Chapter 22 The blanket and the feather clip were almost touching, seemingly there but not quite. ...
"I had the worst day ever!" Qi Yun complained as soon as she saw her, her leg in a splint. "I fell down the stairs early this morning and twisted my leg. I just got back from the hospital. What kind of 'lucky bird' is this? I knew lucky birds don't look like this. We must have been fooled by the Supermarket Management Bureau. Is this really not a crow? What did Jiu Su say?"
Shu Qing sympathetically shared her own experience of the day with her, and the two looked at each other in bewilderment.
They then sought confirmation from Tu Nan in their small group chat, and ten minutes later, they received an excited response from her—at today's group meeting, the function she was responsible for was rated as the best, adding a significant weight to her path to promotion in the middle of the year.
Shu Qing: "..."
Qi Yun: "..."
It seems it really wasn't the auspicious bird's fault.
Forget it, let's just wait and see what happens, and then talk about it after I meet with the professionals tonight.
The professional arrived quickly; Shu Qing was still half asleep when he appeared. She had been on edge the whole way, her nerves constantly on edge. She managed to stay awake until they reached the Chiffon Photography Studio, where she soon collapsed onto a recliner and fell asleep. It was Jiu Su who woke her up.
She opened her eyes sleepily and saw Jiu Su covering her with a blanket and gently trying to tuck the blanket behind her shoulders.
Their eyes met, and Jiu Su's eyes met hers directly. His irises were different from the normal brown; they were a clear sandalwood color. When the light shone in, they reflected a dazzling red pupil, almost blinding her when their eyes met at close range.
A strand of silver hair fell onto her face, making her feel slightly itchy. Jiu Su's hand was still tucked into her long hair, less than half a centimeter from her carotid artery, and she could even feel his slightly low body temperature.
The moment of contact, the subtle tension, like two magnetic poles yet to mesh, only fuels the imagination.
“I said, sir,” Shu Qing smiled wryly, “if you’ve already decided to just be friends, then don’t do things that make me have these thoughts.”
Jiu Su withdrew her hand as if she had been electrocuted, and changed the subject expressionlessly: "Where's the bird?"
"Oh, it's next door." Shu Qing rolled off the recliner, flipped open the blanket and looked around. Sure enough, the little snake had disappeared again. Anyway, nothing would happen in this photo studio, so she took Jiu Su and went next door to see the auspicious bird "get rich".
A short while later, Qi Yun arrived in a work chair with small wheels, pushed by a photo studio employee. The employee asked in surprise, "Oh, you're already here? I was worried you wouldn't know the way since it's your first time here, so I had someone meet you at the door. I didn't expect you to find it by yourself."
Shu Qing's heart suddenly stirred slightly.
Jiu Su ignored his words. He reached out and pulled Fa Cai out of the makeshift birdcage, looking him up and down.
The bird, with bandages still wrapped around its wings, barely fluttered in his hands, behaving as docilely as a well-trained pet bird.
“Neither Niannian nor Facai are afraid of him,” Shu Qing thought to herself, “which means he’s not the kind of Taoist priest I imagined who can catch demons… So why does Xiao Hong hide as soon as he shows up?”
That doesn't make sense.
Jiu Su then said, "I need an empty table, and some lip balm... lipstick for your grooming."
The employees quickly brought over lipsticks of all colors, from bright pink to deep red, displaying a variety of shades on the table. One particularly clever employee held up a light mauve matte "bullet" lipstick and recommended it to Jiu Su: "This shade suits you, brightens your complexion, and is barely noticeable."
Jiu Su took it, sensed something was wrong, drew a line on her hand, and was immediately speechless, "..."
Shu Qingfu had a sudden inspiration. Based on the pile of study materials that the Supermarket Administration had forced her to memorize, she guessed that he might need a substitute for cinnabar, and picked out a tube of bright red cinnabar and handed it to him.
Jiu Su circled the auspicious bird in the center of the table, and using the tube of lipstick, began to sketch an extremely complex pattern on the empty table.
This time, he had no modern instruments to rely on. He used only a cheap, industrially produced lipstick to draw a magic circle on a square table with his bare hands, and the result was as smooth as flowing water, without a single mistake.
His hand was extremely steady, and his brushstrokes were incredibly precise. With the movement of his snow-white wrist, he drew out strange, bright red patterns, creating a breathtaking contrast of colors.
Everyone present held their breath as a familiar chill rose up, seeping into their brains through their skin. Two employees instinctively turned their heads away, unable to bear looking.
Jiu Su coldly ordered, "Everyone who is not involved, please leave."
The employees left without saying a word, leaving only Shu Qing and Qi Yun, along with the two little monsters, inside the room.
Jiu Su spent two minutes drawing the cinnabar array in one go. Then she bit her fingertip and dripped a drop of blood into each of the five points. As the blood dripped into the array, the lines drawn with lipstick began to flow strangely. The bright red dots slowly and tentatively moved, flowing faster and faster until they suddenly accelerated and disappeared into the body of the auspicious bird at the center of the array.
The entire magic circle vanished into thin air. The auspicious bird let out a sharp cry and struggled, its strength almost breaking the rope binding its feet.
