Chapter 115: Tenants (Second update seeking monthly votes)

"You are really too interesting, too interesting!"

The drunk Charlie hooked Lu Mian's shoulder and walked out of the bar paved with floor tiles.

Inside, nearly twenty people were singing, gambling, shouting, and yelling, venting their inner emotions to their heart's content.

Only at such times did they seem not to be poor ghosts holding meager salaries, but masters of themselves.

"I thought you would play Billy-B with them." Lu Mian hooked Charlie's back and smiled toward the stairs leading to the upper floor.

Billy-B is a gambling game popular in Trier, which Lu Mian only just learned about.

Unlike "Fighting Evil," which Trier people like most, Billy-B only needs a piece of paper to play—depending on the number of people, the host draws a different number of grids on the paper, ranging from 9 to 64, and each grid is numbered, allowing participants to choose one to bet on.

Finally, the host determines a lucky number through methods such as drawing lots, flipping coins, throwing dice, etc., and the person who buys it can take away all the bets.

If no one buys it, the money all belongs to the host.

People who come to the underground bar of the "Golden Chicken Hotel" are either tenants here or nearby poor people, and their wallets are quite empty, mainly using alcohol instead of money to play gambling games. For example, the winner of each Billy-B game only gets a drink bought with money pooled by everyone.

Charlie let out a long hiccup:

"I haven't received this week's salary yet, I can't be too indulgent!"

He then said to Lu Mian with an excited tone:

"Do you know? I am now a trainee waiter at the White Swan Hotel, the one on New Street in the Hot Spring District.

"What does this mean? It means I can wear a white shirt, a red vest, a black suit, and tie an elegant bow tie for myself. I can get a salary of 65 Ferkins every month! When I become a real waiter, I heard people say that during the peak season, I can get 7 Ferkins in tips every day!

"When I get rich, I want to open my own hotel, no, a big hotel. By then, I will hire you as the waiter foreman. That bastard, he doesn't have to do anything, just walk around in a tailcoat and pick faults with us. A month's salary is 150 Ferkins!"

A trainee waiter's income is higher than a coolie's... Lu Mian had the smell of alcohol on him, but there was no drunkenness in his eyes, and he nodded imperceptibly.

He remembered a newspaper he saw in the study at the beginning of the year, which said with a joyful tone that coolies in Trier have an income of about 700 Ferkins per year.

At that time, Lu Mian didn't have a clear concept of this, not knowing whether it was much or little. After all, when he was wandering, he only cared about how much food he could get every day and whether there were kind people giving a few Ricks, and the income of Kordu Village villagers was mainly in kind, which made him only understand the prices of specific goods and the gold content of different banknotes, lacking a clear understanding of the overall situation.

Of course, this also had the reason that Aurora's income was high, making him almost not have to worry about the situation at home.

According to Lu Mian's knowledge, after Aurora became famous, with the increase in published books and signed columns, her annual income had increased significantly. Last year's total manuscript fee seemed to have approached 130,000 Ferkins.

However, Aurora earned a lot and spent a lot. Spells, materials, and mystical knowledge were her major expenses. Moreover, she might also be helping some members of the "Curly-Haired Baboons Research Society" who were living poorly, and had long-term donations to charitable organizations set up by the government or churches.

But what made Lu Mian suspicious was that when he said goodbye to Kordu Village, he didn't find a single deposit slip at home.

He knew very clearly that Aurora had always had the habit of saving, and the premise of spending a lot was that she had already saved a lot of money in banks like the Suhit Bank.

In this regard, Lu Mian temporarily suspected that he and his sister were chosen as sacrifices or containers, and during this period of losing personal freedom, they were taken away by the group of parish priest Guillaume Bénet.

Just as he was walking up to the second floor, hooking shoulders with Charlie, Lu Mian heard a shrill wail:

"You bastard!"

Bang! With the heavy closing of a room door, the wail was blocked back, leaving only the lingering sound echoing in the corridor.

A figure wearing a neat black tailcoat walked from the end of the aisle toward the stairs.

This was also a young man, whose age should be about the same as Charlie's. His brownish-yellow hair was combed into a three-seven split, his dark brown eyes couldn't see any emotion, and his thin lips were tightly pursed.

He looked quite good, holding a black top hat in his hand, as if he were attending a salon in high society, completely out of place with the environment of the "Golden Chicken Hotel."

Accompanying this man was a woman's crying, full of pain and despair.

Watching the back of this man disappear into the stairs leading to the bottom floor, Charlie, with a ruddy face, curled his lips:

"What a bastard!"

"Do you know him?" Lu Mian was quite "concerned" about the neighbors around him. After all, he might live here for a period of time, and the more he understood the environment, the safer he would be.

