Yunhua Residential Area, street-level storefronts.
Outside Sanyou Bookstore.
Seeing that black notice board still hanging outside the windowsill, Zheng Qing's disappointment was plain to see.
It looked like Mr. Wu had not returned yet.
Humans always felt one kind of anxiety or another when facing something new. Whenever Zheng Qing thought about entering a completely unfamiliar environment, he could not help feeling conflicted.
Had he agreed to study at First University too hastily? Zheng Qing sometimes could not help thinking that, aside from himself, no one in his family truly understood this school. Was such a rash decision really a good idea?
At times like this, he especially wished for Mr. Wu's guidance.
He peeled a crumpled yellow talisman from behind the black notice board.
Zheng Qing looked around. There were no strangers nearby.
He clasped the talisman between his palms and silently recited an incantation.
The talisman wriggled, folding itself into the shape of a key before reluctantly slipping into the keyhole. Zheng Qing turned the handle and opened the bookstore door, then pulled the talisman back out and stuck it behind the black notice board again.
The shop was deserted and exceptionally quiet. With no human presence for weeks, the room was full of the scent of books. Zheng Qing took a deep breath, and a satisfying bookish fragrance filled his lungs.
When I'm old, I'll open a huge bookstore too. I'll bask in the sun, lie in a recliner with a book over my face, and breathe in this scent to my heart's content. Walking between the shelves, Zheng Qing thought enviously.
The bookstore was not large, only forty or fifty square meters. Its doors and windows ran north to south, and the bookshelves inside were arranged along the same direction.
In the bookstore's southeast corner stood a wooden ladder. Above it was a narrow attic containing some odds and ends, along with the Yellow Flower Cat's dried fish. Beneath the ladder was a tightly shut black-lacquered wooden door.
The door stood less than two meters tall and barely over a meter wide. Its threshold was a full two inches high, with two smooth cylindrical wooden blocks on either side. They were only a little over an inch taller than the threshold, polished smooth as mirrors and carved with no patterns.
There were no Door Gods pasted on the door. Only a soft rabbit-hair brush and a small pot of sesame oil hung from thin hemp cords.
On the left side of the door's center was a brass door knocker shaped like a turtle-backed snake. The base was a reclining turtle with its head raised, while the knocker itself was a coiled snake on the turtle's back. At the moment, however, the knocker was tightly embedded in the turtle's shell, leaving nowhere to grasp it. The reclining turtle had withdrawn into its shell, exposing six tiny black holes.
Zheng Qing picked up the brush hanging from the door and gently scratched beneath the coiled snake's chin. The snake hissed, raised itself, and arched into a door knocker.
Zheng Qing dipped the brush in a little sesame oil and smeared it on the snake's tail. The coiled snake flicked its tail with a swish. Beneath the turtle's shell, a small head slowly poked out.
Click. The sound of a lock opening came from within the wooden door.
Zheng Qing grinned as he watched the little turtle lick the sesame oil off the snake's tail. Then he grabbed the snake-ring knocker and gave it a hard pull. The wooden door flew open, revealing a pitch-black passageway before him.
This passageway had been specially built by Mr. Wu for Zheng Qing. After following it for a hundred meters or so, one could reach Jiuyou Bookstore in Huizi Market.
Mr. Wu was often away from the shop, so Zheng Qing frequently came to help watch over both stores during his breaks. Since he could not yet find Huizi Market by relying on his own abilities, Mr. Wu had opened a passage between the two shops for him. That way, even when Mr. Wu was absent, Zheng Qing could still take care of both storefronts.
In the past, Zheng Qing had held this magical passageway in deep awe, and countless wild thoughts had run through his mind. But after his journey through the clock tower at Four Seasons Market, Zheng Qing had learned that this passage was merely built through the application of superb magical techniques.
People held awe for mysterious things they could not understand; but for extraordinary achievements they could comprehend, they felt only admiration.
As he walked through the passage, Zheng Qing's longing for First University became firm once more.
He longed for the day when he, too, could build such a magical passageway.
The bookstores on either side of the passage were equally deserted and quiet. The flower-patterned cat had run off somewhere again. Zheng Qing glanced at its food dish, tossed the hardened dried fish inside into the trash, then lightly dusted the room and watered the few pots of clivia on the windowsill.
Even when the bookstore was closed, customers sometimes listed the books they needed and slipped the orders through the crack in the door. Zheng Qing's main task was to pick up those lists, select each requested book from the shelves, and wrap them in kraft paper. Then he would leave them next door at Huichun Hall.
When customers returned, they could collect their books directly from Huichun Hall.
There were not many customers this time, only three, and all they had ordered were professional books on rune construction and the like. After writing the book titles on the kraft-paper packages, Zheng Qing stretched contentedly and looked around the tiny bookstore.
The Sanyou Bookstore in Huizi Market was about the same size as the one in Yunhua Residential Area. Zheng Qing recalled the abandoned Sanyou Bookstore at Four Seasons Market; it had been roughly the same size too.
Why did Mr. Wu run so many bookstores? Zheng Qing had never been able to figure it out.
With a sigh, Zheng Qing hugged the three packages and walked out of the bookstore.
There were still very few people on the street. This market seemed never to have days when crowds surged through it. Perhaps this was the gathering place of Stubborn Wizards mentioned in the history books.
Zheng Qing grinned. He realized that recently, he had begun to understand details he had never noticed before.
He had only spent two more days reading, yet his understanding of the world had already become entirely different. Many details he had never noticed before now held deeper meaning in his eyes. After graduating from university four years later, what would this world look like to him then?
He looked around at the narrow street and its worn-down scenery, filled with anticipation for the future.
"Take the packages to the counter yourself." A lazy voice drifted into Zheng Qing's ears.
He turned around in delight.
At the entrance to Huichun Hall next door, a young man in slippers and a white robe, his hair tied in a Daoist topknot and a small teapot in hand, was intently reading an ancient thread-bound book.
"Pan Lü'er, you're reading The Plum in the Golden Vase again." Zheng Qing trotted over with a grin.
The young man reading was Huichun Hall's junior proprietor. His full name was Deng Xiaoxian, though everyone on the street called him Shopkeeper Deng. Since the two shops stood next to each other, Zheng Qing knew the young proprietor well. After some time, he had taken it upon himself to give him the nickname "Pan Lü'er."
Deng Xiaoxian did not mind in the least. Instead, he often showed it off everywhere, saying that Zheng Qing's nickname suited him perfectly.
What shamelessness.
Pan Lü'er glanced at Zheng Qing, took a sip of tea from the teapot's spout, and drawled, "I heard you're going to study at First University, kid?"
Zheng Qing's eyes lit up. He suddenly remembered Mr. Wu saying that Deng Xiaoxian had graduated from university only recently.
Maybe he could give Zheng Qing some advice!
Before you continue