Chapter 1 Unease

Unease, anxiety, tinged with a hint of elation and bewilderment; that was perhaps how Zhou Ze felt as he took a taxi to the suburbs of Tongcheng.

He was short of money, very short, but he wasn't short of *big* money. He didn't need big money, or rather, it wouldn't do him any good, at least not for the time being.

Because he had been resurrected. The entanglements of his previous life, the troubles of this life, he needed a sum of money to resolve them. After that, he would deliberate and make long-term plans, not squander his money on a life of extravagance and indulgence.

For example, leaving the Lin family. Although Lin Wanqiu was very beautiful and had a great temperament, he really couldn't be bothered to go back to that family. They had no physical intimacy, and he hadn't really enjoyed any of it. Judging from the looks of it, Xu Le that guy hadn't really enjoyed any of it either, so there was no question of owing anything.

So saying "goodbye" didn't bring any psychological pressure.

But leaving that family meant he had to make some preparations. He had to have a place to stay, and he had to buy a slightly better quality freezer. Zhou Ze didn't dare to rummage through the second-hand market for discarded freezers. What if something went wrong and he ended up killing himself by sleeping inside? Wouldn't that be a huge loss?

Money!

Even being a ghost required money.

But the feeling he got from that person's phone call to Xu Le just now made Zhou Ze a little uneasy. Xu Le, a modern urban live-in son-in-law, so cowardly that he allowed his father-in-law and mother-in-law to take liberties with him, so cowardly that he slept in separate beds from his wife, turned out to be a hidden underworld boss?

Okay, the clash of images was really exciting, and it fit the style of American dramas. Awesome characters always had an ordinary real-world identity.

Like Spider-Man being a high school student, and Superman being a reporter for a newspaper.

So, how should he handle this situation?

How should he get rid of that bunch?

Zhou Ze didn't want his identity to be "tainted", because that would mean endless trouble. In the real world, the police investigation was already something Xu Le couldn't easily handle, not to mention the "people who will discover and catch you" that the old man and the faceless woman had shouted about.

Feeling a little headache and a little uncomfortable, Zhou Ze arrived at the abandoned small fertilizer plant.

Two people were squatting at the entrance of the fertilizer plant, one wearing a worn-out military coat, and the other wearing a cheap, low-quality suit.

Both were squatting there with a cigarette in their mouths, puffing out smoke.

Zhou Ze paid the fare and got out of the car. The two men stood up directly and walked towards him.

"Our boss is waiting for you," the man in the military coat said in a deep voice.

Zhou Ze nodded, then followed the military coat inside, while the man in the suit continued to squat there smoking, as if he were keeping watch.

After walking in, Zhou Ze saw a fat man with a gold chain and a shaved head sitting on a plastic chair, drinking by himself. When he saw Zhou Ze coming, the fat man stood up immediately.

"Brother Xu, you've finally arrived."

The fat man was very tall, about 1.85 meters, and the gold chain was very thick, making him look very ostentatious. The gold powder that had rubbed off the gold chain onto his neck made him look even more ostentatious.

"Where's the stuff?"

Zhou Ze put his hands behind his back, his fingers slightly interlaced. There were only three people here, and it wouldn't be a problem to take them all down. But what would he do after taking them down? Hand them over to the police? Wouldn't that mean he would have to be implicated?

Deal with them with his own hands? Eliminate them in the name of justice? That didn't seem right either. Given his sensitive identity, if he killed people at will, it might cause the same kind of backlash as saving people at will. He didn't want to try it easily.

"Brother Xu is as straightforward as ever!"

The fat man wiped his mouth and patted Zhou Ze on the shoulder.

Zhou Ze's mouth twitched. He took a deep breath and forced himself not to slap the fat man's greasy, chubby hand away.

"Come, this way!"

The fat man made a gesture of invitation and led Zhou Ze to a small warehouse in the backyard.

After walking in,

Zhou Ze's pupils shrank suddenly.

The goods were piled up like a small mountain, covered with black oilcloth bags.

Zhou Ze had never done anything illegal before, but he knew that if judged according to the law, that much stuff was enough for him to be executed back and forth hundreds of times. He'd get a stomachache from eating peanuts (execution by firing squad).

"It's not just Tongcheng, is it?" Zhou Ze really wanted to ask, did you guys just rob a warlord from the Golden Triangle?

"Brother Xu, of course not. Tongcheng is still too small. This batch of goods will eventually flow into Shanghai, using Tongcheng as a stepping stone." The fat man stretched and yawned. "This time, let's hurry up and get rid of the goods as soon as possible. We can make a big profit."

Zhou Ze reached out and touched his forehead, saying with some difficulty, "It's hard to get rid of it in a short time, right?"

After all, it wasn't like selling cabbage, where you could ride a tricycle and shout with a loudspeaker.

"Brother Xu, don't worry about that. We just need to distribute this batch of goods to the people below. Although the profit isn't as high as selling it ourselves, the advantage is that it's fast and the delivery is guaranteed. After we finish this batch, we'll get another one." The fat man said dismissively.

Xu Le ah Xu Le, you've even built up a drug trafficking network. You're really awesome...

Such a big shot was actually beaten to death with a stick by that idiot for robbing three hundred yuan!

