I saw off the bank staff and stood in front of the drugstore, watching the cars coming and going on the road
I originally agreed with Lin Xiaoyu to buy a house at the end of the year.
It's a good thing now. The wedding house has not been settled yet, and I have to bear a debt of 500,000 yuan.
The locations of the five branches have been carefully selected, and they happen to be within the radiation circle of takeaway sites.
As long as the delivery time is half an hour, this alone is enough to leave behind those old drugstores.
After calculating the account many times and going through it in my mind for at most three months, the five hundred thousand can be returned with interest.
I returned to the pharmacy and Qin Xue was checking the list of newly arrived medicinal materials.
"You will have to work hard during this period. I would like to ask you to be the general store manager and be responsible for the overall operation of these new stores. ”
When she came to apply for the job, she said that she just wanted to find a small place to heal her emotional wounds.
"Salaries and bonuses are calculated three times. ” I added.
》Which store should we start with? ” Her words were already her acquiescence to this job.
I pointed to the red location on the map, "Tomorrow I will take you to familiarize yourself with the environment." ”
Pushing open the door of the rental house at night, Lin Xiaoyu was standing in front of the stove, tearing off the instant noodles packaging bag.
Hearing the noise, she turned around, "Why are you coming back so late lately?" 》
"The pharmacy is preparing to open a branch. "I avoid bank loans.
He reached out and took the seasoning packet from her hand, "Don't always eat this." Whatever you want to eat, I'll order takeout. "
When I turned around, I saw Su Yan leaning against the door of the room, rubbing her eyes: "I want to eat too. ”
Lin Xiaoyu suddenly said that he wanted to eat hot and sour noodles and add more vinegar. This surprised me a bit. She has never been able to stand the sour taste.
Su Yan even went so far as to choose an omelette rice topped with tomato sauce, which was frighteningly sweet.
But I didn’t think much about it and placed the order as they requested.
The hot and sour rice noodles are specially prepared with double aged vinegar, and the omelette rice is added with extra tomato sauce.
Looking at their abnormal eating postures, I joked casually: "Why did they all change their gender today?"
Lin Xiaoyu took a bite and responded: "I don't know either."
Su Yan suddenly put down her chopsticks, took out a tissue and wiped her mouth slowly: "Chen Hao, it's almost the end of the year, how much have you earned this year?"
I was picking up the rice with my head down, and my chopsticks paused when I heard this. The hot and sour soup is steaming hot in the takeout box.
"Better than last year." I responded vaguely and put a piece of ribs into Lin Xiaoyu's bowl.
Su Yan leaned forward reluctantly: "How strong is it? When can I buy a house? You can't always let Xiaoyu rent a house with you, right?"
"The agreement with Xiaoyu is still a few months away. I will fulfill my promise to buy a car and a house by then." I put down my chopsticks, took out a tissue and slowly wiped my fingers.
Su Yan snorted and took a spoonful of tomato sauce mixed with rice: "You're saying this for the third year."
Lin Xiaoyu suddenly stood up, with more than half of the hot and sour noodles left in the bowl: "I'm a little tired, so I'm going to bed first."
The next morning, I knocked on Huang Li's door full of exhaustion.
The door creaked open a crack, and Huang Li poked her head out with her disheveled hair, staring at me sleepily: "What time is it..."
"Is there any progress in Longhuwan?" I interrupted her directly and squeezed sideways into the yard through the crack in the door.
The morning fog has not cleared yet, and the medicinal herbs drying in the yard are stained with dew. Huang Li wrapped up her pajamas tightly and followed, pointing to the pottery urn in the corner of the west wing: "I was about to tell you that I opened the urn and tested it at midnight last night, and the medicinal properties were blended better than expected."
I opened the urn lid, and the strong smell of medicine hit my nostrils. The brown pills glowed dully at the bottom of the vat, and frost lines had formed on the surface.
She led me to the iron cage under the eaves, which contained three white rabbits testing the medicine. Two of them were competing for the vegetable leaves, but the one in the corner was unusually quiet - it was sitting upright with its front paws closed, as if it were a person meditating.
"Yin Shi discovered it." Huang Li handed over the observation record. "The body temperature was seven degrees lower than normal, and the respiratory rate was halved, but it was sensitive to stimulation. What's even weirder is..."
She suddenly kneaded her hand and chanted a spell, and a white light popped up between her fingers. The white rabbit suddenly opened its eyes, golden light flashed in its pupils, making the other two rabbits in the cage tremble in shock.
"Are you psychic?" I was shocked.
"It's hard to say." Huang Li put away the magic formula, "but the power of the medicine obviously opened up the 'Tianmen point' mentioned in the ancestral books. If it is taken by the human body..." She glanced at me meaningfully, "I'm afraid the tiger bone you found is not just a century-old Taoist practice, right?"
p>I think of the man with the scar on his brow bone at the train station, his throat tight: "The medicine is important, don't ask anything else."
The sun was getting higher, and we squatted next to the medicine grinder to adjust the formula. Huang Li suddenly chuckled: "You have daughter's fragrance on your body, and it belongs to two different women." She crushed the Panax notoginseng in her hand, "No wonder you are eager to get Longhu Pills."
With the sound of the pestle, the scene at the dinner table last night emerged before her eyes. Lin Xiaoyu left most of the hot and sour noodles, the ketchup on the corner of Su Yan's mouth, and the unwiped blood stains on the seam of the table...
"Concentrate." Huang Li suddenly tapped the palm of my hand with a medicine pestle. "The most important thing for Longhu Pills is to avoid distractions. At worst, the effect of the medicine will be lost, and at worst..." She pointed at the white rabbit in the cage. The rabbit still maintained a meditating posture, and a thin layer of frost formed between its paws.
At dusk, today’s process was finally completed. I felt dizzy when I stood up, and Huang Li stuffed a jujube into my mouth: "How dare you come to supervise the work if you are like this?" She suddenly became serious, "I have to say something beforehand - if the Longhu Pill is successful, you will be a walking Tang Monk. Those who practice evil arts will come to my door if they smell it."
As the dusk grew darker, I walked towards the rental house in the shadows. There was a black car parked at the entrance of the alley. The window was half-lowered, revealing half of the side face with a scar on the brow bone.
I ducked into the convenience store, and the TV on the shelf was playing the evening news: "...Many Chinese herbal medicine dealers have disappeared mysteriously recently, and the police reminded..."
My phone vibrated, and the bank sent a reminder text message. The five hundred thousand loan was like a sharp sword hanging upside down, and the golden pupils of the white rabbit in the cage flashed in my memory.
I grabbed my phone and exited the convenience store, taking a detour through the back door of the vegetable market. The fishmonger was closing his stall, and the scales on the ground glowed eerily under the street lights. When passing by the aquaculture tank, several catfish suddenly crashed into the glass crazily - the black car was slowly driving through the entrance of the market.
Climbing over the wall and returning to the community, he bumped into Lin Xiaoyu who had been waiting for a long time in the corridor. Her hand holding the pregnancy test stick was shaking, and two red marks made my eyes go black.
"Chen Hao..." Her choked call was cut off by the sudden ringing of her cell phone. Huang Li sent an encrypted picture: the pottery jar exploded and the pills disappeared. The last message had a blood-drop emoji: "Run away."