It was another early morning, and Shen Qiong was in a foul mood. Ever since he discovered he could use WeChat's "People nearby" feature to view girls' makeup-free photos, he had made a point of taking a closer look at girls whenever he went out. He now felt that every pretty girl owed her looks to makeup.
People often said that knowing too much wasn't always a good thing.
In the past, Shen Qiong would have cursed and called that nonsense. Wasn't being kept in the dark just the same as being a fool?
But now, the sentence he liked saying most was: Seeing too clearly isn't always a good thing.
Ever since the age of the internet arrived, all kinds of online celebrities had sprung up, and even the entertainment industry's standards of beauty had been raised by several notches. People's standards had risen just as sharply.
Now, as he looked at photo after photo of girls without makeup, Shen Qiong was practically on the verge of a breakdown! Where was the trust between people? Why did they look like entirely different people after putting on makeup?
Then he thought again of that girl called Ren Tianxue. Now she was a genuine natural beauty. He didn't know whether she wore makeup when she went out, but she already looked so good without it. With makeup, she'd definitely be goddess-level.
It was just a pity she didn't live nearby. He'd only found her once in a search radius of one kilometer.
"Maybe she was just passing through!" Shen Qiong sighed.
Just then, the sound of gongs and drums suddenly rang out beyond Gudao West Street.
"Did a new shop open nearby?" Shen Qiong murmured. He went outside to take a look and saw a lion dance troupe coming this way.
The owners of several nearby shops came out to watch the spectacle. One sharp-eyed owner immediately recognized the man leading the lion by its head: Zhu Deshou, who had come to collect management fees two days earlier.
"Isn't that Brother Zhu?" someone called out, recognizing him.
Zhu Deshou had connections on both sides of the law, and he was a well-known figure on this street. Several shop owners came out at once to congratulate him.
"Brother Zhu, where's this grand lion dance troupe headed? Don't tell me you're opening a shop on West Street too?" joked an internet café owner who knew Zhu Deshou fairly well.
The lion dance troupe stopped in front of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion. The moment Shen Qiong saw Zhu Deshou, he guessed they were here for him.
Zhu Deshou came up to Shen Qiong and, in front of everyone, first cupped his hands and bowed. "Master, I kept my word."
Then Zhu Deshou turned to the crowd of onlookers and called out, "Starting today, anything concerning Master Shen of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion concerns me too. I hope all the neighbors will look after him from now on."
As the top dog on Gudao West Street, he naturally had ways of finding out Shen Qiong's name. He'd even looked up which university Shen Qiong had graduated from.
There wasn't much to dig up about Shen Qiong himself, but the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion was an old shop on Shili Street. Zhu Deshou had learned that some important people had once frequented it. In fact, if the country hadn't spent the last thirty years cracking down hard on feudal superstition, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion probably wouldn't have fallen into its current state.
Zhu Deshou was an old hand in Jianghu. He knew Shen Qiong was a genuine master, and he figured that if he hadn't heard of him, it was because he lacked fame. So he'd come up with this idea: it would help Shen Qiong attract customers and let him keep his promise.
With Zhu Deshou's endorsement, the neighbors immediately warmed to Shen Qiong and came up to chat. "We're all neighbors here. Come by our shop sometime, and we'll give you twenty percent off," said a shoe shop owner with a smile.
Zhu Deshou smiled. "I'm a rough sort of man. This young fellow's younger than me, but I still call him Master. Why? Because Master Shen gave me a piece of advice two days ago, and it helped me get through a major hurdle."
Only then did the shop owners around them exclaim in surprise. "So that's what happened."
"No wonder! I was wondering why Brother Zhu was making such a big fuss over a little shop."
"I know the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion. It's been here since my grandmother's time."
"It's an old shop, but I think they tell fortunes and read faces. Don't TV News reports always say that stuff is fake?" asked a passerby.
The internet café owner shot him a disdainful look. "What do you know? The Five Elements and Eight Trigrams and feng shui are ancient esoteric arts. Fortune-telling and face-reading are skills handed down from ancient times. Even emperors used to show them a measure of respect."
"Right. My grandfather once told me he met an expert when he was young, someone who could even use Lightness Skill. It's a pity my grandfather didn't have the talent to learn the art from him. He's eighty now, and he can climb six flights of stairs without even getting out of breath. So some of those skills are real; most of them have just been lost," said a young man.
"If Brother Zhu thinks so highly of him, then even though Master Shen looks so young, perhaps he really does have some skill."
Some people shook their heads. "Not necessarily. Those Jianghu types are superstitious to begin with. I bet they're in on it together."
Whatever anyone else thought, Shen Qiong knew his little shop had made a name for itself. At least, people for miles around had heard of it now.
Beep beep beep!
Shen Qiong looked at his phone. A message had popped up on WeChat: Congratulations, you've leveled up.
He excitedly opened the People nearby page.
User: Shen Qiong
Level: 1 (Just starting out)
Increase your Fame and Reputation to raise your level. Current Reputation: 106 (Insignificant)
Tip: You can unlock one of the following:
1. Occupation and Job Title
2. Family Member Information
3. Luck Value
"Only one of these three can be unlocked?" Shen Qiong muttered. "What a rip-off!"
He could more or less guess what each one meant. The first, Occupation and Job Title, should let him see what industry someone worked in and what position they held.
The second, Family Member Information, should let him see who was in someone's family, how old they were, and how they were related to each other—whether they were father and son, uncle and nephew, and so on...
He was most interested in the third option: Luck Value. It should be data like Health Value, showing whether someone was lucky or had terrible luck.
All right! He'd take Luck Value. The first two could help him fool people, but they weren't really useful for anything important. Luck Value, on the other hand, was solid, measurable data.
After he chose to unlock Luck Value, the question mark beside it disappeared, replaced by a score from 1 to 10.
He casually opened someone's profile. Luck Value: 3 (Shit out of luck).
Shen Qiong snorted with laughter. "Shit out of luck" was a perfect description. The maximum was 10, and this person had only 3. They really were unlucky.
Then he noticed he could search for two more people. The number had increased from five to seven. He opened their profiles one by one and found that most people's Luck Value hovered between 4 and 6.
At last, he was no longer stuck relying on Health Value to fool people. Now he could point at someone's forehead and say, "Your forehead looks dark, and your eyes are dull. You're bound to have a bad day."
His shop had made a name for itself, so he no longer had to worry about attracting customers. After leveling up, he'd also gained Luck Value, giving him another way to fool people. Two good things at once!
Shen Qiong was in high spirits. In the afternoon, with the shop about to close, he refreshed WeChat's "People nearby" one more time. His eyes lit up. It was her.
On the WeChat screen was a girl with a lovely smile. Shen Qiong remembered her clearly. Whenever there was an event at their high school, she was always the first to sign up. Even in the final semester of senior year, she had entered the school sports meet's 1,500-meter race. That was the very time she'd left a deep impression on Shen Qiong.
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