Path of the Dead Prequel: Wings of Silver

In Charlotte, North Carolina's premier metropolis, near the northwest corner of Pineville on the Kentucky border, there is a magical hotel called Nutstone. It is surrounded by a number of luxury and high-end hotels, such as Sheraton, Extended Stay, Garden Inn, Holiday Star, etc. It looks low and shabby, and has no sense of the times at all.

The owner of this hotel is Vance's old uncle, a middle-aged fat man named Edward who weighs 300 pounds. Since Americans do not differentiate between uncles and maternal uncles, they are all called Uncle, unlike the Chinese, who do not distinguish between uncles, so the surname is not called Jackson. For the convenience of description, in the following period, we will call him Lao Ai.

According to legend, Lao Ai's mother was a very popular star in the 1930s and 1940s, and thus accumulated considerable wealth. As she gradually faded out of sight, the retired woman began to plan for the future livelihood of her children, so she purchased many properties. After she left, the inheritance was inherited by her children, and this is how Lao Ai obtained part of it.

Since Lao Ai has lived in a wealthy family since he was a child, he is not good at management, and due to the advancement of the times, his family business has been in ruins. The craft match factory closed down, the wine cellar went bankrupt, and in the end only this stone hotel remained.

The first time I saw it across the street, I fell in love with it immediately. As its name suggests, the hotel has the shape of a fruit core. Its door opens between street merchants and is only two shops wide, but its path is deep and runs through the entire row of blocks. It has six floors and about fifty suites. If you use a drone to take a bird's-eye view, you will see narrow elliptical buildings at both ends. As taxis rush by, it is difficult to realize that this is actually a hotel, so the business is average or even bleak.

What caused all this was the interior decoration. Even in broad daylight with a clear sky, except for a few rays of sunlight shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the entire hall still looked very dark. Most of its decorative panels and wall railings are made of black pine, and there is a light fragrance of wood and the smell of accumulated pipe tobacco in the air. Sitting underneath, it is difficult to see the appearance of each path through just a few wall lamps. It really gives people the feeling of a vampire's lair. Other than that, it's shabby.

In a nutshell, Lao Ai was short of money and had no spare money for renovations. When I knew this, I immediately made up for the waived room fee. Although I am also a poor man, I cannot take advantage of others.

Because of this style, it does not attract backpackers to stay at all. Young people before the turn of the millennium are particularly fond of environments with bright colors. All flip phones are either green or bright red, and even their clothes are flashy sweatshirts and Nike shoes. Therefore, most of the people who come to stay at Guoki Hotel are middle-aged and elderly tourists. These baby boomers, who were born after World War II, especially appreciate this quaint living environment. It is said that Bill Clinton also planned to stay here during his speech tour in North Carolina. However, due to the old and small size of the guest rooms, he stayed at the Sheraton.

Therefore, in the side corner of the hotel lobby, a large colorful photo of a politician standing at the bottom of the building was hung to attract customers, but the effect was still mediocre. Lao Ai said that if this goes on for a long time, he will increasingly be unable to make ends meet. If he has nothing to do, he can only outsource the building to others and live in misery. So, a group of Hustlers who make a living by Scam walked into the Nutstone Hotel.

Guys like this are called flower hats in Charlotte. It's not that they wear top hats, to put it bluntly, they are actually white gloves. They all work in the sales departments of several high-end hotels in the city. They have their own customer channels. They are the highest paid people in the hotel industry. For hotel practitioners, they are the gods of wealth. In fact, I am very familiar with this kind of people in Brisbane. Every Monday, they go to the front desk early in the morning to reserve dozens of rooms, and then pay directly from the boss. Since it is already rampant in Australia, not to mention the United States, which is its birthplace, this is the paradise for colorful hats.

Theoretically, they are not a scam. As for Hustle, I despise them, which is a kind of prejudice. It is said that the famous Ice-T made a rap song about them called NewJackHustler, but unfortunately I have never heard it. What kind of operation is that? You might as well think of it like today's App, where you can book online. In that era when the Internet was still underdeveloped, intermediaries had not yet emerged, so there was a lot of room for fancy people to play.

Hustler targets the majority of private hotels, as well as hotels that are not star-rated but not small in scale, such as the Fruit Core Hotel. They broke into the boss's room directly and proposed that with their network, they could sell out as many guest rooms as possible every month, ranging from two hundred to more than one hundred. But the premise is that the room price is cut in half, and it is their business to spend how much the hat sells. So as a decision maker like Lao Ai, you have to sign an agreement with them. It usually starts from three months. During this period, no matter who comes into the hotel, they are not allowed to interfere. They come to settle the bill on the 15th of every month. The contract can be renewed only after the cooperation is satisfactory.

