The car was safe here for the time being, and Zhu Gui hadn't seen me. I got out of the car and went into the shop. A waiter came up and lazily asked, "What would you like to order, sir?"
I glanced around. The shop was probably seventy or eighty square meters, but only a dozen or so rough wooden tables were sparsely arranged, which was definitely rare in modern times. The waiter looked listless and didn't seem like he was doing business properly. I said, "I heard you have a kind of wine here called Five Star... uh, Three Bowls and You're Gone?"
Zhu Gui looked up and glanced at me, but didn't say anything.
The waiter draped a towel over his shoulder and asked, "How much do you want?"
I didn't know what they used to calculate it, so I just casually said, "Then give me three bowls."
The waiter went to get some liquor, and I sat across from Zhu Gui, tossing my chin at him and saying, "Brother Zhu, how have you been lately?"
Zhu Gui put his legs down and said with a smile, "You know me?" It seemed that he often encountered such pretentious questions, so he neither kept people at arm's length nor was he overly enthusiastic.
I laughed and said, "Don't I look familiar?"
The waiter brought the drinks over and slammed them down in front of me with three loud thuds, splashing drinks everywhere.
We must take Zhu Gui down immediately, or the consequences will be unimaginable—all the money on me is still emblazoned with Chairman Mao's image.
Zhu Gui looked at me, chuckled, and said, "Brother, your outfit is quite unusual."
Hua Rong and I learned quite a bit about the situation, but we didn't pay much attention to clothing. We couldn't find any clothes that matched the aesthetic standards of the Song Dynasty. Among my clients, Zhang Zeduan was the only one who wore a vest...
I used my wrist to shield myself and secretly placed a blue pill in a bowl, then placed it in front of Zhu Gui and said, "I'll treat you to this bowl of wine, brother."
Zhu Gui, being the permanent manager of Liangshan Industrial Chain Stores, chuckled at my furtive look and said, "Brother, are you having some trouble with your hands, or do you want to join us on the mountain? Just say it." He then picked up his bowl and took a big gulp. In the world of martial arts, it's all about saving face, even if it means losing face. No matter what I did for a living, since I'd already given him face, I couldn't refuse.
I quickly seized the opportunity and downed the whole bowl in one gulp, saying, "Bottoms up."
Zhu Gui laughed again and then drank the wine in his bowl.
This time, I sat there with a smile, watching Zhu Gui.
Zhu Gui put down his bowl, his eyes flashed, and he suddenly burst into loud laughter, inexplicably cursing, "Damn Xiao Qiang."
Several shop assistants, assuming I'd tampered with the drink (which was exactly what I did), all surrounded me with hostile expressions. Zhu Gui waved them away, chuckled a few times, and tried to catch up with me. I gestured for him to calm down and whispered, "Where's my brother Gui?"
Zhu Gui gestured towards the counter, where he saw Du Xing lying listlessly on the counter, fanning himself with a fan, as if he were about to fall asleep.
Zhu Gui shouted, "Du Xing!"
An ugly face, wrinkled with wisdom, appeared in response. Its large eyes darted around, and with a flick of its wrist, the fan had been replaced by a steel knife. It asked blankly, "The soldiers are here again?"
Zhu Gui laughed and scolded, "Come and drink!"
By then, I had already put the other pill into the bowl. Du Xing, seeing that it was Zhu Gui who had called him, naturally came over without suspicion and drank the wine. He wiped his mouth before looking me over and saying, "This brother is…" The next second, his expression changed, and he exclaimed in surprise, "Xiao Qiang?"
The three of us laughed heartily, hugged each other, and slapped each other a few times. Then Zhu Gui and Du Xing shouted loudly to the bandits and shopkeepers, "Come over here and pay your respects to your Brother 109!"
Chapter 109 Glasses
Of the 54 heroes who visited me, besides Zhang Shun and the Ruan brothers, Zhu Gui and Du Xing were my closest friends. Zhu Gui got stabbed in the backside, and Du Xing helped me brew wine and even had a street dance competition with someone. These are all fond memories now.
Even if I could travel through time, I never thought I would see them again, because the heroes were still some distance from the real historical figures, and Zhu Gui and Du Xing probably couldn't have imagined it either.
So the three of us jumped and danced upon seeing him, while the shopkeepers exchanged bewildered glances. Zhu Gui and Du Xing shouted, "What are you all standing there for? This is your Brother 109!"
The boss spoke up, and the group of waiters could only meekly groan and stammer. I said smugly, "Alright, alright, since you've called me 'brother,' I won't let it go to waste. From now on, you'll get weekends off..."
Zhu Gui leaned close to me and whispered, "They usually only get 3 or 4 days off a week, but you changed it to a 5-day work week as soon as you arrived."
I chuckled dryly, and Du Xing asked, "Xiao Qiang, what brings you here?"
Zhu Gui then asked, "Yes, what happened? Weren't we all dead?" As he spoke, he looked around and, seeing that it really was his Nanshan Hotel, he felt a little relieved.
I sighed, "It's a long story. I urgently need to see those brothers; we all need to discuss this together."
Zhu Gui didn't ask any more questions after hearing what I said, and told Du Xing, "Then you watch the shop first, I'll take Xiao Qiang up the mountain." Du Xing nodded.
I pointed outside and said, "Is it okay to park here?"
Zhu Gui looked at it and said, "Go to my shop after you stop there."
I got on the bus, and Zhu Gui sent a helper to accompany me. I told him, "Wait a minute, let me pick one first."
By the time I finished choosing my head, the waiter couldn't hide his surprise. I leaned out and asked, "Which way?"
The waiter then came to his senses and waved his hands in his direction, saying, "Follow me, come forward. Walk, walk, walk..."
I followed him to the back of the shop and saw that there was an endless expanse of reeds across the street. As soon as I drove the car to the edge of the reeds, the guy came around to the back of my car and gave me directions: "Move back a little more, back up, back up, to the left... Okay—"
When I got out of the car, I saw that the Jinbei van was parked squarely next to the house, and the guy looked smug. I almost gave him a 10 yuan tip—this guy must have been a doorman in his past life!
Zhu Gui took out a bow, nocked a whistle arrow, and drew it towards the reeds. A short while later, a boatman with a whistle arrow stuck in his straw hat and a gloomy expression rowed his small boat towards them…
Seeing this, Zhu Gui chuckled. The boat captain said expressionlessly, "Brother Zhu, your archery skills have improved again!"
Zhu Gui laughed and said, "Anyway, there's no sharp point, and besides, I didn't do it on purpose."
The boat captain yelled in exasperation, "If you did this on purpose, you wouldn't be Hua Rong, the archery god! Can you please stop shooting at the sky? This has happened so many times already!"
Zhu Gui grinned mischievously, "Shoot it into the sky? Wouldn't that be like shooting down an airplane?"
"...What is an airplane?"
Zhu Gui smiled but didn't answer. He pulled me onto the small boat and said to the boatman, "Hurry up, let's go up the mountain."
The boatman, seeing that someone was going up the mountain and needed Zhu Gui to personally accompany them, couldn't help but glance at me again. Then he started chatting with Zhu Gui about all sorts of things. Although he wasn't a leader, he had known Zhu Gui for a long time and they were like friends. As for me being number 109, Zhu Gui didn't mention it again, and the three of us headed straight for Liangshan.