The next morning.
During morning practice.
Xiao Xiao easily noticed the "foreign objects" on both of Zheng Qing's wrists.
"Didn't you keep dodging around yesterday noon, terrified that someone would see that string of new beads?"
He enunciated the words "someone else" with particular clarity, his voice carrying a hint of teasing. "...Why are you suddenly showing them off today? What's with the new bracelet?"
Zheng Qing kept his eyes closed and slowly practiced the Unfettered Fist, ignoring the curious baby beside him.
It was not until morning practice came to a temporary end.
As the two strolled toward the edge of the grounds, Zheng Qing, worried that the short wizard would gossip in front of Fatty Xin, reluctantly gave a brief account of where the azure fur-dragon bracelet had come from. At the end, he subtly stressed concepts like "balance."
Xiao Xiao was thoroughly unimpressed by Zheng Qing's self-deceiving explanation.
"If you insist on balance in everything, the final result will only be that everyone feels things are unbalanced. Because this world was originally driven forward by the 'potential difference' created by imbalance."
He earnestly advised his young fellow teaching assistant. "When it comes to love... reality and love cannot possibly be balanced, either. Balance is an ideal state in magical studies, like the rational man in economics—conceivable, but impossible to exist."
Zheng Qing paid no attention to his babbling.
Instead, one particular term in his lecture caught his interest.
"You understand economics too?"
Hearing such an unmagical term in the Magic World clearly surprised him—although Puji Island had banks, First University had insurance, and Su Shijun had even discussed Moonlit Airlines stock with Zheng Qing, as a society with a limited population, wizards had neither the motivation nor the need to develop economics to the level of "rational