"Brother Xu, come and see, what's the quality of this batch like?"

As he spoke, the fat man lifted the oilcloth bag on top.

Then, a look of surprise appeared on Zhou Ze's face.

Because what he saw wasn't a mountain of drugs, but stacks of books and CDs.

Could it be in the gaps of the books?

"Brother Xu, thanks to your classmate, it was easy to get this batch of goods. These CDs are all popular movies that are still showing on the screen. I also made extra copies of several adult films to put in. These pirated books and romance novels are also best-selling works on the market.

Also, there are twenty expanded sequels to Bai Jie that you specially wrote, with two million words. Many of our distributors have pre-ordered this one, so we don't have to worry about selling it."

"The goods you're talking about are these?" Zhou Ze asked the fat man.

"Yeah?" The fat man was stunned. "Just these."

Disappointment,

Very disappointed,

Extremely disappointed,

At the same time, he felt so ashamed.

Xu Le was still Xu Le after all. For the sake of selling these pirated items, he actually wrote a sequel to the story of Bai Jie himself.

And he wrote a two-million-word sequel.

How free was he...

"How much can I take out?" Zhou Ze asked. "I'm planning to quit."

Joint ventures should have capital investments.

"What? Brother Xu, you're planning to quit?" The fat man was a little surprised. "We're just waiting to make money, and you're quitting now?"

"Yes, this matter doesn't fit my core values. I don't want to do it."

Zhou Ze said very seriously. He didn't want to take even the slightest risk, especially before he had sorted out his current life. He didn't want to get involved in any possible vortex.

"............" The fat man.

"............" The man in the military coat.

"Brother Xu has a high level of awareness. I admire you. In the early stage, Brother Xu, you invested..."

The fat man held up four fingers and said, "Twenty thousand yuan."

"Twenty thousand is twenty thousand. Give me the money, and the rest has nothing to do with me." Zhou Ze was too lazy to bother about it. Being able to get twenty thousand yuan was a great help in solving his immediate needs.

"Okay, I have twenty thousand yuan here." The fat man nodded and went to get the money.

About a quarter of an hour later, Zhou Ze, with twenty thousand yuan in his pocket, hailed an online taxi and started to return to the city.

He didn't rush back to the bookstore first, but went to the appliance market and spent more than ten thousand yuan to buy a freezer. This freezer was generally used by businesses to store meat and other ingredients, and it was one of the higher-end models. Zhou Ze didn't hesitate to spend the money, after all, he would have to rely on it to sleep in the future, and he was afraid that cheap goods would cause problems.

The merchant was very enthusiastic and sent a small truck to help Zhou Ze deliver the freezer directly to... the entrance of the bookstore.

The driver and Zhou Ze moved the freezer into the bookstore together, and he was a little stunned.

"Boss, do you need a freezer to run a bookstore?" the driver asked.

Zhou Ze handed him a cigarette. "Business is hard to do. I'm planning to sell seafood on the side."

The driver took the cigarette and left. Anyway, the goods were delivered, and he didn't need to worry about anything else.

The bookstore had a small second floor, which Xu Le had originally used to store books. After Zhou Ze cleaned it up, he placed the freezer on top. Looking at his "new bed", Zhou Ze finally felt much more at ease.

Coming down from the second floor, Zhou Ze found that there was a person in his bookstore. Not a customer, but his "wife".

Doctor Lin was flipping through a magazine. Seeing Zhou Ze coming down, she asked with some doubt, "What were you busy with up there?"

"Organizing goods," Zhou Ze said perfunctorily.

"I'm off work," Doctor Lin said.

"Okay." Off work and not sleeping with me...

"That girl has woken up," Doctor Lin said, looking at Zhou Ze intently. "Her father wants to treat the people in our department to dinner at the Tongcheng Grand Hotel. Come with us."

"What would I do there?"

"The girl kept calling for 'Uncle' after she woke up." Doctor Lin asked Zhou Ze curiously, "Did you know her before?"

"People have feelings even when they're unconscious, right?" Zhou Ze continued to make it up. "When I saved her, she probably could feel it."

"Are you going?" Doctor Lin asked.

"I'm not going." Zhou Ze shook his head. "I'm not hungry. I don't have any appetite."

Doctor Lin nodded and didn't continue to insist. She seemed ready to leave, but when she reached the door of the bookstore, she stopped. "Are you coming home tonight?"

She was back to the familiar old question.

I come home and you still won't sleep with me...

So, Zhou Ze answered very decisively:

"I'm not going back. I'm a little busy these days."

Yes, even though the business in the store has been as cold as ice latte.

Doctor Lin hesitated, but didn't force him. She took out her car keys from her pocket and prepared to leave.

Just then,

There was a "clang".

Doctor Lin turned around and saw that her "husband" had fallen on the bookshelf, and the books on the bookshelf were scattered all over the ground.

"What's wrong?" Doctor Lin immediately came over to check on Zhou Ze.

Zhou Ze felt his eyes start to blur, his vision was hard to focus, his chest was heaving, and his feet were weak. Just now, he felt like he was stepping on cotton and had completely lost his balance:

"I fainted from hunger..."

Zhou Ze replied.

He

Hadn't eaten for days.