The cold wind was as sharp as knives, and snow was falling.
When Lu Sheng opened his eyes, he saw that he was sitting in a yellow-gray horse carriage. The carriage was swaying slightly, and he could hear the soft voice of a little girl beside him.
Outside the carriage was a cacophony of voices.
There were hawkers, shouts, and cheers. And the laughter of children.
Lu Sheng sighed deeply.
He knew that he could not go back. It had been five days since he was a wily old man in a state-owned enterprise, waiting to die. After one drunken night, he woke up and came to this world.
He sniffed. The air smelled of wine, pancakes, and fried fruits.
"Aiya, Osmanthus Winery's white osmanthus wine is getting more and more fragrant."
Little Qiao's maidservant in the carriage said in a childish voice.
Little Qiao was only twelve years old. Plus, she was born with a baby face and a petite figure. She looked no different from a ten-year-old. Her face was chubby and rosy, and she wore a green cotton skirt. Her little hands were still rubbing the hair tie for Lu Sheng to tie up his hair.
This hair tie was made from the bark of a very expensive tree. It would naturally emit a faint fragrance, but the only downside was that it would harden when the weather was cold, and had to be rubbed with warm hands to soften it.
Lu Sheng smiled, but did not speak.
The horse carriage soon stopped.
He lifted the curtain and alighted. The grayish-white street was paved with bluestone bricks, each the size of a washbasin.
Carriages and people on horseback came and went on the street.
The peddlers, girls, and womenfolk who were out for a stroll did not hold back at all, showing their faces in public and laughing.
Lu Sheng raised his head to look at the winery in front of him.
The white plaque was rectangular, with three large words written in a flamboyant style in the middle: Osmanthus Winery.
"Young Master Lu is here! Please come in! Room A has been reserved for you! "A manservant greeted him with a smile.
Lu Sheng nodded, behaving like a rich young master. He took the silver-edged white paper fan from Little Qiao and shook it lightly. The fan unfurled, revealing a painting of mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers rose and fell, light and dark overlapped, and there was an inscription in the style of a great master.
He followed the servant into the winery with ease.
The winery was divided into two floors. There were many people sitting in the hall on the first floor, listening to people singing.
A green-clothed girl stood in the air with a melodious voice. Beside her, there was a middle-aged woman playing the pipa.
The song he was singing was "Sanhui Zhuan", which was about the poignant love between a general going to war and a wild fox girl.
It was a pity that the customers present were all rough people. Only a few scholars could understand what they were saying. The rest of the people turned a blind eye to the two girls. There weren't many tips either.
Lu Sheng stopped in his tracks. Seeing how lively the first floor was, he simply found an empty seat and sat down.
"Who ordered Sanhui Chuan?" He casually asked the manservant.
His status in this Osmanthus Flower House was different. If this Osmanthus Flower House was equivalent to a high-class entertainment club on Earth, then he was the supreme VIP customer here. He spent at least a few hundred thousand a year.
In a small northern city like Nine Links City, such expenses could already be considered a top-notch client.
"It's young master Zhou. Young master Zhou Que, "the manservant replied softly.
Lu Sheng didn't make things difficult for him, and waved his hand to let him go.
After pulling Little Qiao to sit down, his gaze swept across the crowd on the first floor. Very quickly, he spotted a pale-faced, emaciated young master dressed in white. In his hand, he held a flamboyant golden folding fan with a lotus leaf edge, waving it lightly.
"I guess he's taken a liking to that singing girl again," Lu Sheng shook his head.
"Young Master just warned him last time. This guy's really a bad guy!" Little Qiao pouted in dissatisfaction.
Lu Sheng smiled and said no more. He began to listen to the song quietly.
The dark-red wooden table was quickly filled with dishes and wine. Lu Sheng picked up a stir-fried lettuce and shredded pork and put it into his mouth. Then, he drank a mouthful of white osmanthus wine that was similar to a beverage. The faint sweet floral fragrance blended together, and it tasted like fruit juice.
'A life of luxury, a carefree life, and beautiful maidservants warming the bed. Such a life is simply too decadent.' There were times when Lu Sheng would wonder if he should just live like this for the rest of his life. After all, this sort of life of a rice worm was what he had been pursuing in his previous life.
He ate a mouthful of food and drank a mouthful of wine.
