The Foothill Department Store is a wonderful place, at least for Xu Le.

In his youthful years, only this small shop hidden at the end of the stone path next to the city, and the small courtyard in the slum area of the Imperial Tianjingxing, can bring him a real sense of relaxation, and the biggest difference between the former and the latter is that the kind mother and son in the small courtyard are the source of the feeling of relaxation, but the department store is relaxed and calm from the walls and even the air.

He didn't buy an energy bar for student camping today, he took out a bottle of low-quality liquor and two bags of peanuts from the depths of the shelf, walked to the cash register and small dining table at the door, lowered his head and took out the change in his pocket, put it in front of the boss, and turned to leave.

The gray-haired male boss put down the instant noodle bowl in his hand, did not count the banknotes, looked at Xu Le, who was just about to walk out of the door, and said mockingly: "Now it is becoming more and more rude, and I used to at least know how to shout Boss Xiaoshan."

Xu Le's back stiffened slightly, turned his head and took off his hat, looked at him and said slightly, "Why do you recognize me every time?"

"I've been in business all my life, and I've never met a fugitive who dared to come back to me to buy things like you, and I even knew that I recognized you when the president issued a proclamation. Fugitives like you are really rare, and naturally it is not easy to forget. Xu Leshen made S1 and said: "But this time is different from last time, I am now an Empire."

"There is a saying that the white head is as new, and the cover is as old as ever. You may not understand the meaning of this sentence, probably to say that some people are still so strange to accompany each other for a lifetime, and some people can become lifelong friends just by stopping the car and chatting for a few words. ”

Boss Li Xiaoshan looked at him and said expressionlessly: "Of course, we don't have this kind of friendship, but in my opinion, you are barely an interesting guy, so I am willing to take the time to chat with you." ”

This department store owner, who is over half a hundred years old and looks very ordinary, speaks very plainly and plainly, but the words occasionally used in it, like the two sentences of Bai Shou Tilting, are very interesting.

This department store, far away from the downtown area and in the middle of the mountains and forests on the side of the city, is not doing very well, and even the sparrows in the forest dare to boldly pace at the door with proud steps, looking at such a small shop, every day's life is probably consumed in the process of boring TV news and instant noodles becoming hard, soft and rotten, where is it precious? Xu Le scratched his head with his empty hands, not knowing what to say: "Then what are we talking about?"

The boss named Li Xiaoshan tapped the table with his knuckles, looked at the liquor and peanuts in his hand and frowned and said: "According to the news, you shouldn't have the leisure to borrow wine to drown your sorrows now, it doesn't matter what you talk about, the key is that I don't want to see someone waste the wine in my store." "Then how can it not be wasted?" asked Xu Le suspiciously. "It's not a waste if you invite me to drink two glasses. Boss Li Xiaoshan said.

A bottle of wine quickly entered the stomachs of the two people, and then the second bottle was opened, and the dishes that accompanied the wine were peanuts, a few bags of inferior snacks for the students, and two boxes of instant noodles that were really soaked to a thin point.

He looked at the winter afterglow coming through the high-rise building on the opposite side of the hill, hiccuped, squinted and said: "I don't want to get on someone else's ship, because I know very well that once I go up, I will never get down again, but it's also stupid to stay, except for those guys like you who don't care that I'm from the Empire, there's no point in it." ”

He licked his lips with a painful expression, looked at Boss Li Xiaoshan and said: "From the last time I fled to this escape, in fact, I have escaped many times before, I am really tired and don't want to run away anymore, but the problem is that I don't want to take someone else's boat away, it's wrong to stay, I don't want to die, what do you say about this?"

The so-called consultation is actually just a vent of depressed emotions in his heart, without waiting for the other party to answer, he shook his head and laughed at himself: "I actually have very few in my life, no, I have never regretted anything, but at this time I really regret it, I think this emotion is very strange, very ...... Awkward. ”

The boss Li Shan Xiaoshan brought the rim of the cup to his lips, slowly and silently sucked the wine in the cup without making a sound, and then picked up two peanuts and a piece of dried tofu and threw them into his mouth, chewing vigorously with great carelessness, and then let out a satisfied sigh.

