Of course, the transactions carried out on the street are all small transactions, and the transactions with larger amounts or that are not wanted to be publicized are conducted in a tavern at the end of the street. This tavern is open for business day and night.

Especially during its main business hours, the tavern is named "Qunxian Pavilion" after the city where it is located. However, most people who live in the gray area prefer to call it "Fang Xiangsi". Fang Xiang is responsible for managing death.

The goddess of funerals and the dead. Legend has it that when the deceased is buried, Fang Xiang will appear next to the tomb to drive away the lonely ghosts that infest the deceased.

The reason why this small tavern got such a name is probably related to the location nearby. There is a small cemetery for the poor a few hundred steps away to the west of the tavern. There are many small graves, because they are in a mess.

There are dead people buried in the ground, always emitting bursts of stench; and on the other side of the wine shop, there is a wasteland that stretches all the way to the Golden Light Gate. The corpses of servants, unattended foreigners, and destitute poor people are all there.

Throw it here; wild dogs and crows are having a funeral feast on the corpses. The rotten stench from this miserable wasteland affects the nearby air. It is difficult to imagine that this place is so far away from the majesty and solemnity.

The palace is only a few blocks away.

There is a signboard with Fang Xiang hanging at the door of the wine shop. Legend has it that Fang Xiang is a fierce god covered in bearskin, with four golden eyes, black clothes and red clothes, and the handwriting of a poor and poor painter has added to it.

It was a bit ugly. A small lamp that was blown around by the wind illuminated the poor fierce god, adding a bit of terror. But in any case, this dim light was enough to arouse the guests.

His attention drew them to the door of the wine shop; on the other hand, the light also more or less drove away the darkness shrouding this dirty alley.

As soon as the guest enters the small and low door and walks down the steps made of randomly stacked stones, he can come into a humid room filled with smoke and blackened by charcoal fire.

On the right side of the door, there is a stove built against the wall. A bright flame is burning under the stove, and various foods in various utensils are cooked on the stove. Among these foods, there is the shop's specialty, sheep blood sausage.

And the chowder meatballs that never change; no one wants to know what the ingredients of the chowder meatballs are. The chef who cooks these food is the proprietress and female shopkeeper of this restaurant, An Wuniang.

On one side of the stove, in a small open alcove, there is a small wooden statue of Bodhisattva. Chang'an people at that time often worshiped it to bless their homes. In order to worship this respected god, a small statue was lit there.

There is a small ever-burning lamp. Next to the stove are a filthy little table and a small red painted stool. This stool is where An Wuniang sits in her spare time.

Along the walls, both on the left and right, and in front of the stove, were several old dining tables. Surrounding the tables were rough benches and small lame square stools.

There was a black pottery hanging lamp hanging from the ceiling, with four lamp grasses inside. The light, together with the flames burning in the stove, constantly drove out the darkness that shrouded the cellar.

Another door was opened on the wall opposite the door that served as the entrance to the wine shop. Inside that door was another smaller and cleaner room. There was an oil lamp with only one lamp in it lit in the corner, making it look faint.

The room was illuminated by the ground, and in the half-darkness only part of the floor and two dining tables could be seen, which was considered the guest room of the restaurant.

In the first year of Emperor Linde's reign, during the Shangyuan Festival, during the Lantern Festival, about a quarter of an hour after Wu time, Fang Xiang's wine shop was particularly crowded with guests. The noise and noise not only filled the entire hotel, but also resounded throughout the entire street.

In the alley, An Wuniang and her Tyuhun slave girl with tattoos on her cheeks are busy organizing everything, trying their best to satisfy the hungry customers who are making noisy demands to them from all directions at the same time.

An Wu Niang is a tall and strong woman with rosy cheeks, but her dark chestnut hair is already mixed with many white hairs. She was a beauty when she was young, but now, her straight face

Her face was very ugly because of a scar on her left cheek. No one knew the origin of the scar on her face. They could only guess from her hair color and surname that her ancestors were Hu people. But the people on this street

Regardless of this, her attentive attitude and cheerful temperament still attracted many customers, especially her superb cooking skills, which were unanimously praised by everyone.

The people who come to Fang Xiang's wine shop are all low-class people: carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, dyers, and some hopeless drunkards-gravediggers, jugglers, actors, disabled veterans, beggars pretending to be disabled, Chang'an

Evil young men and prostitutes. But An Wuniang is not demanding about her guests, and does not ask about any details about them, because this is not a place where nobles, scholar-bureaucrats and Wuling young men come. Especially, under the circumstances of the magnanimous An Wuniang

From the perspective of the eyes, since the sun hanging high in the sky is the same to the nobles and the poor, and since some people open restaurants and hotels for the nobles, then the poor should have their own wine shops; in addition, An Wuniang is very sure

: The Zhenguan Tongbao and Daye Tongbao taken out from the pocket of a murderer or liar are no different from the money taken out by the nobles of Taipingfang, Guanglufang or the Wuling boy who live next to the palace.

"An Wuniang, what the hell, why don't you bring those damn chowder balls here?" shouted a young veteran with scars all over his face and chest.

"I bet that the meat of the chowder balls was brought by Chen Qi from the wasteland at Jinguangmen for her. It was the meat of the dead people that had not been eaten by the crows. These are the chowder balls that only evil spirits eat.

Raw materials!" shouted a beggar sitting next to the veteran.

Everyone burst into loud laughter at the vicious joke of the beggar pretending to be crippled. But the gravekeeper Chen Qi, a short, fat man with a red nose and an indifferent expression, seemed very unhappy at the beggar's joke, so he sneered.

He said loudly: "An Wuniang, listen to me, an honest person: when you make chowder balls for this filthy Hu Jiu (that's the beggar's name), you tie him with a thread to your chest and pretend to be

Let’s put in the bloody wound and the piece of stinky meat together. In fact, he didn’t have any injuries at all. He just deceived those honest and kind-hearted people to give him more money.”

This rebuttal was followed by another burst of deafening laughter.

"You bastard, you dare to make fun of me. Be careful when you walk at night, or you will be knocked on the head from behind and thrown into the cemetery. Everyone will never see you stinky drunkard again!"

(https://.23xstxt./book)

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Chapter completed!