Perhaps it was because of Tie Hanhan (Iron憨憨, simple and honest fellow),
Boss Zhou now has some changes in the way he looks at the world, especially at "people."
Here, "people" is a broader concept, which can be living people, or dead people, men, and women;
At the same time,
It can also be delicious people, and not so delicious people.
The stronger the person, the harder to say how they taste, but the greater the value of eating them should be.
If you put aside Qing's identity and the things involved behind her,
She should also be delicious.
Now,
Here,
The previous five didn't even have the qualifications to be on Tie Hanhan's dining table, but the two in front of him barely had that qualification.
This has nothing to do with good or evil, and nothing to do with right or wrong,
Unless the man in front of him had just been waving his hand to change the seasons, instead of smiling and asking after his well-being, then his fate, at least on Boss Zhou's side, had been sealed.
After all,
In the end,
Dignity, good and evil, right and wrong, and so on, are actually just affectations that people derive after solving the problem of eating.
"Wha...at...is...it..."
With a bit of weariness, with a hint of impatience,
Tie Hanhan was awakened.
Unlike a year ago, when everyone was wary of each other, guarding each other, and fighting for this body, now, everyone wants to lie down quietly and not face such troublesome things.
It's like a long road trip, everyone wants to sit in the passenger seat to enjoy the scenery or sleep soundly, and doesn't want to keep both hands on the steering wheel with their eyes fixed on the road.
"Someone is inviting you to drink," Zhou Ze said.
"Is...there...any...food..."
Drinking,
Doesn't seem very interesting.
Zhou Ze specially glanced at the pavilion and said, "There is no food, but the person who invited you to drink can be used as a snack. He just played a trick with a central air conditioner remote control, which feels quite chewy."
"Heh...heh..."
"What are you laughing at?"
"The...scenery...hasn't...changed...it's...your...heart...that's...changed..."
Zhou Ze suddenly understood, nodded, and said, "Oh, I see. Then you can go down, I'll go solve him."
Some things, once seen through, are useless.
Since Tie Hanhan pointed out that the man in the pavilion was not truly using the power of words to change the laws of the world, but a more ethereal influence of the mind, then as long as he closed his heart, covered his head, and directly resisted, not to mention that man, Zhou Ze was confident that he could tear down even his pavilion.
"Thirs...ty..."
Hearing this,
A smile appeared on the corner of Zhou Ze's mouth,
But he said:
"What did you say? I didn't hear you. Speak louder! Hey, hey, hey!"
"Im...pu...dent..."
"Who's thirsty? Who wants to drink water or wine? Who's greedy? Who's being hypocritical?"
"Watch...dog..."
At this time,
On the lake, the boy in a straw raincoat who was still fishing while floating and sinking in the rippling water suddenly turned his head and looked at Zhou Ze, his shy and introverted face seemed to be mixed with a hint of doubt.
This look made Zhou Ze's heart tighten.
"There's a problem, he sensed it?"
"This...lake...is...his...main...body..."
"He's a lake demon?"
It is not uncommon for mountains and lakes to have spirits, and for some specific areas to give birth to intelligence and transform into human form.
The lake is like a mirror,
In front of someone's true form,
Even the slightest changes will be keenly captured by the other party.
Perhaps, the other party couldn't sense Ying Gou (ancient demon) in his body, but he was already suspicious of his subtle expressions and movements after standing here for so long.
"Brother, would you like to enter the pavilion for a drink and spend a pleasant time together?"
"I really hate this kind of neither-fish-nor-fowl way of communicating." Zhou Ze shook his head, and then said in his heart, "Hey, are you coming up or not?"
"I'll...go...drink...you...go...ahead..."
Zhou Ze nodded,
Okay,
He's reached a new level of laziness,
He's too lazy to even get out of bed to eat,
He has to be fed to his mouth.
Ugh, disgusting.
Putting aside distracting thoughts,
Boss Zhou, who had been standing by the lake for a long time, finally took a step and walked towards the pavilion.
To outsiders, it might seem that Zhou Ze was thinking about whether to gamble or not.
Yingying wanted to follow, but Zhou Ze stopped her by putting his hand behind his back. Boss Zhou pointed his finger at the boy fishing in the lake while walking forward.
Yingying understood and continued to stand by the lake, staring at the boy.
The boy became even more embarrassed by Yingying's gaze, and lowered his face. He was really introverted and weak.
If this kind of boy were placed in a normal junior high school, he might arouse the maternal love and care of many female students.
But in Yingying's eyes, except for the boss, all other men have only one title:
Male.
Boss Zhou walked into the pavilion. There were many calligraphy and paintings hanging inside. It was a pity that Boss Zhou was running a bookstore, but he really had no experience in this area. He was too embarrassed to go closer to see which famous artist's work was at the corner, so he simply sat down.
The man also sat down,
First picked up a pot of wine, poured a glass for himself, and then poured one for Zhou Ze.
