Seeing that she only brushed off Bailu's plan to make a huge splash with a couple of perfunctory remarks and showed not the slightest intention of following up, Sylvester could only think to himself that this was exactly what he expected of her.
If Lingsha were here, she would've blown up on the spot.
But other people's business aside, she at least had to handle her own work properly, right?
Sylvester said, "Alright then, Miss Secretary. Is your work finished? You didn't miss even one out of the ten Curios, did you?"
Upon hearing that, Qingque showed not the slightest trace of embarrassment. Instead, she gave a smug grin. "Heh-heh~"
She scooped up her stack of forms, flipped through them a few times, picked out several nonconsecutive pages, and presented them to Sylvester. "Take a look—how about that? I didn't miss a single one!"
Sylvester activated his [Eyes of True Sight], scanning through them carefully. Sure enough, amid the dense standard Luofu official handwritten script, he managed to find several lines of ink-blot-like text scattered across different positions. After painstakingly deciphering them, he said with genuine admiration, "Tsk. Other people write fly head regular script—you're even more impressive. Fly head cursive."
"And what's more, you remembered every Curio, yet somehow didn't notice Bailu leaving. That work attitude is really something else—meticulous to the extreme."
Not a shred of attention spared for anything outside of work.
"Too kind, too kind." Qingque accepted the comment modestly, as if she hadn't heard the subtext in Sylvester's words at all.
Sylvester nodded. That shameless look of yours really does have the same charm I had in my younger days.
"Shopkeeper Sylvester, I've already made my picks. These three."
While the two were bantering, Aventurine had already placed the three selected Trash Cans in front of them.
He rested his right hand over his heart. The thunderous beating echoed through his chest and vibrated against his palm. This was the feeling that only appeared in high-level gambles—risk and reward soaring together.
And with his luck, turning danger into safety had always been routine!
He opened the first trash can. Blue light burst forth, illuminating the smile at the corner of Aventurine's lips.
As expected—it's turning around!
Although it was only a blue Curio, he remembered this very clearly: this was the absolute peak of his last Trash Can opening!
Even if the boost it gave him wasn't as absurd as the golden Curio Bailu had gotten.
It still unmistakably declared that he had finally stepped out of the shadows of the past!
All that resentment of being unlucky—gone for good!
As the blue light faded, something shaped like a flashlight appeared in his hand.
"Shopkeeper Sylvester, what is this thing?"
Sylvester took the rather plain-looking plastic flashlight and smiled. "Its name is the [Magnifier]. Shine it on something, and it will enlarge it. Shine it again, and it'll return to its original size. Like this."
As he spoke, he aimed it at a plate of pastries on the counter and pressed the switch. A beam of light enveloped them, and sure enough, the plate began to swell at a visible rate.
Before long, what had once been a standard seven-inch dish had turned into a massive round platter as wide as the counter itself, and each pastry atop it had grown to the size of a watermelon.
Qingque, sprawled in the lounge area, let out an astonished cry when she saw this. "Good heavens, this is basically a wealth-doubling machine! If I bought a piece of gold, enlarged it, and sold it right away, wouldn't I achieve financial freedom on the spot?"
"And then I'd never have to work this soul-crushing job again, earning such pathetic pay?"
A trace of irrepressible envy appeared in Qingque's gaze as she looked at Aventurine.
These days, the rich just keep getting richer, while someone like me only keeps getting more work piled on.
Sylvester sized up Qingque, who was slumped on the sofa in a Ge You–style sprawl.
He compared her posture with what she'd just said in his mind.
Soul-crushing job? Pathetic pay? Those don't really apply to you, do they? Who goes to work lying down every day? What kind of job even is that?
Aventurine merely smiled and said, "Miss Qingque, you're overstating it. The Divination Commission of the Luofu is a highly confidential place. For your Master Diviner to appoint you to this task shows how much they value you."
Money wasn't especially tempting to him, but the ability to enlarge objects was more than enough to pique his interest.
After all, when it came to the original purpose behind the founding of the Interastral Peace Corporation, few people remembered it more clearly than he did.
A selfless rear guard, dedicating everything to the Aeon of Preservation!
And when it came down to the concrete work involved, that meant searching for materials to build walls for the Amber Lord.
If this item were used on those precious materials gathered with so much effort, what it could save would be far more than just money or time.
Thinking of this, Aventurine's excitement only grew. He pressed on, asking, "Shopkeeper Sylvester, does this Curio have any limits on the size of what it can affect?"
After all, the area covered by such a small flashlight was still rather limited.
"Not really. If you wanted to, you could even enlarge an ant to the size of a planet."
As he said this, Sylvester shook the flashlight slightly. "Of course, because of limited energy, that's not actually possible. The only real limitation of this flashlight is that its energy pool is too small, and it can only recharge slowly on its own."
As for that limitation, Aventurine didn't mind at all. "That's more than enough!"
For a blue Curio, its utility was already enormous.
Even if it couldn't be used without restraint, the value it brought was absolutely impossible to ignore.
Putting the Curio away, Aventurine shifted his gaze back to the other two Trash Cans at hand.
The first one had clearly been an auspicious start. What kind of Curios the next ones would yield was truly something to look forward to.
He gently stroked the lid, savoring the increasingly surging blood in his veins.
Poof!
Another lid popped open.
Aventurine watched with full confidence as the beam of light was about to burst forth from within.
Come on, Curio Trash Can. The gamble begins again!
As if responding to his thoughts, light surged outward.
Only, unlike what he'd imagined, it was a lush, verdant green.
Aventurine's eyelid twitched.
Had the gamble… failed?
A bottle of milky-white liquid materialized out of thin air in his palm. Aventurine tilted his head toward the counter.
Sylvester gave an extremely concise answer. "A Luofu specialty—[Mung Bean Soda]. A solid nine, maybe even ten out of ten in taste."
He hadn't tried it before, but just thinking about it told him this was nothing more than an ordinary beverage.
Still, Aventurine wasn't about to lose heart over it.
He shook his head and chuckled softly, comforting himself.
In gambling, there are always wins and losses. As long as you win it all back in the end, even if you lose catastrophically along the way, it's all just laying down a blood-red carpet for the final victory.
Huh? Did I just set a flag for myself?
At that thought, Aventurine's face actually turned a little green.
Looking at the next trash can beside him, his heart began to pound uneasily.
No way… it's not really going to come true, is it?
===BREAK===
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