"Yo, Duan Mu went to work again?"
"My girl just asked me when you'd be back."
"Jiu Po brewed some wine and is planning to sell it to the taverns in West 1 District. I just put some outside your shop, in the basket on the left. Remember to take it back."
...
Duan Mu smiled and replied to the greetings from the street.
This seemed pretty good too.
To be honest...
The people on this street were actually very nice. Bad people weren't inherently that bad, and truly evil individuals generally couldn't reach this place.
Because this was Soul Society!
The destination of souls after death in the Human World.
Soul Society is divided into two parts: Rukongai and Seireitei. Seireitei is located in the center of Rukongai and is where Shinigami reside, while ordinary souls live in Rukongai of Soul Society.
Rukongai is divided into 1-80 districts in each of the four directions: east, west, north, and south. District 1 has the best public order, while District 80 is the worst of the worst. In areas with poor public order, evil deeds like murder and arson often occur.
After each new soul arrives in their respective district, they are uniformly assigned by those responsible for managing Rukongai, allowing them to form new families with others and live together.
Because too many people die simultaneously, even souls who die at the same time in the same place have a very low probability of being assigned to live in the same district. In Rukongai, souls without Reishi do not starve; they can live normally as long as they have water.
Therefore, souls without Reishi do not experience changes in height or weight until death.
If one wishes to leave Rukongai and enter the affluent Seireitei, there is only one legitimate method: possess spiritual pressure, enter the Central Spirit Arts Academy to study, and graduate to become a Shinigami.
Of course, it's not to say that souls without spiritual pressure have no aspirations at all and just muddle through life, waiting to die, though such cases do exist.
But most people also want to buy nice clothes, and even when not hungry, they have desires for food, drink, and hobbies like drinking tea.
Therefore, most people in Rukongai do what work they can, such as growing grain, weaving cloth, or cultivating tea... and then sell their goods in the lower-numbered districts, or directly to the Shinigami in Seireitei.
The lowest-numbered districts even have many restaurants and taverns that provide services to Shinigami in Seireitei who need to eat, so Shinigami are often encountered in these districts, and even Shinigami who originated from Rukongai sometimes return to live there during their holidays.
Some of this information was told to Duan Mu by others during casual conversations, and some he already knew.
Duan Mu was not unfamiliar with this world.
Shinigami!
Upon first arriving in this world, after some deliberation, Duan Mu chose to settle in the empty house assigned to him in the 38th District.
The manager originally responsible for assignments had intended for Duan Mu to form a new family with others, but Duan Mu refused. Since there happened to be a new empty house, it was simply assigned to Duan Mu.
However, the person responsible for the assignment also said that if new people arrived, Duan Mu might be assigned new family members.
Duan Mu was very satisfied with West Rukongai's '38th' District. It was a certain distance from the center of turmoil, Seireitei, so even if something happened in Seireitei in the future, it wouldn't affect him.
Furthermore, the 38th District, 'Rongyao,' was located in the center of Rukongai West and was considered an area with good public order, so he wouldn't encounter troubles like murder or arson.
There was also another point...
Duan Mu felt that the number '38' was very suitable for his system.
As for joining the Spiritual Arts Academy and becoming a Shinigami, Duan Mu had considered it. But in the end, he gave up on the idea, because even though Seireitei in his memories seemed good, it couldn't erase the fundamentally 'extremely unequal' feudal society, where those in high positions could arbitrarily decide people's lives and deaths.
Duan Mu's initial thought was not to enter Seireitei until he understood the mysterious system in his brain.
However, three years passed, and he actually grew to like life in Rukongai.
So, Duan Mu simply stopped paying attention to Shinigami-related information. Without a specific reference, he didn't even know what year it was, though he didn't care either.
...
After some pleasantries, Duan Mu arrived in front of a building.
The building didn't occupy much space; it was a two-story house. The second floor was built by Duan Mu himself, as was the small courtyard behind the house with two-meter-high walls. The front of the building had a plaque hanging, with the three large characters 'Everything Store' written on it!
Although...
When Duan Mu looked at those three characters now, he always felt that he must have been drunk and activated his chuunibyou switch to come up with such a shop name.
The front door had a price list, mostly for small tasks.
However, the last line stated: 'For commissions not on the list, please consult in person. The price will be determined by the shop owner (all rights of interpretation reserved by this shop).'
Next to the price list, there was also a brand new discount list, which read: 'Females 10% off, Female Shinigami 20% off, Female Seat Officers 30% off, Female Vice-Captains 40% off, Female Captains... all 50% off!!'
