On the stage near the teahouse on the neighboring street, a magician who looked like a young boy was darting and weaving about, drawing the audience in with his splendid magic show.
“The magic begins!”
“Hey!
Ha!
Dang dang dang!
The Living Man Disappears!”
“Are your eyes playing tricks on you?!”
In the audience seats beside the stage, a young man sat rather silently, watching the performance on the stage with a somewhat pensive look.
As a veteran street loafer, he naturally knew this street’s affairs, great and small, which naturally included the siblings Lynette and Lyney, who often performed here.
The two of them had been signed by Fool’s Entertainment the moment they enrolled and revealed their magic talent.
Every magic performance, this pair of siblings brought the audience a novel visual feast.
Although the two siblings were still very young, they made up for it with youthful vitality and strong learning ability.
When they first debuted, their performance techniques and lines were still somewhat stiff, but after only a few performances they became proficient, and now they could be counted as this street’s rising young magic stars.
Ever since their debut, the two were inseparable at every performance, but today, the young man saw only Lyney on the stage, wearing his tall top hat.
His magic assistant Lynette had, unusually, not appeared.
At first he thought it was a new form of magic act, but as time went on, the urgency and helplessness that Lyney could hardly conceal was caught by the young man.
Perhaps there’d been infighting, or maybe she was sick?
Of course, perhaps like him, she’d run off to take a break?
The young man shook his head and stopped pondering these matters that were none of his concern.
A two-person magic act turning into a solo act, this rare sight still drew his attention back to the magic itself.
“You…”
“What’s the matter?
Isn’t the seat next to you empty?
Can’t I sit here?”
The one who suddenly sat down beside the young man was none other than Su Yu, who had just finished scamming Venti.
Su Yu picked up the empty teacup on the table and downed it in great gulps, and this absurd way of drinking tea made the young man look askance.
“This one did not mean that, only…”
“I know my way of drinking tea is a bit unusual, but there’s no helping it, it’s too hot today.”
“I know, I know.
What I mean is, if you’re thirsty you can order a pot of your own.
What you’re drinking right now is mine.”
Thrown off by Su Yu’s interruption, the young man’s gaze, calm as an ancient well, finally showed some change.
Even his habitual self-reference had slipped.
He found this youth rather hard to deal with, and somewhat unpredictable, simply even more eccentric than that slacking old friend of his.
“Zhongli, you wouldn’t want Teacher Xianyun to find out you’re here drinking tea and watching magic, would you.”
“Uh…”
Sure enough — more Venti than Venti, simply a Venti plus.
Hearing Su Yu’s “threat,” Zhongli, who had vanished together with Venti for many days, could not help but twitch the corner of his mouth, and he kept feeling that this youth before him, spouting strange words, seemed to have a hidden meaning behind them, yet also seemed to bear no ill will.
How about it.”
“Ah?
Oh oh oh, yes, yes, yes!”
Su Yu was dumbstruck.
He had originally thought up several scripts to steer Zhongli into treating him to a meal, but to think it came so easily without any effort at all!
Zhongli!
From now on, whoever calls you an old geezer, I’ll beat them up for you!
Of course, I won’t beat up myself…
“Uh???”
Zhongli’s eyes widened even more.
At this moment he truly could not make heads or tails of it.
A meal was just a casual opening line.
Where was the haggling that should follow?
You say one meal, I say ten meals, then you say three meals, then I say six meals, had he eaten this whole exchange?
And besides, was the whereabouts of one of the seven school directors, such important information, worth only one ordinary meal?
No, wrong.
If it was Wanmin Restaurant, then by general reasoning this one meal could not be counted as ordinary either.
Zhongli rubbed his brow with a bit of a headache.
He actually wasn’t afraid of his whereabouts being exposed; that would merely cause him some trouble, for instance, being unable to come to this familiar street, to listen to familiar storytelling, to watch splendid magic.
After all, the prices here were quite reasonable…
He had even prepared himself to be fleeced a little, just as he had fleeced that orange-haired young man who looked so clever.
But he never could have imagined…
He looked at the youth before him, who seemed to have turned utterly delighted because of his words, the joy on his face not hidden in the slightest, leaving him both puzzled and resigned.
He simply decided not to think about it anymore.
“What, surely the esteemed Mr.
Zhongli wouldn’t go back on words he spoke just a second ago.”
Seeing the strange expression on Zhongli’s face, Su Yu stopped joking around.
After all, Zhongli had only offered to treat him verbally, and it hadn’t yet been put into practice; Paimon’s reward hadn’t yet landed in his hands.
He couldn’t be careless!
“Ah, to think Wanmin Restaurant would be so popular.
Very well then, allow me to invite young friend to share dinner together.”
After a moment of daze, Zhongli no longer had the mood to watch the magic show, nor the mood to savor tea.
He rose and walked ahead, leading the way for Su Yu.
“Hey, Mr.
Zhongli, why do you always call me ‘young friend, young friend’?
“Heh heh, I haven’t had dinner yet.”
After a round of questions here and answers there, this simple dinner soon came to an end.
Originally Su Yu had looked forward a little to seeing whether he might catch Xiangling in her chef’s attire, but regrettably he did not get to see it.
But such things couldn’t be rushed; the pressing matter was to hurry home and check the reward.
Paimon had been pestering him for ages about whether it was convenient now.
After Su Yu left, Zhongli, feigning composure, looked at the simple clay pot on the table.
“Buddha Jumps Over the Wall… The last of my Mora has likely run completely dry.
But to say his goal was this Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, that would be too strange.
He was absent-minded the whole time, barely ate, and was smiling one moment and serious the next.
Truly a bit baffling.”
“Could it be that I’ve grown old and started seeing things?
Never mind, never mind.
Since I have no money, from now on I’ll just have to go mooch more meals off that kindhearted person.
I hope he won’t mind one extra pair of chopsticks.”
…
Furina’s home.
Time flew by, and a week had already passed.
Most of the mission rewards were bland and tasteless, a pity to discard.
Apart from some Mora rewards, there were things like compendiums of corny jokes, fried tofu, and the like.
As for the reward from last time’s mission of getting Zhongli to treat him, it was a bottle of medicine that could cure any and all illnesses.
If you say it’s precious, well, the people around Su Yu had no ailments; surely he wasn’t going to use this medicine just because of a cold, but if you say it’s not precious, it truly was unmatched in all the world; presumably even Baizhu and Sigewinne couldn’t make such a medicine.
To call it priceless would not be an exaggeration.
There was no other way.
He could only wait for a good price.
If the price was right, he might just take off on the spot and skip ten years of struggle.
Of course, such matters still needed to be planned with a long view.
Back on the topic of business: during this week, Su Yu’s company was formally established.
It was named Sufu, a company name that sounded quite comfortable.
No helping it; Su Yu was one who never forgot the well-digger when drinking water, and although Furina was now purely serving as a mascot, after all, when Su Yu had nothing at all, she had provided him a warm harbor.
Ah, Fufu’s kindness could never be fully repaid.
As for Furina’s weight-loss declaration, it was naturally a three-minute passion.
Ever since one night a week ago when Su Yu made French bread rolls once, Furina had resumed her sneaking-snacks operation, and the weight-loss campaign was declared over.
Ei’s cooking skills were also steadily improving.
Of course, this cooking had to be done under his watchful eye, otherwise it became dark cuisine: the process all correct, the result wrong, quite remarkably uncanny.
The household gained one more member: a little black cat.
The little black cat was lazy; ever since it followed him home it had been listless, as if it had entered standby mode.
But even if the kitten was listless, it still couldn’t hide her cuteness, always making Su Yu unable to resist reaching out to play with the kitty.