Chapter 17 This Is Life
May 18, Saturday.
Although it’s still considered late spring, there is already an early summer feeling, with the entire city shrouded in bright sunlight and humidity.
As a former soldier, even someone as inexperienced as Jiang Yao, who has only one year of military service, maintained a disciplined and organized approach to internal affairs.
For the past few days, the bedroom the two shared had remained relatively tidy, but it was uncertain how long this self-discipline could last as time passed.
In the small living room, Jiang Yan wore a serious expression, holding her phone and filming the back-and-forth motions of a light golden-haired girl.
When the girl finally stopped walking, Jiang Yan, with a look of helplessness, put down her phone and threw a crumpled piece of paper that hit Jiang Yao’s forehead.
“Hey! What’s wrong with me now?!”
Dressed in a dress and rubbing her forehead, Jiang Yao looked indignant.
“Watch the video and see how you walk. Why do you sway your hips like that? Are you a streetwalker?!”
Jiang Yan covered her face in frustration, feeling too exhausted to say much more: “You’ve been practicing for days, and you’re getting worse. Can’t you be more natural? Watching those character designs in anime all day, you can’t bring that into reality!”
“This part is wrong, and that part is wrong! Brother, if this continues, I might really forget how to walk! Please, just stop this nonsense, okay?!”
The light golden-haired girl angrily sat down on a chair, her flushed face damp with sweat, tugging at the hem of her dress as if using it as a fan to cool herself.
Without speaking, Jiang Yan walked to the center of the living room, slowly pacing back and forth a couple of times. Jiang Yao turned her head, quietly observing, slowly becoming mesmerized.
Before her, Jiang Yan was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and wearing flat sandals, looking quite ordinary.
With a slight sway, her arm bent in front of her holding the phone, her alternating steps moved her body gracefully, radiating a pure elegance reminiscent of a college girl walking along a forest path to her dormitory.
“Brother… you…”
Jiang Yao opened her mouth several times but could not express her inner shock.
“Relax, be natural. Our current identities provide the best protection; don’t stand out in others’ views, understand?”
Jiang Yan smiled and returned to the sofa, her tone calm but with hints of pride and a subtle blush on her face.
“That’s easy to say, but… I feel like that will draw more attention to you!”
After a long moment of thought, Jiang Yao managed to squeeze out this sentence.
“……”
This time, it was Jiang Yan who felt a bit speechless, slowly furrowing her brow as if she was summarizing some information.
“Well, everyone has to adapt… By the way, how come your pheromone self-control is still so poor after all this time? You can’t be jumping around every time, it makes your pheromone release fluctuate easily.”
Jiang Yan shook off some inexplicable thoughts that had popped into her head and returned to her usual serious expression: “More than once, even from half a street away, I could sense your presence. Not to mention the dangers; God knows how many black blood clans in City C are hunting their kind. We can’t let something like being stalked and ambushed by a black blood clan happen again.”
“What can I do? Controlling pheromones is something that only servants of upper rank and above can manage. Right now, I’m not even triggering boiling blood, at most I’m a high-level blood servant. I can’t compare to you and Huang Gu. Besides, if mastering this were easy, external hormone suppressants wouldn’t be so precious.”
Jiang Yao kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot to the fridge, grabbing a soda. She gulped it down, hiccupping while still looking quite aggrieved.
Sigh, this little Yao always gives up at the first sign of trouble, just like when she was little… However, she managed to stick with all the training, which is quite unimaginable.
“Little Yao, today I want to talk to you again about…”
Jiang Yan sighed, gathered her words for several seconds, and sat Jiang Yao down on the sofa, speaking earnestly: “I am Jiang Yan, you are Jiang Yao. I am your sister, you are my sister; this must be deeply ingrained in our bones! We need to change our previous habits, behaviors, and our way of life. Otherwise, countless visible details could lead to a serious accumulation of risks.”
Saying this, Jiang Yan stood up, turned to Gu Yao, who had been silent, with a hint of bitterness in her cold demeanor: “Since that night we escaped the underground factory, we’re no longer soldiers; at this point, we’re not even sure if we are human.”
“Brother, I know you mean well for me…”
“What do you call me?”
“…Sister? Uh, what a creepy feeling! I have goosebumps!”
…
After lunch, under the blazing sun, Jiang Yan and Jiang Yao strolled through the old street behind their community, searching for a storefront.
