The pebble face crawled out of the bed like dead ashes.

The carpenter and the pebble sat down, and said that the child next door had negotiated a deal with the concave face merchant, and how it was. Pebbles listened painfully, and the little ghost of the next door who was talked about with memories of two lives was also very embarrassed in front of them, and went to make the bed as if he couldn't hear it.

Pebbles made faces at Gu Chuan behind his back. Hong Sha touched Gu Chuan and asked him to look back.

When Gu Chuan saw this, he knew that the pebbles were bored, so he stepped forward to relieve the siege and said:

"Uncle, it's already late at night, and you're going to the concave-faced merchant early tomorrow morning to sit down with your uncle. In this way, everyone is at ease! ”

On the way here, Gu Chuan also mentioned to the carpenter that they and Pebble had other things to deal with.

And the carpenter himself is much more anxious than Gu Chuan in the cause of "bicycles". Gu Chuan didn't think that the bicycle was the foundation, but the carpenter thought that the bicycle was the foundation of the entire Rizhao Village, which could barely be called the Sichuan clan.

When the carpenter heard this, he looked down and sighed suddenly when he saw the pebble's face.

"You go out with me for a while."

When the pebble answered, the carpenter said that it was a matter between father and son, and told the other young men not to eavesdrop.

"We don't want to hear about it, either!"

The girls laughed as they came into the room to make their beds.

The carpenter smiled and waved his hand, and walked outside the rented house with the pebbles. He closed the door, brushed the dust off the steps with his hands, and sat down on the steps. Behind him is the wall of the rented house, and in front of him is another house clinging to it.

He looked up at the pebbles.

"Sit down!"

Pebble was distracted, not hearing, and looking into the distance along the slitty streets between the houses. He saw a wall on the left and a wall on the right, and only in front of him was a glimmer of light, which was the boundless and prosperous night scene of this sunset city. It's a brightly lit civic quarter, and this side is a dark frontier district.

When the carpenter saw that the pebble did not reply, he was even more silent, and when he saw the longing of the pebble's face, he did not call it a pebble, but lowered his face, and buried himself in the shadow, and then took out his pipe, and smoked a dry cigarette from one to the other.

After a moment's pause, he called out again:

"Pebbles."

"Oh, ah, okay!"

Pebble hurriedly sat down. Sitting together has been something that has not been done for a long time for this father and son.

The pebble waited for a while, and then he couldn't help but turn his head sideways and observe the carpenter cautiously. Seeing this, the carpenter smiled affectionately, and then spoke:

"You know your dad has been envious of Sunset City all his life."

"Hmm."

"That's a memory of me when I was a kid and my mom and dad and my mom and dad moved from far away to the frontier of Sunset City. Somehow, every time I think about these memories, I feel that Sunset City is incomparably beautiful, and it must be the impression that Sunset City as a child gave me infinitely better than in the wilderness...... That's why I've always wanted to stay in Sunset City. ”

But somehow, the carpenter is now in Sunset City, but he has some indescribable retreat.

Pebble was puzzled and only said:

“…… Daddy, you've got your wish now. I heard Brother Chuan say that you are going to go into the city to do business together! ”

The carpenter sighed, his hands on his lap, his slightly fat body almost squeezing the pebbles to the bottom of the steps. Realizing this, he shrank back and leaned to the side.

Pebble stood up directly at this time, feeling that it was not too early, and sleepiness had already surged into his head, so he asked:

"Dad, what did you tell me?"

The carpenter let out a long sigh.

"Pebbles, pebbles, do you know the difference between border residents and citizens under Sunset City?"

Pebble of course knows, and he also knows that the biggest difference is that border residents have to "serve" more. When he had said this, the carpenter took a long puff on his pipe, and then asked:

"Then do you know why your father didn't serve in the border militia in the first place?"

This dumbs the pebbles.

He didn't know why the carpenter was bringing it up at this time.

Pebbles are young, so I don't know, but the carpenter remembers them for a lifetime.

He lowered his head, leaned against the light in the rented house, and saw a line of ants under his feet, walking in a tight line in front and back.

This is the grievances and hatreds of the previous generation in Rizhao Village, and it is also a matter that has already passed nearly a hundred solar terms. The border militia service is the biggest service of Sunset City to the border people, but Sunset City can't count the population, how can we know how many people in Rizhao Village are of the right age and how many are not of age?

In the end, it is still according to the number of heads, and Rizhao Village needs to provide enough young people.

And how can Rizhao Village deal with it fairly?

That's the lot.

When Qingchuan was leaving, he told the carpenter that if he went here, he might be able to make Rizhao Village also promoted to the citizen family of Sunset City!

The carpenter wanted to say all this, but his mouth was halfway open, and he looked at the group of young men leaning against each other in the window, and suddenly he could not speak, and closed it twice as if dumbfounded, and then said in a low voice:

"I can't say that to you, I can't say it...... But you, don't embarrass me in your group of dolls, stand up. I can't control what you're going to do after that, but you're going to make some results for me, you know? ”

At the end, the sound gets louder.

