诡秘之主(The mysterious Lord)

Sit back in the chair, until the distant church bell rang again, seven times in a row, Zhou Mingrui slowly stood up, came to the cabinet, took out clothes.

A black waistcoat, a suit of the same color, trousers slightly tight at the ankles, and a half-tall hat, with the faint smell of books, let Zhou Mingrui looked at himself in the mirror, as if he was watching a British drama telling the story of the Victorian period.

"I'm not going for an interview, I'm just shopping for food and preparing materials for the transfer ceremony..." Suddenly he muttered under his breath, shook his head and laughed.

Klein was so focused on the upcoming interview that she became a physical instinct, habitually putting on the only decent suit of clothing when she lacked concentration.

After exhaling, Zhou Mingrui took off his formal suit and waistcoat, changed into an old brown coat, and changed his head into a round-rimmed felt hat of the same color.

After collecting himself, he paced to the high and low bed, lifted the upper mat, slipped his hand through the invisible hole at the bottom, and found the mezzanine.

When his right hand came back, there was a roll of money in his palm, about seven or eight, dark green and white.

This was all that Benson had at present, even for the three days' living expenses, of which he had only two notes of five sols, and the rest of them of one sols.

In the currency system of the Kingdom of Ruen, the sulle is located on the second tier, and is derived from the ancient silver coins, one sulle is equal to twelve copper pennies, and there are two denominations of one and five.

At the top of the currency is the gold pound, also a paper currency, but backed by gold, and directly linked, one gold pound is equal to twenty soles, there are three denominations of one, five, and ten.

Zhou Mingrui unrolled the banknotes and smelled a very light special ink fragrance.

It's the smell of money.

Perhaps due to the influence of Klein's memory fragments, or perhaps because of his own unchanging desire for money, Zhou Mingrui felt that he was in love with these little guys.

See, they are so beautifully patterned that even the austere, mustachioed George III looks so cute...

Look, the watermark seen through the sun is so attractive, the carefully designed anti-counterfeiting label makes it completely different from the fake seductive slut!

After admiring for dozens of seconds, Zhou pulled out two one-shulle notes, rerolled the rest, and stuffed them back into the mezzanine inside the mat.

Smoothing the strips of cloth near the holes, Zhou Mingrui folded the two notes neatly and put them into the left pocket of his brown and yellow jacket, separate from the pennies in his trouser pocket.

With that done, he put the keys in his right pocket, took the big dark brown paper bag, and walked quickly to the door.

Tap, tap, the footsteps from fast to slow, and finally stopped.

Zhou Mingrui stood by the door, his brow furrowed at some point.

There are a lot of doubts about Klein's suicide, will there be any "accidents" going out like this?

After a moment of reflection, Zhou Min-rui returned to his desk, pulled open the drawer and took out the gleaming brass revolver.

It was the only weapon he could think of to protect himself, and it was powerful enough!

Although he had never practiced shooting, he could certainly scare someone by pulling out this pistol!

After rubbing the cold metal wheel, Zhou stuffed the pistol into the pocket where the money was, holding the money tightly in his palm and pressing his fingers firmly on the handle of the gun, perfectly hidden.

The sense of security arises suddenly, what knows a little he suddenly emerged with a worry:

"Is it possible to misfire?"

Ideas poured in, Zhou Mingrui quickly found the idea, he pulled out the pistol, swung left and swung out the wheel, the "suicide" and the empty nest turned to the firing position, and then snapped shut.

In this way, even if it goes off, it is only "empty ammunition"!

Re-stuffed the pistol, Zhou Mingrui's left hand just like that in the pocket, no longer take out.

He pressed his hat with his right hand, pulled open the gate and clanged out.

The corridor was still dark during the day, and the sunlight from the window at the end was quite limited. Zhou Mingrui walked quickly down the stairs and left the apartment, only to feel the brightness and warmth.

