May 18th, Saturday.
Though it could still only be considered late spring, it already had the feeling of sumr, with the entire city shrouded in blazing sun and humid stuffiness.
As forr soldiers, even Jiang Yao, who was just a greenhorn with only one year of military service, still maintained impeccable discipline.
Over the past few days, the bedroom they shared had maintained good cleanliness, though it was uncertain how long this self-discipline could be sustained as ti passed.
In the small living room, Jiang Yan wore a serious expression, holding up her phone to film the light golden-haired girl pacing back and forth in front of her.
When the other stopped, Jiang Yan helplessly put down her phone and threw a paper ball that hit Jiang Yao right in the forehead.
"Ow! What did I do wrong now!"
Wearing a dress and rubbing her forehead, Jiang Yao looked indignant.
"Look at the recording yourself, see how you walk. What are you swaying your butt for? Are you a streetwalker!?"
Jiang Yan covered her face irritably, feeling so tired she didn't even want to speak: "We've been practicing for several days, and you're getting worse. Can't you be more natural? Watching those ani female characters all the ti—you can't bring that into reality!"
"This is wrong, that's not right! Sis, if this keeps up, I really won't know how to walk anymore! Sis, please, stop with all this nitpicking, okay!"
The light golden-haired girl sat down huffily in a chair, her flushed face still bearing fresh sweat stains, directly tugging at the hem of her dress to fan herself.
Without speaking, Jiang Yan grabbed her phone and walked to the center of the living room, slowly walking back and forth twice. Jiang Yao turned her head and watched quietly and carefully, gradually becoming stunned.
Before her, Jiang Yan wore a T-shirt on top, jeans below, and flat sandals on her feet—still an ordinary outfit without any special features.
Her gently swaying figure, arms curved in front holding the phone, with the alternating steps naturally driving her body movents, she radiated a pure elegance like a lotus, just like a female college student walking along a forest path toward the dormitory.
"Sis... you..."
Jiang Yao opened her mouth several tis but couldn't express the shock in her heart.
"Relax yourself, be more natural. Our current identities are our best protection. Don't stand out in other people's sight, understand?"
Jiang Yan smiled and sat back on the sofa, her tone calm, but her face showed traces of pride and a faint blush.
"That's easy to say, but... I feel like this way more people will notice you!"
Jiang Yao thought for a long ti before squeezing out this sentence.
"..."
This ti it was Jiang Yan's turn to feel a bit at a loss, slowly frowning as if summarizing and reviewing so information.
"Well, everyone needs to adapt... By the way, after all this ti, why is your pheromone self-control ability still so poor? Don't be startled and surprised all the ti—it's particularly easy to cause pheromone release fluctuations."
Jiang Yan shook off the inexplicable thoughts that had appeared in her mind, her face returning to its usual serious expression: "Several tis, I could sense the aura you were emitting from half a street away. Not to ntion the Shadow Arrow Force—who knows how many Black Blood Clan mbers in C City specialize in hunting our kind. We can't have another incident like last ti when we were tracked and ambushed by Black Blood Clan mbers late at night."
"What can I do about it? Pheromone control is sothing only attendant level and above can begin to master. Right now, without activating blood-boiling, I'm at most an upper-class blood servant. How can I compare to you and Huang Gu? Besides, if these things were easy to master, external hormone suppressants wouldn't be so precious."
Jiang Yao kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot directly to the refrigerator, took out a bottle of soda, and gulped it down while burping and looking quite aggrieved.
Sigh, this Xiao Yao always gives up at the first sign of setback, just like when she was little... But she was actually able to persist through all the training content, which was quite unexpected.
"Xiao Yao, today I want to tell you again..."
Jiang Yan sighed, organized her words for dozens of seconds, pulled Jiang Yao to sit down on the sofa, and spoke seriously: "I am Jiang Yan, you are Jiang Yao. I am your older sister, you are my younger sister—these must be carved into our bones! We need to change our previous habits, behaviors, daily life. Otherwise, countless visible details could accumulate into fatal risks."
Speaking, Jiang Yan stood up and looked sideways at the silent Jiang Yao, her tone cold with a trace of bitterness: "From the night we escaped the underground factory, we stopped being soldiers, and now we might not even be human anymore."
"Bro, I know you're doing this for my own good..."
"What did you call ?"
"...Sister? Ugh, what a perverted feeling! I'm getting goosebumps!"
...
After lunch, braving the blazing sun, Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao strolled through the old street behind their residential complex, looking for storefronts.
This was a plan the two had discussed several days ago—to open a cold cup snack shop. During every hot night, they would set up a stall selling stir-fried snails, cold noodles, braised dishes, beer and the like to generate inco.