"I have been tasting wine here alone for sixty years. Every ten years, an old woman comes here to drink with me, but at other times, I only pour and drink for myself. Loneliness, loneliness."
If the five guys he met along the way were a bit hard to look at, then the man in front of him plus the lake spirit boy made Zhou Ze quite interested in the old woman.
To be able to suppress these two here for so many years, it would be impossible without some real skills.
It's a pity,
She met the Prefecture Lord,
And,
The Prefecture Lord is a rogue.
"Drinking, it's about artistic conception, it's about atmosphere. All stories are in the wine, and all worries, all vigor, and all excitement are rippling in this wine.
Wine is a good thing, hehe.
What I'm betting here is on wine, betting on who can drink more. This is a bet, but it doesn't depend on luck, but on strength!
This first glass of wine,
I salute you!"
Saying that,
The man raised his glass,
To Zhou Ze.
Boss Zhou picked up the glass, with a look of embarrassment on his face, but he quickly relaxed.
Other foods and dishes have a shelf life, but this wine, the older it is, the more fragrant it should be, right?
Thinking like this, the resistance in his heart decreased a lot.
The glass was raised,
A faint halo rippled out from the wine,
The man's voice sounded again:
"The first glass, to the coldness and warmth of human relationships, and the fickleness of the world!"
The aroma of wine rushed to his face. If it was just a faint taste before, now it was like a large tank of perfume being smashed in front of you, pungent, smoky, making people's consciousness chaotic!
Before drinking, there were already signs of a crash.
Fortunately,
Zhou Ze had a bottom line in his heart,
He clinked glasses with the other party and then drank it down.
The picture,
Was frozen at this moment,
The two people in the pavilion were unaware,
Yingying by the lake only saw her boss sitting at the table with a wine glass in his hand, the glass was placed on his lips, and then he didn't move. The guy opposite the boss who invited him to drink also didn't move.
A look of concern appeared on Yingying's face, but she still trusted the boss. Just like what Xu Qinglang said not long ago, anyone could have an accident, Zhou Ze was no exception, but anyone could be silently affected by an accident, except Zhou Ze.
…………
"A glass of wine, a story, a picture, a state of mind, this is the first glass.
I was born in a scholarly family, but I was a son of a concubine, and my mother was just a maid. In the year I was born, my mother died.
What a wealthy family brings me is not fine clothes and good food, but an imbalance from the depths of my heart. I am my father's son, but I live the same life as a servant, even... worse.
I have suffered all kinds of scorn and discrimination. I studied hard, hoping to seize any opportunity to turn myself around.
I want to pass the imperial examination, I want to leave this house, I want to get out!
I was about to succeed, really, I had already touched the dawn. Twenty years of humiliation, twenty years of physical and mental torture, was about to end.
However,
Before the exam was about to begin,
My father was involved in a case of treasonous poetry,
The family's property was confiscated, and the whole family was exiled!
I was also among them!
I have a very good maid, who is my legal mother's maid. She has long been engaged to me in private. She has been waiting for me to pass the imperial examination and marry her. I have agreed with her countless times, and she has been waiting for me for many years, until she became a grown woman.
But that day,
She was arrested by the government and confiscated into a government brothel.
I was with my 'relatives',
Embarked on the road of exile..."
…………
In the picture,
Inside the deep mansion,
There were tears and laughter, there was the noise of a fire being fueled with oil, and there was also the desolation of the whole family being confiscated at the end, there was the unwillingness of the young man who had suffered scorn and grew up, and there was the anger of witnessing his beloved leaving him.
Fate and absurdity colluded with each other.
A simple story, but in this glass of wine, it was infinitely magnified. It seemed that at this moment, you passively experienced twenty years of time. Imagine, in your mind, twenty years were instantly filled in. At this time, were you still you, or the character in the story?
Perhaps,
Even you can't tell the difference.
At least, Boss Zhou might really be confused, because adding up both lifetimes, he was not even forty years old.
It is really terrible for a forty-year-old to suddenly have twenty years of memory stuffed into him. It is equivalent to having half of his life filled in.
It's a pity,
It seemed that Boss Zhou was the one who drank this glass of wine,
But in reality,
It was...
On the stone table in the very center of the large courtyard,
Ying Gou (ancient demon), with his upper body naked, sat there, holding the wine in his hand.
Next to him, the government officials who were confiscating the house came in and out. There were cries, there were tears, and at his feet, there was a beautiful woman in her early twenties hugging his legs, crying that she didn't want to leave, she didn't want to go, save me, save me, lover, lover, save me...
The government officials were holding shackles behind her, pulling her hard, scolding her,
And she was grabbing Ying Gou's legs tightly, crying, begging, reluctant to leave.
Looking at everything that was happening around him and the figures in the picture,
Ying Gou was not moved, not sad, not empathetic, and it cannot be said that there was no change in emotions at all,
There were emotions,
And that was... disgust.