The foothill department store was a wonderful place, at least for Xu Le.
In his youth, which was full of the color of escape, only this store, which was hidden at the end of the stone path in the neighboring mountain of the city, and the small courtyard in the slums of the Tianjing planet of the Empire, could bring him a real sense of relaxation. The biggest difference between the former and the latter was that the kind mother and son in the small courtyard was the source of the sense of relaxation, while the department store permeated the walls and even the air.
Today, he didn't buy the energy bars used by students. He took a bottle of inferior liquor and two bags of peanuts from the depths of the shelves and walked to the small table at the entrance. He lowered his head and silently took out the change in his pocket, put it in front of the boss, and turned to leave.
The gray-haired boss put down the bowl of instant noodles in his hand and didn't count the money. He looked at Xu Le who was about to walk out of the door and said mockingly, "You are getting more and more impolite. In the past, you at least knew to call me Boss Xiaoshan."
Xu Le's back stiffened slightly. He turned his head and took off his hat. He looked at him and said bitterly, "How come you can recognize me every time?"
"I have been running a store all my life, and I have never met a fugitive who dared to come back to buy things from me again and again like you did. I even knew that I had already recognized you when the president made the announcement. A fugitive like you is really rare, so of course, it is not easy to forget. "
Xu Le was silent for a moment and said, "But this time is different from the last time. I am now a citizen of the Empire."
"There is a saying that goes, 'Old friends are as good as new, old friends are as before'. You may not understand the meaning of this saying, but it roughly means that some people are still strangers even after spending a lifetime with each other, while some people can become lifelong friends just by stopping the car and chatting for a while. "
The boss looked at him and said expressionlessly, "Of course, there is no such friendship between us, but in my opinion, you can be considered an interesting guy, so I am willing to spare some precious time to chat with you."
The owner of the department store, who was over fifty years old and looked very ordinary, spoke in a very ordinary and simple way. However, the words he occasionally used, such as the two sentences, were interesting.
This department store was far away from the downtown area and was located in a remote mountainside forest. Its business wasn't very good. Even the sparrows in the forest dared to proudly pace in front of the door. Looking at such a small store, one's life was probably consumed by the boring TV news and the instant noodles that were hard and soft, so how could it be considered precious?
Xu Le scratched his head with his empty hand, not knowing what to say. "Then what should we talk about?"
The owner named Li Xiaoshan tapped the table with his knuckles, looked at the liquor and peanuts in his hand, and said with a frown, "According to the news, you shouldn't be in the mood to drown your sorrows. It doesn't matter what you talk about. The point is that I don't want to see someone waste the liquor in my shop."
"Then how do we not waste it?" Xu Le asked doubtfully.
"If you treat me to a few drinks, it won't be a waste," said Li Xiaoshan's boss.
…
…
A bottle of wine quickly entered their stomachs, and then a second bottle was opened. The dishes to go with the wine were peanuts, a few bags of low-quality snacks sold exclusively to students, and two boxes of instant noodles that were really soaked to mush. Xu Le, whose alcohol tolerance was not good, had a layer of vigorous red on his slightly tanned cheeks.
Looking at the afterglow of the winter coming through the high-rise building across the hillside, he burped, narrowed his eyes and said, "I don't want to get on other people's boats, because I know very well that once I get on, I will never be able to get off. But it's also stupid to stay here. It doesn't make any sense except to implicate those guys like you who don't care that I'm from the empire."
He finished the cup of low-quality liquor in one gulp, licked his lips with a painful expression, and looked at Li Xiaoshan's boss and said, "From the last escape to this one, in fact, I've escaped many times before. I'm really tired and don't want to escape anymore. But the problem is that I don't want to go on other people's boats. It's wrong to stay here, but I don't want to die. What do you think I should do?"
The so-called asking for advice was actually nothing more than venting his pent-up emotions. Before the boss could answer, he shook his head and said self-deprecatingly, "I've rarely, no, never regretted anything in my life. But right now, I'm really regretting it. I feel that this emotion is very strange, very … awkward."
Li Xiaoshan put the cup to his lips and slowly and silently drank the liquor in the cup without making any sound. Then, he picked up two peanuts and a piece of dried tofu and threw them into his mouth, chewing hard without paying attention to the details, and then let out a sigh of satisfaction.