After all, the two currently had no stable source of inco, and their last blood transaction had shown them that money was still very important for the Blood Clan. This was the production, lifestyle, and civilizational operation mode of the entire human society—an era that even the Blood Clan couldn't escape.
Cold cups were an extrely popular street casual dining culture in S Province, especially C City, operating smoothly almost all year-round except in winter.
District residents with poor appetites during the hot sumr would occasionally sit here while cooling off and taking walks, having so spicy, fresh, and salty snacks to stimulate their stomachs. Young people especially liked gathering in groups of three to five, eating, drinking, and chatting in the open-air environnt to strengthen relationships.
This crowded old district had a high population density, and the local residents loved this kind of sumr consumption habit.
The district was full of old, small, run-down buildings. The cheap rent naturally attracted many young migrant workers to live here, making this nightlife similar to late-night snacks even more active. Opening a cold cup snack shop was already the optimal choice.
The forr director, Grandma Jiang, had once led the older children to do this kind of business on the streets near the orphanage to fill the funding gap. Jiang Yan had been familiar with cold cup shop food preparation techniques since childhood, but after graduating high school and joining the military, these skills had gradually been stored away.
Several storefronts currently for lease put Jiang Yao into choice paralysis, making her sowhat restless. Jiang Yan, however, was much calr, recording extensive details about the surrounding environnt in a notebook.
After several days of on-site reconnaissance at different tis, Jiang Yan had basically determined the location for opening the shop.
Located at a street corner, the storefront had spacious sidewalk space in front. As long as they didn't go too far and attract city managent interference, they could set up quite a few additional dining seats.
Diagonally across the street intersection was a small 24-hour recreational green park with public restrooms, reachable in less than three minutes on foot.
A few minutes' walk could reach a main street, and around the corner was an underground parking garage in a comrcial building, convenient for parking.
Within at least 200 ters to the left and right, there were no specialized beverage shops, so the shop's beverage sales wouldn't face too much competition.
The neighboring shops on either side were a beauty salon and an auto repair shop—no competition involved. Due to their business characteristics that made young people more likely to linger for long periods, they could actually increase visual attention traffic for their shop and provide easy landmark references.
Testing ride-hailing or taxi services at multiple ti periods showed high efficiency for getting rides.
Within at least a 1.5-kiloter radius of various residential complexes and streets around them, Jiang Yan had detected no aura of any hidden Blood Clan mbers. At least, she hadn't sensed any blood servants or attendants, who made up the absolute majority among the Blood Clan.
If there really were high-level Blood Clan mbers present, that would be beyond her perception range. After all, living in constant fear wasn't sustainable in the long term, and just the monthly blood procurent expenses weighed on their hearts like lead.
All things considered, Jiang Yan was completely satisfied with the location she had chosen. Most importantly, the storefront she had her eye on was originally a noodle shop, so the kitchen, back storage area for ingredients, and other hardware infrastructure required almost no additional investnt—they could just change the sign and save quite a bit of money.
After quickly contacting the person transferring the storefront lease and so simple negotiations, Jiang Yan successfully secured the shop and even inherited the previous owner's business permits. They would only need to update so registration information to open directly.
However, Jiang Yan's remaining funds quickly shrank to less than 40,000 yuan.
...
Inside the storefront now renad "Ling Zui'er Cold Cup," both girls were doing preparatory work before opening. (TN: Basically ans snacks.)
"Sister, we're opening in two days. I'm a bit nervous."
While organizing various tables and chairs in the store, Jiang Yao's expression was still sowhat anxious. "What if business is bad? With just these ten or so tables, and those cold cup custors might order a few dozen yuan worth and sit for several hours—can we make money!?"
"You used to be a delivery rider—are there many sumr food deliveries for this kind of business?"
Jiang Yan replied unhurriedly while cleaning years of accumulated gri in the kitchen and positioning newly ordered ingredient racks.
"That's true... Not just sumr, even in winter I'd often run to various residential complexes late at night delivering stir-fried snails and braised dishes, especially those young ladies who just started working—they're particularly picky and demanding! I hated that and quit because it was too exhausting."
Jiang Yao suddenly understood when she thought of her delivery riding experience.
"Just wait and see! Over ten years ago, you could still catch small fish and snails from those rivers in the city. My stir-fried snail skills earned praise even from Director Jiang! I rember you've eaten my cooking too, right?"
Jiang Yan rarely showed such a proud and confident expression, while Jiang Yao nodded repeatedly like a pecking chicken, her mouth watering.
Reviews
All reviews (0)