Then, he opened his mouth to let Little Qiao stuff a peeled brine ice shrimp into it.
Ice shrimp was a specialty of Snow City in the North. A casual scoop from a thick ice hole would yield a large number of small, translucent shrimps.
These were ice shrimps.
Ice shrimps were half the length of ordinary shrimps, but their taste was incomparably fresh. The shrimp meat melted in the mouth, a supreme delicacy.
Of course, it was also extremely expensive. It was already considered extravagant for an ordinary person to eat it once a month. Who could have it every meal like him?
As Lu Sheng ate the delicacies, drank the wine, and listened to the song, his mind was occupied with other matters.
It had been so many days since he came to this world that resembled ancient China. But according to his observations, there were many oddities in this world.
At first, he thought that he had returned to ancient times, but he later realized that he wasn't. The customs, festivals, and climate here were far different from those of any dynasty or region that he knew of.
While Lu Sheng was deep in thought, the door to the winery opened once more.
A group of muscular men in short clothes walked in one after another. They found a table near the corner and sat down.
One look was enough to tell that these muscular men weren't locals. They were dressed as if they had come from the Central Plains. Their clothes and temperament weren't as crude as those of the North.
"Sigh."
The leader of the muscular men was bald. He wore copper earrings and had a fierce-looking face. But at this moment, he sighed. "There's no way to continue living like this."
"What are you worried about, Big Brother? If we can't get through Li Village, we can take the second route. We can circle around Zhang Village," another man said with a frown.
"What do you know? When I came to meet up with the others, I passed through Zhang Village. The situation is similar to Li Village. Many people have died there. "The muscles on the bald man's face twitched, and his expression became even more worried.
"What exactly happened? Big Brother, tell us so that we can broaden our horizons," one of the men urged.
The bald man sighed again. "I'm not sure about the specifics either. I only know that a few fishing villages by Lake Suiyang are in trouble. It seems that there are water ghosts causing trouble."
"Water ghosts!? No way? "
Lu Sheng's table wasn't far from theirs. He could hear their undisguised conversation. Originally, he was just listening for fun. He didn't expect that these people would actually talk about such mysterious things.
In this life, the Lu Family was one of the largest families in the Northern Ice City. It wasn't rare for them to be filthy rich. If compared to Earth, they would at least be rich people with assets of over a hundred million.
In the past few days of drinking, he had heard many rumors about demons, gods, and ghosts in the winery, but most of them were legends. This was the first time he had personally experienced something like this.
So Lu Sheng pricked up his ears and carefully eavesdropped. Fortunately, these people didn't try to hide it. They continued to talk loudly about the strange things happening in the fishing villages.
"I saw that water ghost with my own eyes. It was over three meters tall, with a green face and sharp fangs. It was covered with a lot of water plants. My goodness, if it weren't for your big brother running fast, you wouldn't have seen me now." The bald man was still shaken up.
"Big Brother, do water ghosts really exist?" One of the men didn't believe it.
"Big Brother, you're probably making it up, aren't you?" Another man chuckled.
When Lu Sheng heard this, he found it funny as well. It was probably another boorish man who came out of nowhere to brag.
He had seen many such people in this period of time.
After eating and drinking, he asked the servant to bring over the song list of the female singers and casually browsed through it.
Although the Three Meetings was not bad, it didn't fit the mood. He planned to change to a more cheerful one.
"Pa!"
But at this moment, the bald man's face turned red and he slammed the table.
"Do you really think that I, Boss Hu, only know how to brag?! Look, look at this! That's a bone that the water ghost dropped on the ground! I secretly picked it up after it was over! " He carefully took out a jade-like green stone and slammed it on the table.
"Isn't this just a mixed jade?" One of the men laughed.
"Mixed jade? This is mixed jade?! Bullsh * t! "
The bald man's face turned red.
"Brother, can you let me take a look at this thing?" Suddenly, a gentle voice came from the side.
Suddenly, a gentle voice came from the side.
Lu Sheng stood beside the table with a smile on his face. His gaze swept over the green jade on the table.
"This thing, you dare to take it? This is something left behind by a water ghost. "The bald man said in surprise. He took it out for a show and planned to throw it away later. After all, this was not something left behind by a human. If it really attracted the water ghost to come looking for trouble, it would really be a loss.
