I can't be a demon.

Chapter 2 How could I be a demon?

Not long after the Lesser Cold, heavy snow fell in Yanliang Town.

The streams outside the city have frozen over.

If the weather was suitable, Shen Lian would not have to stay in the pawnshop all day. He would occasionally go to the market in Yanliang Town to buy antiques and paintings. Now he naturally did not want to suffer in the cold weather.

As soon as the stove was turned on, half a bowl of warm rice wine was drunk.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be sleepy for half a day?
What surprised Shen Lian was that he seemed to be lucky recently, and the income from his daily pawnshop business was increasing day by day.

There were always a few antique paintings and calligraphy that brought experience every day. In just a few months, Chao Feng's career progress quietly reached 95.3%.

The only thing that was not going well was that Shen Hansheng had not returned home for a long time.

Heavy snow blocked the mountains and made the official road difficult to travel, so Shen Hansheng had no choice but to stay in Gaojia Town. He thought it would be good enough to reach Yanliang Town before the New Year.

Also because of the sudden drop in temperature, the pawn shop's business became deserted.

It was already high in the sky when Shen Lian staggered into the lobby of the pawnshop.

"Ha~"

He slept until the afternoon and had just eaten, then fell asleep as soon as he sat in the chair.

The guys were not surprised, but Mr. Wang was hesitant to talk.

Old Wang thought to himself, "Otherwise, let the shopkeeper find a marriage for Shen Lian. How can he be so eager to learn and make jokes every day?"

He glanced at the starling and said, "It's not as hardworking as a bird."

After a while, Shen Lian began to snore.

Whenever the stove was short of firewood, the waiters would diligently add more.

dong dong dong.

There was a sudden knock on the door.

The silence of the pawnshop was broken when Ding opened the half-open door.

A middle-aged man in tattered clothes walked into the pawnshop and looked at everyone in the room eagerly, with a look of satisfaction in his eyes.

"I...I'm here to pawn it."

He took out the scroll from his arms, the paper was worn and yellowed.

When the middle-aged man's fingers touched the scroll, he said to himself in panic: "My lady, don't be anxious, don't be anxious..."

The starling tilted his head and shouted, "Ah~ Who do you care to call me mother? Call me Master Ba!"

The middle-aged man waved his hand in disgust to drive away the starling, and the stench from his body spread.

Old Wang frowned slightly and exchanged a glance with the waiter in front of the shop. A waiter quietly came to within half a meter of the middle-aged man and waited.

He had no intention of sending anyone away immediately.

Mr. Wang has been in the pawnshop for decades and has seen all kinds of visitors, some of whom pretended to be crazy and stupid just to get more copper coins.

Since the middle-aged man did have antique calligraphy and paintings, he planned to take a look at them first.

Besides, who knows whether the beggar on the street was once a wealthy businessman?
The middle-aged man stroked the scroll gently, his pale face turning slightly rosy: "Excuse me, it's my wife who is too afraid of giving birth."

"If you're in the wrong place, you can just leave with the goods."

"No, no, no, I didn't come to the wrong place."

Old Wang glanced at the half-exposed scroll for a few moments and noticed that the scroll was quite old, perhaps two or three hundred years old.

Unfortunately, its integrity is too poor, and there are traces of rats gnawing on the edges of the paper. Even if it is an authentic work of a celebrity, it will not be sold for much money.

"Sir, do you want to be alive or dead?"

Live pawn means that although the goods are sold to the pawnshop, both parties have a written agreement and the goods can be redeemed within a certain period of time.

If it is a pawn, there is no redemption document, but the price can be higher.

"Huo Dang, of course it's Huo Dang, I will come to pick her up in a few days..."

The middle-aged man muttered something mysterious as he carefully handed over the scroll. His exposed skin was covered in frostbite, but there was not a speck of dirt on the scroll.

Shen Lian stretched and woke up.

He saw that the middle-aged man was indeed a lunatic, and his appearance was strangely familiar, so he turned around and asked the guys who were talking to each other next to him.

"Fugui, do you recognize him?"

Fugui gloated and said, "Go back to the young master. The one the master mentioned before was Li Duan, who lost all his fortune."

"No wonder, the ups and downs have made him hysterical."

Li Duan was originally a grain merchant in Yanliang Town, but the wealth accumulated by his ancestors through good deeds was squandered by him in just a few years.

Shen Hansheng once went to the Li family’s house to collect antique calligraphy and paintings.

The last time Shen Lian heard about Li Duan was half a year ago. He didn't expect that the latter was still alive and no one knew where he was living in the cold winter of December.

"I'll see."

Mr. Wang opened the scroll.

The painting shows a woman holding an oil umbrella. Her face cannot be seen clearly, but the proportions of her hands and feet are much larger than those of an ordinary person, revealing a sense of coldness.

"No seal, no signature, only painting skills, anyway..."

Before Mr. Wang could finish his words, Li Duan in front of him screamed for no reason.

"Ma'am, please spare me, I didn't mean to delay!!!"

Li Duan fell to his knees, banging his head against the floor tiles. His clothes were stained with blood, and he looked at the scroll with a horrified expression.

Old Wang felt a chill in his heart, and he felt that the woman in the painting was becoming clearer and clearer.

"Haha, woooo."

Li Duan rushed to the counter in one quick step.

