The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 584 Interested in spending the New Year at my house? (Bonus chapter for reader...'s generous donation!)
Bonus chapter for reader 20231128142234433 who donated as a patron! (The name is too long to fit in the chapter title)
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Five minutes later, Qin Huai and Zhou Hu each had an egg pancake and a chopstick, and they were eating with great relish.

As for why each person has only one chopstick...

Guess what? Zhou Hu's family only had two chopsticks. They had 12 plates and 8 bowls, but only two chopsticks—a truly strange combination.

"Master Qin, I didn't expect you to make such delicious egg pancakes." Zhou Hu wasn't hungry at first. Who would be hungry after eating two steamed buns with fermented rice wine, a bowl of tangerine peel tea, four pieces of yam cake, and two beef pies in the evening?

But Zhou Hu could go hungry.

Because there was only one chopstick, Zhou Hu's mouth was covered in oil as he ate, and he was almost buried in the pancake while eating. The tempting aroma of the pancake made the meal even more delicious.

"Usually, it's mainly because you don't have many ingredients at home. I rarely make this kind of pancake," Qin Huai said. "My sister likes to eat filled ones, but egg pancakes don't have any filling."

Zhou Hu exclaimed, "Master Qin, you and your sister have such a good relationship, unlike me..."

Qin Huai knew a little about Zhou Hu's family relationships, but to put it simply, they were nonexistent. Zhou Hu originally had few relatives. His mother died early, and Zhou Hu basically didn't keep in touch with his mother's relatives. His father's side of the family probably had no one there either, probably because of their family's tradition of tomb raiding. After Zhou Hu's father was imprisoned, Zhou Hu was basically left without any relatives.

Zhou Hu's relationship with his father wasn't particularly good; he would only visit his father in prison once a year during the Chinese New Year.

In Zhou Hu's words, the busiest time for his side business in previous years was during the Chinese New Year. During the Chinese New Year, his old clients liked to engage in some feudal superstitions, asking him to calculate their career, love, and family prospects for the coming year. Couples who were about to get married would come to him to have their horoscopes matched. Therefore, although Zhou Hu was very quiet during the Chinese New Year, he was also very busy.

Zhou Hu and Qin Huai were squatting at the kitchen doorway eating egg pancakes.

As for why he was squatting at the kitchen doorway...

Perhaps because there was no place to sit in Zhou Hu's living room, the sofa and chairs were piled with things, so instead of going through the trouble of moving these things, it was better to just squat down and eat.

"Master Qin, many relatives of the deceased go through this process," Zhou Hu said, trying to find words to comfort Qin Huai as he ate.

In Zhou Hu's view, Qin Huai's behavior of staying up late at night to fry egg pancakes in the kitchen is a very typical example of mental problems caused by a huge shock.

“Everyone finds it hard to accept at first. Being busy can make you forget your sadness, but once you have free time, you feel very lonely and want to find something to do. I understand your current state very well. If you…”

“That’s not my mindset,” Qin Huai interrupted Zhou Hu. “I just want to make some desserts.”

Zhou Hu really wanted to put on a Taoist robe and ask Qin Huai how long he had been experiencing these symptoms, and whether he wanted to buy two talismans to change his luck.

Zhou Hu held back.

He glanced at the talismans on the table and a thought flashed through his mind: "Master Qin, how about I draw you a wealth-attracting talisman? This talisman I draw is much more popular than the luck-changing talisman. I can sell a lot of them every year during the Lunar New Year. Anyway, I'm not planning to draw any talismans this year, and it's a waste to keep so many talismans at home. How about I draw you a few more?"

Qin Huai swallowed the egg pancake in his mouth: "I just inherited a fortune of 79 billion."

Zhou Hu: ...Even if you're the client who's paying the final installment, I still want to fight you, you damn rich guy.

Qin Huai smiled and said, "Planner Zhou, I know you're trying to comfort me. I'm actually doing quite well right now. I just discovered my sister was secretly playing on her phone late at night while I was making omelets. She sent me a WeChat message to comfort me and tell me not to be sad. She'll be coming to the funeral home with my parents to pay respects to Mr. Luo after school tomorrow."

As he spoke, Qin Huai waved his phone: "My sister comforted me, of course I'm fine."

Zhou Hu said he didn't quite understand the logic behind it, probably because he didn't have a younger sister, and he couldn't understand what Qin Huai was saying at all.

Just as Zhou Hu was about to say something, Qin Huai directly steered the conversation towards Zhou Hu.

"Planner Zhou, what are your plans after Mr. Luo's funeral?"

"Huh?" Zhou Hu asked, his mouth full of egg pancakes.

"I'll give you the final payment after the funeral. Then you'll receive a large sum of money and won't have to work anymore. What are your plans? Are you going on a trip or staying home and resting?"

Zhou Hu was stumped by Qin Huai's question. It was easy to see from his expression that Zhou Hu was an even more dedicated worker than An Youyou and Chen Gong. These past years, suffocating under the weight of his mortgage, had left Zhou Hu with no idea what to do during his free time.

Zhou Hu began to think seriously.

While Zhou Hu was deep in thought, Qin Huai whispered devilishly, "Zhou, have you ever been to Guangdong Province?"

"No, I studied at a university in this city and haven't really left the city much," Zhou Hu said subconsciously.

"Would you be interested in visiting my hometown during the Chinese New Year to help me check the feng shui of my grandparents' old house, and perhaps celebrate the New Year together in our village?"

