8: Chapter 8 You are a Wizard_1 8: Chapter 8 You are a Wizard_1 Thomas, that was the na of Zheng Qing’s interviewer.
He was a young German, blond and blue-eyed, tall and muscular, with fair skin and slightly drooping eyes.
His pronounced nose added sharpness to his features.
Dressed in a well-tailored suit, a deep red tie, and gleaming shoes, he looked every bit the successful businessman.
Having inspected the acceptance letter, Thomas didn’t bother Zheng Qing’s family too much.
Instead, he suggested that Zheng Qing show him around the city.
Zheng’s parents seed to harbor no doubts, readily entrusting their son to this stranger without any reservations.
Standing awkwardly on the street, Zheng Qing watched the man in front of him fiddling with his map, and mopped his brow, asking, “Mr.
Thomas, do you have a destination in mind?”
“I need to figure out how to get to your local market,” Thomas replied, frowning and scrutinizing the map in his hands, “At university, you’ll have to learn to live independently, which ans you’ll need various supplies.
Just like in high school, you will need to get so basic textbooks, stationeries, lab supplies, and so on.
The market has everything you need, and the shops there will have discount sales right before school starts, which would be highly cost-effective for you.”
“But…” Zheng Qing glanced at the giant supermarket behind them, feeling increasingly confused.
“Aren’t there stationery stores everywhere on the street?
Just behind us is the largest warehouse supermarket in Pingyang.”
“Supermarket?” Thomas seed taken aback, his eyebrows shooting up.
“Did you buy your school supplies from this supermarket?”
Saying this he turned around to scrutinize the bustling supermarket across the street.
“I usually buy from the stationery store in front of the school.” Zheng Qing replied hesitatedly, not too confidently: “What I ant was, this supermarket has a lot of stuff, probably including so of the stationery items I need.”
“Where did you go to secondary school?” Thomas asked, his eyes still fixed on the supermarket.
“Pingyang No.1 Middle School, a noteworthy provincial school.” Zheng Qing stated, sounding slightly more confident.
“No, no no, I ant, where did you actually attend middle school?” Thomas clarified.
“It’s on the sa road as this one, we just passed by my high school entrance a while ago.”
“I’m sorry.
I was trying to ask if you’ve ever attended any special school?” Thomas finally turned around, looking sowhat surprised, gesticulating with his map and murmuring: “A special one?”
“No!” Zheng Qing denied outright.
“Unless you consider a prominent high school as being special.”
“So, could it be a system error?” Thomas put away his map and produced sothing resembling a cell phone from his pocket and began moving it up and down Zheng’s body.
The device beeped incessantly with each movent.
Zheng Qing looked around awkwardly, not knowing how to react.
“No problem here!” After busying himself for a while, Thomas examined the device in his hands closely, gave a nod, then shook his head: “If it’s not a mistake, then we’re dealing with another troubleso situation.”
“Troubleso situation?” Zheng Qing was anxious, nervously asking, “Mr.
Thomas, should I inform my parents?
Or I could tell my grandfather.”
“Oh no, there’s no need.” Thomas shook his head repetitively, looked at Zheng Qing, then glanced at the large envelope in his hand, sighed and said: “I just need to find a place to talk to you first… Being an interviewer is truly no easy task… Let’s go to the teahouse over there, I don’t like coffee.
What about you?”
“Either is fine.” Zheng Qing followed him, but still couldn’t shake off his suspicion that this well-dressed stranger was so kind of trickster.
“I think you probably have never gone to a wizard school,” Thomas asked Zheng Qing gravely as they headed for the teahouse.
“Wizard school?” Zheng Qing seed taken aback, his voice rising a few notches.
“A wizard school?
Are you guys talking about Harry Potter?” A twelve or thirteen-year-old passing girl seed to catch what Zheng Qing said and rushed over with a fanatical expression: “I’m a Potterhead too, what are you guys discussing?
Magical creatures?
Quidditch?
Hogwarts history?
Or the story of the Peverell Brothers?
I know them all.”
Zheng Qing jumped at the sudden intrusion, staring wide-eyed at the little girl with broad glasses on her nose, it took him a mont to regain his composure, he gave a nervous chuckle and shook his head vigorously.
anwhile, Thomas next to him observed the little girl curiously.
Blushing, the little girl muttered a few things under her breath and scampered off.
***
Zheng Qing closed his pocket watch, they had been there for twelve minutes and thirty-four seconds.
He and Thomas were seated in a teahouse halfway down Pingyang Road, with Thomas opposite him, flipping through a newspaper.
They had been sitting there for twelve minutes and thirty-four seconds now, with Thomas engrossed in his thick newspaper.
Zheng Qing cradled his teacup in both hands, sipping the pale green tea and discreetly peering at the newspaper.
On the back of the paper was an eye-catching headline: “Witchcraft Federation Committee expresses dissatisfaction with the Dark Blue Castle”
“…
At a press conference, Huang Shi, spokesman of the Witchcraft Federation Committee of the wizards’ alliance, revealed that during the recent crackdown on illegal labs, abnormal dinsional fluctuations were detected at the Dark Blue Castle.
At the ti of the report, Sam Marshall, the chief judge of the wizard’s court, had already signed a comprehensive search warrant against the Dark Blue Castle…
The wizards’ alliance reiterated its attention to dinsional fluctuation experints, stating that the alliance would continue to scrutinize all unreported laboratories related to ‘Dinsional Convergence’…”
Zheng Qing couldn’t comprehend a word of what was being said in the paper.
Zheng Qing looked on dejectedly as Thomas put his newspaper down and pulled out a pen to start scribbling.
The two of them sat in silence, as ti trickled by, the atmosphere grew a bit awkward.
“What are you calculating?” Zheng Qing finally found a topic to break the silence.
“Odds.” Thomas didn’t look up, he explained while calculating, “The World Cup is half over.
The Venus team is still leading, but the Flamingo team is rising rapidly.
They’ve bagged the Wild Demon King three tis consecutively.
There’s always this type of dark horse team every few years.
If I can get this right, I can get rid of these annoying errands for the next couple of years and focus on my multi-dinsional magic fluctuation interference experint under Secret Garden’s spatial conditions.”
“Are you talking about betting on a ga?” Zheng Qing looked at him blankly.
Thomas spared him a glance and continued to focus on his calculations.
Bored, Zheng Qing blew ripples into his tea, and tried to make sense of all the peculiar things he had encountered that day.
After a while, noticing Thomas finally folding his newspaper, Zheng quickly broke the silence, “I didn’t quite understand what you ant about the wizard school.”
Thomas looked down, studying the tea leaves in his cup.
Then, he looked up, squinting at Zheng Qing across from him.
Those green eyes seed familiar to Zheng Qing.
“You’re a wizard,” he told Zheng Qing in a matter-of-fact tone.
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