He looked at Xu Le, whose face was full of sorrow, and said mockingly, "Man is really an animal that is not easily satisfied. You were just an orphan in the East Forest, and now you are a prince of the empire. You can eat meat without any scruples. What's wrong with life? "
"This is very similar to what an uncle of mine said." Xu Le filled his cup with liquor and said with a smile.
The owner of Mount Li Mountain ate a few more peanuts and dried tofu. He chewed hard, and the muscles around his jaw seemed to be particularly strenuous. He said vaguely, "My ancestor once passed on the words of a wise man before his death. When you chew pickles and Hu beans together, you will taste like walnuts. But I like another sentence better, if you eat peanuts and dried tofu together, you will taste like ham. "
"Before you were executed, you couldn't forget this sentence. This is the attitude you should have in life. The meaning of life is to eat meat and drink wine, to eat and to wait for death. When you understand this, you probably won't be like now, living such a tiring life at such a young age. "
Xu Le stared at the wine cup between his fingers and murmured, "How can it be so easy to understand?"
The boss swallowed the noodles in the bowl and continued to scold him vaguely, "If you really took the ticket and boarded that ship, and followed the normal path, would you regret it when you were about to die?"
Xu Le thought about it seriously and then replied, "Yes, although it hasn't happened yet, at least I will for now."
A young man regretting the ending that hadn't happened yet when he was old was a very clever way of saying it. The boss laughed out loud and said, "Then what are you thinking about?"
"I want to leave. I want to have my own ship." Xu Le slowly turned the wine cup between his fingers and looked at the boss with narrowed eyes. His eyes were very bright, and he said sincerely, "Can you help me?"
"This is really not a joke." The boss waved his chopsticks like a sword, and the soup splashed everywhere. "This is a joke passed down by my ancestor. I have studied it for half of my life, but I still don't know what's so funny about it. I guess it's because of the serious lack of information. "
"As for the ship, I have been here all my life. I have never even been to the cinema at the foot of the mountain, let alone the space tourism."
Xu Le knew that the other party was not joking. He stared at his eyes in shock and asked, "You have been here all your life? You must have been to school, right? "
"I am a self-taught genius."
The boss paused and didn't continue to explain the joke related to these four words.
"Then wouldn't you suffocate to death?" Xu Le looked at him thoughtfully.
"Can a living person suffocate to death?" The boss frowned and said, "You can surf the Internet, order takeout by phone, watch TV, and when you are bored, you can go to the reserve to hunt. It's a good life."
"Reserve?" Xu Le looked at the man who couldn't see clearly and asked.
The boss stopped his futile attempt to fish out the whole noodle from the batter, pointed to the back of the mountain with the tip of the chopsticks dripping with soup, and said, "Go over this mountain, and you can see the wall of the reserve."
"Who the hell are you?"
Xu Le's hand that was holding the wine glass was a bit stiff. In fact, he had always felt that the boss of this mountain department store was not an ordinary person, so he tried to ask about the ship. But he didn't expect that this very ordinary looking man with gray hair could ignore The Glory Of The Charter and go over the electronic wall.
"My surname is Li, and my name is Li Xiaoshan. I have said it three times, and you still don't remember?"
"Why is it that every time I come to your store, I feel very relaxed, or even comfortable?"
The boss looked at the young man's moved face and said, "Because in my small store, sunlight, wind and rain can enter, and people can enter, but The Glory Of The Charter can't enter."
Xu Le scratched his head and couldn't hide the shock on his face. After a long silence, he suddenly frowned and asked in confusion, "Is there anyone with the surname Li in the seven big families? Are you telling me that you are another powerful person in the Lees of Philadelphia? "
"Don't talk about such a useless thing." The boss wiped the soup on his lips and said, "I have nothing to do with those big shots."
Xu Le felt that what he had seen and heard today was beyond his imagination. The man in front of him actually said that The Glory Of The Charter, which shrouded the universe, couldn't shine into this shabby department store. It was really hard to understand and unimaginable. He subconsciously picked up the wine glass and drank it, using the rough spiciness to dilute the confusion in his mind.
