It is almost ten kilometers away from the New Nanhua Technical School to Xiling Cemetery, and there must be no bus in the early hours of the night, and it takes at least an hour and a half to go by bicycle. Therefore, in order to make it easier to come and go, I had to go to the second-hand market again and buy an old electric car that is sixty percent new, and spent 800 yuan.

At half past ten the next night, I went to Xiling Cemetery early. But the gate was already closed, and I shouted, and only then came out a security guard, who was one of the "bandits" I saw yesterday. He still remembered me and knew that I knew Hou Dapeng, so he opened the door for me and said, "You came so late?" You know if you're late? ”

I didn't understand what he meant, so I went straight to the door of the office. Hou Dapeng was already smoking there and waiting for me, he looked at his watch and said to me, "This is the first time, I will forgive you." In the future, remember that the business hours of the ghost market are 11 o'clock in the evening, but your working time is 10 o'clock, because you still have to come in advance to get signs, set up stalls, and help the cook. ”

I nodded and replied, "Got it." ”

Hou Dapeng looked at my electric car again and said, "I was just thinking about where to get you a bicycle, since you have your own electric car, let's ride it to deliver food." ”

"Delivery?" I asked, "Brother Hou, what am I going to be responsible for here in the future?" ”

Hou Dapeng said: "It's similar to delivering takeaways, I'll find someone to explain to you in detail when you get in." Let's go, I'll get in your car too. With that, he sat down on my back seat, pointed to the grave, and told me to drive up.

The grave mountain in Xiling Cemetery is really big, and the mass grave behind Paitou Village in Nanting County is completely incomparable to here. The cemetery is divided into three office areas and five cemeteries. Among them, the cemetery management office is an area, at the forefront, mainly offices, reception rooms, sacrificial shops and part of the staff dormitories, which are places to deal with the living. Next to the management area is the funeral parlor, morgue and cremation room, which also serves as an independent office area, mainly responsible for handling specific funeral matters and dealing with the dead. Then a large area of graves in the middle is a cemetery, and there is only a warehouse area in the back mountain, and the ghost market is opened in the warehouse area, which is dedicated to dealing with ghosts.

Most of the area on the tomb hill is a cemetery, and there are five in total: Fugui Garden, Shouxiang Garden, Luyin Garden, Caisheng Garden and Overseas Chinese Garden. The difference between these five parks can be roughly seen from the name. Ordinary people don't have much money, so they can only pursue happiness and longevity, in fact, taking these two names is more for psychological comfort. There are tombs connected to tombs, and tombstones are next to tombstones, and children and grandchildren can only stand when they come to worship, and there is no place to kneel if they want to, which belongs to the cemetery for civilian consumption.

The more advanced ones are the Luyin Garden and the Caisheng Garden. Lu is the general name of fame and fortune, those who are officials want to seal their wives and sons, and those who are bosses want to make money and accumulate treasures, it is quite appropriate to bury their ancestors here. In contrast, the two cemeteries are much more spacious, with open spaces in front of each tomb and trees planted on both sides of the cemetery, which is quiet and elegant.

The most upscale is the Overseas Chinese Garden. Taking this name does not mean that only the bones of returned overseas Chinese can be buried, in fact, it is just borrowed from this name, which seems more transcendent, and the fee is naturally the most expensive.

Each of these five cemeteries is divided into dozens of rows, and each row has at least two or three hundred tombs, including many joint burial tombs. According to Hou Dapeng, the entire cemetery has more than 100,000 tombs, most of which have been sold.

After riding through these five cemeteries to the back hill, the last piece of open space is the warehouse area. However, when we rode to the back mountain, the mountain was foggy and there was no movement. I'm not surprised by this situation, and I know that there must be a big array here. But the difference is that there is a row of iron railings outside the warehouse area, leaving only one iron door to enter and exit, and there are special personnel to guard it, and even check the documents.

I rode to the door and stopped, turned my head and asked, "Brother Hou, how do we get in?" ”

Hou Dapeng didn't get out of the car, and took out two wooden plaques directly from his pocket, both of which were engraved with the word "Xiling", but the color of the font was different. He hung the sign engraved in red around his neck and hung me in green.

"Let's go, ride straight in. In the future, you will have to wear this sign when you go in and out, hand it over to the office when you close the stall, and go to the office to find me to get a new one before you come back next time. Hou Dapeng said.

