35: Chapter 35 Deng Xiaoxian_1 35: Chapter 35 Deng Xiaoxian_1 The Yunhua Residential Complex storefront facing the street.
Outside the San You Bookstore.
Seeing the black announcent board still hanging outside the window, Zheng Qing’s disappointnt was clear.
It seed the gentleman hadn’t returned yet.
Humans often feel fear in the face of new things.
The thought of stepping into a completely unfamiliar environnt made Zheng Qing feel a sense of apprehension.
Agreeing to attend the top university, he couldn’t help but wonder, was it too hasty?
Sotis Zheng Qing thought, no one in his family really understood this school.
Was his rash decision okay?
At tis like these, he really hoped to receive guidance from the gentleman.
He took off a wrinkled Yellow Talisman Paper from behind the black announcent board.
Looking left and right, Zheng Qing saw no strangers.
He held the talisman paper in his palm, silently chanting a spell.
The talisman paper twisted into the shape of a key and reluctantly slid into the keyhole.
Zheng Qing turned the knob and opened the bookstore’s door.
He then took out the paper and glued it back behind the black announcent board.
The store was deserted and extrely quiet.
With no visitors for so long, the room was filled with the scent of books.
Zheng Qing took a deep breath, a satisfying sll of books filled his lungs.
When I’m old, I also want to have a large bookstore.
Basking in the sun, lying in a deck chair, with a book covering my face, inhaling the scent of books to my heart’s content.
Walking between the bookshelves, Zheng Qing thought with admiration.
The bookstore was small, only about forty or fifty square ters.
The window and door headed north-south, and the bookshelves inside were also arranged in this orientation.
In the southeast corner of the bookstore, there was a wooden ladder.
Above the ladder was a narrow attic, filled with so sundries, and dried fish from the Yellow Flowered Cat.
Underneath the ladder was a tightly closed single-panel wooden door painted in dark black.
The wooden door was less than two ters high and slightly over one ter wide.
The door sill was about two inches high, with a pair of smooth cylindrical wood posts on either side that were just a tad taller than the door sill.
They had no carving or any other decorations.
No Door God was affixed to the door.
Only a rabbit hair brush and a small pot of embroidered oil were hanging with a thin hemp rope.
On the left side of the wooden door, there was a brass knocker with the shape of a turtle back snake.
The holder was a turtle, while the knocker was a snake coiled on the turtle’s back.
The knocker was now tightly nestled on the turtle’s back, leaving no leeway.
The turtle was huddled in its shell, exposing six small pitch-black holes.
Zheng Qing picked up the brush hanging on the door and gently scratched the snake’s chin.
The snake hissed and raised its body, revealing a door knocker.
Zheng Qing took the brush, dipped it in the fragrant oil, and applied it to the snake tail.
The snake quivered its tail.
Slowly, a small head peered out from underneath the turtle shell.
Click, a sound of unlocking ca from the wooden door.
Zheng Qing looked gratifyingly at the small turtle as it licked the fragrant oil on the snake tail clean, then pulled the snake-shaped door knocker and tugged hard.
The wooden door was opened abruptly, and a dark corridor showed up before his eyes.
This corridor was constructed specifically for Zheng Qing by the gentleman.
Following the corridor for about a hundred ters, he would find himself in the Bookstore “Nine Have” of Hui Zi Ji.
The gentleman was often not in the store, so Zheng Qing often helped look after the two stores on his days off.
As he was not able to find Hui Zi Ji on his own yet, Mr.Wu helped him open a passage between the two stores.
This way, even if the gentleman wasn’t around, Zheng Qing could still keep an eye on both storefronts.
In the past, Zheng Qing had always held the mystical passageway in reverence and had many wild thoughts.
But after his clock journey at the Four Seasons Pavilion, he realized that the corridor was rely built by the application of superior magical skills.
People often hold reverence for mysterious things they can’t understand, but against an understandable outstanding achievent, they can only have a sense of envy.
Strolling in the corridor, Zheng Qing’s longing for the top university resurged.
He hoped soday, he too could construct a marvelous corridor such as this.
The bookstores on both ends of the corridor shared the sa loneness and quietness.
The Yellow Flowered Cat was nowhere to be seen.
He glanced at the cat food box, threw away the already hardened dried fish, then portioned out so ti to mop a bit of the dust in the room.
He finally watered the few pots of Clivia on the window sill.
When the bookstore was closed, so custors may list the books they need and slide the list through the door gap into the bookstore.
Zheng Qing’s main task was to collect these lists, select each book the custors needed from the bookshelf, and wrap them in parchnt paper.
The wrapped books are then placed next door at Spring Reviving Hall.
The next ti custors co, they can directly collect the books from Spring Reviving Hall.
There weren’t many custors this ti, just three.
The books they purchased were mainly professional books on magic rune construction.
Once Zheng Qing finished wrapping the books and writing the nas on the parchnt paper, he made a satisfactory stretch, observing the small bookstore.
The Bookstore “Nine Have” in Hui Zi Ji and the bookstore in Yunhua Residential Complex were similar in size.
He rembered that the abandoned Three Yous Bookstore in Four Seasons Pavilion also had the sa dinsions.
He had been puzzled why the gentleman opened so many bookstores.
He sighed, and holding three packages, Zheng Qing walked out of the bookstore.
The streets were still scantily populated.
It seed this marketplace never had a bustling day.
Maybe this was the stronghold of stubborn wizards as ntioned in history books.
Zheng Qing grinned, realizing he had recently started to understand these previously unnoticed details.
He read books for just a few more days, yet his understanding of the world had completely changed.
Many details he had not noticed before now held deeper anings in his eyes.
Four years later, after graduating from the university, how would he see the world?
As he looked around, he observed the narrow street and its antiquated view with hope for the future.
“Put the package on the counter yourself.” a lazy voice ca from beside Zheng Qing.
He turned his head in surprise.
At the entrance of the adjacent Spring Reviving Hall, a young man in flip-flops, draped in a white robe, a bun made from his Daoist hairstyle, and holding a small teapot, was engrossed in an ancient threaded book.
“Pan Lv Er, you’re reading ‘The Golden Lotus’ again.” Zheng Qing approached with a smile.
The young man reading the book was Deng Xiaoxian, the younger manager of Spring Reviving Hall, known to everyone on the street as Little Manager Deng.
As their stores were next to each other and they interacted frequently, Zheng Qing was quite familiar with the young shopkeeper.
After so ti, he took the liberty of giving him the nickna ‘Pan Lv Er’.
Unperturbed, Deng Xiaoxian frequently flaunted the nickna, claiming that it fit him quite well according to Zheng Qing’s account.
What nerve.
Pan Lv Er glanced at Zheng Qing, sipped so tea from his pot, and clearing his throat, he asked, “Heard you are going to the top university?”
The comnt made Zheng Qing’s eyes light up; he suddenly rembered the gentleman once ntioned that Deng Xiaoxian had just recently graduated from a university.
Perhaps he could give him so advice!
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