The problem lies precisely in this mode. As a hotel owner, I don’t know how much money he has spent on takeaways, or who the customers he introduced are. Spending a hat is a huge profit. It does not require maintenance and has no cost, but it can make a lot of money. As time went by, many bosses were trapped, and they relied heavily on flower hats, so they were squeezed again. By then, even if you no longer sign a contract, the business environment in the past has been destroyed. This is not the most irritating thing. Once the contract is broken, the bad guys will spread rumors like crazy in the hotel, such as there are rats in the hotel, the equipment is old and leaking, the unit is haunted, etc.

In short, if you encounter Hustler, you will be killed. Seeing that Lao Ai's eyes were spinning, and he seemed to be a little moved, I hurriedly explained the benefits and disadvantages of these routines to him, nipping the buds of the disaster in his infancy.

However, if others want to survive, it is an indisputable fact that the hotel is light. In the words of Italian gangsters, this is Lao Ai's last base, so I wanted to do something for him. But I am a fugitive, and Alex is also a loser. Although we are both young, we neither understand business nor have channels. The reason why I had this impulse was because of Lao Ai. Although the fat man was very worldly, he was sincere. Like Van Si, he liked to associate with people from all walks of life. This is due to family birth.

People who have been accustomed to fine clothes and good food since childhood usually do not have a strong desire for money. They are not like people at the bottom who are obsessed with how to make money. Even if they become rich and powerful in the future, it will be difficult to eradicate the greed in their hearts. This is how they were born. Background imprint. For Lao Ai, he just hopes that the core can be as prosperous as it was in the 1980s, and he doesn't have to worry about it all day long.

It is said that on the day Fan Pang was born, Lao Ai pointed at him in the delivery room and said, this kid is most like me, so Vance Jackson is the nephew he has taken care of since he was a child. When this guy entered junior high school, his appearance became more and more prosperous, and the uncle and nephew became more and more similar, and they were even more happy. We took advantage of his halo and stayed in other hotels for almost nothing, and we always felt very sorry.

Krys and I particularly liked the quaint environment of this hotel. Alex praised it when he entered the hotel. The three of us reached a consensus on this point, all for our own reasons. My parents have been busy working every day since I was a child, and they are used to living a life without relatives; Alex entered the orphanage early and has no concept of home; and Krys, she rarely talks about the past. I only know that she has a mother who died young. , my father owns a farm in Australia. In short, the same experience makes us live together. In addition to this similarity, we also have something else, that is, our childhood was not too bad, at least at that time we could still smell the scent of our parents.

Therefore, the colorful memories that can be preserved in my mind are almost all fragments from the 1980s. I feel very nostalgic for this old-fashioned hotel full of twilight. This place has all the beauty that we had before we lost it, and all kinds of objects that have been lost for a long time can be seen in the hotel. Living here is like going back to the distant past, and your breath is filled with memories of the past.

People are such animals. Those born in the 1970s will always think that the 1980s are the golden years; those born in the 1980s will say that the 1990s are the most beautiful years; and those born in the 1990s will think that the millennium Years worth remembering. Boys of every generation feel that the first ten years they can remember are the most precious, simply because they carry the beginning that will never come back.

On the day I arrived at this hotel, room sales reached a new high, with thirty-six rooms sold at once, becoming Lao Ai's highest index on that day in the entire quarter. After returning to being passers-by, Fan Pang and others pretended not to know anything and stepped into the hotel. Lao Ai was eager to ask him where his new girlfriend, who was like a fairy, had gone. Why is there an East Asian boy living in the guest room now?

"Well, she still has her studies, but if she takes this route, she still has to go back to college, so don't worry about her anymore. Fan Si smoked Weed, stroking his big belly and smiled awkwardly:"When there is a chance, I will let her come here to be your receptionist during the tourist season.""

Due to the many reasons mentioned above, there are very few employees in the Fruit Core Hotel. Apart from the waiters in red clothes and black trousers, and the chefs, there are only twenty-two people in total. And there is only one crooked person at the front desk. A vulgar woman, she always wants to launch a strike in order to increase her salary. I am from a star hotel, and Krys is tall, fair, and sweet, so I volunteered to share with her and work the day and night shift. The reason is that Krys likes it so much. Even if I don't get paid, I'd rather work in this hotel for nothing.

"This is not impossible, but you two live in a guest room and cannot sell it outside. Your salary will be discounted. Are you willing to do so?"Lao Ai paced back and forth in the writing room with his hands behind his back, looking at his nephew from time to time.

"It's only natural to help the old man revitalize the hotel." As soon as he saw the fat man loose, Fan Si hurriedly ran forward, lit his cigarette and made coffee for him, showing great enthusiasm, and said,"We don't occupy the guest room in vain. , that’s business. And these are all good friends who have been with me through life and death. I have a good idea to get the best of both worlds. Let’s do thisSuch and such."

Seeing the two fat men whispering to each other, I expected that the conversation was almost over, so I sat down on the leather sofa next to me.

