot of compensation has been given, their family has become a well-known wealthy family in Nankai District.
Chen Yan's good friend is the third son of this family, whose name is Li Baosheng. His acquaintances usually call him Li San, who has the same name as the famous thief in the Republic of China.
Li San has two older brothers, Li Jinsheng and Li Yinsheng. It turns out that these three brothers all work in Tianjin Candle Factory.
After the movement, Li San was quick-thinking and left the factory first, and co-founded a Chinese medicine store in Yanjing.
To a certain extent, I am still a bit of a peer.
Those who got sick this time were the next generation of Lao Li's family, Li San's sons and nephews. I heard that these boys usually hang out in the ghost market on Tianbao Road.
The reason why the Li family was able to find me is really thanks to Du Jun. Didn't this guy get a thousand yuan amulet?
Those with connections in Dajin Village took it seriously, and in the past two days they successively released the news to some qualified relatives and friends in other places.
Most people just listened to it as a story, but Li San was very excited after listening to Chen Yan's story.
Immediately tell Chen Yan that someone in the family is suffering from a serious evil disease, and he must have this amulet.
However, he had a small request. He hoped that the two miracle doctors would come to Yanjing in person to deliver the amulet. If they could save another patient, the old Li family would be willing to pay a large sum of money.
Chen Yan emphasized again that as long as we agreed, he would immediately be responsible for asking for leave for us and arranging for people to buy tickets. Chen Yan would be responsible for all expenses along the way, including daily necessities.
Naturally, I won't refuse this kind of thing. This is what you do. If someone comes to you, how can you extrapolate?
So I agreed immediately. Du Jun and I prepared our things, greeted Wang Man and Xiaolian, and got on the train to Yanjing with Chen Yan the next day.
It was the peak season of Spring Festival travel at this time, and the carriage was packed as densely as cans. Coupled with the cold weather, the windows were tightly closed, and a foul smell filled the entire carriage.
Fortunately, Chen Yan bought us a sleeper berth. Just when the two of us were preparing to sleep in the car for a while, exciting news came out on the radio in the car - the country has finally resumed the college entrance examination, and next year will be the first batch.
Admissions exam!
Ula, okay... Countless cheers and shouts resounded throughout the train.
The old people and children didn't feel anything yet, but the young people were different. Many people, whether they knew each other or not, jumped up and hugged each other. Some of the people wearing glasses even shed tears.
Next, the beer and liquor in the restaurant and on the carts were sold out instantly.
Du Jun forced his way through and grabbed back two bottles of beer and a bag of peanuts, forcing Chen Yan and me to drink some.
Chen Yan didn't feel much about the news. His son was already old and his grandson was still young. He drank a bottle of beer and fell asleep in bed.
The remaining two of us were more casual, especially Du Jun. He took off his cotton-padded clothes in the cold weather, drank until he was happy, and even sang a song in Russian.
I really don't understand it.
"Hey, Dajun, our grades are too bad to get into college! Are you so excited?"
"Xiao Dao, you don't understand this. I don't want to go to college at all. Do we just need to go to college? When we get our diplomas next year, we can do big things!"
Du Jun picked up a glass of beer, drank it in two gulps, and then grabbed some peanuts and threw them into his mouth.
"But don't forget, Xiaolian and Wang Man's results are pretty good!
"I guess the two of them have to work hard. It's no problem to get into college. If one of us wants to marry a college student, wouldn't that be better than the two of us getting into college?"
Du Jun's fallacy really reminded me that this is indeed the case. It doesn't matter whether we two go to college or not.
But Xiaolian still has a rural registered permanent residence. If she becomes a college student, my parents will be extremely happy!
The more I thought about it, the happier I became, so I simply took off my cotton-padded clothes, made an exception and drank a glass of beer with Du Jun, and then began to study the treatment of evil diseases at Lao Li's house.
Nowadays, treating any evil disease does not pose a big challenge to us. No matter how dangerous and exciting it is, it does not have the same nervousness as before.
I am very interested in the ghost market in Yanjing.
Nowadays, there are more and more ways to spend money. According to our personalities, if Xiaolian and Wang Man are really admitted to college, it is impossible for their parents to pay for all the expenses in the past four years.
It would be better if they study in Fengtian, but if they go to the south or other big cities, their expenses in the past few years will not be small.
Even though we made a lot of money during this period, this was a good opportunity. Brother Zhao Zhiguo protected us and gave us the title of external liaison officer.
Otherwise, ordinary people, you want to do so many things? It will definitely be labeled as a speculator.
Du Jun had already arranged for himself to retreat, and his target was the special markets in these big cities. Even if there was no incident with Lao Li's family, he was still going to visit the ghost markets in Sijiucheng and Yanjing.
Now we have an opportunity. We have made up our minds to settle the affairs of Lao Li's family as soon as possible after arriving in Yanjing, and then spend a few days to visit the ghost market.
