Hard Currency

Nicholas wanted to pick the prettiest snowflake from the swirling sky and give it to his younger sister.

The young publicly funded student had neither the experience nor the patience for it. After awkwardly offering the senior student a few words of comfort, he left dejectedly, troubled by his loose tongue, beneath the thinning snowfall.

Still, that slight unpleasantness quickly vanished into the howling wind—more importantly, Zheng Qing had arranged to meet Ilena on the Pedestrian Street. Whenever he thought of the Gypsy witch's bright eyes, his mood improved of its own accord.

Ever since their adventure during the Lower Yuan Festival, the relationship between them had suddenly become much clearer.

Although the Gypsy witch still frequently skipped regular classes, she had never missed their weekly "Talisman Studies tutoring session" again. Delighted, Zheng Qing had asked her after their tutoring session last weekend to take it easy this weekend and stroll around the Pedestrian Street.

Although the Pedestrian Street was Beta Town's premier commercial avenue, the town itself was not very large, so the length of that shopping street was easy enough to imagine.

Calling it a stroll around the Pedestrian Street was merely the wizard working up his courage and using another word for a "date."

Perhaps because they had both been working hard lately, and because the ancient talismans they had been deciphering had grown increasingly obscure, often leaving them busy for an entire afternoon with little to show for it, the witch considered it only briefly before happily accepting his invitation.

Today was the weekend—the day they had agreed upon.

It was now three in the afternoon, a little later than the time they usually went to the library, yet somewhat early for a date. Zheng Qing had originally wanted to push their meeting back to around