I rode through the iron gate. When I passed through the iron gate, I noticed that the sign lit up, and it was obviously specially made and not easy to fake. The security guards guarding the door were much more regular than the two I saw yesterday, with a tiger's back and a blazing eye, and a sign with black letters on his chest. However, as soon as they saw Hou Dapeng sitting in the back seat of me, they all smiled and nodded: "Hello Boss Hou!" ”

Hou Dapeng also nodded, but did not say anything, it was obvious that he had a high prestige here. I couldn't help but ask him, "Brother Hou, what does this different brand mean?" ”

Hou Dapeng said: "Your green sign represents a temporary distribution, and it has to be taken back every day." Their black sign is the administrator, and you have to obey their management in it. My red card represents the supervisor, which is only available to a few members of the management committee. There is also a blue badge, which can only be worn by shopkeepers and long-term workers. If you are lucky enough to see the yellow sign, you must be careful, it is a distinguished guest! ”

I nodded and said, "Understood!" ”

Hou Dapeng confessed again: "We are a big market here, and the market is open once every three days, opening at the beginning of the day and stopping at the end of the day." We also have a lot of rules here, not as casual as your small place in Nanting County. Access to the brand, can not run around, should not enter the place should not enter, can not touch the body of the old customer, garbage can not be littered, unified collection of money, salary on a monthly basis. Do you understand? ”

"Got it!" I will inevitably say yes again.

After entering the iron gate, he entered the large array, and the scene in front of him suddenly became clear and clear. it! It's huge! The ghost market on the mass grave in Nanting County is simply pediatric compared to it, and it is really not a ghost market in the provincial capital, awesome!

There is a row of warehouses built on the back mountain, which is called a warehouse but is actually a shop, with luxurious decoration, and it is definitely the most high-end ghost market store here. Outside the warehouse is a small square with parking spaces painted on the ground, but in fact, there are several rows of stalls lined up with canopies, which seems to be a long-term operation. Further out, in the corners are makeshift vendors, cart stalls selling them, marked by a parasol. I visually add up to about 200 shops!

It was already late when I arrived, so the stalls had already been set up in the ghost market, and everyone was busy, just waiting for the regular customers to come to visit after a while. Hou Dapeng took me to a booth under a canopy and said to a tall and thin man, "Big! I've brought you a new person, and you can arrange for him to deliver food here!" ”

Hunk? I couldn't help laughing, that person was as thin as a bamboo pole, why did he call this name?

Hou Dapeng turned his head to me and said: "This is the boss here, surnamed Lin, you just call him Boss Lin, you can do whatever he asks you to do!" ”

I hurriedly shouted, "Hello Boss Lin!" ”

Boss Lin seemed to know that Hou Dapeng was going to bring me here, and beckoned me to help set the table in the stall first, and then he went to talk to Hou Dapeng. After talking for a while, Hou Dapeng left.

After Boss Lin finished speaking, he came to me to ask about the situation. He spoke very kindly, and asked me carefully what I had sold when I was in Nanting, and I probably said everything. He said: "We are not as miscellaneous as you sell here, and the things sold in each stall are very specific, and we are not allowed to sell them randomly." You just came, so you followed Ma Xiaodeng to deliver food, and you also had to do some other chores. ”

I simply said yes. Why don't you just run errands, what's so difficult?

Boss Lin introduced me to all the people in the stall again. He himself is responsible for greeting guests and cashiering. The cook's surname is Lu, and they generally call him Lu Fatty. Lao Yang is responsible for collecting the table and serving the dishes, and Aunt Hu is responsible for washing the dishes and brushing the dishes. In addition to selling dine-in, this stall also does takeaway, so there are two errand delivery people: Ma Xiaodeng and me.

As soon as I was finished with the introduction, I greeted everyone when I heard a low bell. After a while, the old customers floated into the ghost market. As soon as the time arrived, the Xiling Ghost Market officially began to open. I look at those old guests, and they are also from all ages: there are Ming Dynasty ghosts wearing Hanfu and long hair; There are Qing Dynasty ghosts dressed in full clothes and pigtails; There are also ghosts of the Republic of China wearing Mao suits and carrying civilized sticks, and of course there are modern ghosts, which are obviously new ghosts, and they have not been dead for long.

The three signature dishes at this stall are braised earthworms, spicy voles and pan-fried leeches. In addition, it also sells ordinary fried noodles, fried noodles, and fried rice, all of which are in charge of the chef Lu Fatzi. He can fry two pots at the same time, and he is not slow. Judging by the liveliness of this stall, the taste should be good, otherwise there would not be so many regular customers.

