Two years ago, Kanto City, Nakajie Road.

"Help! Hurry up! Fight the fire!! ”

"Ouch, why is this fire burning so big, everything in it has to be burned out, right?"

"What is it, I heard that there are still people in it!"

"Huh? That fire is so big that you can't even burn the bones......"

The heat of the flames forced people not to get too close, which made many of the spectators look regretful, so they craned their necks and looked inward, like white geese whose necks were lifted. The fire was so big that everyone knew that even if there were people inside, they wouldn't survive, so those who were still carrying buckets to fight the fire just now gradually stopped moving, just looking at the burning building and sighing.

"Please, everyone, help again, help again!" Nearby, a woman hurried in and pleaded with the crowd who had stopped.

"Madam, it's not that we don't want to save it, but this fire is too big for us to extinguish!" A man wiped his sweat and said to the woman, "You better wait for the patrol room to come with a water hose!" ……”

The look on the woman's face slowly turned from anxiety to sadness, and she looked at the raging fire in front of her, and her eyes were filled with desperate sadness.

(a)

Two years later.

The flames of the past have long been extinguished, and there are no traces of the fire on the middle street road today.

As the old capital of the previous dynasty, Kanto Castle actually retains many of the characteristics of the ancient capital: the whole city is boxy, and the imperial city is located in the middle of the city. The streets and roads in the city run due south and north or west and east, forming a regular but criss-crossing road network. Among them, the most central streets of the city are particularly famous, one in front of the Forbidden City is called Guandong Road, the west side of the street is called Zhengyang Street, and the east side is Chaoyang Street. To the south of the Forbidden City is the marshal mansion of Guan Dashuai, and the name of a big road in front of its main gate is also quite meaningful, called Shuncheng Road. The streets of Kanto Castle are named in a variety of ways, with the north-south direction being called a street, and the east-west direction being called a road. And there is only one road in the city that does not follow this rule, that is, Zhongjie Road located on the north side of the Forbidden City - in fact, the name itself is in line with the law of "North and South Street East and West Road", but people in Kanto City do not call it "Middle Street Road", but simply "Middle Street". Of course, Nakatsugai is famous not because of its unique name, but because it is the busiest place in Kanto City. Different from the official residences of the magnates such as Kanto Road and Shuncheng Road, Zhongjie is the most prosperous commercial street in Kanto City, and the most well-known foreign firms in the whole Kanto and even northern China are gathered here, so it also has the reputation of "Ten Miles of Foreign Markets outside the Guandong".

"This 'ten-mile foreign field' is not just a shop," a middle-aged man at the tea stall explained to the younger generation next to him, "Look at these buildings, they were all built by foreigners more than ten years ago." There is a rule on the street that the shops inside can be changed, but the walls outside can't be moved at all! Have you seen a lot of construction on this street over the years? That's why we can look at the same style in this middle street, which is called everyone's style. ”

The young posterior had just come to Kanto City from the countryside, and as soon as he entered the middle street, he was already dazzled, and when he listened to his uncle's explanation, his eyes were full of surprise. He looked at the western-style building opposite him almost with some awe, but soon, he noticed something unusual: "Uncle, why does that building look newer than the two buildings next to it?" ”

"Which one?" The middle-aged man turned his head, looked at the hand of the descendant, and then understood, "Oh, you said that the building of Taixing Watch Company, that building is not counted, there was a fire there two years ago, when the fire not only burned that building, but even the building next door was burned, you look carefully at the building next to it, there is still smoked black in the brick cracks!" ”

The young man squinted his eyes and looked at it carefully, and then nodded violently: "Really! What a fire this had to be?! ”

"It's burned for most of the night, and people are burned to charcoal, do you think it's big?"

"Huh? Still dead?! When the young man heard this, his eyes widened, "Who died?" ”

"The owner of that shop at the time." The middle-aged man said, "I heard that he stayed in the store that night, but who knew that there was a fire in the middle of the night, and even the store burned down." I just pity his family, I remember that his daughter-in-law was still pregnant......"

The two were chatting lively, and not far from them, a man put down the camera in his hand. The direction he was just facing was exactly where Taixing Watch Company was. The exterior of the middle street is foreign, and the interior is luxurious, and there are not many people who come here to take pictures, so this man's behavior is not eye-catching. However, what no one noticed was that when they heard the two of them talk about the past of Taixing Watch Company, a smile flashed on the corner of the man's mouth.

At this moment, in Taixing Watch Shop, Manager Wang Yuansheng is supervising the cleaning of two clerks while nagging about the rules of the store.

"As you remember, our Taixing Foreign Company is a famous watch company in England. Although our store is not in England, the rules are not as bad as they are! The glass of the counter must be wiped without finger marks. When a customer enters the store, the first thing they see when they look at the watch is through the glass, and if the first thing they see is a fingerprint, then who still has the heart to buy something? Also, don't keep a face on your face! Although we don't have to welcome people with a smile, we can't put on a sad face for the guests......"

Manager Wang's rhetoric has to be repeated three or four times a day, and the two little clerks have already heard calluses, but because of their identity, they don't dare to show it, so they have to complain silently in their hearts, while continuing to clean up with an expressionless face.

"I tell you, don't think I'm nagging, not everyone can enter our Taixing watch shop, and the people who can come to us to buy watches are not ordinary people, you ......"

Before he finished speaking, there was a knock at the door. Manager Wang hurriedly put on his professional smile: "Welcome to the ......"

Manager Wang was halfway through his words, and his smile froze on his face. Because he found that it was an acquaintance who came in.

"I said, why are you here again?!"

