The natives of this world were fierce. Chapter 2: A thief or a prank?
Was this some kind of joke?
How could his slipper possibly be in a place like this? Stuffed into a gap underneath an old chair?
What the hell was going on?
Under a table, sure, someone might take a look while cleaning, though even that wasn't particularly likely.
But who the hell would flip a chair over for no reason and look underneath?
Qin Xiaoxia "pulled" his slipper out from under the chair, then glanced around suspiciously.
At this point, he was 99.9 percent certain someone was messing with him. The remaining 0.1 percent was the possibility that he'd been sleepwalking.
Who could it be? Who else has a key to my house? The previous owner? Impossible! The locks were changed ages ago!
Could it really be some bored thief? But can you even call someone a thief if they don't steal anything and just play pranks?
He thought it over for ages without coming up with an answer.
Qin Xiaoxia didn't really have any relatives. After the old man adopted him, he'd never seen Old Qin have relatives over either. Even if any existed, they were probably so distant they barely counted, and certainly wouldn't have anything to do with this.
As for calling the police, he considered it for two seconds before dismissing the idea.
He looked out the window. It was already getting dark.
Surely it couldn't really be...
The north wind blew through the window with a low, mournful howl, making Qin Xiaoxia, who hadn't stopped sweating yet, shudder violently.
"Pah, pah, pah... what a load of nonsense! You'd better hope I don't catch you, you petty thief!"
Qin Xiaoxia shouted a curse, putting on a bold front despite his nerves, then hurried upstairs as fast as he could and shut the door to the rooftop terrace.
He'd originally planned to use the ingredients he'd bought at the supermarket and cook for once that evening, but now he wasn't in the mood.
He opened a packet of instant noodles, added some ham, and fried an egg to make do.
After dinner, he played two rounds of a game. Qin Xiaoxia hadn't forgotten that he needed to snap up the latest phone from a certain brand, along with several discounted liquors and other popular products.
For that, he had a secret weapon: an automated purchasing program he'd asked a classmate to make, essentially his own personal cheat.
Using it on popular discounted products greatly increased his chances of success.
What Qin Xiaoxia had always found puzzling was that certain products, such as some liquors and small electronic gadgets, often weren't all that hard to buy during a sale. Sometimes he didn't even need to bring out his "cheat."
But a few days or a week or two later, those same products would suddenly become hot commodities, with people offering "high prices" for them.
After spending enough time in the resale business, he couldn't help wondering what those people had been doing earlier.
Still, he wasn't about to turn down money.
He opened the relevant webpages on two laptops, set the purchasing program's timer and request rate, then immediately returned to his creative work.
Calling it creative work was probably too flattering. It was really just making things up, copying and pasting, and adding some embellishments.
Among the people constantly getting cursed out with comments like "Idiot writer! A few pictures at the start, and the rest is all made up," Qin Xiaoxia was definitely one of them.
The income wasn't particularly impressive, but volume made up for it. Even a mosquito's leg had meat on it, and it gave him something to do.
Today, he decided to be serious for once and write a horror story.
The title was "What will disappear next?"
His inspiration was the slipper hidden in that bizarre spot. He became so absorbed in writing that he even gave himself goosebumps.
By the time he typed the final word and posted it on a website he frequented, it was exactly midnight.
It was time for bed. Unless something unusual came up, Qin Xiaoxia tried to keep a reasonably normal sleep schedule.
He'd already showered after finishing the cleaning that afternoon, so he briefly washed up and lay down in bed.
Perhaps writing the horror story had reinforced the memory. He'd been sleepy before, but once he lay down, his mind kept returning to that hidden slipper.
It's fine, it's fine. I'll forget about it tomorrow... go to sleep, go to sleep...
This sort of self-hypnosis might have backfired on most people, but Qin Xiaoxia was actually quite good at it. Within minutes, he'd shaken off those thoughts and was drifting toward normal sleep.
The next morning, sunlight streamed through the window onto the edge of his bed. Qin Xiaoxia woke naturally at around seven thirty.
After a good night's sleep, he felt much the same as he did on any ordinary morning.
What had happened yesterday seemed more like a minor interruption to his daily life.
He had things to do today. After lingering in bed and playing on his phone for a while, Qin Xiaoxia crawled out from under the warm covers.