Charlie said with a disdainful tone:

"His name is Laurent, the son of Madame Lacazan in Room 201.

"Madame Lacazan has to help people mend socks and do all kinds of manual work for sixteen hours every day just to support this bastard, while he always wears decent clothes and takes money to those expensive cafes, saying he can meet people in high society and find opportunities to get ahead!

"Hehe, he thinks he is very talented..."

Before Charlie finished speaking, the intense arguing sound of a man and a woman came from another room.

They were insulting each other.

"A couple of lovers who eloped on the 3rd floor, they argue like this every day after their money is almost spent." Charlie chuckled, "Friend, you have to get used to it. This is the Market District, this is Chaos Street, this is the 'Golden Chicken Hotel.' There are also people with serious illnesses, bankrupt guys, peddlers who cheat tourists, outsiders who never leave the hotel after going downstairs to drink, street girls without much money, lunatics who are only occasionally sober, masons who lost their jobs, retired soldiers, old men pretending to be poor, wanted criminals...

"They must thank Mr. Ev for being a good person. Except for not being able to delay the rent, he is quite tolerant in other aspects."

"Mr. Ev... the hotel boss? The miser Madame Fels mentioned?" Lu Mian asked back.

Charlie chuckled instantly:

"Right, a kind-hearted miser. He even provides free sulfur to everyone!

"Hiccup, I haven't seen Mr. Ev for a few days. I'm really worried that in order to save money, he won't go to City Wall Street or other places in the Red Princess District, but just find a woman in Chaos Street and get a serious illness..."

Saying that, Charlie waved his hand:

"Charles, hiccup, I'm going up to sleep. I have to go out at six tomorrow morning, and I must arrive at the hotel by seven.

"Hiccup, if you can't find a job, you can tell me. I'll help you introduce it. Come to our hotel as a handyman, you can get 50 Ferkins every month, and after a long time, you can even get 75. Moreover, there is free food for every meal, and a liter of wine will be provided at night!"

"Good." Lu Mian watched Charlie go upstairs with a smile.

At the same time, he whispered silently to himself:

"Simple provocation doesn't help much with the digestion of the potion..."

He assembled the "Fool Meter" in the bar just to provoke everyone there, and the result was quite successful, but it didn't bring further digestion of the potion.

Before, on the journey from Dales to Trier, Lu Mian also provoked from time to time, occasionally feeling that the potion was digesting, but most of the time he had no harvest.

If he couldn't find a more correct acting method, he suspected that it would take him at least a year to digest the "Provoker" potion.

On the way back to Room 207, Lu Mian heard violent coughing from upstairs, heard the woman scolding her lover as a "lazybones" and a "waste," and heard gunshots outside and the movement of a group of people chasing past.

This is the "Golden Chicken Hotel," this is Chaos Street.

According to Charlie, at night, even the police dare not walk here alone, at least they need a companion to give them the courage.

Taking out the brass-colored key, Lu Mian pushed open the door and walked back into the room.

Those bedbugs seemed to have some wonderful perception and didn't return here again.

Lu Mian smelled the sulfur, looked up, and found a letter lying quietly on the wooden table by the window.

"Magician" lady's reply? Lu Mian muttered while unfolding the paper folded into a square, reading it by the crimson moonlight shining in from the window:

"I am very glad that you arrived in Trier smoothly. This proves that you have mastered the preliminary skills of avoiding pursuit and regained the experience of walking on the dark side of society.

"At 3:30 PM this Sunday, at Booth D of the Mason Cafe in the Botanical Garden District, one of the psychologists will provide you with treatment.

"In the next few days, your task is to go near the catacombs in the Observatory District and find a person named Osta Trull. He often pretends to be a wizard there to cheat tourists and citizens out of their money.

"No matter what method you use, gain Osta Trull's trust and show that you also possess Beyonder abilities at an appropriate time."

The Botanical Garden District and the Observatory District are to the west of the Honest Market District, adjacent to each other, the former to the south and the latter to the north, leaning against the Selenzo River.

Lu Mian read the "Magician" lady's reply repeatedly, remembered the corresponding location, time, and name, and then struck a match to burn the paper full of Intis words.

After doing all this, he went to the nearest washroom to clean his body simply, then took out the "Fallen Mercury" wrapped in black cloth, took off his coat, and lay on the bed.

The ceiling with traces of bedbugs came into his view, and the coughing, crying, and arguing sounds that stopped and started echoed quietly in the room.

Not long after, the eloping couple told everyone they had made up with intense exercise and undisguised panting.

On the street outside, several rough voices sang obscene songs, which were interrupted by gunshots, followed by cursing, the sound of sticks crossing, and the movement of sharp weapons entering flesh.

Compared with Kordu Village, the night here is very noisy.

PS: During the double period, seeking monthly votes~

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 116 =====

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