"I'll take a look at the watch." The young man could hear the disdain in Manager Wang's mouth, and deliberately puffed up his chest. He didn't care about the look in Manager Wang's eyes, walked to the counter in the middle, and said to the little waiter behind the counter, "I want to see that watch." ”

The little waiter looked at his manager, and when he saw that the manager did not say anything against it, he put on his gloves and took out the gold watch from the table.

The young man looked at the watch, and then asked the waiter, "How much does it cost?" ”

"180 oceans."

"Can it be cheaper?"

This conversation will be staged once a day for the past three days, Manager Wang heard it helplessly, he took a deep breath, and said to the young man: "I said young man, I have told you several times, my watch is a foreign watch imported from Switzerland, purely handmade. Not to mention our Kanto City, even the whole of China is not a few pieces. 180 oceans is already the lowest price......"

"But you haven't seen this watch sold after so many days!" Before Manager Wang could finish speaking, the young man interrupted.

"It'...... It's only been on the table for a week, okay?! Manager Wang was simply angry.

"It's not a short week, you said that the price of this watch is so high, and no one buys it for money, right? It's better to sell it to me cheaper, and when the money is in hand, it's really valuable......"

Manager Wang was almost laughed at by this young man, he looked at the young man, and said: "I said little brother, I have been in the watch business for more than ten years, and I have never seen you grinding prices with such a dead face." This table of 180 oceans is absolutely indispensable. I can't sell it, and it's on my desk, and it's also a testament to my watch taste. If you can come up with 180 oceans, I'll sell them to you, and if you can't, don't come back and delay my business. ”

The young man was suddenly a little dumbfounded, he glanced at the watch on the table again, and then said, "Then I'll come back another day." ”

With that, the young man turned and walked out of the watch shop.

"Young and vain!" Manager Wang looked at the young man's back and commented disdainfully, and then he turned around and glared at the two little clerks, "Look at what, let me continue to work!" ”

"Grandma, don't worry, I have contacted the place where the watch is repaired, and they said that the watch can be repaired in the next few days...... Yes, don't worry. I can take care of this, and if they dare to make trouble again, tell them to come to me. Okay, I know, goodbye. ”

Hanging up the phone, the sworn expression on Shen Yu's face quickly disappeared, and he slowly walked out of the telephone bureau, his face full of sadness.

Speaking of which, Shen Yu can be regarded as a child with a rough background. Shen Yu's parents both died in the plague that swept through the border 20 years ago, leaving him only one year old. Shen Yu grew up with his grandmother and grandfather since he was a child. Shen Yu's grandfather's name is Gu Runqing, and he is a watchmaker. The old man apprenticed in a watch shop in his early years, and later returned to the town to open a watch shop on his own. Because of the exquisite craftsmanship and low fees, the business slowly took hold. Master Gu has supported three generations of his family with this craft. However, a week ago, Master Gu was unfortunately entangled by a group of blackmail parties. They took a valuable foreign watch to the old Master Shen to repair, Master Gu did not know that there was a fraud, so he opened it as usual, and as soon as he opened the case, he saw that a part inside was broken and broken. And the other party was obviously waiting for this scene to happen, and when he saw this scene, he immediately shouted that Master Gu had damaged their famous watch, and he had to ask Master Shen to compensate 300 oceans. Of course, Master Gu disagreed, but the other party had already premeditated, and several strong men with five big and three thick blocks blocked the shop outside the watch repair shop and smashed the signboard, and even Master Gu himself was beaten and kicked. The old man didn't expect to encounter such a wicked person, and fell ill in a fit of rage. The next day, Shen Yu went back to the town to visit the old man, and only then did he know what happened to his grandfather.

"Grandpa, don't worry, I'll leave this matter to your grandson." Shen Yu patted his grandfather on his chest and promised at that time.

However, it's easy to talk big, but it's not that simple to solve. Shen Yu ran a few watch shops with the broken watch, and after the appraisal of multiple watch repair masters, it was confirmed that the broken watch was the most important part, and there was really no way to repair it. And Shen Yu couldn't prove that this part was not damaged because his ancestor opened the lid - of course, even if he could prove it, if the other party didn't admit it, and then went to the old man to trouble, it wouldn't work.

Therefore, if you want to completely solve the problem for the elderly, there are only two ways: either admit to them and compensate them for the 300 oceans, or give them back an identical foreign watch. Of course, Shen Yu was unwilling to be directly blackmailed by them for 300 oceans, so he took the broken watch and ran all over the watch shops in Kanto City, but only saw the same gold watch in the Taixing watch store. However, this watch is also expensive, and Shen Yu grinded with the manager of the watch store for three whole days, but he couldn't grind a penny.

Forget it, it's almost half less than 300 oceans - Shen Yu comforted himself like this, and the rest is to think about where to raise these 180 oceans, I don't know if the newspaper can let me advance my salary for a few months?

Shen Yu was thinking about how to speak to the editor-in-chief for a while, and walked towards the newspaper office. However, as soon as he entered the house, he realized that something was wrong. I saw that the newspaper office was completely absent from the busy work of the past, and the reporters were all standing on one side of the newspaper office, and they were all in a pile in twos and threes, all looking in the same direction. Looking in the direction of their fingers, in addition to the vice president and editor-in-chief, there were actually two policemen patrolling the room.

Shen Yu was taken aback, and hurriedly grabbed the familiar Xiaohu reporter who was standing on the side, and asked in a low voice, "Hey, what's going on?" Why are all the people patrolling the house here? ”

"You haven't seen that yet, have you?" Hu Xueqin stared at Shen Yu with wide eyes, and then whispered, "Our newspaper office entered the thief last night!" ”