"Huh?" Zhou Hu was completely bewildered. He hadn't expected that simply being woken up and eating an egg pancake would lead to the topic of going to another province to take on work during the Chinese New Year. Qin Huai's invitation to Zhou Hu to spend the Chinese New Year in Guangdong Province was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but similar plans and intentions had actually been brewing in Qin Huai's mind for some time.

Qin Huai and Zhou Hu's connection was entirely due to Luo Jun. Theoretically, once Luo Jun's funeral is completely over, Qin Huai and Zhou Hu will have no further interaction and will become just friends who exchange likes on social media.

Furthermore, this kind of casual acquaintance isn't like Gong Liang's. While Gong Liang was still asleep, he was in Suzhou, but Qin Huai's interaction with him actually occurred at Huang's shop. Qin Huai could proactively go to Huang's shop to interact with Gong Liang, triggering their interaction and unlocking a side quest. However, there's no such interaction between Qin Huai and Zhou Hu.

Zhou Hu didn't even live in the city center; he lived near the funeral home, more than an hour's drive away. Moreover, Zhou Hu was short of money; even if Qin Huai paid the remaining balance, Zhou Hu wouldn't suddenly become rich.

This lack of money meant that even though Zhou Hu really liked Qin Huai's pastries, he wouldn't drive over an hour to Yunzhong Canteen just to queue up for a couple of bags. To get Zhou Hu to come to Yunzhong Canteen more often, his business needed to be concentrated near the canteen, and it had to be the kind of business with large orders that Zhou Hu would be willing to come every day.

Considering the nature of Zhou Hu's work, Qin Huai actually didn't really want Zhou Hu's business to be concentrated near the Cloud Canteen.

If your main job doesn't overlap with your main job, then your side job will.

However, Zhou Hu deeply loathed his side business and would quit as soon as he had money.

Qin Huai had previously considered pretending to be obsessed with feudal superstition, buying talismans from Zhou Hu, and following in Xu Tuqiang's footsteps, hoping that Zhou Hu would have more contact with him in order to persuade him to turn back from his misguided path.

This idea only appeared briefly for a few minutes before Qin Huai extinguished it. It was troublesome, unrealistic, and most importantly, it made him feel very sorry for Zhou Hu.

Zhou Hu paid for fortune telling because he genuinely felt guilty for committing fraud and didn't want his victims to be misled and sink deeper into despair. His intentions were good, but Qin Huai shouldn't exploit Zhou Hu's good intentions to trigger more side quests.

Faced with such a difficult choice, Qin Huai could only choose Zhou Hu's option, which was relatively more acceptable in terms of feng shui for the house.

Zhao Cheng'an's hospital stay wasn't for nothing. While he and Zhou Hu were in the same ward, Zhao Cheng'an kept trying to get information out of Zhou Hu. Of all the fortune tellers' profitable ventures, Zhou Hu was the least opposed to and felt most at ease accepting money for consulting on the feng shui of houses.

In Zhou Hu's view, many times the purpose of feng shui is not to change one's luck, but simply to change the layout of the house to make it look more open, more livable, and have better lighting.

When he was doing feng shui consultations, he wasn't a fortune teller; he was an interior designer.

All I can say is that Master Zhou is truly well-rounded.

Based on this information, Qin Huai suddenly extended an invitation to Zhou Hu while eating egg pancakes.

Zhou Hu instinctively wanted to refuse: "Master Qin, I don't plan to do any side jobs this year."

“How can this be considered a side job? I didn’t intend to give you any money, Zhou,” Qin Huai said.

Zhou Hu: ...?
"I just think Zhou, you're a really nice person. You see, we're just a simple client and service provider. I'm not even the direct client; I'm just the one who pays the final payment."

“You don’t have to worry about me at all. You don’t need to go through the trouble of asking the cleaning lady to clean the guest room in advance. You can let me stay at your place tonight. You don’t need to try to comfort me. Actually, I can tell that you’ve been trying to comfort me all day, but you just haven’t found the opportunity.”

Zhou Hu lowered his head somewhat embarrassed.

“I know that you, Zhou, have nowhere to go for the Chinese New Year, and you don’t really like the Chinese New Year because everyone is so lively and can go home, but your home is very quiet.”

"So I'm actually inviting you to my house for the Chinese New Year from a friend's perspective. You're on holiday anyway, you don't have to work."

"Since we're already there, we might as well check the feng shui of my grandparents' house. They have a lot of clutter and appliances piled up at home, and no matter what my parents say, they refuse to throw them away. But my grandfather really believes in fortune tellers. I'll introduce him to your family as a lineage of feng shui masters, the kind that's very famous in this city. You can advise my grandfather to throw away all those old, miscellaneous things, especially the expired ones. He'll definitely listen to you."

"I'll cover all the travel expenses, meals, and accommodation. How about it? This business trip is worthwhile, isn't it?" Qin Huai said with a smile.

Upon hearing Qin Huai's words, Zhou Hu's eyes immediately lit up.

At this moment, Zhou Hu felt that Qin Huai was the person who understood him best in the world. This was the good deed he had wanted to do for his customers all these years, using his identity as a fortune teller and the feng shui skills he had learned.

This is his life's ambition!
Zhou Hu actually wanted to be a fortune teller, but he didn't want to be the kind of fortune teller who cheated and swindled people. He wanted to be a good fortune teller who worked for the benefit of the people!
"Leave it to me, Master Qin!" Zhou Hu said excitedly. "Don't worry, I'll definitely persuade your grandfather to declutter his home this time!"

"Planner Zhou, would you like some more egg pancakes? I have some leftover batter over there."

"Eat! Please make two eggs, I felt the egg pancake was a bit bland."

"Row."

(End of this chapter)