Chen Miao looked at the bones, then at Ge Feng, who had put his things away and brought over a small bottle of liquor. He couldn't help asking, "Feng, wasn't Shopkeeper Li in the front room when you came back?"
Ge Feng sat down and shook his head.
"I don't know. I came through the side entrance, not the main door."
"Side entrance?"
Ge Feng poured a cup of green, sour-smelling water from the bottle and set it before Chen Miao.
"Oh, I forgot you didn't know the shop had a side entrance. Use that if you get back late from your day off."
Chen Miao asked in confusion, "Was the front room closed?"
"No, but using the side entrance is a shop rule."
Ge Feng explained, "After dark, the living shouldn't enter a paper effigy shop, because those things love slipping inside at night. Avoiding the main entrance at night keeps us from running into anything unclean."
Chen Miao fell silent.
They avoided the main entrance to keep from encountering unclean things.
But had no one in the shop considered that the apprentices themselves might bring something unclean back?
Chen Miao watched Ge Feng lift the cup of strange liquid, his gaze flickering.
He was hesitating over whether to intervene.
Ge Feng hadn't used the main entrance, so the shopkeeper hadn't seen him. That meant no one knew about his condition yet.
But Chen Miao couldn't tell whether the shopkeeper genuinely didn't know or was merely pretending.
He decided to take things slowly first.
Reaching out, he lowered the cup in Ge Feng's hand and poured him some tea.
"Feng, you just got back. Have some tea and rest before anything else."
Ge Feng thought that made sense.
Water quenched thirst; liquor only satisfied a craving.
Once Ge Feng