Cheng Jinyang was staring at them, and a young lady noticed his gaze and walked over, asking curiously, "What are you looking at? Aren't you afraid of me?"
"Why should I be afraid of you?" Cheng Jinyang was puzzled.
"Like this?" The young lady lowered her mask.
Hmm, big eyes, a straight nose; her natural beauty easily scored a 9, though not as stunning as Miss Wang. But calling her a "beauty" was definitely not an exaggeration.
"What's the matter with this?" Cheng Jinyang asked.
"Aren't you afraid?" she asked.
"No, why should I be?" he replied.
"You're really strange," the young lady said, pulling her mask back up with a complex expression. "Many people, upon seeing a beautiful girl, would run away in fear. But you're not afraid... If only everyone were like you."
"Why should anyone be afraid?" Cheng Jinyang asked, then realized, "Are people worried that you're a demon?"
"Just worried?" The young lady shrugged. "When renting a house, landlords refuse us upon seeing our appearance; when looking for a job, we always fail at the interview stage; sometimes, even when walking on the street, passersby panic and call the police, who come to question us and demand blood tests to confirm whether we're demons or not... Do you think this is just 'worry'?"
"This is discrimination," she said seriously. "Is being beautiful a sin?"
Cheng Jinyang pondered for a moment.
Indeed, as a low-level puppet demon, their appearance was identical to that of ordinary beautiful girls, making it impossible for ordinary people to distinguish them.
Encountering such narrow-minded "anti-beauty" phenomena was understandable.
However, for the affected group, it was truly humiliating to face such treatment just because they were good-looking.
"You're a pretty good person," as the procession was about to leave, the young lady handed him a piece of paper with her number hastily written on it.
"I'm Ye Ru. Here's my phone number. Let's chat when you're free."
She smiled faintly, pulled up her mask, and ran off lightly. Cheng Jinyang looked at the paper in his hand, feeling a mix of emotions.
He understood her intentions. Considering the current social atmosphere in Songjiang, it was probably difficult for a beautiful girl to find a good partner. After all, no one wanted to suddenly become someone's midnight snack.
But getting a stranger's number for the first time, and it happening in a dream, was frustrating!
Why couldn't it be in real life!
Cheng Jinyang turned his head regretfully, then heard a commotion from the store, followed by the angry departure of the girls.
"What! They dare to call us demons?" Chu Qingqing's anger still smoldering, "Just smashing his shop would be letting him off easy!"
"I'm calling the police! I'm calling the police!" came the frantic shouts from inside the shop.
"What's going on?" Cheng Jinyang asked.
"They're saying we're demons," Xing Yuanzhi said helplessly.
"How do we look like demons?" Chu Qingqing said indignantly, "Do we have claws? Arms shaped like hammers? Do we look like aliens? It's ridiculous!"
This girl had never seen puppets, so she instinctively thought demons only looked like weird-level demons.
Cheng Jinyang didn't bother explaining much to her, just said solemnly, "I found out earlier that at this time in Songjiang, it's different from our reality in Jiankang City."
"Because Jiankang City continuously receives refugees from the north, so people there have a better understanding of demons, at least they wouldn't mistake normal human women for puppets; but the situation is different in Songjiang, the citizens don't know how to distinguish demons, so they're very fearful of attractive women."
"No wonder that shopkeeper almost had a heart attack when he saw me," Miss Wang took out a small mirror, looked at her face, and sighed, "Actually demons are uglier, it's just these fools haven't seen them before."
Everyone: ...
"Not just this shop, I think we'll encounter similar situations in other shops too," Cheng Jinyang ignored her self-pity, and said in a low voice, "It's said that just walking on the street as a beautiful woman can make passersby panic and call the police."
"Is it that exaggerated?" Xing Yuanzhi frowned slightly.
