The Auspicious Beast's Anxiety: The Lost Protection Talisman

A clear sound rang out among the crowd. The bell spun halfway around the crevice in the stone. Dania could only gently nudge it with the tip of her shoe, because she couldn't free her hand. The golden bell stopped right in front of her shoe.

Rushing over, stepping on the scattered colorful ribbons, the beast ears trembled as the boy wearing the lion-head hat lifted his head out of the wooden box.

"Oh! My Light-Treading Bell!"

He let out a long breath, squatted down, picked up the bell, and ran his fingers along the laurel wreath on it before turning to Dania and giving her a smile.

"Thank you so much, young lady! This bell is the preamp for tomorrow night's grand finale performance. Without it, the entire Light-Treading Steps will have to be re-choreographed!"

The top hawthorn slid off the bamboo skewer. Her elbow had just loosened its grip on Zhou Yu's arm, and she was about to take the candied hawthorn off when the chestnut packet in her arms rustled as she squeezed it. Dania was biting into the candied hawthorn at that moment.

The bright red hawthorn fell onto the bluestone slab.

His tail swished behind him, and he used the momentum of his flip to stand up, holding the hawthorn in front of Dania. The hawthorn landed perfectly in his outstretched palm. The boy's body rolled half a circle along the colorful ribbon, and he braced himself on the ground with one hand.

"Here you go! It's still edible; the sugar coating isn't even broken."

Her eyes lit up immediately, and Dania freed one hand to take back the hawthorn, clapping her hands several times in succession.

"Xiao Yu, look! He did a somersault! He's so fast!"

Zhou Yu picked out a new skewer from the candied hawthorn bag and handed it over. He then used a tissue to wrap up the hawthorn that had touched the boy's palm and sighed as he looked at it.

"Anything that falls into the warning zone will be discarded. Don't eat anything recklessly; your stomach doesn't have any resurrection coins."

The boy fiddled with the brim of his hat.

"Um... my hands are very clean, I just washed them."

Zhou Yu tossed the crumpled paper into the bamboo basket beside him, his gaze falling on the pair of white animal ears peeking out from the brim of the hat.

"The hygiene standards are set by our Logistics Department. Street acrobatics isn't an excuse for exemption. You're quite agile. Are you from the Liondance Troupe?"

The Light-Treading Bell rang twice as he moved, and the boy tied it back around his waist.

"My name is Lingyang, you can just call me Awu. Tomorrow night's Moon-Chasing Ceremony will be headlined by me and the Auspicious Liondance Troupe. If you want to see the lion dance, go to the east side of the platform; that has the best view."

Linnai, who had just squeezed through the crowd with a chestnut still in her mouth, was the one who had been chewing on chestnuts.

"Wow! This is a prime spot recommended by the headlining actor himself! Shall we go and grab a seat early?"

A few torn colorful threads clung to the end of its tail, which had been sticking up behind it and dragged across the ground. The beast ears under the brim of its hat also slowly drooped down. Lingyang smiled and raised his hand to gesture.

"Leave it to me, I can clear out a small area for you beforehand."

Sigelica quickly noticed his unusual emotional state after bypassing the wooden crate next to her.

"Hey, you've already found your Light-Treading Bell, so why are you still wearing that miserable face?"

He glanced down at the small pouch at his waist, which contained only a few copper coins and a packet of roasting spices. His hand, which had been reaching for the bell, suddenly shifted and pressed tightly against the empty lapel of his shirt.

"I'm doomed... I also lost one of my things."

Pulling a broken red rope from his collar, Lingyang led everyone to the side of the decorated tent, avoiding the Festival Department who were carrying things back and forth. The sound of wooden mallets next to the platform stopped for a while, and several craftsmen carried the drum stand past them from behind.

The thing that was originally tied to it is gone, leaving only a worn end of the red rope.

The beast ears were pulled down even lower, and Lingyang listlessly wrapped the broken rope around his fingertips.

"That was a lucky charm my mother gave me. It had an old red cloth sewn on the outside and a small safety lock inside. The first time I went on stage, my legs were shaking so badly. She personally hung the charm on me and lied to me, saying that the people in the audience were all guests who came to eat. After that, I would touch it before each performance so that I would dare to put my feet down."