Boss Lin sat behind his cash register, collecting money while paying attention to an incense burner from time to time. The incense burner was antique, bronze, rectangular in shape, and obviously an old object. The incense burner was filled with incense ash and scraped evenly, but there were no incense sticks, and I don't know what it was for.

I noticed that Boss Lin could directly use his hands to receive paper money, which showed that he had also practiced Yin Gong. Others are not, occasionally there are old customers who give them paper money, they let the old customers put it on the table, and then sweep it to the plate and serve it to Boss Lin to collect. When I first arrived, I didn't know the situation, so I decided not to easily expose the secret of my Yin Gong and try not to touch the paper money.

The old customers here give all the dead coins, there are no other ingots, yin yuan and other paper money, and the denomination of the dark coins is 100 million yuan, and the printed pattern is the same. I took a chance to take a closer look, and it was printed: Xiling Money Bank Issued. What a norm! Even the stygian currency is printed by itself, so that the exchange rate does not have to be so complicated.

When the market first opened, it was the time when there were the most regular customers in the stalls, and Ma Xiaodeng and I also helped Lao Yang serve the food and close the table, and there was not much work. I was wondering when I was going to deliver takeaways, when the incense burner on Boss Lin's side suddenly burned. There was nothing in the incense burner except incense ashes, how did it burn a fire?

The fire was small and quickly extinguished. There are some burn marks left on the flat incense ash, which actually looks like a line of crooked small characters! Boss Lin immediately copied the line of words on a note with a pen, and then shouted: "One braised earthworm and two fried rice!" ”

"Roger!" The fat man on the other side repeated loudly: "One earthworm, two fried rice!" He casually poured a plate of chopped earthworms and two large bowls of rice into two hot pots, shoveled a spoon in his left hand and spooned in his right, and stir-fried them at the same time. Soon, both sides came out of the pot, Lu Fatzi divided the vegetables and fried rice into the fast food box, and Ma Xiaodeng covered it neatly, put it in a plastic bag, and added two pairs of chopsticks. He carried the takeout to the cash register, and Boss Lin handed him the note he had just written down.

Ma Xiaodeng saw that I was still stunned, so he waved his hand and said, "Let's go!" Ride your bike, let's go together! ”

I reacted and followed him out of the booth and rode on. Ma Xiaodeng also has a bicycle, which was given to him by Boss Lin, but tonight he wants to take me to a familiar place, so he sits in the back seat of me.

I asked Ma Xiaodeng where he was going now? Ma Xiaodeng handed me the note handed to him by Boss Lin to show to myself, which read: Fu, 32, 205, Earthworm 1, Rice 2, 5500.

"What do you mean?" I asked. It's obviously a string of code, and I really don't understand it.

Ma Xiaodeng explained: "The above meaning is: this takeaway order is to be delivered to Tomb No. 205 in the 32nd row of Fugui Garden, and the guest orders a braised earthworm and two fried rice, and the 550 billion yuan will be recovered at the checkout. ”

Oh! As soon as he explained this, I immediately understood. It turns out that there is so much information contained in such a simple line of words.

Ma Xiaodeng said again: "If it is sent to several other cemeteries, write Shou, Lu, Cai, and Hua." The name of the dish at the back is basically the first word, and you can see it clearly if you read it a few more times according to the menu. ”

With that, he handed me another menu. I was riding and could only glance at it curbly. The menu was small, yellow paper, with several dish names printed in red ink and a charm drawn on the back. I think the spell is familiar, the top half is a bit like a ghost fire talisman, but the bottom half is a little more complicated, I haven't seen it. What does it mean to draw a spell on the back of a menu? But I think it should be related to the takeout order, and I will take a closer look after stopping the car for a while.

As we spoke, we found Tomb No. 205 in the 32nd row of Fugui Garden, where two ghosts, a man and a woman, were already sitting on the tomb waiting for us. It was a joint burial tomb, and it looked like an old couple.

Ma Xiaodeng put the takeaway on the edge of the tomb and said politely: "The takeaway of the two of you has arrived, one braised earthworm and two fried rice, a total of 550 billion." ”

The owner of the male tomb was also very happy, and directly took out a few stacks of dark coins to give to Ma Xiaodeng. Ma Xiaodeng didn't dare to take it, so he quickly took off the small backpack on his back and let the other party put it in. He counted them visually, and it should be enough. Then he put the bag back on his back, took out two more menus, handed them over, and said, "This is the new menu, you can keep it for later." ”

The old couple held the fried rice and ate it with the braised earthworms, and the food was quite fragrant. When I saw them like this, I immediately remembered Liu Gong and Liu Po. Alas, it's a pity that it's already a ghost!