27.
Early the next morning, Hailian was woken up by a knock on the door, it was O'Brien. The other party was taken aback by Hailian's chicken coop-like hair and the bruises at the corners of his mouth: "You... fought with your brother again?"
"..." Hailian rolled his eyes, "It has nothing to do with him, it's a work-related injury."
Although Hai Lian said that he was a thug, but in the past three years, apart from seeing him sharpening his knife on the roof and stretching his arms and legs to bask in the sun, O'Brien rarely saw him come back with injuries, so he had no idea about his neighbor's occupation. What a real feeling. Seeing Hai Lian's body covered in color now, he felt a little "So he is really engaged in dangerous business". The writer scratched his head: "Then... are you okay? Have you seen a doctor?"
"Skin trauma, it will be healed in two days. Is there something wrong?" Hai Lian asked.
O'Brien nodded, took out a money bag from his pocket and handed it to Hailian: "Repay your brother's money."
"So fast?"
O'Brien quickly waved his hand: "It's only part, half. I said before that as long as I pass the draft at the Grand Theater, I can get a sum of money. It's Mrs. Golden Bell Flower who didn't believe me. Fortunately, Mr. Fang saved me. I'm in a hurry. Now that the payment over there has been issued, I will send it over quickly. I can pay back part of it, otherwise I will always feel uneasy."
"Give it to him, don't give it to me." Hailian yawned, "He's his, and I'm mine."
Hearing that he was going to find Fang Tinglan, O'Brien hesitated for a moment: "I wanted to thank Mr. Fang face to face, but just as I went down and knocked on the door, I was faced with Mrs. Golden Bell Flower's bloody mouth that wanted to eat people. , I, I was afraid that she would scold me, so I frightened back..."
O'Brien feared that the landlord hadn't been in a day or two. Since he had delayed the rent for three months, he became more and more like a mouse seeing a cat. When the high-pitched laughter is still frightened to insomnia.
Hailian said helplessly, "Okay, give it to me."
"Ah, and this!" O'Brien took out two more paper notes, "It's the interest I repaid to you, take it!"
Hai Lian glanced at it, then raised his eyebrows: "A ticket for the Grand Theater?"
"Yeah!" O'Brien nodded vigorously, "The Silver Key by the Lake will start in the middle of next month. I wrote the fifth act. This is the ticket given to me over there."
"You only write one scene? Usually, what they perform is not written by one person?"
O'Brien scratched his cheek embarrassingly: "Generally speaking... yes. But," he lowered his voice in a mysterious way, and made a gesture, "the greatest Mr. Van Buren in the theater now , There are so many ministers, wealthy businessmen, and foreigners who have to socialize every day. Eighteen of the twenty-four hours are spent discussing love, beauty, freedom, and life with others, and the remaining hour is smoking. , an hour to write a hymn to the king, that leaves only four hours."
"He still has to sleep." Hailian said.
O'Brien spread his hands towards him: "People will die if they don't sleep."
"But if you don't write the repertoire, you will have no money and no reputation, so he split it up and wrote it for people like you. He took a last look and wrote his name?" Hai Lian understood.
O'Brien nodded and sighed: "This is pretty good, at least it gives people like me another way to survive, and I don't have to compete with the sacks at the pier anymore. And if I write well enough, it may be possible in the future I don’t know if I can write a play of my own.” As he said this, the disappointment in his tone could be heard by a fool. The little writer has been tossing and turning for this sum of money these days, the rim of his glasses is blue, and his originally clean chin has grown a disheveled mustache. A small bush growing under the mouth, "You must watch it when the time comes, and your brother, I am confident that people who read the scene I wrote will definitely stand and applaud."
"Aren't you going?"
"I..." O'Brien twitched the corner of his mouth, "I'll forget it, it's embarrassing, embarrassing to read what I wrote."
"You just said that you have self-confidence."
"It's two different things!" O'Brien took a step back, and he patted Hailian's shoulder, "Anyway, promise me, you must go, I'll wait for you to tell me how you feel, this is related to whether the Tisu Kingdom can be born in the future A master playwright!" He pumped his fist.
Hai Lian smiled: "Okay, I will go." Seeing that O'Brien turned to leave, he suddenly stopped him, "By the way, I still have something to ask the future playwright."
"what?"
"Are you familiar with the customs of Dongzhou?" Hailian glanced at the small open space at the door. The wine and people here are all illusions. He pressed the tip of his tongue against his lower teeth, and then continued after a pause, "It's just... put away a glass of wine while drinking, and don't let others touch it. What do you mean?"
"Aren't you from Dongzhou?"
Hailian curled her lips: "I was only four or five years old when I came to Tisu, so I've forgotten what it was like over there."
The writer rummaged through the library in his barren mind for a while before replying in an uncertain tone: "It seems to be... an offering? It's either an offering or a worship. I've seen it before in the library of Chenming Palace. Why is it suddenly will ask this?"
"It's nothing, I had a dream yesterday." Hailian glanced at the money bag and tickets in his hand.
Give Fang Zhanlan face to face in a while.
It's a pity that Fang Tinglan is not renting a room in his brothel now.
Today is the day he and Qin Weiyu agreed to meet for the second time, but he has been at the door of this tavern for an hour now, and the Dongzhou proton is still missing. Fang Tinglan was not in a hurry, he even had time to chat with the beggar next to him. By the way, I learned about the beggar's mother-in-law who died young, her son who died in a shipwreck, and a hunting dog with a yellow tail that the beggar raised eight years ago when he was still rich.
"It's a good dog!" the old beggar emphasized.
"Well, from what you said, you are very energetic, and he is a good dog." Fang Tinglan responded with a smile.
"It's a pity, it died for me." The beggar wiped his nose and wiped it on his body nonchalantly, "I still lived in Niutouyan at that time! Although there was a prison there, the environment is good, and most people dare not There was trouble, and as a result, on that winter night, my dog suddenly barked outside the door, and I called its name: "Luto, Luto, what's your name?" It started pawing at the door instead. I saw , Do you want me to go out with it? I got up from the bed... Alas, if my mother-in-law was around, I wouldn't even dare to turn over in the middle of the night. As soon as I opened the door, it rushed out with a whoosh. It’s not so fast to bite a bird!”
Fang Tinglan glanced at the intersection, Qin Weiyu hadn't come yet, the man followed the old beggar's words and asked casually, "Did it see something?"
"I see, I see!" The old beggar didn't notice the other party's absent-mindedness at all. No one spoke to him for a long time. The old man said loudly, "I saw the dead man!"