Zhou Yu, leaning against the wooden box filled with colorful silk, raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously? Someone as big-name as you, the headliner, is afraid to go on stage and perform?"

Lingyang admitted it very readily.

"Of course I will! As soon as the drumbeat starts, I'm worried I'll step wrong, and I'm even more afraid that the lion head won't stay on properly and will fall and hit the kids in the front row. There will definitely be more people tomorrow night than usual. I panicked during rehearsal just now and forgot the two turns."

Bending down to examine the broken red rope, Sigelica casually handed the bag of candied fruit to Linnai beside her.

"Look, there are clear signs of tearing on the broken edge. It probably broke off somewhere while hanging there. Let's help him look for it. Anyway, this square is only so big; we can definitely search it all before dawn."

Chisaki pulled up a map of the plaza and opened her tablet.

"He needs to confirm the time of loss, the route taken, and the people the item came into contact with. Only then can I build an accurate probability model for finding the lost item. If this item was dropped in a public area, the probability of it being taken away as trash by the cleaning staff tonight will continue to rise."

Zhou Yu immediately tapped his fingers a few times on the old-fashioned digital watch; he was very sensitive to the words "before dawn."

"Taking a walk after dinner is fine, but don't even think about working all night. We just finished a field mission at Mt. Firmament, and we're still on vacation."

Dania gently tugged at Zhou Yu's sleeve twice.

Turning her head to look at Lingyang's drooping beast ears, Dania looked up at Zhou Yu. Half of the chestnuts in her arms had already been taken by Aimis, finally freeing up one hand.

She held the candied hawthorn skewer directly to Zhou Yu's mouth.

"Xiao Yu, I want to see him dance! If we can't find the lucky charm, he definitely won't be able to dance well tomorrow."

His gaze swept over Chisaki, who had already begun marking the route, and then he glanced at Lingyang. Zhou Yu could only resign himself to taking a bite of a hawthorn, the sour taste making his temple twitch.

He raised his hand and pointed to the decorated tent over there.

"Alright, alright, consider this a post-dinner exercise to aid digestion. Now let's officially start the temporary work order. Let's make things clear first: after we find the things, you need to reserve good seats for us in the east wing of the performance area. Dania also wants to bring snacks in."

Lingyang's beast ears immediately lifted up slightly.

"No problem, no problem! I'll reserve all the seats in the first row for you!"

"Think quickly, when and where was the last time you saw that amulet?"

Following the direction of his finger, Lingyang pointed to a row of temporary wooden houses on the west side of the platform.

"It was probably around 3 PM this afternoon, in the dressing room on the side of the square. I had just changed into my performance costume and even touched it once. Then someone came and told me to try out the Light-Treading Bell, so I went straight to the rehearsal hall through the back door. I think I bumped into a mask carrier along the way."

With her thumb pushing open the hilt, a glint of cold light flashed out, and Chisa headed straight for the wooden house.

"If this thing is stolen, I'll chop off the thief's hands."

Lingyang quickly moved half a step to Zhou Yu's side, his tail snapping shut against his calf, and his beast ears, which he had just raised, pressed down on the brim of his hat again.

Reaching out and pressing down on the hilt of her sword, Zhou Yu forcefully pushed that half-inch of cold light back into its sheath.

"We're doing this in a civilized manner; such violent debt collection methods are prohibited. Check the dressing room first, and once the evidence is clear, we'll hand it over to the Patrol Department for processing."

Several paintbrushes were scattered on the table, half of a lion's face mask was casually pressed down next to a bronze mirror, and there was an empty space on the clothes rack against the wall. Lingyang pushed open the door of the third room, and a strong smell of perfume mixed with the scent of old wood immediately hit them. The group passed behind the high platform and came to the front of this row of wooden houses.

A small piece of blackened talisman was stuck to the end of the thread. Sigelica tore off a tissue and used it to pick it up. A broken red thread was stuck in the crack of the wooden board. Chisaki squatted down by the threshold, and the tablet in her hand emitted a blue light that swept across the entire ground.

Along with the heat, there was a fragment in Zhou Yu's canvas bag that read "Cradle Recycling".

The opening and closing mechanism of the lion head mask behind Lingyang slowly drooped down in the reflection of the bronze mirror.