Pebble looked at the carpenter's face in confusion, not understanding what the carpenter meant, but said loudly:

"I know, I know! You don't need to say it! ”

Then he said unconvinced:

"I originally discussed with Brother Sichuan that I would stay here and do big things. My role is huge. ”

The carpenter stood up and smiled comfortably:

"Okay, you muddy boy, come on! I'm done, let's go inside, let's go to sleep. ”

Pebbles came in, but the carpenter got up and stayed outside. The cold wind blew his face red, and he looked at the original pebble gaze, and also saw the civic area behind the civil area over there, and suddenly stood still. The carpenter's actions puzzled the children. The pebbles didn't want to come out, so Gu Chuan opened the door, poked out half of his head cutely, and said:

"Uncle, why are you still outside?"

But the carpenter did not speak, and it was a long time before he spoke:

"Ogawa, do you think Sunset City is big?"

"Big, it's big, there's no end in sight."

Gu Chuan said.

The carpenter trembled and said:

"Indeed...... It's huge......"

Rizhao Village has an end in sight, but Sunset City has no end in sight. He thought.

The next day, the carpenter was gone.

Nine young people took off the surveillance of adults, relaxed again, hooked shoulders, and pulled up the curtains in the rented house to "conspire".

Pebble complained even more that he was afraid of his father, and occasionally thought when he didn't see each other, and he wouldn't feel comfortable staying together. The young men burst into laughter. Gu Chuan also smiled, didn't speak, and after everyone finished eating, he asked Pebble:

"Pebble, have you found a place that meets the criteria I said?"

Gu Chuan's function of telling the pebbles to stay in Sunset City was to replace them with the recent situation of Sunset City, and the second was to go to the "suburbs of Sunset City" further outside Pingling District to find a suitable "base area".

"I found a lot of them, and there were about three or four suitable ones. However, there are more or less owners, and it is okay to occupy them temporarily, but it is impossible to do great things. I communicated with those owners and asked for more or less money. ”

Border areas are also hierarchical, with houses such as houses located on streets only slightly higher than the slums. The kids have already discovered that in Sunset City, unclaimed rooms are taken by the gang and sold several times. Of course, the young people can also do the same, find some small rooms where the owner has died, and put them up for their own use.

But finding one or a large contiguous usable building was not as simple as Gu Chuan thought at the beginning.

For example, in the neighborhood where the house is rented, there is no one who knows who the property rights belong to, which is the reason for the extremely chaotic property rights in the outer city of Sunset City. But for an entire house, someone has claimed a general title.

"It's not in the way, you take us to see it, if the price is good, you can consider buying or renting it."

Gu Chuan's tone was taken aback.

"Can we really afford it?"

That's where teenagers and pebbles began to explain those things about the bike.

Pebble was taken aback and laughed:

"I heard the wind in the streets, but I didn't expect it to be you...... No, it's us! ”

"Not by that. It's hard for me to ask the concave merchant for money right now. The money I have now is all deposits from Rizhao Village. ”

Who knew that Gu Chuan shook his head and smiled mysteriously.

There are three pebbles, and a group of people visited these three places one after another in one day, all of which are large-scale buildings. The first two places, Gu Chuan was not satisfied, and the last one was a bit like a concave teaching building in later generations, with three floors, and the rooms were fully arranged, located on the edge of Sunset City. The owner is a down-and-out citizen family, who once wanted to do a cast iron industry, so he wanted to build a dormitory building, but the building was not finished, and the citizen family went bankrupt.

Now this house is only inhabited by a few border people who have come from the countryside.

Some were brought by intermediaries, and some were secretly lived here by themselves.

When the young people visited, they could also see many border people living, some of them numb, and they didn't even raise their heads when they saw people walking by. Others looked curiously at the group of young men who had come to find the down-and-out citizen.

Gu Chuan walked from the first floor, to the second floor, and then to the third floor, knocked on the wall, looked at the many places where glass window panels could be installed, and then came to the top of the building, the roof of the building is a large empty area, from here you can overlook the scenery of the large sunset city, you can clearly see the sundial tower, and the Rizhao River separated by several streets.

The sound of the river is mighty, and the waves are brilliant in the twilight.

Gu Chuan was very satisfied.

"You can negotiate with the owner."

He said to Pebble.

The owner was a citizen with the surname Tower, probably a relative of the branch of the Round Tower family. Now that she has lost all her family's property in the inner city, including her residence, the wife has returned to her own citizen family with her children. The owner of the tower eventually left the inner city alone, and lived in the unfinished building in the outer city, living on the money collected from the border people, and now he has been thinking about selling the building.

It's a pity that the chicken ribs are tasteless, and no one cares about life or death.

Unexpectedly, he recognized Gu Chuan.

"You're the inventor of that million-dollar chameleon-changing bicycle!"

The owner of the tower raised his head and said excitedly.

The transaction between Gu Chuan and the concave-faced merchant spread more and more widely, and it has become big news in Pingling District and its surroundings, which surprised all those in the know.

"How do you know?"