After spending twenty minutes washing up and getting clean.
In a rare move, he found a suit in his wardrobe, then spent almost another half hour carefully grooming and dressing himself.
Apart from the tie, which he didn't know how to knot, he'd even taken care to style his hair.
As the saying went, clothes made the man. Qin Xiaoxia wasn't bad-looking to begin with. Once he'd cleaned himself up and struck a few showy poses in front of the mirror, he actually looked fairly respectable.
"Tsk, tsk. I might not be handsome, but I certainly look sharp when I dress up!"
Qin Xiaoxia murmured this to himself in a burst of vanity.
Then he grabbed his phone, took a ham bun he'd bought yesterday, and headed out.
When most people dressed this formally, they were generally off to do one of two things: go on a blind date or attend a job interview.
Not Qin Xiaoxia. He'd dressed up to work as a "temp."
There was indeed a job fair coming up, and Qin Xiaoxia had indeed been thinking about finding steady work lately, but today he was going to fill in as a recruiter.
Gou Junbao, whom he called Brother Gou, lived next door and was the only neighbor Qin Xiaoxia knew reasonably well. The man was pushing forty but still single. He'd visited matchmaking agencies no fewer than twenty times and had even been scammed out of twenty thousand yuan, yet still hadn't found a wife.
Unlike his personal life, his career had gone fairly smoothly. He'd already become an HR representative at a company that sold consumer products.
Qin Xiaoxia found it rather baffling that a man like that couldn't find a wife.
Today's weekend job fair was being held in Yue City, and Gou Junbao had been preparing for it for quite some time.
But one of the three women he was chatting with on his phone had suddenly asked to meet him again.
Gou Junbao had gone on countless blind dates. Though none had worked out, he'd gained plenty of experience. If a woman sent a signal like this, it meant she might genuinely be interested in him.
Whatever the time, Gou Junbao was more than willing to agree.
Brother Gou's standards for a partner had dropped a great deal from his original long list of requirements. Besides, this woman seemed pretty good in every respect.
Faced with a choice between work and lifelong happiness, Gou Junbao decisively chose the latter.
"Help me out, little brother. I've got a feeling my happiness for the rest of my life depends on this one!"
That was what Gou Junbao had said when he came knocking. Well, in truth, Brother Gou had already said something similar at least four times.
Hopefully it'll work out for him.
With that resigned thought, Qin Xiaoxia went to cover Gou Junbao's shift anyway. The small company was sending only one person to the job fair, so he didn't need to worry about any other complications.
Five hundred yuan for covering one shift was pretty decent. Qin Xiaoxia was more than happy to help.
And could he handle recruitment?
There was no need to worry about that. According to Brother Gou, Qin Xiaoxia only needed to sit there, ask everyone who submitted a résumé one question, then tell them one thing.
First: why did you apply to our company?
Second: go home and wait for our call about an interview.
Whatever answers they gave didn't matter at all.
And although Qin Xiaoxia was a homebody, he wasn't someone who got stage fright. Thanks to certain lessons he'd received growing up, he was actually quite good at reading people and had a way with words.
The afternoon job fair went much as he'd expected. The venue was practically packed with soon-to-graduate university students, all sweating from the crush of the crowd and looking nervous.
There was a curious psychological effect: when other people were exceptionally nervous in front of you, you ended up feeling more relaxed instead.
A little after four, a somewhat weary Qin Xiaoxia returned home with a stack of résumés. Gou Junbao still hadn't returned, which suggested this time really was more promising than the others.
As he entered, Qin Xiaoxia deliberately checked the shoe rack.
Yep, his slippers were still there. Yep, none of the other shoes were missing either.
Time to get out the ingredients I bought yesterday and cook!
In this relaxed mood, Qin Xiaoxia temporarily transformed into Chef Qin, ready to show off his skills.
Incidentally, he was actually a pretty good cook. When Old Qin was still around, Qin Xiaoxia had always been personally in charge of the kitchen.
The only reason he ate takeout and instant noodles so often was that he hated the hassle.
But not long after he entered the kitchen, Qin Xiaoxia's mood took a sharp turn for the worse.
Where the hell did my two spatulas go?
Almost instantly, he connected this to yesterday's "slipper thief."