Five exceptionally brightly colored feathers gradually emerged from its plumage and tail feathers. Jiu Su cut them off one by one with scissors and handed them to Shu Qing for safekeeping. Then he drew a new magic circle and repeated the whole process. This time, the five feathers cut off belonged to Qi Yun.
After doing all this, his face grew even paler, almost as if he were about to melt away on the spot.
Even Qi Yun couldn't help but ask, "Are you alright?"
Jiu Su shook her head, completely unconcerned. Instead, she pointed to the auspicious bird lying stiffly on the table and instructed, "Take good care of it. It will be fine in half a month."
He then took the five colorful feathers from Shu Qing, dismantled an ancient-style headdress from the photo studio, and used his hands to string and knot the five-colored feathers together, trimming and reshaping them into a colorful ethnic-style hair clip. Although the color scheme was exaggerated, the unique design made it stand out and it didn't look cheap at all.
Jiu Su subconsciously raised her hand to put the hair clip on Shu Qing, her fingers already touching her hair, but she abruptly changed direction and handed the hair clip to Shu Qing instead.
"Keep it on at all times," he instructed. "It can ward off bad luck."
Shu Qing put it on her head on the spot, looked at herself in the mirror, and thought she could set off immediately for a vacation on the beach in the Maldives.
Qi Yun looked down at the five dry feathers in his hand, then at Shu Qing, and felt a pang of unease. This privileged second-generation rich kid, brimming with a sense of superiority, was experiencing such blatant discrimination for the first time in his life.
Her eyes twitched, and she frantically gave Shu Qing meaningful glances: Are you sure this is just "friendship"?
Shu Qing had no choice but to turn a blind eye.
This "friendship" wasn't something she described.
She opened her mobile game as usual and did a 10-pull divination with one click. This time the result was finally normal, with mixed good and bad luck, and she even got a "great luck" result.
Qi Yun followed suit and tried it out with the game she was playing. She got a gold item in a ten-pull, without triggering the pity system. It seems that her luck is even better than before.
"Is it safe now?" Shu Qing asked. "It doesn't have an 'expiration date,' so I can wear it indefinitely?"
Jiu Su gave a cold laugh. "Of course not."
Shu Qing suddenly felt a chill run down her spine, and her hair stood on end.
“Having used such deadly methods, how can such trivial tricks be dealt with?” Jiu Su still smiled, her words clear and gentle. “Since someone has murderous intent, I have no choice but to fight to the death.”
His face was still bloodless, but his expression was indifferent, and a barely perceptible killing intent flickered in his light sandalwood eyes, giving him an inhuman sharpness.
Qi Yun was even intimidated by his expression and subconsciously took a step back.
Shu Qing also felt a chill creep up her spine and tentatively asked, "Should we report it to the Traffic Management Bureau first?"
Jiu Su remained noncommittal: "Report it if you want."
Shu Qing sensed a hint of arrogance in those words. Although she didn't consider herself a law-abiding girl, she at least respected the law and her first reaction to any trouble was to call the police, rather than resorting to a "fight to the death" approach.
But she also knew that she was an outsider in these matters and had no intention of interfering with Jiu Su's plans. At most, she would go to the authorities to file a record, and fortunately, he did not object.
She continued, "So what can we do? How can we cooperate with you?"
Jiu Su shook her head and said, "You all stay in the photo studio and just be careful in everything you do."
From this moment forward, it is tantamount to wartime.
This meant they shouldn't run around during this time and should stay together, which Shu Qing understood and agreed to. She suddenly thought, "My equipment should be useful, right? I see you setting up the array by hand and it looks quite strenuous; should I bring it all to the photo studio?"
Jiu Su's lips were still pale. Her words were so reasonable that he couldn't refute them. He remained silent for a moment, unable to find a good excuse to refuse, so he could only say, "Okay."
"Then I'll go get it right away." Feeling reassured that her bad luck had been averted, Shu Qing immediately sprang into action, heading inside. "Wait for me to bring Xiao Hong!"
"..." Jiu Su stopped her, "Wait another hour."
Shu Qing asked, puzzled.
"It will be an auspicious time in an hour, making it safer to go out."
Shu Qing stared at him for a couple of seconds. Just as Jiu Su was about to add something, she suddenly smiled and nodded as if she had no doubt whatsoever. Seeing Jiu Su turn to leave, she even tried to stop her, saying, "Let's go together at the auspicious time?"
"No, thank you," Jiu Su smiled at her, "I have other things to do."
Qi Yun also asked, "Where are you going? Should I have the driver take you? There's no traffic at this time, an hour should be enough for a round trip."
This time, Jiu Su didn't even bother with an excuse; he simply shook his head and refused. In the blink of an eye, he had already walked to the door and bent down to change his shoes. As he moved, his trouser leg accidentally rolled up halfway, revealing a ring of bloody wounds around his ankle.
His clothes, pants, and shoes were all pure white, and even his skin was snow-white. The scars around his feet were particularly noticeable, and Shu Qing saw them at a glance. She asked with concern, "What happened to your feet?"
Jiu Su immediately put down her clothes and said only, "It's nothing."
Shu Qing stared at him suspiciously, so Jiu Su had no choice but to lift her clothes up a little more, revealing a red string tied around her ankle for her birth year.
So, she must have misread it?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