"Hmm, this should get some Shinigami to come, right?"
Duan Mu looked at the new discount list he had put up before leaving in the morning and nodded with satisfaction.
"Daydreaming. No Shinigami will ever come to you for a commission."
A clear voice came from behind Duan Mu. Turning around, he saw a beautiful girl who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, her gaze filled with disdain as she looked at Duan Mu.
"At least it's more likely than your secondary development."
Duan Mu sized up the girl's unremarkable chest, nodded, and emphasized again: "Yes, much, much more likely."
The girl's face instantly flushed red, not from shyness, but from anger. She threw a punch: "How did I ever get to know such a pervert like you?"
Duan Mu didn't dodge. Although his physique wasn't tall, her small fists didn't really hurt when they landed.
This girl was Mao Yue, the '61 love value' girl who had once shown a tiny hint of 'craving Duan Mu's body,' but now that hint had been erased by Duan Mu.
Knowing Duan Mu's true nature, her favorability now remained at the full friendship value of 60, with no romantic intentions whatsoever.
It's worth mentioning...
When Duan Mu inexplicably fell from the sky, he landed right in her house, causing a great commotion at the time. There were even rumors of a 'traveler' invasion, which attracted Shinigami to investigate.
After investigating for a while, they determined that Duan Mu was just an ordinary person and released him. The reason he was able to be assigned an empty house at that time also had some compensatory meaning.
Duan Mu took out his key to open the door, then seemed to remember something and threw the key to Mao Yue: "Help me open the door." Then he turned around and rummaged through a bamboo basket in the corner in front of the house, finally pulling out several large wine bottles, a smile instantly appearing on his face.
"Jiu Po, I'm loving you more and more!!"
"You drunkard."
Mao Yue opened the door with the key and rolled her eyes at Duan Mu in annoyance: "If Jiu Po's husband heard that, he would definitely beat you up. Lately, there's been a rumor on the street that 'the Everything Store owner likes to seduce old ladies.'"
"Jealousy, this is jealousy."
Duan Mu didn't care. He picked up a few bottles of wine and entered his own small house.
The room wasn't big. There was a bar counter and a few chairs under the stairs, and a somewhat worn sofa in the central area. Besides these, the only furniture was the wine cabinet behind the bar, and the second floor was where Duan Mu rested.
"Do you want to drink?"
"What do you think?"
"Then do you want to drink milk?"
..."Hmm."
"Hahaha, as expected, you're a..."
Looking at Mao Yue picking up a wine bottle, Duan Mu quickly swallowed the words 'little kid' and instead took a box of strawberry milk from under the wine cabinet and handed it to Mao Yue.
With such a shop name, it felt like something was missing if there wasn't some strawberry milk in the store.
Although after Mao Yue discovered it, all the strawberry milk Duan Mu bought from West 1 District ended up in her stomach.
However, he actually bought it for Mao Yue to drink anyway, as he didn't have a refrigerator here, because Rukongai didn't even have electricity. Seireitei seemed to have electricity; he had seen Seireitei from afar when he went to District 1 to buy food and noticed buildings similar to power stations there.
But whether it generated electricity using Human World methods or Reishi, Duan Mu didn't know.
"Since you like strawberry milk so much, why don't you go to the Central Spirit Arts Academy? Their cafeteria gives out all kinds of free desserts. I heard that some of the strawberry milk I buy is brought back by those students on their holidays."
Mao Yue gulped down the milk, let out a satisfying burp, and then said disdainfully: "I don't want to be a Shinigami."
"Hehe~~"
Duan Mu didn't ask further and instead placed the several bottles of wine on the wine cabinet.
"By the way, I always see you buying wine from the tavern, but why have I never seen you drink it? And I've never seen you drink in a tavern either."
"Little kid, have you ever heard the saying 'I advise you not to meddle in other people's business'?"
Mao Yue rolled her eyes, her expression as disdainful as could be: "In terms of age, I could be your mother."
..."Duan Mu."
He couldn't refute, because from what Duan Mu understood, this girl had been living in the 38th District for nearly thirty years.
"I'm leaving." Mao Yue waved and walked away, completely carefree.
Duan Mu shook the empty milk carton, considering whether he should buy more strawberry milk to keep in the shop for the atmosphere, since this girl didn't give him any experience points anyway.
After muttering to himself, Duan Mu got up, closed the shop door, picked up a bottle of wine, and went upstairs.