Although it is near July at this time, it is a midsummer, but Tingen is located in the north of the Kingdom of Ruen, with unique climate characteristics, the highest temperature of the year is less than 30 degrees Celsius on the Earth, and the morning is cool, and some places on the streets are dirty water, debris litter, in Klein's memory, low-income people live in places, even if they have sewers, similar scenes are not rare. Because of the number of people, because of life.

"Come here, delicious fried meat and fish!"

"Hot, fresh oyster soup, a bowl in the morning, refreshed all day!"

'Fresh fish from the harbour for five pence a piece!

"Muffins, eel soup and ginger beer!"

"Conch, conch, conch!

"Fresh vegetables from the farms outside the city, cheap and fresh!"

...

The mobile street vendors who sell vegetables, fruits and cooked food shout loudly and greet the passers-by in a hurry. Some of them stop and compare their purchases carefully, while others wave impatiently because today's work has not yet arrived.

Zhou Mingrui smelled the foul and fragrant air, his left hand firmly grasped the gun handle, tightly clutched the paper money, and his right hand pressed the round-brim felt hat, bending slightly and bowing his head through the busy street.

Where there are many people, there are thieves, especially in this neighborhood where there are many semi-unemployed people doing temporary work and hungry children driven by people.

Along the way, when the surrounding crowd density returned to normal, Zhou Mingrui straightened his back again, raised his head, and looked at the street.

There was a wandering accordion player playing, the melody sometimes melodious, sometimes warm.

Around him, many children were dressed in rags and their faces were sallow from malnutrition.

They listened to the music, followed the beat, moved their bodies instinctively, danced their own dance, and their faces were full of joy, like they were little princes and little angels.

A numbed woman passed by, her skirt dirty and her skin pale.

Her eyes were dull and dull, and only when she looked at the group of children, there was a slight twinkle, as if she saw herself thirty years ago.

Min-swee Chow passed her, turned down another street and stopped in front of the Slim Bakery.

The owner of the bakery, a gray-haired woman in her seventies named Wendy Slinn with a gentle smile, has been selling bread and pastries for as long as Klein can remember.

Well, she bakes her own tingan, lemon cake and it's delicious... Zhou Mingrui swallowed the spit and smiled:

"Mrs. Slim, eight pounds of rye bread."

"Oh, little Crain, where's Benson, not back yet?" Wendy asked, smiling.

"A few more days." Zhou Mingrui answered vaguely.

Wendy took the rye bread and exclaimed:

'He's a good, hard-working lad. He'll have a good wife.'

Here, the corners of her mouth turned up and she smiled mischievously:

"Well, now that you've graduated, our Hoy history graduate, well, you'll be making money soon. You shouldn't be living in an apartment like this. You should at least have a bathroom of your own."

"Mrs Slim, you look like a young and lively lady today." Zhou Mingrui could only respond with a dry smile.

If Klein can successfully pass the interview to become a lecturer at the University of Tingen, the whole family will indeed go straight to the well-off!

In his memory fragments, he even fantasized about renting a suburban single-family house, with five or six rooms upstairs, two bathrooms, and a large balcony, and two rooms downstairs, a dining room, a living room, a kitchen, a washroom, and an underground storage room.

This is not a luxury, even a trainee lecturer at the University of Tyingen can earn 2 gold pounds a week, and when he becomes a regular, it will be 3 gold pounds 10 sous. After all, Klein's brother Benson, who has worked for many years, earns only 1 pound 10 sous a week, and the average factory worker is even less than 1 pound or a little over, while the rent for a single house varies from 19 sous to 1 pound 18 sous.

"That's the difference between earning three or four thousand a month and 14,000 a month..." Zhou Mingrui muttered to himself.

However, all this is conditional on passing the interview at Tingen University or Baekeland University.

As for the other route, people without background could not be recommended for public office, and for those who studied history, the range of employment was even narrower, and there was not much demand for private advisers to nobles or bankers and industrial tycoons.

