August 31st, the first day of the eighth lunar month. Sunny, with a light breeze.
Auspicious for marriage, betrothal gifts, opening market, and travel; inauspicious for breaking ground.
Chang'an Airport.
Zheng Qing counted on his fingers for quite a while, calculating the day's fortunes and misfortunes. He was very pleased with the date the school had chosen.
Before coming to the airport, he had made another trip to Huizi Market and carefully asked Pan Lü'er how to board a plane.
"Take your boarding voucher to any counter without a queue and have the ground staff exchange it for a boarding pass. Then just follow the instructions on the boarding pass and get on the plane."
Pan Lü'er explained it lightly, but Zheng Qing listened with growing unease.
"Any counter will do? Why do I have to find one without a queue?" he pressed.
"Because queues are slow!" Pan Lü'er looked at him as though he were an idiot. "Why would you ignore an empty counter just to stand in line for fun? How bored do you have to be?"
Zheng Qing silently lowered his head and used his little notebook to jot down the general procedure.
"When you're away from home, ask if you don't know something. Don't be embarrassed. There are plenty of first-time flyers, and the airport has information desks everywhere. Just find a pretty young lady and ask." Pan Lü'er impatiently waved him away.
"A normal airport information desk is fine?" Zheng Qing emphasized the words "normal airport."
"Did you expect First University to hang up a Wizard Alliance sign at Chang'an Airport?!" Pan Lü'er rolled his eyes and blew the lock of long hair hanging over his forehead into the air.
Zheng Qing was left speechless.
He had always felt that boarding a plane ought to, perhaps, probably, have a bit more wizardly flair.
Like dragging a suitcase straight through some wall?
Or chanting a spell at a strange mirror in an abandoned airport restroom?
Yet reality was always exceptionally simple.
With his ticket voucher in hand, Zheng Qing found an empty counter and got his boarding pass in less than a minute.
There was no luggage check-in, no long wait before departure, not even tedious inspections or complicated boarding gates. Zheng Qing merely declared a "pet travel companion" and entered the departure lounge with Poseidon in his arms.
After the ground staff led him to a VIP entrance in the departure lounge, they politely took their leave. Following the signs, Zheng Qing crossed soft red carpeting, hard passageways, and limp outer skin before quickly boarding First University's flight.
The cabin was much roomier than it appeared from outside. The seats were arranged in pairs on the left and singles on the right.
The flight attendants all wore crisp navy-blue robes, their hair coiled into buns and their waists belted. With proper smiles on their faces, they held spellbooks in one hand and guided Zheng Qing to his seat with the other.
Zheng Qing noticed that the spellbooks in the attendants' hands were Bologna-bound volumes he had seen at Shangyuan Bookstore. Their exquisite decorations and lavish marbled edges looked brand-new and spotless.
These flight attendants looked rich, Zheng Qing thought with a silent tongue click. He remembered that those spellbooks sold for more than twenty jade coins at Shangyuan Bookstore, while his full scholarship amounted to only ten jade coins.
Under the flight attendant's guidance, Zheng Qing found his seat without any trouble.
His seat was in the fifth row, on the left by the aisle. All the passengers around him were already seated, and only the window seat beside him remained empty.
Zheng Qing prayed inwardly that the seat belonged to a beauty.
The seats were spacious, their black leather soft enough to relax his entire body as soon as he sat down. The armrests on either side gleamed with silvery-white metallic sheen, and whenever he rested his arms on them, they always seemed to slide back into his lap.
After setting Poseidon on his lap, Zheng Qing examined the passengers around him.
Directly across from him sat a short boy with a Watermelon Head haircut and large black-rimmed glasses. He was clutching a huge black hardbound notebook and scribbling rapidly inside it. Beside the Watermelon Head boy sat a handsome classmate with a slender build and a half-up ponytail. This classmate held a suspiciously long package and silently turned their face toward the dry concrete outside the window.
Maybe a girl, maybe a boy. Zheng Qing could not quite tell as he looked at the attractive classmate. He turned and sized up the two people across the aisle.
Across the aisle sat a chubby bald boy in a gray cloth robe, with a string of dark purple longan prayer beads around his neck. He held a scroll of scripture and read while swaying his head. The passenger opposite the little monk, however, was sprawled over their tray table, sleeping with their head buried. Zheng Qing could only guess their gender from the wine-red, wavy hair spilling into view.
After looking around, he found no one's gaze meeting his own.
Zheng Qing immediately felt bored.
So he pulled out his Rune Copybook from the Gray Cloth Bag, unfolded the hidden tray table beneath the armrest, took out a brush and cinnabar ink, rubbed his hands together, and began his daily practice.
The Rune Copybook was something he had picked up at Huizi Market. It had square cells, Yellow Skin Paper, and sixty pages per booklet. Each page bore a commonly used talisman, such as ghost-dispelling, calming, evil-warding, memorializing Heaven, invoking deities, soul-guiding, and so on.
Once copied, the talismans could be torn off and used at any time. If he did not use them, he could sell them back to the stationery shop. Six intact talismans could be exchanged for a blank copybook, guaranteed fair for young and old alike. If an entire Rune Copybook was error-free, Zheng Qing could trade it for ten copybooks. Granny Cai at Hundred Herbs Hall would even smilingly give him a block of cinnabar ink or a goat-hair brush.
Since the age of ten, Zheng Qing had never spent money on Rune Copybooks again. Even the cinnabar ink and brushes he traded back from the stationery shop owner were enough to last him for many years.
He breathed on the cinnabar ink, moistened the brush, then lifted it and focused his mind. Moments later, he completed the talisman in a single flourish.
Zheng Qing looked at the Calming Talisman and nodded in satisfaction.
Nothing was more relaxing than writing a talisman. If there was, it was writing two.
He raised his brush again, only to be interrupted by a voice.
"Hello." A timid voice sounded beside his ear.
Zheng Qing looked up.
A little girl of about ten stood uneasily before him, dragging a pink rolling suitcase.
She wore two horn braids, a pink dress, and white round-toed leather shoes. In her hand, she tightly clutched a crumpled boarding pass.
A loli! Zheng Qing roared inwardly.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Watermelon Head boy across from him stop writing and look up.
"I think my seat is the one inside," the little girl said timidly.
"Oh, sorry. Please, go ahead." Zheng Qing hurriedly rose to his feet and did his best to put on a friendly smile. "Where are your parents? Aren't they with you?"
As he spoke, he helped the little girl stuff her pink rolling suitcase into the overhead compartment.
Zheng Qing had long since stuffed all his own heavy luggage into the Gray Cloth Bag. He had never expected there to be wizards who still dragged around such cumbersome baggage.
"Didn't First University's admission letter say parents weren't allowed to accompany students?" the little girl's surprised voice sounded behind him.
Zheng Qing's hand slipped, and the little pink suitcase nearly smashed into his head.
He shoved the suitcase into the overhead compartment and slammed the compartment door shut.
Then he lowered his head and looked at the little girl before him.
This girl was his classmate??!!
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