I'm wondering in my heart, you say how does this Uncle Yuan walk without making a sound? If he heard my conversation with Old Yi, what's to be done?

  Just as I was thinking of how to muddle through, Old Yi stuttered and said: "I mean Tai..."

  I'm dizzy, I suspect Lao Yi has gone silly after the New Year's celebration, why does he just say whatever others ask him? So I hastily took over Lao Yi's words and said to Uncle Yuan: "He says that your cold mixed jellyfish skin is really too delicious!"

  Lao Yi saw me break the siege, busy as if relieved of a heavy burden, nodded, and Uncle Yuan made a strange "oh" sound, but didn't say much, and walked back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

  I whispered to Lao Yi: "Why are you so loud? Are you afraid others won't know?"

  Lao Yi said with a bit of embarrassment: "Hehe, sorry, mainly because what you said was too stimulating and I couldn't control myself for a moment, so I spoke a bit loudly. By the way, do you think these two things are related?"

  I shook my head and said to him, "It's hard to say, actually I've thought about this too. The one who snatched the night fox skin, although it was a personal matter, and should be Mr. Yin Yang, but think about it, since he knew Black Mama, he must have known Black Mama's magical powers. Do you think we ordinary people are so blind, daring to pull out a tiger's tooth? Isn't that just courting death? He must have had tremendous willpower to control himself and play with his life!"

  Lao Yi listened to what I said and asked me: "So your meaning is that it was still an inside job, right?"

  I raised my wine glass, took a sip, and said to him: "It's not clear, we don't need to be clear either, because our top priority now is still finding that female ghost. Let's not worry about other things for now, mainly because we can't control them anyway. Let's just follow the course of nature. By the way, have you found any clues these days?"

  Lao Yi shook his head and said to me, "It's tough, the two of us are like finding a needle in the ocean now, relying on luck? It's not that easy! I've been staying at home for the past few days during the New Year, Lin Shu went back to his hometown for the New Year and just came back a couple of days ago, there's no lead, sigh, what can you say about this?"

  I forced a smile, unsure of what to say, this feeling was really not great. So I said to him: "Forget it, when you come to the mountain, there will be a road, come on, let's have a drink!"

  Our cups collided and shattered together.

  Before long, Uncle Yuan brought up the last dish. Old Yi and I felt it was not interesting to drink just the two of us, so we invited Uncle Yuan to join us for a drink. Uncle Yuan didn't treat us as outsiders, and he happily agreed to come down.

  We chatted sentence by sentence, drinking a lot of wine. I'm not good at talking and easily get tongue-tied after drinking too much. Along with Uncle Yuan's wisdom, the three of us had a pretty interesting conversation. Auntie Yuan, who was watching TV beside us, smiled and sighed, probably because her old husband still loved to join in the fun with us younger folks despite his age.

  It's actually quite enlightening to chat with Old Yuan, this old man seems to know everything under the sun, and he told us many strange and interesting stories. I think there's something a bit odd about him, but maybe it's just my imagination. The more he drinks, the brighter his small, smiling eyes become - I don't know why that is.

  Finally, we all drank almost the same amount. Lao Yi, this good-for-nothing, after drinking eight bottles, ran to the toilet and vomited. I thought to myself, this Lao Yi is really wasting his stuff. I'm fine, just right, if I drink a bit more it would be too much.

  Uncle Yuan still looked the same, and I couldn't tell if he had drunk a lot or not. I couldn't help but admire this old man who really had capacity, to the point where it was unfathomable. Eight bottles of beer were consumed without him even going to the bathroom, and I have no idea where all that beer went.

  And he looked at me with those sparkling eyes, making me stunned. This gaze is too sharp. I felt a sudden urge to pee and rushed to the toilet. After entering the bathroom, I found that Lao Yi's head was almost stuck in the toilet bowl. I quickly helped him up, this guy is so unlucky today.

  Lao Yi was leaning against the wall, and I started to pour water. When I lifted my pants, I suddenly thought of it - isn't my black fingernail able to cure minor illnesses? I wonder if it can also sober people up? When people drink too much, their thinking becomes uncontrolled, and they do whatever they want. So, I first helped Lao Yi onto a chair, then took a cup and asked Yuan Ajie for a cup of cold boiled water.

  Yuan Da Shu has started clearing the table, he took the plates and walked towards the kitchen. Seeing this opportunity, I stirred my finger nails in that cup of water and then handed it to the drunk Old Yi.

  Lao Yi drank too much and asked me: "What's this?"

  I thought to myself, if I told you this was my nail polish remover, brother, you'd definitely not drink it. So I said to him: "This is an '82 Martini, bottoms up."

  Lao Yi heard me say that, picked up the cup and drank it in one gulp, then scolded me: "What a lousy thing, how can it be so bland?"

  I saw him drink it down and then ignored him, pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, slowly puffing on it, waiting to see if this stuff works.

  Uncle Yuan put away the tea set and brought over a teapot to chat with me. He asked, "Is Little Yi okay? You seem to have drunk quite a lot."

