Chapter 124 - 117: Mirror Person

Chapter 124: Chapter 117: Mirror Person"Could the bride originally be from Mingjiang Prefecture?" Zhou Xuan came up with this strange idea. "Let’s settle down on East Market Street first." Feeling tired, Zhou Xuan leaned back and fell asleep. When he woke up, it was nearly dusk. It was too late to find a long-term rental on East Market Street. After Zhou Xuan and his companions got off the carriage, they found an inn on the street to stay at. ... After settling in the inn, Zhou Xuan and his companions went to East River Restaurant; they had missed lunch and were extremely hungry. Even though they hadn’t yet adapted to the taste of Mingjiang cuisine, they still devoured their food without any manners. While they were eating joyfully, suddenly, a bald old man, carrying half a bottle of wine, staggered past Zhou Xuan and, as if he had discovered a new continent, exclaimed, "Yo, Mu Hua, you’re dining at a restaurant now? Lost interest in your own snack stand?" "You’ve mistaken me for someone else," Zhou Xuan glanced at the old man. "Still pretending, eh?" The old man reached out to pat Zhou Xuan’s arm, trying to be friendly. "Snap!" Lv Mingkun slapped his chopsticks down hard on the table, glaring at the old man. His Fifth Senior Brother had blood on his hands; it was scary when he got angry. The old man sobered up a bit, took another careful look at Zhou Xuan, and then said, "I must have been mistaken, I’m terribly sorry." As he walked away, he kept muttering to himself, puzzled, "How can there be someone so similar?" And it wasn’t just the old man; during the half meal, three more diners saw Zhou Xuan and shouted, "Mu Hua!" Zhou Xuan was completely baffled— Could there really be someone in East Market Street who looks so much like him? Unable to bear it, Zhou Xuan asked the owner for a pot of yellow wine, went over to the bald old man, and pushed the wine in front of him: "People keep calling me Mu Hua, who is Mu Hua?" "Hey," the old man cheered up seeing the wine, rubbed his hands around the pot, and said, "Hearing how smoothly you speak, I knew you aren’t Mu Hua. Mu Hua, real name Mu Hua, is the most wooden person on East Market Street; if you go out and turn right, walking forward, you will see his snack stall." Having almost finished his meal, Zhou Xuan decided to see for himself how similar this Mu Hua was to him. He paid the bill and, guided by the old man’s directions, he walked with Lv Mingkun and Little Fuzi until they saw a snack stall near the end of the street. The stall was set up in front of a house, and three diners were seated in the front hall. The stall was operated by a middle-aged woman, of an age that one would describe as Xu Niang. While the diners were eating, their lecherous gazes were sweeping over the woman’s chest. "Guests, what would you like to eat? Soup dumplings, sweet porridge, fried tofu noodle soup—these are all quite filling." The middle-aged woman warmly invited Zhou Xuan and his companions, but when she clearly saw Zhou Xuan’s face, she froze, and then lowered her head to look at Mu Hua. Mu Hua was sitting on a stool washing dishes, with a wooden basin for dirty dishes in front of him and a bucket of clean water. "Sister Cui, another basket of buns..." Sister Cui didn’t hear it, as she kept glancing between Mu Hua and Zhou Xuan. After a while, she tapped on Mu Hua’s shoulder. Mu Hua looked up and noticed Zhou Xuan. Zhou Xuan also noticed him. "Young master, they look so alike," Little Fuzi exclaimed in surprise. "Like twins," Lv Mingkun also said. Zhou Xuan was even more stunned; he even thought Mu Hua might be his mirror image—the eyes, eyebrows, nose, those "big items" looking alike was one thing, but even the curve of their mouths and the distribution of stubble was exactly the same. It was outrageous. Zhou Xuan didn’t know what to say and could only smile and wave at Mu Hua, but Mu Hua had a blank expression, as if having someone look exactly like him was nothing new. He lowered his head again and continued washing dishes. "Guest, don’t mind him; he is always like this, ignoring everyone, wooden-like." Afraid that Zhou Xuan would be offended, Sister Cui not only apologized but also offered Zhou Xuan and his companions the noodle soup for free. "It’s fate to meet someone who looks so much like my son; come, Sister Cui will treat you, no need to pay." Despite that, Zhou Xuan still paid, carried a bowl to a table inside, and continued to watch Mu Hua while eating. The more Zhou Xuan watched, the more uneasy he felt. Weird things had been happening since his first day in Mingjiang Prefecture. The Lantern Bride, who hadn’t caused much stir, even frightened Liu Qingguang into paying her. Although he had never previously been to Mingjiang Prefecture, everything felt overly familiar to him, and now, here in East Market Street, he encounters someone who looks exactly like himself. "This trip to Mingjiang Prefecture, does it feel like destiny has arranged it?!" After looking at Mu Hua for a long time, Zhou Xuan finally averted his gaze and chatted with the proprietress, asking, "Sister Cui, I’m from out of town and planning to open a Jingyi Shop. Are there any good shops for rent nearby?" He was genuinely looking to do business, earning incense through tattooing with specific methods not entirely clear but surely involving nurturing Evil Ghosts inside corpses, and Lv Mingkun also had to rely on dissecting and sewing up corpses to earn incense. Without corpses or a shop, neither of their incense could be accumulated. "You’ve asked the right person; there’s a shop diagonally opposite, previously a Jingyi Shop. The owner thought it was too tiring and not making enough money, so he closed it down. If you take over, you won’t even