When Ding saw this, he quickly held down Li Duan and said, "You came here to make a living, but you don't even know your own weight!"

Shen Lian was afraid that Li Duan would die in the pawnshop, so he quickly signaled the pawnbroker to leave.

“My wife, please don’t abandon me. I can’t live without you.” Li Duan’s face was covered in blood, with half of his nose bone exposed. He stroked the scroll tremblingly, with a trace of miserable smile on the corner of his mouth.

"Miss..."

He stared at the scroll, blood dripping from his forehead.

In Li Duan’s eyes, the woman in the painting lifted up her oil umbrella, her faceless head drooped, her abdomen was torn open, her sharp teeth were exposed, and her intestines turned into a tongue that poked out.

This is not an ordinary painting at all, it clearly contains man-eating hungry ghosts!!!
Shen Lian and the others only felt that Li Duan's hysteria was either getting worse or he was going to extort money from him. Little did they know that the scroll was a hot potato.

"My lady, I wish you would see me."

Li Duan's facial features were ferocious and his chest was heaving violently.

He knew that once his wife became interested, everyone in the pawn shop would be wiped out, and he recalled the bloody scene in his mind.

"My lady, I'll come pick you up in a few days!"

Li Duan was carried out of the pawnshop by Pawnbroker.

He fell flat on his face, and the few remaining teeth he had fell out, but his eyes were still fixed on the house. Hehe, that old court official would not be able to hold on and would die on the spot.

For the rest of us, two or three days at most.

"Anyone who has come into contact with my lady will, without exception..."

At this moment.

Shen Lian snatched the scroll and looked at it, habitually activating his wisdom eye.

"Well?!!"

Before Li Duan finished speaking, his expression became incredible. He heard his wife's shrill screams and his eardrum was immediately ruptured.

At the moment when the Wisdom Eye was used, Li Duan saw with horror that the woman in the painting was bathing in flames, and her beautiful skin was distorted bit by bit.

[Appraisal of the Ladies' Painting failed, experience gained from serving the emperor +0.1%]

[Appraisal of the Ladies' Painting failed, experience gained from serving the emperor +0.1%]

[Appraisal of the Ladies' Painting failed, experience gained from serving the emperor +0.1%]

.........

"What? There's still talk of failed appraisal? But it's good to have experience."

From a perspective invisible to ordinary people, as the Wisdom Eye was used again and again, the woman in the painting dissolved like butter, and then turned into light smoke and dust and returned to Shen Lian's mouth and nose.

Starlings circled overhead excitedly, their cries sharp and piercing.

"Impossible, is he a human or a ghost?!"

Li Duan trembled all over, and then he found that not only Shen Lian was extremely terrifying, but the mynah bird he raised also seemed to be transformed from a demon.

The starling's shadow cast on the wall was two or three meters long, and its outline looked like a ferocious beast on all fours, spewing out countless strange ghosts.

Even in the open beak, there were blood-red pupils staring at him.

"Ahhhhh!!!"

Li Duan suffered a mental breakdown and banged his head madly against the stones on the street.

The two guards were dumbfounded. Li Duan fell in a pool of blood and twitched a few times. In the end, only a gradually cooling corpse was left.

They hurried into the pawn shop, "Li Duan...he's dead!!"

Old Wang was still in shock when he found that the scroll was safe and sound in Shen Lian's hands. He muttered that it might be because of his old age and blurry eyes.

The corner of Shen Lian's mouth twitched, and he waved his hand and said, "Psychopath, this is the first time I've seen someone commit suicide. What are you standing there for? Report it to the authorities."

"Psycho, psycho, ah~"

Shen Lian was too lazy to pay attention to the starling and checked the career panel.

[Ladies' Painting Appraisal Successfully, Court Experience +5.1%]

[Portraits of Tang Dynasty Ladies, 483rd year]

[Chaofeng reaches 100.7%, martial arts points +1]

[Whether to promote to the profession of Nine-eared Chaofeng]

Shen Lian's mind moved, and the 100.7% experience value changed to 0.07%.

[Promoted from Chaofeng to Jiuer Chaofeng, martial arts points +10]

.........

【Shen Lian】

[Martial Arts: None]

【Points: 20】

[Occupation: Nine-eared Chaofeng (0.07%)]

【Related: Myna bird】

[Supernatural Power: Wisdom Eyes that See the Subtleties]

【A sharp eye for detail: can easily identify antique calligraphy and paintings that are less than a thousand years old. 】

"The experience gained from the second career promotion has increased tenfold!"

Shen Lian was speechless about the career panel.

"Also, what's the nonsense, Nine-eared Chaofeng? It sounds like a monster from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. What does Nine-eared Chaofeng have to do with treasure appraisal?"

"Mystical power is also extremely useless, it has only increased from 500 years to 1,000 years."

Shen Lian closed his career panel and glanced at the starling. The occasional clues revealed by the latter did not seem unusual at all in his eyes.

A breeze blew through the hall, and a few pages of Caotang Miscellaneous Notes on the counter were turned.

[It is said that a child cried for no reason and pointed to the locust tree at the entrance of the village and said that he saw the ghost of a woman who had just died on the tree branch.]

【According to ancient records, all ordinary people have cognitive impairments of varying degrees, and if they are occasionally touched, they can briefly see ghosts and monsters with their naked eyes.】

(End of this chapter)