He looked at Xu Le, who was full of sorrow, and said mockingly: "Man is really an animal that is not easy to satisfy. You were just an orphan of Donglin back then, but now you have become the prince of the empire, and you can eat meat unscrupulously, what else is not suitable in life?" "This is very similar to what one of my uncles said. Xu Le poured him a glass full of wine and said with a smile.

Boss Li Xiaoshan ate a few more peanuts and dried tofu, chewed hard, the muscles next to his jaw were particularly strained, and said vaguely: "The ancestor once relayed the words of a sage before he died, if you chew pickles and beans together, you will have the taste of walnuts. But the other sentence I like better, "Peanuts and dried tofu are eaten together, and they have the taste of ham." ”

"Before being executed, I never forgot it, this is the proper attitude towards life. The meaning of life is to eat meat and drink wine, eat and wait for death, when do you think about this, probably you won't be like now, young but so tired. Xu Le stared at the wine glass between his fingers and muttered, "How can it be so easy to see through." ”

The boss snorted and devoured the rotten noodles in the bowl, and continued to reprimand vaguely: "If you really take the ticket, get on that boat, and continue to develop according to the normal path, will you regret it when you are about to die?"

Xu Le thought about it seriously, and then replied: "Yes, although it hasn't happened yet, at least I will now." ”

It's a wonderful way to say that a young man regrets in advance the end that didn't happen when he was old under the sunset, and the boss laughed and said, "Then what else do you think?" ”

"I want to leave, I want to have a boat of my own. Xu Le slowly turned the wine glass between his fingers, squinted at the boss, his eyes were extraordinarily bright, and said sincerely: "Can you help me."

"Not really. "The boss waved his chopsticks like a dancing sword, and the soup splashed everywhere" is a joke passed down from the ancestors. I've been researching for half my life, and I don't know what's funny, and I guess it's still a serious relationship with the lack of traffic. "As for the ship, I've spent my whole life looking at such a shabby shop, and I haven't even been to the movie theater at the foot of the mountain, let alone engaged in any space tourism. ”

Xu Le heard that the other party was not joking, stared into his eyes in shock, and asked, "You've been here all your life, you should have gone to school, right?" The boss paused, not continuing to expand on the joke related to these four words. "Then you can't be afraid of death?" Xu Le looked at him incredulously. "Can a living person be afraid of urine to death?" said the boss with a frown: "You can go online, you can call for takeout, you can watch TV, and when you are bored, you can go to the reserve to hunt, and this day is not bad." "Protected area?" Xu Le asked, looking at the man who couldn't see clearly.

The boss stopped his futile attempt to remove the whole noodle from the batter, pointed to the back mountain with the tip of his chopsticks dripping with soup, and said, "If you climb over this mountain, you can see the fence of the reserve." ”

"Who the hell are you?"

Xu Le's hand holding the wine glass was a little stiff, in fact, he had always felt that the owner of this foothill department store was not an ordinary person, so he had tried to ask about the ship before, but he never thought that this gray-haired and extremely ordinary looking man would be able to ignore the brilliance of the charter and climb over the electronic wall. "My surname is Li, and my name is Li Xiaogong" has been said three times, but you still can't remember?" "Why do I feel so relaxed and even comfortable every time I come to your store?"

The boss looked at the young man's moving face and said, "Because of my small shop, the sun can enter, the wind and rain can enter, and people can enter, but the glory of the charter cannot enter." ”

Xu Le scratched his head, his expression could not hide his shock, and after sinking for a long time, he suddenly frowned and asked suspiciously: "Is there anyone surnamed Li in the Seven Families?"

"Don't talk about these eggs that don't have nutritional value. The boss wiped the soup from his lips and said, "I don't have anything to do with those big guys. ”

Xu Le felt that what he had seen and heard today was beyond his imagination, and the man in front of him actually said that the brilliance of the charter shrouded in the universe could not shine into the dilapidated department store, which was really incomprehensible and unimaginable, he subconsciously took a sip of the wine glass and drank it down, diluting the confusion in his mind with that rough spicy feeling. "Then why can't the glory of the Charter come in?"

