Merchant of the Underworld

Just after I came back from Macheng, Boss Bai from Antique Street told me that there was a guy with mud-legged clothes who came here every day for the past two days. His accent sounded like he was from Shandong. He asked Mr. Zhang every day if he was there. It seemed like there was something urgent.

I thought to myself that I am quite famous now, and people from so far away come here to see me, which makes me feel very happy.

After not coming back for a few days, I cleaned the shop, made a pot of tea, and waited for this person to come to me.

At noon, a simple-looking middle-aged man wearing a sweater came to the store with a big bag in his hand and asked me if I was Mr. Zhang? The accent sounds like the Shandong person Boss Bai mentioned.

I said I was the one, and the man shouted excitedly: "Ah, I've been waiting for you! Mr. Zhang, you can save our village."

This nonsense made me a little confused, so I asked him to sit down first and poured him a cup of tea. The man took a sip of the jasmine tea, narrowed his eyes and said repeatedly: "Smells, it smells so good! Mr. Zhang is indeed an expert in the world, and he is so particular about drinking tea."

"Uncle, what's your surname?" I asked.

"My surname is Li and my name is Dakang..."

"puff!"

I squirted out a mouthful of tea, and Li Dakang looked at me in confusion. I was even more shocked when I found out his occupation. He is the party secretary of a village in Jimo, Shandong... Secretary Dakang!

The mud-leg version of Secretary Dakang said: "When I was on the train, many people called me Secretary Dakang after hearing that I was the village party secretary. I was confused. The village party secretary is just an official as big as a mung bean. Do you need to praise me like this?"

I explained: "No, no, you misunderstood. The main reason is that there is a very popular TV series called "In the Name of the People" recently. There is a character in it that the audience loves named Li Dakang, who also happens to be a secretary."

"It turns out that I got the glory of the TV series." Secretary Dakang smiled heartily. The first impression he gave me was that he was a straightforward rural person with nothing to do with the city.

I asked: "Secretary Dakang, do you know what I do?"

"I know, I know, you are the master! You specialize in enforcing the law of heaven and eliminating violence and peace."

Where did I hear all this mess? I waved my hand and said, "Actually, I am just a businessman, but the things I collect are rather special. I am not a master, nor am I a Liangshan hero who can eliminate violence and keep peace."

Secretary Dakang smiled: "Master Zhang's words are so humorous."

I didn't feel any yin energy in his bag. I felt that Secretary Dakang seemed to have come to the wrong place. But since he came all the way, he was a guest here, so I asked him to talk about it.

The village he was in, simply called Dacun, had been raining for three consecutive months.

Dacun is a land of fish and rice. Due to the continuous heavy rains, the newly sown crops were soaked in the water and the roots rotted. Moreover, the boats capsized when they tried to enter the river. Several young people with good water skills fell into the river and drowned. Even before the corpse floated up, the elderly man said that there was a monster in the river!

The villagers had no harvest, and everyone was going crazy with worry. Everyone with connections and connections ran away, leaving only a few old, weak, sick and disabled people still guarding the village.

As the village party secretary, Li Dakang was so worried that his hair turned white.

The solution is not that I haven't thought of it. Ask witches and gods to do it, ask the local troops to fire cannons into the sky, and use a kind of artillery shell called "rain-repellent bomb" to disperse the rain clouds. But it was useless. The dark clouds in the sky were as thick as ink and could not be dispersed at all.

He was almost desperate, but then he heard my name and decided to try his luck!

After listening to this, I felt that this matter was beyond my control and that it was a completely natural phenomenon. However, I remembered the drought in Henan last time and asked, "Then do you know what is causing trouble in the river?"

"The elders in the village say it's a water monkey. People who fall into it disappear without a trace. This has never happened before. Since the heavy rain, no one has dared to go down this river..."

Water monkeys are common folk ghosts spread throughout China. In ancient times, they were called ghosts. They were drowned people who haunted the water and had to be replaced by a substitute before they could be reincarnated.

This is just a little devil, I don't think it can affect the weather, so I smiled and said: "Secretary Dakang, I really can't control this matter, I'm just a businessman who collects vaginal objects, and I can't help it if it doesn't rain. "

"Mr. Zhang, listen to me, it's raining like crazy in our country. It doesn't rain in all the villages in our country. It only rains in our mountain ravines!"

I felt that he was also ill and sought medical treatment in a hurry, but this matter was beyond my ability and I couldn't take care of it even if I wanted to. In order to send him away, I said, "Well, I will personally donate 100,000 yuan to your village." , to help you get through this difficult period.”

"Mr. Zhang, who do you think I am!" Secretary Dakang stood up angrily: "I'm not here to blackmail you. I heard that you have great supernatural powers and asked you to save the people."

After saying that, he poured some local products from the mountains out of the bag, such as wild bamboo shoots, dried small fish, and wakame.

"This is the kindness of the villagers. We are almost dead now. I beg you, please!" Secretary Dakang begged.

I sighed. I really can't control this kind of thing. Although I do have some skills, what level of magic is this to control wind and rain? When Zhuge Liang borrowed the east wind, he only predicted it in advance and pretended to do so. According to folk stories, Lu Dongbin and Zhang Daoling were great gods, but they had never controlled wind and rain. Even gods have no right to interfere with the weather.

We can still dig wells during the drought in Henan, but I really can’t do anything about the flood.

I tried my best to push the matter away, and the things were naturally confiscated. When Secretary Dakang was invited out by me, the look on his face that he was about to cry made me feel a little guilty.

This man actually stood across the street and refused to leave. I couldn't go out to eat at noon, so I had to make a bowl of instant noodles in the store to deal with it. Li Mazi is still drunk in Macheng with his beautiful teacher. Yin Xinyue took leave for the past two days and has a lot of work to deal with. I can only spend time with him in the store alone.

I was so suffocated in the store this afternoon that I had no choice but to call Otama out to relieve my boredom. After all, I promised in Macheng that she would be allowed to absorb the essence and blood for two weeks.

After dark, Secretary Dakang was still standing across the street, chewing a piece of dry steamed bun in his hand.

What I feel now is not guilt, but boredom. Isn’t this moral kidnapping? I hate this kind of thing most in my life!

I secretly thought: I don’t care about this anyway, you can stand wherever you like.

I closed the store door and was about to go out for something to eat. When I turned around, Secretary Dakang made a move that frightened me. He knelt down across the street, and he knelt down for a long time, with his hands and head lying on the ground.

"Mr. Zhang, please save the villagers!"

Several passers-by on the street were attracted by this scene and came over to watch the fun. My face turned green and red. I quickly helped him up, wiped the dirt off his pants, and advised: "What are you doing? Hurry up if you have time." Go find the government department.”

"Mr. Zhang, to tell you the truth, I have looked for all the departments I should contact, and I have indeed obtained some donations and relief grains for the villagers, but these are just to help the urgent but not the poor. If this rain does not stop, everyone will really be disappointed next year. All we have left is begging." As he spoke, he shed a few tears.

I sighed, forget it, I thought I was unlucky, just this time it would not be the same next time.

"Okay, I'll just go with you!"