"Then why can't The Glory Of The Charter come in?"
"Because this store and the mountain behind it belong to my family. When the electronic surveillance network was built, this place was excluded. I don't have the eyes of the central computer here. As for the history story, I will tell you next time when I have the chance. "
Xu Le covered his forehead and said with emotion, "You are too mysterious. I don't understand. It's really uncomfortable. Speaking of next time, after I walk out of here today, there won't be a next time."
"You can stay."
The boss looked at him and said lightly, "If you really don't have a place to go, then stay. No one can find you."
Xu Le shook his head and said with a smile, "I have already implicated a lot of people. Although I know you are not an ordinary person and what you said may be true, I still can't stay."
"It's okay. Your First Sequence protection authority has been stripped. It just so happens that I still have First Sequence protection authority. That broken computer won't allow the Federation's armed personnel to deal with me."
The boss said.
Today in this department store at the foot of the mountain, Xu Le actually calmed down very quickly after hearing that he had First Sequence protection authority. After a long silence, he said bitterly, "Your store is too small, and I still have a lot of things to do."
"This place is indeed too small."
The boss's smile suddenly became a little bleak. He said with emotion, "Throughout the countless years of my family, countless children couldn't stand the loneliness and chose to be implanted into The Glory Of The Charter. In the end, I was the only one who persisted. It's not easy to meet someone like me who doesn't have a chip behind his neck. I thought I could have a companion. "
"If I can't handle it, I'll come back to you. I know this is a little shameless, but if I can find my own ticket, I'll definitely come to see you in the future."
"Go." The boss waved his hand.
Xu Le packed his luggage and walked out of the door. He suddenly stopped and turned back to ask, "Can you tell me who your ancestor is?"
The boss threw the bowl of instant noodles into the cardboard box at his feet and said with his head down, "My ancestor is still in the Charter Square. Of course, I never had the chance to see him, but when I thought about how he was forced to stand there and be sized up after so many years, being exposed to the wind, rain, sun, and pigeon feces, it might be better not to see him."
Xu Le's expression was very interesting. He thought about the seven great families and the Lees of Philadelphia, but he didn't expect the answer to be the group of five that was about to become a legend.
"My ancestor liked to eat meat and hunt. He didn't like chips."
The boss raised his head and looked at him expressionlessly. "Although he had a ticket, it was a five-person ship, so he didn't have the final say. During the voting, the guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes who decided to support him at the beginning actually betrayed the Revolution after the regulations were changed to allow people to eat fish, so the result of the voting became three to two. "
The white-haired man shrugged and said mockingly, "Democracy, you know."
Xu Le knew what to say.
"I'll give you one last thing." The boss looked at him and said with a smile, "After the great calamity, the five-person ship came to this star field. There was no Federation in the universe. Similarly, I believe the situation in the Left Sky Star Field is similar. There was no empire before.
"In the beginning, there were no people from the Federation or the Empire, only people. So you don't have to struggle to be a Federation person or an Empire person. Just be a person. "
Hearing this last sentence, Xu Le was silent for a long time. In the twilight, he bowed deeply to the boss and said, "Thank you for your care these days, for the nutrition bars and wine, and for today's wonderful story and these words."
The sun had just sunk halfway when the leaden clouds and snowflakes impatiently shrouded the city and began to impatiently drive it away. The winter wind whistled through the streets. Xu Le, who had drunk nearly an entire bottle of wine, was already past the level of drunkenness, but he didn't feel cold at all. The conversation with the department store owner at the foot of the mountain had finally untied the knot in the deepest part of his heart. His mind was in chaos, and his mind was clear.
The Federation people, the Empire people, the East Forest people, the Upper Forest people, the West Woods people, the South Kezhou people, the Xixia people, the Daxi people, the Sunset people, the Li people, the Mo Hua people, the Tianjing people, men, women, old people, good people, ancestors, and descendants were all people. In Bai Yulan's opinion, Xu Le was only good at simplifying complicated things, so he decided to simply divide people into bad and good people in the future.
After figuring this out, he called Madman Li under the influence of alcohol. He burped and then said, "Let Lao Bai go … Don't make a good person flip out."
…
…
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