"Because this shop and the mountain behind it belong to my family's territory, it was excluded when the electronic surveillance network was built. I don't have the eyes of a central computer here, and as for those historical stories, I'll tell you them next time I have the chance. ”

Xu Le covered his forehead and said with emotion: "You are too suspenseful, you don't understand, it's really uncomfortable, when it comes to next time, after I walked out of your Yun'er today, it is estimated that there will be no next time." "You can stay. ”

The boss looked at him and said lightly: "If you really don't have a place to go, then it's better to stay, no one can find you." ”

Xu Le shook his head and said with a smile: "I have already affected many people, although I know that you are not an ordinary person, what you said may be true, but I still can't stay." "It's okay, your first-tier protection clearance has been stripped away, and it just so happens that I still have first-tier protected clearance, and that broken computer won't allow federal armed personnel to deal with me. The coupon board said.

I was so shocked in this foothill department store today that after hearing the first series of protected permissions, Xu Le quickly calmed down, and after a long time, he said slightly: "You are too young here, and I still have a lot to do." ""The place is really big. ”

The boss's smile suddenly became a little gloomy, and he said with emotion: "For countless years of family inheritance, countless children have chosen to implant chips into the glory of the charter because they can't stand this loneliness, and in the end, I am the only one who can persevere." It's not easy to be able to magnetize a guy like me who doesn't have a chip after breeding, thinking that he can have a companion. ”

"If I can't figure it out, I'll come back to you, I know it's a shameless statement" But if I can find my ticket, I'll be sure to come to see you when I have the chance. ”

"Go ahead. The boss waved his hand.

Xu Le packed his bags and walked towards the door, stopped suddenly, turned around and asked, "Can you tell me, who your ancestor is?"

The boss threw the instant noodle bowl into the cardboard box at his feet, bowed his head and said: "My ancestor is now forced to tree in Charter Square, of course, I have never had the opportunity to see his old man's house, but thinking that he has been dead for so many years, and is forced to stand there to be looked at, washed by the wind and rain and by pigeon dung, it may be better not to look at it." ”

Xu Le's face was very exciting, he had thought about the Seven Families and the Li family in Philadelphia, but he didn't expect that the answer was actually a group of five people who were about to turn into arsenic. "My ancestors liked to eat meat, they liked to hunt, they didn't like chips. ”

The boss raised his head, looked at him expressionlessly, and said, "Although he has a ticket in his hand, it is a boat for five people, so he doesn't count it alone." When the vote was made, the thick-eyed guy who had decided to support him at the beginning actually betrayed the revolution after the regulations were amended to allow him to eat fish, so the vote was three to two. The gray-haired man shrugged his shoulders and said mockingly, "Democracy, you know. Xu Le didn't know what to say.

"One last word for you. The boss looked at him and said with a smile: "After the catastrophe, the five-person group of spaceships came to this star field, there is no federation in the universe, and similarly, I believe that the situation on the other side of the Zuotian Star Domain is similar, and there was no empire before." "In the beginning, there were no Confederates, no Imperials, only people. So you have to struggle whether you are a Federation or an Imperial, as long as you are a person. ”

Hearing this last sentence, Xu Leshen bowed deeply to the boss for a long time, and said, "Thank you for taking care of these days, those nutrition bars and wine, and today's wonderful story and this passage." ”

The sunset has just sunk halfway, the lead clouds and snowflakes can't wait to envelop the city, and begin to drive impatiently, the winter wind is whistling through the streets, drinking nearly a bottle of liquor, Xu Le, who has already passed the drunken level, but he can't feel a little cold, and the foothill department store has a conversation, so that he finally unravels the knot in the deepest part of his heart, his mind is chaotic, and his mood is clear.

The people of the Federation, the people of the Empire, the people of Donglin, the people of Xilin, the people of Nankezhou, the people of Qixiazhou, the people of Daxizhou, the people of Sunset, the people of Lihanxing, the people of Mohua, the people of Tianjing, the people of Tianjing, the people of men, women, the old people, the good people, the first people, and the later people are all people, Xu Le is the best at simplifying complex things in the eyes of Magnolia, so he decided to simply divide people into bad people and good people in the future.

Thinking about this, he dialed the phone of Madman Li with the intention of drinking, made a wine burp, and then said: "Let Lao Bai go...... Don't force good people to be sassy.