Finally, the timely arrival of water alleviated the embarrassing situation Xie Tao faced with the “dry cleaning”.
She hurriedly washed up and then went to bed.
The next day was Saturday. Xie Tao got up early and went to the dessert shop to help make the cakes ordered by customers, and also made a batch of crispy heart candies for the day’s supply.
In the afternoon, she was busy distributing flyers.
When she was hungriest, she bought a small bread, took off the Matsumoto bear’s headgear, sat on a bench in the square, and ate with a bottle of water.
Living alone, she had always been accustomed to making do.
She needed to earn more money so she could pay off the tuition fees Zheng Wenhong had paid for her sooner.
If it weren’t for Zhou Xinyue, Xie Tao wouldn’t have gone to Tiancheng High School, a private school with expensive tuition fees, after all, one semester’s tuition at Tiancheng could cover three years of tuition at an ordinary public high school.
If it weren’t for her urgent desire to uncover the truth, she wouldn’t have accepted Zheng Wenhong’s help.
Zheng Wenhong had paid a whole year’s tuition for her, so she had to wait until next semester to transfer to another ordinary high school.
Paying back the money was particularly urgent.
Especially the events that happened on her eighteenth birthday made her even more certain.
From the moment she chose to leave the Zheng family, she had already planned to stay away from them forever.
Between her and Su Linghua, there was no longer a way to be a mother and daughter living in peace, something she realized the day she chased to the bus station and watched Su Linghua’s back from a corner.
The relationship between Zheng Wenhong and Xie Tao was also maintained by a weak and awkward connection through Su Linghua; without blood ties, it was naturally much more decisive.
You can never force someone who has no blood relation with you to truly treat you like a close relative.
Some people may seem eager on the surface, but their hearts are cold.
However, Zheng Wenhong’s treatment of Xie Tao was never pretentious; he was always calm and indifferent, but he never refused any of Su Linghua’s requests.
But, that was all he could do, to agree to Su Linghua’s requests.
Too much care, too much love, those were things he could never give to Xie Tao.
And Xie Tao never demanded it; she never needed it.
She must repay Zheng Wenhong’s money as soon as possible, and the bank card that received a sum of money every month, Xie Tao did not use a penny of it.
When she had gathered enough money to pay back the tuition fees Zheng Wenhong paid for her, Xie Tao planned to pay them back all at once.
Eating the bread, Xie Tao thought about her situation, unaware that across the street, under the shade of a tree, a young woman dressed in a sleek black dress, wearing sunglasses on her nose, was carefully observing her.
Hanging on her ears were amethyst earrings, which sparkled brightly in the sunlight.
And in her hand, she held a cup of milk tea, casually sipping through the straw, chewing on the extra pearls added, and mused, “Do you consider yourself lucky or unlucky?”
The woman looked at the girl sitting on the bench across from her, nibbling on bread, and after a long while, she spoke softly with a tone that seemed to carry a deeper meaning.
Xie Tao was completely oblivious to all of this. After finishing her bread, she put on the Matsumoto bear headgear again, dragging her cumbersome body in a costume, and began to distribute flyers everywhere.
Many rejected the flyers from her hand, and too few accepted them.
Later, when she was really a bit tired, Xie Tao leaned against a tree, planning to take a rest, but then, passersby walking by opportunistically snatched the flyers from her hand.
One, two, three…
???
Leaning against the tree, the bulky costume made it hard for her to even turn her head.
Da Yue thought she looked like a bear that had lost all hope, leaning against the tree with a “come and take” attitude towards the flyers, which seemed somewhat desolately cute. Passersby became much more interested, and they even voluntarily took the flyers from her bear paw gloves and even patted her on the head, praising her cuteness.
???
Xie Tao suddenly felt as if she had discovered an incredible method of distributing flyers.
You ignore me when I’m actively handing out flyers, but why do you rush to take them when I give up struggling and rest against a tree??
Hmph, humans.
Suddenly, Xie Tao put her hands on her hips.
And what everyone saw was a bear putting its hands on its hips by the tree.