Considering that Klein's knowledge had also become "fragments", incomplete and incomplete, Zhou Mingrui's expectations of Mrs. Slyn were full of embarrassment and guilt.

"No, I've always been this young." Wendy replied humorously.

While speaking, she loaded the measured 16 rye bread into Zhou Mingrui's big dark brown paper bag, and a stall of right hand road:

'Nine pence.'

The weight of each loaf of rye bread is about 0.5 pounds, and the deviation is inevitable.

'Nine pence, wasn't it eleven pence the other day? Zhou Mingrui unconsciously asked.

It was 15 pence last month.

"You have the repeal of the Corn Bills to thank, and the people who marched." Wendy smiled, spreading her hands.

Zhou Mingrui nodded vaguely, and Klein's memory of this was somewhat incomplete, except that the core of the Grain Act was to protect the price of domestic agricultural products, and until the price rose to a certain level, no grain was imported from the southern Feneport, Masek, Remburg, and other countries.

Why are people marching against it?

Without saying more, Zhou Mingrui was afraid to take out the revolver, so he could only carefully pick out the bills, take out one of them, and give it to Mrs. Slim.

After retrieving the three copper pennies and stuffing them into his trousers pocket, he carried the paper bag containing the bread and headed for the Lettuce and Meat market across the street for the lamb stew with tender peas that his sister had told him to cook.

There was a municipal square at the junction of Iron Cross and Daffodil streets, where tents had been set up, and clowns in funny costumes were handing out leaflets.

"Tomorrow night, the circus?" Zhou Mingrui looked at the leaflets in the hands of others and whispered out the general content.

Melissa's gonna love it. How do you charge for tickets? A flash of thought, Zhou Mingrui close to the past.

He was about to question one of the red and yellow clowns when a husky female voice came from his side:

"A divination?"

Unconsciously turning to look, Zhou Mingrui saw a woman in a pointed hat and a long black dress standing in front of a low tent.

Her face was painted red and yellow, her eyes dark blue.

"No." Zhou Mingrui shook his head and answered, where did he have spare money to divinate.

The woman smiled and said:

"My tarot reading is very accurate."

"Tarot..." Zhou Mingrui suddenly froze.

This pronunciation is very similar to the tarot cards on Earth!

The Earth's tarot cards are a kind of fortune-telling poker, but there are more "graphic cards" with symbols.

And so on... He suddenly remembered the origin of tarot divination in this world.

It does not originate from the seven orthodox deities, nor is it an ancient relic, but was invented more than 170 years ago by Rosel Gustaf, then consul of the Republic of Intis.

This Mr. Rossel invented the steam engine, improved sailing ships, overthrew the kingdom of Intis, and was recognized by the Church of the Gods of Craftsmen as the first consul of the New Republic.

Later, he went south and north, put Remburg and other countries into protection, let the Kingdom of Ruon, Feneport, the Fissack Empire and other northern continental powers have been bowing, and then changed the republic again into an empire, calling itself "Caesar."

It was during Rosell's reign that the Church of the Gods of Artisans received its first public oracle since the Fifth Century, changing the title of the God of Artisans to the God of steam and machinery.

Rosel also invented tarot divination and laid the foundation for the composition and play of the current cards, which have several types familiar to Zhou Mingrui, such as upgrading, fighting landlord, Texas, Quinte...

In addition, he sent ships to find their way through storms and turbulence to the southern continent, ushering in the colonial era.

Unfortunately, in his old age, he was betrayed and assassinated in the fifth century 1198 by the Church of the Eternal Sun, the House of Sauron and other nobles, and fell to the White Maple Palace.

It is Remembering these common sense, Zhou Mingrui suddenly had a toothache.

This isn't the elder Traveler, is it?

Thinking of this, Zhou Mingrui decided to take a look at what the tarot cards here really looked like, so he nodded to the woman wearing a pointed hat and a face painted with oil:

"If it's not, uh, reasonably priced, I'll give it a try."

The woman suddenly laughed:

"Sir, you are the first person to come today, free of charge."