Right after that, Jiang Shu dialed Su Xiaoou’s number, "Hello? Su Xiaoou, there’s a gathering later, are you coming?"
"Huh?" Su Xiaoou sounded puzzled, "What gathering?"
"Sister i said it’s just a casual get-together at the theater," Jiang Shu continued. "Why don’t you join us? It’ll save from cooking dinner."
"This kind of gathering... apprentices aren’t supposed to co," Su Xiaoou said with a sigh.
"Why not?" Jiang Shu didn’t understand.
Su Xiaoou sighed again. This guy was still so childishly adorable, but she patiently explained, "There are too many apprentices, and they’re not presentable for the stage."
"Who says?" Jiang Shu got anxious, if Su Xiaoou didn’t go, wouldn’t he be left alone there?
With his personality, he would probably end up hanging by himself in a corner. A gathering where one feels "without a single acquaintance" was worse than not going at all.
Ding: Human joys and sorrows do not communicate. I only find them noisy.
"No, you have to co," Jiang Shu used a childlike threat, "If you don’t co, I’ll give you extra howork."
Su Xiaoou: "..."
"Fine, fine, fine." She felt helpless. She hadn’t even fully mastered the previous techniques, and now extra howork, be a human being, Jiang Shu.
At 5:50 in the evening, Su Xiaoou popped her head into the Magic House to find Jiang Shu.
"Let’s go," Jiang Shu said, taking her downstairs to the small theater.
The Black Currant Theater covered a large area, at least much bigger than New Moon Hall, occupying nearly one hectare of land.
The theater included a large opera house with around two thousand one hundred seats and a smaller concert hall that could accommodate over seven hundred people.
Additionally, there were rehearsal rooms, reception halls, exhibition halls, recording studios, a drama library, and various ancillary rooms (such as restaurants, kiosks, etc.) totaling over a hundred rooms, where four to five thousand people could be active simultaneously.
However, reality was less rosy than one might imagine.
Not long after the Black Currant Theater was established, before it could break even, Lonely City’s Entertainnt Series began to lean towards the Screen System, and the theater series slowly declined.
The Screen System generated money faster, had higher economic benefits, and there was no need to bother practicing skills, as there would always be fans to support them. Therefore, the influx of talent into the theater series had also been diminishing over the years. Nowadays, in Black Currant, a T3-class perforr like Maggie was considered quite an excellent dancer.
Fortunately, the theater had always used an apprenticeship system, ensuring the basic training of talent and preventing complete decay.
And Black Currant was just barely maintaining developnt, holding the pass mark for basic needs.
"Jiang Shu, take a seat inside," Sister i stood at the entrance of the small concert hall, welcoming the theater’s resident perforrs.
As a board mber, Sister i was quite capable and amicable.
"Sure," Jiang Shu responded with a smile.
"Auntie... Sister i, hello!" Su Xiaoou initially called her "Auntie" but was covertly nudged by Jiang Shu and imdiately corrected herself.
Sister i looked at Su Xiaoou, who had grown to Kirie’s height, with a beaming smile, "Xiaoou, your teacher is a real money tree. You must learn all his skills."
"Right," Su Xiaoou nodded obediently, following Jiang Shu into the concert hall.
Sister i watched their receding figures and marveled to herself. She hadn’t expected the once unruly Su Xiaoou to beco so well-behaved.
After that incident, Xiaoou had always been reclusive. While others beca apprentices at thirteen or fourteen, she preferred to be wild rather than to settle down and seriously learn a skill. It was a mystery what she busied herself with every day.
But now, she seed to be on the right track.
—
Inside the concert hall.
Simple cordiality.
Everyone was an adult, with statuses fairly even, so there were no occurrences of belittling, isolating, or provoking each other.
Instead, there was so heckling for Jiang Shu to perform a few magic tricks.
Jiang Shu only smiled and waved his hand, saying, "You’ve got to buy tickets."
What a joke, to waste the chance of a Derivative Entry on these twenty-so spectators would be way too extravagant.
After that, he and Su Xiaoou hid in a corner, eating and drinking their fill before each went ho to sleep.
---
Wearing a white suit and white leather shoes, untainted by a speck of dust.
In the Seventh District, F Zone, on Twisting Street, a man in a suit took deliberate steps toward a dance hall known as "Troublemaker."
In his left hand, he held an electronic drawing pad; in his right, he twirled an electronic pen—without exception, all were white.
"Painter" was his sobriquet.
Huangwu Company was his client.
Black Fire Gang, this neighboring street’s largest underworld organization, managed the area’s dance halls and bars. Few knew that its superior was Huangwu Company, a subsidiary of Huang Kong Group.
Grey inco had long been a major source of revenue for Lonely City. The Three Major Groups all engaged in such activities; outwardly distinct from the gangs, yet secretly connected by lingering ties.
But starting two months ago, the Black Fire Gang was instructed to clandestinely collect all the Black Silver found outside, delivering it every month.
The number two man, Jabba, was in charge of this task.
However, this month he obviously couldn’t make the delivery on ti, so the rcenary "Painter" was called in.
The door to "Troublemaker" was firmly shut, as seen from the street, an abrupt black gap erged amidst the continuous stream of colorful lights.
Painter furrowed his brow. Why would the dance hall be closed this late at night?
The whole of Twisting Street was shirking its only job!
He glanced around at the bustling crowd and then slipped into a small alley on the side.
The alley was as damp as ever, glittering with dazzling lights.
Painter found the wall belonging to the dance hall, took two steps back, and morized its features.
Then he rapidly sketched the entire scene on his electronic drawing pad, generating an exact replica of reality—except he added a door to the wall.
Tapping the "√" on his drawing pad, a door similarly appeared on the real wall.
He stepped forward and opened the door.
Inside the dance hall, silence reigned. Only a few dim lights shone in the hall. No one had cleaned up the bottles and cans scattered on the floor.
A quiet chaos.
This was a scene one might expect at dawn, not deep in the night.
Painter felt like dipping his foot in, but the spilled liquor and filth on the floor dissuaded him from this idea.
Instead, he took out his pen again and recreated the scene; this ti, he omitted the debris on the floor, replacing it with clean, white porcelain tiles.
The hall’s litter vanished in an instant, and the dance hall was suddenly spotless.
He nodded satisfactorily, turned toward the second floor, walked up the spiral staircase, and knocked on the office door in the corner from mory.
"Co in," a voice from the office responded.
Painter walked into the office, thankfully not dirty or ssy, sparing him from wasting Black Silver on cleaning.
Inside the office was an unfamiliar face, not the Jabba he had t before. This strange man bore a rainbow-colored sea urchin style hairdo, towering sky-high.
But Painter didn’t care about this; he simply stated, "Black Silver."
"Black Silver?" The unfamiliar man seed to rember sothing. "Jabba is dead, and the Black Silver is gone."
"The police have thoroughly investigated this place; the boss has also run off," he continued, his expression utterly deflated.
"Then why are you still here?" Painter inquired curiously. Perhaps all the ss had been left to this poor guy.
"The boss said soone would co to ."
"He told to tell you, it was the work of Deception Group."
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