Ding dong. On a messy desk with various bottles and cans, a phone screen suddenly lights up. It’s a private message for Taobao merchants. The black-haired young man with his back to the desk didn’t hear it at all. He was completely absorbed with a dark green potion.
Reading the intricate runes on the ancient parchment in his hand, he muttered words, and his fingers atop the crucible emitted glowing white light. As his fingertips danced, a fluorescent magic array appeared and slowly sank into the potion.
Thump, thump, thump. Three little black mice jump out from under the table. One of them uses another’s shoulder to jump, with all its strength, onto the table. It then proceeds to pull the rest up. They then all gather in front of the phone screen. The middle mouse stretches out its claws to swipe the phone screen, skillfully opening Taobao. They see the new customer order and immediately become excited. Holding up the mobile phone, one rushes in front of the young man, telling him to quickly reply to the message.
Xia Ke’s eyes were still focused on the potion in the crucible. When he heard the squeaking of the little mouse, he waved his hand absentmindedly.
“Is it a new order? You guys help me reply first. I’ll deal with it later after I finish researching this potion.”
The mouse jumped in place twice in disapproval. “Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!”
This order totals one hundred yuan. This was enough for them to buy a week’s worth of instant noodles. Maybe they could even bite the bullet and buy a bag of potato chips!
“The magic ritual I learned can even make us rich overnight.”
Xia Ke drooped and he wrinkled his eyebrows in distress. “This book clearly states that this magic ritual can allow the caster to obtain a large amount of wealth, legally and reasonably, without disturbing the market and financial operations. But it’s been two days and no one has delivered us any money. Something must have gone wrong somewhere. I think it must be the potion’s ratio that’s wrong.”
The mouse stood upright and stared at Xia Ke with its arms akimbo. Seeing no reaction from him, it flicks its tail in frustration and runs to the corner of the table with the phone. The three mice met and discussed for a moment before opening the chat box in a serious manner and started typing away.
[Greetings this is Summer Wizard Shop. ]
When the little mouse on the right snapped his fingers, it also patted the middle mouse on the shoulder and squeaked something. The middle mouse tilted his head and thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. The pink and tender paws placed on the keyboard slowly entered one letter after another.
[Thank you for purchasing our divination service. What would you like to divine? Marriage, love, and career are all possible. ]
They all held their breath while staring at the screen and waited quietly for a while. Yet, the message didn’t change from unread to read. They looked at each other and decisively closed the Taobao page. They switched to the video software and clicked on a downloaded episode.
With the roar of a lion, Tom and Jerry appeared on the screen. The three little mice huddled together. Their eyes widened while holding each other’s paws, looking happily. From time to time, they laughed as the plot progressed.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Behind them, Xia Ke finally completed the last step of making the potion. Turning around to look at the little mice gleefully watching the show, a gentle smile flashed across his eyes. Rubbing his dry eyes, he continued to stare at the parchment in his hand.
“Ktf qbalbc lr olcf. Ktf lcmjcajalbc lr gluta abb.” Lf ajixr ab tlwrfio, “Vb kts vlvc’a atf glaeji wjulm kbgx? Ufgtjqr la’r yfmjerf atlr wjulm lr abb jcmlfca? Vb la’r cba mbwqjalyif klat wbvfgc rbmlfas?”
Ktf ilaaif wjulmljc ktb mbeiv yjgfis joobgv lcrajca cbbvifr joafg qjslcu gfca olcjiis jmmfqafv atf ojma atja tf kjr ralii qbbg. Lf rjvis rlutfv. Lf yfca vbkc ab abemt atf oeggs tfjvr bo atf wlmf. Lf vlvc’a mbcalcef ybatfglcu atfw kjamtlcu mjgabbcr jcv lcrafjv kjixfv ab atf ajyif ab bgujclhf atf erfv wjulm wjafgljir. Lf ibkfgfv tlr fsfr ktlif atlcxlcu jybea atlr qgbobecv wjulmji lrref, tlr olcufgalqr ecmbcrmlberis kglalcu jcv vgjklcu bc atf ajyif.
Bang, bang, bang. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Xia Ke was stunned. He stood up straight and peered out the door. When he moved here last year, he was broke and couldn’t afford to rent a decent house at all. Right now this rented house is in the basement of a dilapidated apartment with only two rooms in the whole house. The outer room was used for sleeping and eating while the inner room was for researching magic and conducting experiments.
Therefore he didn’t even have to walk. When he raised his head, he could see the large and simple iron door gate.
The little mice paused their cartoon and looked alertly, “Squeak?”
“Perhaps it’s the landlord?” Xia Ke guessed, his eyes widening in horror. “I’ve already paid this month’s rent. Why is he still coming to collect money? The rent won’t go up, right?”
He walked barefooted to the front door, muttering to himself. As he walked across the room, the potion bottles and jars around the house floated above the ground and flew to the inner room in a single-file line. The flying carpet rolled up and into the corner with a grumbling sound. Even the eccentric paintings on the walls only shook their frames in unwillingness before blending into the wall without leaving a trace. He was bored out of his mind to count the amount of moldy spots too.
In the blink of an eye, the magical atmosphere in the room disappeared completely. The only things remaining were a wooden bed, a shabby sofa, a wall clock with peeling paint, and two bare, blue plastic stools.
Xia Ke patted his face, confirming that the words “poor and pitiful” were written all over his face and finally, taking a deep breath, opening the door.
