Zhou Xiyue took a deep breath and said, "Manman, if you don't trust Chen Jiu, you can go find Wang Lei." This statement was essentially a declaration of a break between Zhou Xiyue and Wang Manman. After a moment of silence, Wang Manman quietly replied, "Xiyue, I trust Mr. Wang even more. If Chen Jiu can't handle it, call me right away, and I'll ask Mr. Wang to come and save you." After saying this, Wang Manman left the half hall. Zhou Xiyue quickly gathered her scattered emotions and reached out her hand to me. We exchanged three slaps: "I'm determined to take care of your matter. However, I'm curious, why do you trust me so much? Is it really just intuition?" Zhou Xiyue gently lifted the edge of her coat, revealing a beautifully crafted bell strung at her waist. "This is the protective bell my grandmother left for me. If the bell turns black, it means a malevolent spirit is near. When all nine bells turn black, no one can save me. But as long as I find someone who can subdue the bells before they all turn black, that person will definitely be able to save my life." "I can roughly sense that the person who can save me is on Fengshui Street. From the moment I stepped into the street, I felt the bells trembling. The ringing of the bells signifies that a malevolent spirit is approaching. It wasn't until I reached the entrance of the half hall that the bells were finally subdued." "I believe the person who can save me is inside the half hall." When I saw the four bells that seemed to have been stained with ink, I suddenly realized. No wonder Wang Manman was already showing signs of death, while Zhou Xiyue was completely fine. It turned out that the protective bells were shielding her from disaster. After pondering for a moment, I said, "I suspect the malevolent spirit that has latched onto you will come tonight. The half hall is too small for a confrontation; do you have a suitable place to act?" "You can come to my house first," Zhou Xiyue replied. "My car is parked at the street corner; we can leave anytime." "Then let's go to your house first!" I pulled my backpack out from under the bed and subtly signaled to Old Ghost, indicating that he should first gather information about Datong Department Store before following Zhou Xiyue to the car. There's a saying in the art of sorcery: people are of two kinds, and ghosts have a thousand forms. If a sorcerer doesn't even know what has latched onto their employer and recklessly goes to catch ghosts and subdue demons, they might end up losing their own life in the process. After Old Ghost arrived at Fengshui Street, he almost had to go out every night to deal with the wandering souls and wild ghosts nearby. He did this to subdue those wild ghosts to help us gather intelligence. However, I didn't expect the information Old Ghost brought back to be worse than I had anticipated.
When Old Ghost Han came to find me, I didn't know if he was intentionally trying to show off my abilities in front of Zhou Xiyue or if he wanted Zhou Xiyue to listen in on the matters of Datong Department Store. He pressed his body against the wall, casting a shadow. From Zhou Xiyue's perspective, it was as if I was sitting alone in an empty room, talking to a shadow that had emerged on the wall. Later, Zhou Xiyue told me that at that moment, I seemed to be sitting at the crossroads of life and death, facing the spirits and engaging in light-hearted conversation. Of course, I wasn't deliberately putting on airs for Zhou Xiyue; the demeanor I displayed was purely a result of being beaten by Old Ghost Han for five years, a posture forged through hardship. When my grandfather was alive, he wanted me to be happy and didn't burden me with too many rules; he just wanted me to enjoy myself. But with Old Ghost Han, it was different. Having served the emperor and associated with nobles, he believed everything had to adhere to rules and maintain dignity. Old Ghost Han told me: "Don't ever think that being unkempt and disregarding decorum makes you a recluse! That only proves you haven't seen much of the world or handled important matters. True experts pay more attention to their demeanor. Moreover, to ordinary people, those born with an air of nobility are more trustworthy." Of course, do those legendary figures who roam the world unconstrained by mundane rules really exist? They do. However, their mindset has reached a realm beyond the ordinary. Even if they live in madness and neglect their appearance, ordinary people will feel an inexplicable trust in them under the influence of their state of being. If you haven't reached that level of understanding, trying to emulate them will only lead to a failure akin to drawing a tiger and ending up with a dog. Old Ghost Han adhered to this philosophy and beat me for a full five years, saying that I finally showed some semblance of improvement. At that time, I didn't pay attention to Zhou Xiyue, who was peeking at me from the doorway; all my thoughts were focused on the information Old Ghost Han brought me. The owner behind Datong Department Store was the famous Datong Company from Northeast China back in the day. In the early years, the Northeast was a mixed bag, and those who could conduct business there were influential figures. Datong Company not only navigated seamlessly among warlords and bandits but primarily engaged in trade with the old customers in Northeast China. Don't underestimate these old customers who traded with the mountain men; they could not only procure ginseng and furs from the mountain men but also dared to deal in life-threatening goods. Just the fact that they could venture into the mountains and bring those items out was enough to earn them the respect of various heroes of the martial world. Datong Company operated in the Northeast for decades and had a rule: "Only sell goods, no storefronts." In other words, the items from Datong Company wouldn't be displayed on counters for sale. It wasn't until the last generation of the store manager, Bai Chengye, that the rule was changed, and they built Datong Department Store right at the foot of Heihu Ridge. At that time, opening a department store wasn't a novel idea; major cities in the Northeast all had department stores. However, no one had ever built one at the base of a mountain. According to the old customers in the Northeast, a location at the foot of the mountain could only be used for inns or warehouses.
The predecessor of Datong Department Store was not only the cargo yard of Datonghao but also the place where Datonghao was established. Back in the day, the first manager of Datonghao, Bai Shanjun, along with a group of brothers, arrived at Heihu Ridge, a place where no one dared to set foot, and built a cargo yard. On the day the cargo yard was completed, not a single person came to congratulate him, and no one in the area wanted to do business with him. This was because the locals all knew that a cargo yard could not be built beneath Heihu Ridge, and no one dared to go up Heihu Ridge to collect goods. The Tiger Head Cliff on Heihu Ridge was precariously positioned at the mountain's entrance, and building a house there was akin to putting one's head into the tiger's mouth, destined for a violent death. Moreover, at that time, no mountain drivers were willing to enter Heihu Ridge, as the place had seen too many deaths; even if they managed to get goods, they couldn't bring them back. Sure enough, after Bai Shanjun established the cargo station, deaths began to occur within Datonghao. Sometimes, two or three people would die in a single day, all of them meeting untimely ends near the cargo station. Coffins for the deceased lined up at the entrance of the cargo station. During that time, even the owner of the coffin shop could no longer bear to watch and repeatedly urged Bai Shanjun to move. Bai Shanjun said nothing and continued to guard the cargo station with his men. Eventually, the situation escalated to the point where even the coffin shop refused to deliver coffins there. Bai Shanjun had the deceased brothers wrapped in straw mats and placed them in the frigid outdoors. It's unclear whether it was heaven's way of showing compassion for those who could not rest in peace or if the accumulated resentment from so many deaths affected the earth's energy, but suddenly a heavy snow fell around Heihu Ridge, burying not only the corpses but also the cargo station itself.