Then, the sound of phone cameras clicking started, and someone on the spot edited the photo with text: “Bear with hands on hips.”
Because she had suddenly found a quick way to distribute flyers, Xie Tao finished her work earlier than usual today. She went to the vegetable market to buy groceries, planning to cook dinner for herself.
But, on her way home, she was robbed again.
It was the familiar scene reversing, gradually blurring into dark shadows, all familiar sights disappearing, the flat paving stones under her feet on the sidewalk, turning back into bluestone paths.
Again, the familiar tavern stood in front of her eyes.
“……”
Xie Tao frowned.
The young man appeared again at the tavern’s entrance, wearing flip-flops and smiling at her, “Welcome, little sister Tao Tao.”
“……I don’t really want to come, thank you.”
Xie Tao saw his gaze linger on the plastic bag in her hand, filled with the groceries and meat she had bought, and she took two steps back.
“Little sister Tao Tao, let’s have dinner together,” Xie Lan winked at her.
“……” Xie Tao’s whole being radiated refusal.
In the end, she was still dragged by Xie Lan into the tavern’s lobby.
However, upon entering, Xie Tao realized that there was a strange man sitting in the lobby.
“Who is he?” Xie Tao asked, looking at Xie Lan beside her.
Xie Lan raised an eyebrow, looking somewhat nonchalant, “Sister Tao Tao, you’ve come during our tavern’s business hours.”
“Business?” Xie Tao reacted, then her almond eyes widened a bit. She looked at Xie Lan and asked, “Is he your guest?”
Xie Lan hummed affirmatively, as if he had just thought of something. He patted Xie Tao on the shoulder and pointed at the man sitting there, his tone somewhat meaningful, “Guess, is he a good person or a bad person?”
Following his pointing direction, Xie Tao looked again at the middle-aged man sitting at the table, facing away from them. At this moment, Xie Lan suddenly reached out to grab the plastic bag she was holding.
Xie Tao instinctively pulled her hand back and then glared at him, “What are you doing?”
“I was just worried that carrying these things would be tiring for you, sister,” Xie Lan said innocently, smacking his lips.
Xie Tao snorted, then placed the items on an eight-immortal table nearby.
“Quick, tell me, is he a good person or a bad person?” Xie Lan said, making a tsk sound as he watched her actions, then tilted his chin up.
Xie Tao glanced again at the stranger who was sullenly drinking alone, shaking her head, “How can I tell?”
Xie Lan smiled, then, as he reached out his hand, a small booklet suddenly appeared in his palm out of nowhere, with a red and white cover.
Even though it was the second time she saw something suddenly appear in Xie Lan’s hand, Xie Tao still found it incredibly magical.
“Let me give you some important information.”
Xie Lan caressed the booklet and then opened it, reading, “This person has cheated twice.”
“Scumbag,” Xie Tao said.
Xie Lan continued, “He scammed a female netizen out of a hundred thousand yuan.”
“A scam artist?” Xie Tao was shocked.
“But later, he was tricked by the female netizen, thinking he had found true love, so he gave her two hundred thousand yuan.”
“…What?”
“The bag beside him contains the valuables he just stole.”
“…?”
Xie Lan closed the booklet and asked her again, “Is he a bad person?”
Without thinking, Xie Tao said, “Yes.”
Xie Lan laughed twice but said, “But he has also saved someone’s life and even supported the elderly mother of a deceased friend.”
Xie Tao was stunned.
“Sister Tao Tao, do you still think he is a bad person?”
Xie Lan’s voice was light and breezy.
Xie Tao tilted her head and thought for a while, then said, “Even if he has a good side, the wrong things he has done shouldn’t be erased just because of that, right?”
“You’re quite perceptive, little sister,” Xie Lan glanced at her, then sighed with a smile and patted the booklet in his hand, “So, I need to get to work.”
After he said this, he rolled up his sleeves in front of Xie Tao, tilted his head as if he was preparing to get into a fight.
But instead, Xie Tao saw him take a jar of wine from behind the counter, place it on the man’s table, and then offer a professional, insincere smile, “Sir, this is a special gift from our store.”