need to redecorate." "That’s great, I’ll go take a look later." Zhou Xuan sipped his soup, but his eyes drifted to the inner room. Sister Cui’s inner room had a very gloomy feeling. He released some of his Perception, only to feel an extremely dense gloominess permeating the inner room. While Sister Cui was busy with her business and Mu Hua was washing dishes, Zhou Xuan simply stood up and walked into the room. Crossing through the hall, he entered the inner room, which was large and had a wooden bed set up in one corner. At the center of the room, a coffin was suspended by four iron chains. The coffin wasn’t varnished, revealing the natural color and grain of the wood. Zhou Xuan reached out and gently touched the coffin, and felt that all the gloominess in the room dissolved. Touching the coffin also gave him a distinct sensation. This coffin... seemed to be the one he had lied in... This feeling was much like a person who sold his old house in his youth and then returned years later; even though the old house had been renovated and all familiar old objects were gone, the moment he sat in the house, all the memories and feelings from the past returned. "What is this feeling exactly?" Zhou Xuan even doubted if there was something wrong with his psychological state. "Guests, please have your meals in the main room." Sister Cui’s voice came from behind Zhou Xuan. "Sorry, Sister Cui, my brother here, sometimes he zones out, and when he does, he walks around everywhere, sorry for troubling you." Lv Kunming, who was following Sister Cui, helped Zhou Xuan smooth things over. Zhou Xuan also withdrew his hand and said to Sister Cui, "My apologies, I have some bad habits." "Our family now only has this coffin of value left." Sister Cui pointed at Mu Hua and said, "You’ve seen what my son is like; I definitely can’t count on him to provide for me in my old age. I had to prepare my own coffin in advance, so when the day comes that I’m bedridden, I’ll just open the lid of the coffin and lie in it waiting for death." Having been in touch with funeral affairs for a long time, Zhou Xuan knew that some middle-aged people, if they felt their descendants were incapable, indeed liked to prepare their coffins in advance to at least have a place for themselves in death. "Mu Hua is not bad, just not talkative at the moment," said Zhou Xuan as he left the room, paying for three bowls of Noodle Soup. He added, "Sister Cui, your cooking is quite good; I’ll come taste other snacks another day." "You’re welcome anytime." Sister Cui watched Zhou Xuan and his companions leave, then returned to the inner room, lit incense sticks, and bowed three times towards the coffin. "Didn’t you see?" Mu Hua, who had appeared in the room at some unknown time, leaned against the door frame, still expressionless, his vacant gaze fixed on the suspended coffin. "You mean those three guests? They couldn’t see anything, no one can." Sister Cui carefully watched the coffin, whether cautious of the coffin itself or something inside it. "Buzz!" The coffin gently vibrated, as if comforting Sister Cui and Mu Hua... ... "Just call me Lao Yang." Lao Yang was the biggest landlord on East Market Street. His ancestors were wealthy, and he had further expanded the business by running a cotton mill, growing his family wealth to the extent that one-seventh of the properties on the street were his. "Are you renting a retail space or a residence?" "Both," Zhou Xuan said. After finishing his meal with nothing else to do, he went to see the shop Sister Cui had mentioned. The shop had a nice scale with two storefronts and a good location. Just next to the shop was a notice board stating, "For renting, please go to Da Sixi Mahjong Hall." Zhou Xuan then went to the mahjong hall and found Lao Yang. "Renting a shop too? Sure, sure." Pleased internally, Lao Yang asked, "Got any place in mind?" "Yes." Zhou Xuan said, "The snack stall opposite Sister Cui’s." "Oh, that place, good location. I can take you there to check it out; it’s spacious and there are no tall buildings directly opposite it, so the morning sunlight almost always gets in." Lao Yang took Zhou Xuan and his two companions to see the shop. Apart from the two storefronts, the depth of the shop was also good, and just like Sister Cui said, the previous tenant also ran a Jingyi Shop, so the internal layout and décor didn’t need redoing. If rented, the place would need just a clean up before opening for business immediately. "This shop isn’t bad, right?" Zhou Xuan asked Lv Mingkun. "All aspects are good, but the price..." Lv Mingkun turned to ask Lao Yang, "What are your rental terms?" "Six months minimum, six hundred per month." The price Lao Yang asked for was not high; the funeral services street wasn’t doing well, indeed it couldn’t bear higher prices. Plus, with East Market Street’s somewhat chaotic public security and not-so-great reputation, he dared not ask for too much. "That’s a bit expensive," Lv Mingkun said. "Five hundred, rent for six months." "If you really can’t afford it, let me tell you, my place is very clean, not just superficially clean, but clean throughout. Every three months I even have a Mage and Taoist come to cleanse it... Others’ shops, I guarantee are not clean, filled with wandering souls and little ghosts." Lao Yang patted his chest with vigor. Zhou Xuan, however, frowned and asked, "Really clean?" "Guaranteed clean!" "What if it isn’t?" "If it’s not clean, I’ll rent it to you for three hundred!" "Bang!" Zhou Xuan picked up a pipe wrench from the corner cabinet, stood on the counter, and stabbed hard at a corner of the ceiling. Immediately, the ceiling burst open, a cascade of bricks and dust falling down, and a ghastly pale, withered human hand also dangled from the hole...