  I shook my head and said to him, "I don't know, probably nothing's wrong, this old man might be pretending, it's okay, Uncle Yuan, you don't have to worry."

  It's really strange, just 15 minutes had passed, and Old Yi suddenly opened his eyes and said to me: "What's going on? I remember I seemed to have gone to the toilet to vomit, how did I end up here?"

  I look at Old Yi now, and I must say, there's not a hint of alcohol on him. I look at my little fingernail, didn't expect it to be so useful, haha. Looks like from now on, I won't have to fear anyone when drinking.

  It turned out that it could not only cure a cold and stop bleeding, but also had another new effect. I was in a good mood, and Uncle Yuan was still by my side. I didn't want to explain it to Lao Yi now, so I said to him: "You were just saying, you vomited all over the place earlier, are you feeling better now?"

  The silly old man nodded and said to me: "Nothing's wrong, just a bit hungry."

  The result was still troublesome. Yuan Uncle made a bowl of noodles for Lao Yi, and after Lao Yi wolfed it down, I settled the bill and walked out of the store with him.

  It was still very cold in the early spring evening of Harbin, and since it had just passed the New Year's Day, this time period was not good for hailing a taxi. So I walked forward with Lao Yi again. At this moment, my phone rang. I picked it up and saw that it was Wen Shu's call.

  I pressed the call button and said, "Hello, Uncle Wen, what's up?"

  Wen Shu on the phone said to me: "Xiao Fei, I just received a job, you can go to work tomorrow afternoon, and don't go home to sleep tomorrow night."

  I found it a bit strange, so I asked him: "What's going on, Uncle Wen? Do you still have to work the night shift?"

  The man on the phone, Wen Shu, seemed delighted. He said: "What a job, an easy one! Just now, an old client called me and told me his daughter had died. He asked me to help with the funeral tomorrow and promised to give you some overtime pay. That's settled then."

  What is referred to as "white affairs" is, of course, the funeral in the phrase "red happiness white mourning". Usually when someone dies in a village, they will invite several knowledgeable "masters" to handle it, because this is indeed the profession of the masters. The main thing is the preparation work before the funeral day, after all, this is the last journey of a person's life, so no one wants to be careless. Now what Wen Shu said seems not to be a happy event, because he said that someone's daughter died, and I don't know how old she was or how she died. These things are indeed worth talking about.

  It seems that Uncle Wen wants me to accompany him to that household tonight to "point three". The so-called "three-point" is a term used by the geomancer, and in plain language, it refers to calculating the time of death and cause of death of the deceased person, and coming up with a suitable funeral method. Uncle Wen just told me not to go home tonight, maybe he'll also ask me to stay overnight at that house.

  Damn it, what bad luck.

  But since I've almost quit this line of work, these things were expected, so I said to Wen Shu: "Alright, Wen Shu, I'll go back and prepare."

  After finishing speaking, I hung up the phone. In my heart, I thought that this old swindler was just trying to get more money from that family, so he let me make a show of it. He would not even spare the money of the dead and was not afraid of retribution.

  But later I thought, this kind of thing is also Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai, one willing to attack and the other willing to suffer. It's all about finding a mental comfort for oneself, just like now when people invite monks to chant scriptures, few people can understand what those monks are chanting, and it's clear that those monks are just eating and drinking, whoring and gambling, smoking and occupying everything, what kind of scripture can they chant? It's just about finding a mental pressure relief, spending some money, and feeling at peace.

  Lao Yi saw me hanging up the phone and asked: "Is something wrong? You look like you're not in a good mood."

  I forced a smile and said to Lao Yi, "Of course not, Wen Shu that old scoundrel got me to take on a white-collar job, and I have to work with him for a whole night tomorrow."

  Lao Yi smiled and said to me: "Ah, brother, you're really getting into this! I've done this job before, it's a good job!"

  I stared at Old Yi and thought to myself, had the water I used to wash my nails drugged him silly? Why was he talking nonsense? How could this dead man possibly be cured?

  "So I asked him: 'Where is good? Tell me.'"

  Lao Yi saw that I was doing this kind of thing for the first time, so he said to me: "You see, you're a foreigner now, right? You should know, our current identity is not some small kid's. We are Master's apprentices, and in the family where there is a funeral, we are very respected. As soon as we enter the house, there is no shortage of cigarettes and wine, and afterwards there are red envelopes, just like a big shot, it's like a vacation, what's not good about that?"

  After hearing Lao Yi say that, I suddenly realized something. It turns out it's like this, and thinking about it, it indeed makes sense. So I regained some balance.

  At this time, the bus arrived, and Old Yi and I waved goodbye before leaving first. I continued to wander forward, thinking about tonight's events in my heart, but I didn't know what the situation would be like. It was just as Old Yi said, was it going to pretend to be a big shot?

  But at that time, I didn't know if this dead man's job was really so easy.

  (New chapter begins, vote and collect, thank you for your support.)