"It's fine. I'm just taking a look. "Lu Sheng didn't believe in any water ghost. He just looked at the appearance of the jade, and it didn't look like an ordinary mixed jade.
One must know that ordinary mixed jade could be bought everywhere in shops and stalls. It was casually polished from the leftovers of jade, and the price was extremely cheap. But for some reason, the moment he saw this jade, he felt that something was wrong.
The bald man, Boss Hu, looked at Lu Sheng and saw that he had an extraordinary temperament and was dressed extravagantly.
He wore a green fox fur coat, a green jade official's hat, and a pair of black boots with cloud patterns embroidered with silver thread. His attire was enough to spend several months in Osmanthus Flower Workshop, and even more than a year's worth of living expenses for an ordinary family.
"If Young Master wants it, it's not impossible. Err … just one tael of silver will do!" The burly man hesitated and said tentatively.
"Alright." Lu Sheng had Little Qiao take out one tael of silver and place it on the table.
"This is yours." The bald man picked up the jade decisively and stuffed it into Lu Sheng's hands. The few of them exchanged glances and got up to leave.
Lu Sheng didn't say anything as he watched them leave. Holding the jade in his hand, he took it up and examined it carefully.
"One tael of silver, if converted to China on Earth, would have the purchasing power of a thousand RMB. Only in this life can I be this rich and imposing. "
He shook his head. One tael of silver was nothing to him. According to the memories of this body, his monthly expenses were usually at least a hundred taels of silver. Occasionally, he would spend more than a thousand taels of silver. That was over a million taels!
Thinking of this, he secretly cursed himself for being a prodigal. Holding the jade, he ignored the gazes of the surrounding onlookers and left the winery on Little Qiao's feet, heading towards the waiting horse carriage outside.
But just as he exited the winery, before he was halfway there, he suddenly froze. He picked up the jade and placed it in his palm.
The jade in his palm, right in the palm of his right hand, actually began to melt.
In just a few seconds, the originally hard stone turned into a ball of dark green mucus, and a faint scream came from within the mucus.
"Poof!"
The whole goo suddenly exploded, turning into a cloud of green smoke, slowly dissipating in front of Lu Sheng.
Lu Sheng stood rooted to the spot, stunned. Glancing over, he saw that the jade was still in his hand, but the green within had disappeared without him noticing.
"Just now, that was …" he stood there in a daze, recalling the scene from before.
"Young Master? Young Master?? "Little Qiao called out to him from the side.
Lu Sheng snapped out of his daze and looked at the jade in his hand again. It was just an ordinary pebble, not even jade.
He felt his hair stand on end, but vaguely understood something.
"Let's go, back to the manor!"
Little Qiao blinked, unable to react, "Oh …"
The two of them boarded the horse carriage. The coachman whipped the air a few times, and the two furry black horses began to move slowly.
In the carriage, Lu Sheng did not say a word, but kept looking at the pebble in his hand.
Little Qiao also noticed the abnormality of the stone.
"I've been tricked again!" She grumbled in her heart, but did not say anything else. Young Master was still alright this time. The biggest time he had been tricked was for a so-called antique wine pot. He had spent over a thousand taels of silver, almost angering Old Master to death.
This time, it was only one tael of silver. Sometimes, Young Master's meals cost more than that.
The horse carriage returned to the manor. As they passed by the city gates, Lu Sheng heard shouts from outside.
"… I heard that the water ghost was eradicated! A roaming Daoist saved the fishing village from danger! "
"Did someone from the imperial court come?"
"They came a long time ago. I heard that even Constable Ouyang of the magistrate's yamen was almost trapped. Luckily, they met a Daoist roaming Daoist. It's said that the moment the Daoist made his move, there was a flash of golden light. The water ghost screamed and turned into green goo, then exploded into thick smoke and dispersed. "
"It wasn't an expert from the imperial court?"
"Of course not!"
Lu Sheng could tell that the guards at the city gates were chatting idly.
He would often purposely pass by the city gates. The guards here were well-informed, and loved to brag about strange happenings.
"What a coincidence …" Lu Sheng's expression did not change. He recalled the piece of jade from before, and his heart sank.
The horse carriage slowly made its way to the busiest street in the city, Ku Rong Street.
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