The young man asked him with a smile.

"I was also in the notary office at ......the time," the man surnamed Ta lowered his head and looked sideways, and his voice was lowered. At that time, he wanted to sell the building and do notarization, but the seller repented on the spot and gave up.

"That's fine, we're here to buy your house. It's just ......."

I can't afford it yet.

This cannot be said.

"I want to try out half of the solar terms, which means renting. Pay the deposit first and pay the full amount later. ”

The deposit is also a concept that Sunset City already has.

The man surnamed this tower is now also a lonely man, after coming out of the inner city, he can't even fight for the head snake, and now in the face of a group of young people with strong blood, he is also bold, and he is anxious to use the money, so he shrunk and agreed.

"But can you really afford to pay such a large amount of money?"

The man surnamed Ta did not doubt the financial resources of the million-dollar bicycle inventor, but he doubted that Gu Chuan's financial resources were all used on bicycles.

The teenagers were panicking. The old god Gu Chuan was there, and he said without changing his face:

"After half a solar term, won't you see the difference?"

In this way, the teenagers began to prepare for the move.

"At least one room per person!"

The border people who originally lived here, Gu Chuan was not ready to drive them away, because the business of a currency custodian could be used. But he decided to tell the young men to brush their faces more so that the group would realize his existence.

Even Gu Chuan planned to rely on the channels of concave-faced businessmen to recruit cooks, small workers and manpower by himself, and open a simple kitchen on the first floor of the new building.

"But...... Brother Chuan, if we don't rely on concave businessmen, how can we raise such a large amount of money! We haven't started the bicycle business yet, and the banks haven't started yet! ”

When Hong Sha was tidying up his salute, he couldn't help but ask.

"I don't think I made it clear to you. Do you remember what I said earlier, 'change your approach at the beginning' and 'collect tuition'? ”

Gu Chuan said.

On the last day of renting, the curtains are closed and candles are lit. The children gathered around and listened to what the person sitting in the center had to say again.

"Now, no one else is there. I can already explain it to you. ”

Gu Chuan said:

"All we have to do now is to get the frontier people who migrated into Sunset City and make them our apprentices, and we charge the tuition. However, the system we want to implement is slightly different. ”

"You also know that Sunset City's regular apprenticeship is a process."

He took out the paper he had prepared and said:

"A large sum of money is collected in the name of 'accommodation' and 'meals', and then after free labor for one or even several solar terms, 'wages' will be paid randomly. Often, apprentices are grateful. ”

How does this work?

Gu Chuan thought.

This may be the first to the extreme depression, and then when you give money, you will have a sense of happiness.

"'Tuition' is our first product. Our 'tuition' is very simple. First of all, the apprentice gives us a sum of money, we eat and live, and then we will return ten percent to them in the concept of 'salary' every solar term, and as long as ten solar terms, they can recover the cost. But we won't just send out the ten solar terms, we'll send them until they are finished. ”

"If we do a good job, or if we stabilize, we can add an additional amount."

It was an unassailable contract, and it was a terrible allure for the frontier people who were new to the city. In particular, the border people in remote places do not understand the structure of Sunset City at all, and they are also confused by the countless novelties of Sunset City, and in the face of the manpower needs of many good and bad apprentices, they will not have too many bad hearts, and succumb to the greedy nature.

"When the time comes, we will scatter around and put up notices and tell them that we are looking for apprentices here...... Just like the advertisement that He'an once received from Dr. Ding, you can receive countless 'tuition'! ”

Gu Chuan said.

At that time, some of the young people had already guessed the essence of the previous concept of banking.

"Then we can use the time of these ten solar terms to make a lot of money by making money!"

Hong Sha was pleasantly surprised.

"That's right! For example, we can lend money to people who need it urgently. Gu Chuan said, "Then collect a large profit." The lender got the momentary need, we got the money, and we all have a bright future. ”

"But...... Since we take in apprentices, Xiaochuan, what are we going to teach them? ”

The riverbank is puzzled.

"Since they're apprentices, you have to teach them something!"

"There can be a lot of things to teach. The vast majority of knowledge is simple...... And I rely on the encyclopedia craft section, and I also know the practices of most crafts, so that they can be more useful. ”

Gu Chuan said calmly under the light of the glowing tree.

Not to mention anything else, Gu Chuan's arithmetic and language alone can cultivate a large number of qualified tellers and scribes, you must know that there are still many people in Sunset City who can't even do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division within a hundred.

This is like in ancient times, abacus itself is a science.

At that time, the children's salute had already been packed, and when Yuhua sat on the packed salute and stared at Gu Chuan, the feeling of that night came back.

Like a saint...... But it's like the devil.

"It's just that this time it's different, and the main thing we're going to teach is...... A pitch to the 'tuition' itself. ”

In the dark room, the strange young man's eyes kept flickering, dark and terrifying:

"They can also develop apprentices, and they get a five-percent commission for every apprentice they get to pay their fees. And the apprentices of the apprentices they develop come to pay the tuition, and they can also get a commission. That's two percent. ”