“Thanks,” the man said, his voice weak as if he was still engulfed in the sadness of being deceived by a female net friend.
Xie Lan then placed a plate of peanuts on his table, smiling insincerely, “If there was even a single peanut, you wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“Is it free?” the man was about to nod, but then, as if remembering something, he asked cautiously.
Seeing Xie Lan nod, he was reassured.
Just as the man was about to pick up a peanut with his chopsticks, the peanut suddenly turned into a human hand shape, even dripping blood.
The man thought he was confused from the alcohol, rubbed his eyes, and saw that all the peanuts on the plate had turned into hands.
He immediately started to retch.
Xie Tao saw Xie Lan standing beside the table, still with a professional insincere smile, pointing at the plate, “Eat them all.”
The man was panic-stricken, even thinking he was dreaming at one point. Hearing Xie Lan’s words, he shook his head vigorously, tried to get up, but felt as if he was tied to the chair by invisible ropes, unable to move.
Xie Tao watched as Xie Lan stuffed the entire plate of peanuts into the man’s mouth, the man terrified as if something horrifying was forced into his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but Xie Lan sealed it with transparent sealing tape.
This low-level theft set meal was specially prepared for first-time thieves who acted on impulse. The illusion of the plate of peanuts was targeted at that man, but in Xie Tao’s eyes, it was just an ordinary plate of peanuts.
“…” She couldn’t understand why the man was in so much pain from eating a peanut.
Then she saw Xie Lan pull out a megaphone, aim it at the man’s ear, turn the volume to the max, and press the play button.
“Stealing is shameful, shameless.”
When the mechanical female voice sounded, Xie Tao was stunned.
The loud voice repeated at least dozens to nearly a hundred times, and the man was obviously shocked.
Next, Xie Lan gave him the “Cheating Scumbag Special A Set Meal” and the “Advising Kindness C Set Meal.”
These were some illusions of torment that Xie Tao couldn’t see.
Although she couldn’t see what those set meals were, she clearly felt that the man… seemed to become more and more demented?
Later, Xie Lan tore off the man’s sealing tape and poured the entire jar of wine on the table into the man’s mouth. That was about it. He patted the non-existent dust off himself, walked over to Xie Tao, and smiled at her, “Sister, your brother Lan is hungry.”
Xie Tao looked at the man lying on the table, wailing like a ghost, and swallowed. She asked, “What on earth… did you do?”
“Don’t worry, I still have to show him a short video later, to wash away the clutter in his brain, adjust his moral compass, and then send him to the police station… Well, someone like him, at our place, will at most be a bit frightened. If it were a murderer or someone who committed more serious crimes, I’d have to beat them up before giving them the full treatment,” Xie Lan ruffled her hair.
“Are there murderers coming here too?” Xie Tao asked.
Xie Lan nodded, “Of course, all sorts of people come here.”
“Alright, sister, I’m hungry. Old Xi is not here today, and I have nothing to eat. Can you make me a meal?” Xie Lan tugged at her sleeve, looking a bit pitiful, like a wolf with its tail drooping.
In the end, Xie Tao couldn’t escape the fate of cooking the second meal in the tavern and having the braised pork all snatched away by Xie Lan.
And this time, Xie Tao finally understood what the tavern was all about.
In this world, there are no absolute good or bad people; everyone is born complex.
Everyone has their good and bad sides.
It depends on how each person weighs them.
If someone commits a bad deed, crossing the moral line, violating the baseline of goodness, even if they do a hundred good deeds, they cannot erase such a bad deed.
And for bad deeds, there is always a price to pay.
What Xie Tao saw in Xie Lan’s hand today was a life booklet that everyone is born with, recording all their good and bad deeds.
Red symbolizes good deeds, while white symbolizes debts of evil.
The more evil a person commits, their life booklet’s cover will gradually change from red to white.
Like the red and white life booklet of the strange man today, it means that the debts of evil he carries have not yet reached the deepest level.
Fate silently rewards every good deed and likewise, punishes every evil act.
If fate allows, please come to the tavern.
All good and evil will receive their due recompense here.
