Spare me, My Majesty

Chapter 1 Temple Fair

     It was February, and the sunset in winter spread across the sky like a red carpet. The pedestrians were all smiling. Today is the third day of the New Year, which is an ideal time to visit temple fairs. There are many places for holding temple fairs in this small city.

"Zhou Shu, I want to eat sugar cane with walnuts." A little girl pulled at Zhou Shu's sleeve in front of her, pointing to the roadside sugar cane cart through the glass window. She could see that the sugar canes inside were crystal clear. The little girl was very young, probably only ten years old or so. She wore white down jackets without any stains.

"Zhou Shu, you've changed! You said yesterday that there would be enough money for my high school tuition!" Zhou Shu said angrily.

"Zhou Shu has changed! You said last night that your high school tuition will be more than enough!" Zhou Xiaoyu calmly replied.

Zhou Shu's face turned black immediately: "Who taught you? Don't watch too much romantic soap operas!"

Then he calculated again and sighed helplessly towards the owner of the sugar cane cart: "Boss, how much does it cost for one with walnuts?"

"Five yuan, give me a stick for my sister," the boss smiled happily, he had already seen who wanted to eat sugar cane.

Five yuan... really expensive. Zhou Shu took out a wrinkled 10-yuan bill from his pocket and handed it over to the boss, then the boss gave him five yuan back. Sugar cane was finally obtained. Each sugar cane contained seven pieces of walnut fruit. When Zhou Shu handed them to Zhou Xiaoyu, she said: "I'll have five, and leave two for you!"

Zhou Shu laughed and patted Zhou Xiaoyu on the head: "Just take one."

At this age, Zhou Xiaoyu's height reached Zhou Shu's waist. Zhou Shu just needed to stretch out his hand to touch her head.

"Okay." Zhou Xiaoyu didn't care either. Her clean face and red lips made her look like a porcelain doll in winter.

At this moment, several young people walked past and were still discussing something excitingly: "Have you seen the news online yesterday? It says that when an old man died, his soul could be seen by others, but the news was deleted soon after."

Zhou Shu looked at Zhou Xiaoyu eating sugar cane while making noises and muttered in his heart: Recently, such strange events have been reported more frequently. Some days ago, there were also news about children emitting blue light and men lifting objects weighing up to 2000 pounds. He did not know whether these news were fake or what happened to those people after they were deleted. There were some videos as well, such as someone walking around and the street lights suddenly flickering. They seemed quite scary. There was also a video showing that a woman disappeared mysteriously. Another video showed bystanders filming a person swallowing clouds and mist on top of a mountain. What was consistent was that these videos eventually disappeared.

Zhou Shu looked at the sky and felt that something might happen, but he didn't know what. Was there really such amazing things in the world? But wouldn't it be strange if these things appeared slowly after living for seventeen years? What's going on? It seems that life is running off track!

"Let's go, let's watch acrobatics." Zhou Shu took out the ticket and looked at it: "There are twenty minutes left, saying that this year's temple fair specially invited an acrobatic troupe, and there will be fire performance."

At this time, Zhou Xiaoyu had finished eating six sugar canes and was satisfied to hand over the sugar cane sticks and the remaining piece of sugar cane to Zhou Shu: "It tastes good!"

"Eater," Zhou Shu murmured.

This year's acrobatics was indeed unique, and it even had a bit of magic show flavor. The organizers set up a huge stage, and below were crowds of people. Zhou Shu felt that there was a festive atmosphere.

The first few performances weren't interesting, just tricks like balancing big jars and throwing knives. However, the final program was different. Just one young man came on stage to perform. As soon as he started, flames suddenly erupted all over his body.

Zhou Shu was shocked: My God, isn't this kind of performance safe? Won't he die?

"Zhou Shu, Zhou Shu, let me ride on your neck to watch," Zhou Xiaoyu shouted.

Zhou Shu reluctantly: "I can't lift you."

Zhou Shu looks thin and pale, and his complexion is not normal. This is not because he got sick recently, but because he has always been weak since childhood. He secretly bought Sixi Dihuang Wan and ate it for a period of time, but unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't feel any obvious effect. Still very weak... At least it proves that being weak is not caused by kidney problems, which is comforting.

Zhou Shu brought Zhou Xiaoyu forward to push through the crowd and stood closer to the stage. That's when the performer suddenly extinguished the flame on his body, as if he could control it freely. So Zhou Shu thought that the price of this year's temple fair was worth it, watching acrobatics and magic shows together.

On the stage, the performer's body was covered with flames, sometimes he didn't wear any. The flames were red with a hint of blue, very dazzling. In the finale, the performer threw away the flames in his hands, as if shooting stars falling from the sky, but before reaching the audience, the flames suddenly disappeared.

All the audiences applauded and cheered, and the performer bowed and went backstage. Only Zhou Shu remained silent. Those dazzling flames were closest to Zhou Shu. When the fireball approached, Zhou Shu suddenly felt a palpitation in his chest, that feeling... Like long separation reunion. How come?

Zhou Shu was puzzled, such feelings were real enough to make him doubtless.

"Zhou Shu, Zhou Shu, I want to learn this trick, bring me to find him to study acrobatics!" Zhou Xiaoyu grabbed Zhou Shu and ran to the backstage.

"You're a little girl, why do you want to learn acrobatics? This is their secret skill, can they teach you? And we don't have enough money to pay for their tuition fee!" Zhou Shu said helplessly, but he also wanted to see the performer, if possible, he wanted to ask him to demonstrate once more. Because Zhou Shu himself felt that something weird happened just now.

However, he just followed Zhou Xiaoyu to run to the backstage and saw four or five people wearing black windbreakers shoot a needle-like thing into the neck of the performer doing the fire performance. The performer fell to the ground motionless within seconds.

No one dared to speak among the acrobats, because the aura of these people was extremely chilling. The hidden muscles under the black windbreaker seemed to have great deterrent power.

Zhou Shu was stunned, what's wrong? The scene was a bit wrong!

But Zhou Xiaoyu didn't care at all: "Why should you beat him up?"

For Zhou Shu and Zhou Xiaoyu, it was normal to be scared shitless facing such bizarre situations. But Zhou Xiaoyu, who was usually stubborn, immediately became angry when seeing the performer lying on the ground.

Zhou Shu's face turned green, wanting to pull Zhou Xiaoyu and run away immediately, but one of the people in black windbreaker calmly said: "This temple fair doesn't apply for the fire performance permit, violating the safety regulations, so we need to take him away for investigation."

I'm speechless! Zhou Shu didn't believe their explanation at all. Even if it violated the safety regulations, shouldn't it be investigated by the organizer of the temple fair? Besides, who used anesthesia needles to knock people unconscious directly? Something fishy!