This was a plan they had discussed a few days earlier: to open a cold snack shop. On hot summer nights, they would set up a stall selling fried snails, cold noodles, marinated dishes, and beer to earn some extra income.
After all, neither of them had a stable source of income now. The last blood transaction made them realize how important money remained for the blood clan. This is the model of production and life in human society that even blood clans cannot escape.
Cold snacks, especially in S Province, and particularly in City C, are a popular street food culture that can operate smoothly almost year-round except in winter.
During the hot summer, residents with poor appetites might occasionally sit down for a bit while enjoying the cool breeze, indulging in some spicy and salty snacks to stimulate their appetite. Young people prefer to gather in groups, eating, drinking, and chatting in an open-air setting, building relationships.
This densely populated old street area is loved by locals for its shopping habit in summer.
The area consists of aged and rundown buildings, but the cheap rent naturally attracts many young workers from out of town, and this kind of late-night lifestyle is particularly vibrant, making opening a cold snack shop the best choice.
The former director, Grandma Jiang, had also brought older children from the welfare home to do similar things on the streets near the welfare home to fill the funding gap. Jiang Yan had been familiar with the food processing techniques for cold snacks since childhood, but after enlisting in the military after graduating from high school, those skills had gradually been set aside.
Several shops were currently up for lease, making Jiang Yao feel overwhelmed by the choices and a bit anxious. Jiang Yan, however, was much calmer, diligently taking notes on the surrounding details.
After several days of observing different times, Jiang Yan had basically settled on a location for the shop.
At the corner of the street, the store has a wide sidewalk in front, and as long as they don’t attract too much attention from the city management, they can put out several extra tables.
Diagonally across the street, there is a small, open all-day park with public restrooms, which is less than a three-minute walk away.
A few minutes’ walk can lead to a major road, and a turn at the intersection leads to a commercial complex’s underground parking garage, making it convenient for parking.
At least within two hundred meters on either side, there are no specialized beverage shops to create significant competition for the store’s drink sales.
Adjacent to the left and right are a beauty salon and an auto repair shop, neither of which poses competition. In fact, the nature of their businesses might encourage young people to linger longer, increasing the visibility traffic to their store and making it easier to establish a coordinate reference.
After trying out multiple time slots for ride-hailing or taxis, the efficiency of getting a ride was also high.
Jiang Yan found no trace of hidden blood clans in any neighborhood or streets within at least a one-and-a-half-kilometer radius. At least, among the blood clans, she did not sense the presence of the majority of blood servants or attendants.
If any high-level blood clans existed, they would be beyond her perceptive abilities. After all, constantly fearing both the tiger and the wolf cannot last long; even just the monthly blood procurement expenses weigh heavily on her mind.
In summary, Jiang Yan was thoroughly satisfied with her chosen location. Most importantly, the store she liked used to be a noodle house, so the kitchen and storage areas for ingredients required almost no additional investment; she could just change the sign, saving quite a bit of money.
She quickly contacted the person leasing the shop, and after some simple negotiations, Jiang Yan successfully acquired the store, even inheriting their operating procedures. Soon, she just needed to change a few registration details, and they could open directly.
However, the remaining funds in Jiang Yan’s hands quickly shrank to less than forty thousand.
…
In the newly renamed shop, “Zero Snacks Cold Snacks,” the two girls were preparing for the opening.
“Sister, we’re opening in two days; I’m feeling a bit nervous.”
While tidying up various tables and chairs in the shop, Jiang Yao’s expression looked somewhat anxious. “What if the business doesn’t do well? Just like ten tables, and those eating cold snacks might only spend a few tens of dollars and sit for hours; can we make enough money?!”
“You used to be a food delivery rider; is there a lot of takeout business in summer for this kind of business?”
Jiang Yan replied unhurriedly, cleaning the accumulated grime in the kitchen while setting up the new materials rack.
“Seems that way… Not to mention summer; even in winter, I often had to run around delivering fried snails and marinated dishes in the middle of the night, especially those young ladies who just started working, who are especially picky! I hated it so much that I quit; it was exhausting.”
Jiang Yao thought about her own experience as a delivery rider and suddenly realized.
“Just you wait! Over a decade ago, you could still catch little fish and snails from the rivers within the city. Director Jiang was always praising my fried snails! I remember you’ve eaten my cooking before, right?”
Jiang Yan rarely showed such a proud and confident expression, while Jiang Yao nodded vigorously like a chick pecking at rice, her mouth watering.