"What? Lao Ai suddenly screamed, his eyes widened, and asked:"Are you thinking about room 0514?""

"Anyway, you are also using it as a warehouse. With such a large area lying idle, it would be better to use it as a dormitory for us."

"What kind of bullshit is this? You had stayed in a hotel when you were a kid and knew exactly where it was, yet you didn't even think of making such a ridiculous suggestion."The fat man returned to the boss's desk and sat down. He waved to him repeatedly and said,"You guys are fine, but now this girl has a child with her. You want them to live in that wing too? What a child's play! No, it's better to occupy the guest room."

When asked about it after leaving the house, Fatty Fan didn't elaborate. Instead, he sat in the courtyard and made plans with the thin man. They had been out for too long, so they should go back to Georgia and negotiate with Moon Valley Radio to transfer Lancais. The special expansion of personnel was implemented. In addition, after receiving the funds for the Ivy Mentor's Hyksos seminar, there should always be an answer sheet for others. Therefore, the two decided to stay here for one more day and then return to their hometown to do business.

In order to dispel doubts, he decided He held himself hostage in the core to prevent us from misunderstanding that he was going to run away and leave everyone alone. At the same time, let any one of us accompany Marlowe on a trip. This is called mutual binding. Because of my status as a fugitive, I am not interested in Jiu Juyi. Di was always afraid, so he chose to go back to Glasscock County with the thin man. As for Fat Fan, he didn’t really like being a hostage. He was frightened by the gang of thieves from his hometown who broke into the hospital and drank type B blood. , this cult female hooligan group called Lilith, all of them are knives. On the eve of going to the ancient shady house in North Kaluku to conduct on-site recording, they kept harassing the fat man and almost demolished his temporary residence. So much so that Fan Fatty has been working on the floor in the radio station for a long time. He was so scared that he had to go home in broad daylight to get a change of laundry pants.

"One day I will go with you, find an opportunity to ambush these women, and give them a good beating to make them all honest. Alex waved his arms and leaned on the iron railing of the hotel terrace, and said to Fan Pang nonchalantly:"In my hometown of Lyon, the hooligans around me asked me to tidy up and be docile. As for the gang of prostitutes you mentioned, what's the matter?" ability? It's just that your high school girlfriend is in trouble."

"Yeah? Your kid's thinking is too simple. Let's not talk about these bad things."Vance shrugged and asked the French young man to follow him down to move the chairs. At seven o'clock in the evening, there will be a fireworks show in the park opposite. Standing on the roof of the hotel, your view can cover the entire sky. It is really a perfect place to have a drink and watch it with your feet up.

Unlike today, young people at the end of the last century almost all like to stay on the streets and rarely stay at home. There are so many young people in Charlotte, with an average of three children per family, which coincides with this kind of municipal activity , we had to choose attractions in advance, and the business of fruit cores suddenly increased sharply. Not long after, the terrace was crowded with young men and women of the same age, and the noise was endless.

"Hollisman, if you have money in the future, don't want too much, maybe a few million, what do you want to do with it?"

"I? I don’t know, I think by then, I will be left with nothing."Leng Buding was hugged by Krys around the waist. She had fun for a while and then asked me this question. It was not difficult to guess what she was actually thinking from her eyes, so I deliberately asked:"What about you?"

"When I have that money, the first thing I want to do is buy this hotel. I want to live here forever. She curled her lips, punched me, and shouted:"If you really can get a job in a hotel, and this dream comes true, you must promise to work hard.""

After that, she took out her mobile phone, held her child's hand, and took her to the green belt of the corridor to take a photo. This is something she must do every week. Although Krys has a bad relationship with her father, they have made an agreement. One thing is that I have to show the baby to the old man every week and tell him that both the mother and the wife are doing well and no one is hungry. Only when I was involved in the lawsuit, I missed a few such photos to report that I was safe.

"What's wrong?"Seeing that she looked depressed after taking the photo, I was a little curious, touched her shoulder and asked

"Before you came back, I met a very beautiful girl in the hotel and had dinner with her. We originally planned to go shopping and clubbing the next day, and I planned to take her to take photos, but she didn't come and disappeared from the world."Krys stood at the balcony vent. The evening breeze made her long hair fly and her thin shirt sway, making her look so beautiful. She looked sadly at the people coming and going on the street, and lamented alone: ​​"Before, I thought I was pretty good-looking. passable. But compared to her, he looked like an ugly duckling. Maybe she didn't look down on me at all, because I acted so recklessly and scared her away. However, the love for beauty does not distinguish between men and women, and both men and women are lustful. I really want to hug her, but I obviously don’t have that tendency."

"This means that you and her have the same temperament. Is this girl as big and thick as you? If you two are a couple, will she play a male or female role in life?"As the person behind the incident, I couldn't avoid it on purpose, so I met her gaze and pretended to be teasing and asked:"Suppose she was standing in front of you now and had the same intention, would you run away with her?"