Since the elites southern migration, most of the families with abilities had concentrated in Jiankang City, so the citizens of Jiankang always had a kind of honeyed confidence (we're the best under the Son of Heaven's feet), but looking at the citizens of Songjiang City, they seemed cautious and paranoid about everything.
"Yes," Cheng Jinyang looked at Yang Wangshu and had a sudden inspiration. "How about we buy masks to cover our faces?"
"That doesn't seem appropriate," Miss Qingqing commented sarcastically. "Four masked people walking down the street would attract more attention than four pretty girls."
"Hmm..." Cheng Jinyang pondered.
Although it was a dream, it was still more sensible to gather information before acting, especially since they mysteriously found themselves in what seemed to be Songjiang City 16 years ago.
"By the way!" He remembered the phone number that Ye Ru gave him before, and quickly took out a note from his trouser pocket, "I just met a beautiful girl passing by, you can call her and ask her how to deal with this situation."
"Oh! We only spent a short time in the store, and you're already hitting on another girl?" Chu Qingqing exclaimed in surprise, while Xing Yuanzhi frowned, seemingly upset.
"Look, Sister Ah Zhi, I knew this big pig's hoof had no moral integrity, he even wanted to hook up with girls in his dream..." Yang Wangshu sneered and typed on the keyboard, trying to continue to stir up trouble, but Cheng Jinyang snatched the mask away.
"Give it back! Give it back!" She closed her eyes in panic and cried out in tears. Xing Yuanzhi sighed, took back the mask, and placed it back on Xiao Wangshu's head, who breathed a sigh of relief and hid behind Sister Ah Zhi.
"Go ahead," Wang Wanrou took out her phone.
Cheng Jinyang took it and dialed the number written on the paper.
After a moment, the call connected, and he put it on speakerphone, saying, "Hello, is this Ye Ru?"
"Oh, it's you, little brother!" came the giggling voice from the other end, obviously recognizing him. "What's up? Daring to call a demon?"
"Not joking, there's a bit of a situation here," Cheng Jinyang told her about the incident of the girls being kicked out of the store. "...We don't know what to do now."
"You're from out of town, right?" Ye Ru sympathized. "Discrimination in the city has been getting worse lately. Here's what you can do: first, buy masks for them from the convenience store. It'll be better if you cover just their noses and mouths and leave their eyes visible."
"But many stores will ask customers to remove their masks, so it's not very convenient. Here's another idea: come to our area, at the intersection of Yuanshen Road and Shangcheng Road in Jiangdong District. The community and stores there are more friendly towards beautiful girls."
"Okay, thanks a lot." Cheng Jinyang hung up and told the girls, "Let's do this for now. Find a secluded corner, and I'll go buy masks for you guys."
He ran to the unmanned convenience store, bought three masks (Xiao Wangshu didn't need one because she wore a mask), then started walking back. Along the way, he suddenly realized:
"Wang Miss can create things out of thin air like Xiaoli, right? Why am I bothering to buy masks for them?"
Oh no, am I becoming a licking dog?!
So he stuffed the three masks back into his pocket and returned, saying, "I just went out and suddenly remembered that Wanrou, you can create things here, right? Just conjure up some masks for everyone."
"Conjure," Wang Wanrou said coldly. "Done."
"Where are they?" Cheng Jinyang asked.
"In your pocket."
Cheng Jinyang: ???
He grumpily took out the masks from his pocket. Xing Yuanzhi and Chu Qingqing were already laughing, while Yang Wangshu was puzzled and typed, "Wow, that's amazing! How did you do it? Sister Wanrou, I want to learn it too."
"It's very simple," Wang Wanrou said. "Just recite the spell I used on Cheng Jinyang."
"Oh, so the spell is 'conjure'?" Yang Wangshu suddenly realized, then shouted at Cheng Jinyang, "I want freshly baked meat floss buns, conjure!"
"I think you want peaches!" Cheng Jinyang angrily snatched her mask again.
So Yang Wangshu whimpered like a bullied little animal once again, crying out.