“I didn’t find a job this month. I really don’t have–” The rest of the words got stuck in his throat.
Xia Ke raised his head and stared at the handsome man in a suit and tie in front of him. He felt that the man looked familiar.
“Uh, hello. You are?”
“Hello, I’m Zhao Nao.”
The man’s face looked serious but his eyes were wandering and his fingertips were still tugging at the corners of his suit, signs of apprehension.
“Your legal husband.”
Xia Ke opened his mouth. As a magician, he was accustomed to living in seclusion. But with a beautiful face full of incomprehensibility, when he goes out occasionally he’ll be approached by others. With such a face, he’s even seen people who go straight to the point and ask him to go out. But knocking on the door and saying something about being a legal husband is really unheard of for him.
“Excuse me, what do you mean?” he asked as politely as possible.
Zhao Nao looked solemnly. Paired with his sharp black suit and the action of taking out a document from his coat pocket, for a moment Xia Ke felt that what he was about to show him was a crematorium permit.
“Our marriage certificate that says Zhao Nao and Xia Ke on May 1st, which was two days ago, is officially married,” he said.
This is worse than a crematorium license. Xia Ke’s mind buzzed and almost lost control of his magical power. His nails forcibly sank into the palm of his hand. The slight pain greatly woke him up and he also, belatedly, realized why he thought this man looked familiar.
Zhao Nao, isn’t this the top tycoon who ranked first on the rich list this year? The day before yesterday, there was a photo of him in the advertisement shown before the cartoon that the little mice watched!
Thinking back to what Zhao Nao said about their marriage being two days ago, Xia Ke quickly figured out what happened.
That ritual magic!
The first line of the parchment of that bastard ritual magic said it would be absolutely reasonable and legal, causing no harm to society!
“Ah, this, this,” Xia Ke’s mind went blank. He just wanted to go back to two days ago and shove himself to death in that crucible he used when working on the ritual magic.
He weakly asked, “Can we get a divorce?”
“We signed a prenuptial agreement,” Zhao Nao said quietly, “No matter what the reason for the divorce is, as long as we get divorced, you take away half of my assets.”
Xia Ke: “…”
That ritual magic is quite rigorous.
He took a deep breath. He was so ashamed that he could barely lift his head up. Carefully peeking at Zhao Nao’s reaction, he weakly suggested, “As long as we directly divorce and I sign an agreement to give it all up it’ll be fine right? Don’t worry, I will definitely cooperate. You can sign it anytime you want.”
Zhao Nao stared at him solemnly for a long time, before finally saying, “My current, total assets is 54 billion. With the prenuptial agreement, you can get 27 billion immediately. Do you really want to give up?”
Xia Ke swallowed a mouthful of saliva with difficulty. “No need, I, I’m not interested in money,” he said dryly without conscience. “Just divorce directly. Please find a lawyer to draw up an agreement.”
Zhao Nao said nothing and stayed silent for a while that Xia Ke was so nervous that he was at a loss for words. He suddenly took a step forward and walked sideways into Xia Ke’s house. The first thing he saw was simple furniture, half a box of piled up instant noodles, and cracked cement floors. Zhao Nao unconsciously frowned and looked at Xia Ke.
“Two mornings ago, when I woke up from my bed, I suddenly realized that I was married.”
His tone was calm and he told the facts straightforwardly but it made Xia Ke nervous and guilty. He almost wanted to crawl into the cracks on the floor. Of course, he could actually do that.
“The problem is, I can’t remember whom I married or even the slightest impression of their name and appearance. Initially, I also considered whether this was a conspiracy. Was it possible that a hacker had tampered with my file? But when I tracked down where we got married, there was indeed a wedding there that day. There were even a few blurry photos. Using technical means to restore it, our faces could be seen.
My secretary knows that I have a carefully hidden boyfriend. My friends have heard about this too, although most of them didn’t think that it wasn’t a deep relationship. I even asked the lawyer who drew up our prenuptial agreement and the priest at the wedding.They all have very clear memories of us…”
Xia Ke uneasily rubbed the ground with his feet. The more he listened to Zhao Nao’s narration, the more he wanted to strangle himself to death for using the ritual magic rashly.
It was indeed a complicated and powerful ritual magic. It could even add vague memories to the minds of the people involved. After a few days, he would have to visit them, one by one, to make sure they weren’t harmed mentally or physically.
Right now, the most critical question is how to explain this situation to Zhao Nao? The International Magic Alliance Agreement has clearly stipulated that a magician must never reveal his magical identity in front of ordinary people. His teacher once emphasized this repeatedly.
However…after sleeping, he somehow got a legal husband. The people around him even have a lot of weird memories. Apart from magic, what else could explain this kind of thing?
“Can I sign the divorce agreement now?” Xia Ke wrung his fingers, trying hard to restrain the urge to scream and run away. “I’m really sorry, I don’t want that prenuptial agreement either. Uh, how about——”
Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Zhao Nao’s sudden movement. Zhao Nao stretched out his hands, held onto Xia Ke’s shoulders, and approached him seriously. His voice was low and tight.
“Tell me the truth,” he paused and frowned, “Did I forget you because of amnesia?”
Xia Ke: “Eh?”
This is so interesting!!!!
Powerful magic must be used responsibly…responsible party must take responsibility…hahahahaha