The immortal is beside me

Chapter 3 Zhou Qing
"Hey, Xiao Zhou, I have good news for you."

In the subdistrict office, Zhou Qing, who was drinking tea and reading a newspaper, looked up and saw a middle-aged woman wearing a red armband standing in front of his workstation, her round face full of joy.

"After you guys finished your meal yesterday, Jia Jia came down and told me!"

The middle-aged woman raised her voice and said, "From what she said, she really likes you and is eager to arrange a meeting next time."

She spoke excitedly, but Zhou Qing, the person involved, didn't say anything.

He slowly swallowed the tea in his mouth and smiled, "Really? When we were having dinner together, she didn't seem to be in a hurry."

"Hey, you kid, you're still acting cute after getting the advantage, right?"

The middle-aged woman drummed her fingers on the desk. "My niece is no pushover. She's very picky and can find fault with even the smallest details. She's actually lowered herself to come find you this time. This is a golden opportunity. You have to seize it."

She kept chattering away, as excited as if the matchmaker had awarded her a prize. Zhou Qing didn't interrupt her, but responded with some "hmm" and "ah" sounds and continued with the work at hand.

The woman's name is Qin Hongmei. She has been working in the community service center of this street office for more than ten years and can be considered a senior in the unit.

It stands to reason that after working for more than ten years without being promoted to any position, this senior feels a bit aggrieved. However, Qin Hongmei has never had much ambition, and now that she is approaching retirement, she has no intention of promotion.

Compared to her seniors, she is more like the big sister in the office, and her biggest hobby is to introduce potential partners to new employees.

Originally, the subdistrict office was primarily staffed by middle-aged and elderly people, and Qin Hongmei's matchmaking skills were nowhere to be found. This year, three single young people finally arrived at the office, and upon their arrival, she immediately conducted a thorough review.

The first one is called Fu Chenghao, who was selected as an agent. He is tall and strong, with a handsome appearance.

Qin Hongmei first met him not at a new employee induction ceremony, but in a news report titled "Why did a 985 master's degree holder join the subdistrict office?", which was a trending topic on Weibo at the time.

Some people lament the inflation of academic qualifications, some complain about the unfair environment, but the old hands know it all clearly.

For a highly educated talent like Fu Chenghao, coming to the community service center is just to accumulate grassroots experience. Even though he is just a small clerk now, in three to five years at most, he will use this experience to make a big leap in his official career.

To sum it up in one sentence, it is a blue chip stock with "awesome" written all over it.

The second one is called Li Jie. Compared with the first one, he has average appearance, average education and average ability, but he has one very outstanding advantage - he owns seven houses.

No one knows why a guy like him would come to work at the street office. Maybe he just picked a class to gain some social experience, or maybe his family arranged for him to have a basic professional background... Qin Hongmei didn't care about these things. She was just curious about when this rich son-in-law would be wooed ashore.

One is a blue chip stock, the other is a rich second-generation. Qin Hongmei has the WeChat accounts of these two generals. If she gets help from Qin Qiong Jingde, she will be unprecedentedly enthusiastic for a while, and think that there is no red line that she cannot pull - but then she fails on the high ground of Qin Jiajia.

Seeing that two blind dates had failed, Qin Hongmei was even more anxious than her niece. She looked around and found that Zhou Qing was the only one around her who met the requirements for the introduction.

Compared to the two previous Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragons, this one's resume seemed a bit too down-to-earth. Qin Hongmei had originally recommended him as a last-ditch effort, but unexpectedly, the difficult-to-conquer high ground suddenly opened its arms and, not only did it take the initiative to chat with the man at first, but now it even went to his house.

If she hadn't worked with Zhou Qing for several months and had some understanding of his temperament, Qin Hongmei would have suspected that he had given her niece some kind of magic potion. "Xiao Zhou, you have to think about this seriously. This is not a trivial matter."

Qin Hongmei said earnestly, "You've seen it all. Jiajia is beautiful, well-educated, and has a regular job. If you miss this opportunity, you'll never see such a good girl again."

She has always had a loud voice, and now with her excitement, her voice was even more penetrating. Even Fu Chenghao and Li Jie, who were sitting next to her, couldn't help but turn their heads and look over here.

"What? Is that the Qin Jiajia we mentioned earlier? Was she captured by Brother Zhou?"

Li Jie was amazed at his workstation, his words tinged with sourness: "That woman is really pretty, but she's also really hard to deal with. I gave her a red envelope, but she returned it all. How did you manage that, Brother Zhou?"

"Most girls like this don't care about money. They're more interested in the feeling and the emotional value." Fu Chenghao calmly analyzed, "I can't play this game. Maybe Brother Zhou is good at it."

"Hey! Brother Fu, what are you talking about? You have such a good face and graduated from a prestigious university. There are so many girls chasing after you. What's the point of talking about emotional value?"

Li Jie waved his hand: "But don't say it, Brother Zhou is really good at hiding his talents! At this rate, we will be able to eat your wedding candy in a few days."

In the office, people were chatting with each other, and the conversation became more and more lively. The topic was winding and flowing. Zhou Qing was drinking tea and watching. The warm tea gave off a slightly bitter fragrance when he drank it.

In his impression, matters between men and women are an unspoken taboo among mortals, and things like "pursuit" are even more not allowed to be discussed in public. If someone talks about this outside the house, the level of stimulation will be comparable to playing a third-level movie today, and outsiders will point fingers at him and say it is impolite.

He didn't expect that after hundreds of years, mortals today are already talking about love in public. The great changes in the world really surprised him.

However, he did not object to this.

Having been a cultivator for most of his life, he has seen countless outstanding people and spiritual beings, but scenes like this one full of the flavor of the market are rare in the world of immortal cultivation. He likes this kind of worldly atmosphere that belongs to mortals.

In a marginal, idle job like this, it's common to have no real work to do all day. Chatting, drinking tea, reading the newspaper, and then it's afternoon.

When the wall clock struck half past four, the rustling of packing up began to fill the office. As soon as five o'clock passed, people leaving get off work immediately poured out of the office from all exits, running in all directions like sheep freed from their shepherd dogs.

Zhou Qing put away his thermos and blended into the crowd as he left the office. He walked out the side door and was greeted by a verdant residential street lined with willows and ginkgo trees.

A bamboo birdcage hung on the tree closest to the office. Seeing him approach, the brown-gold bird in the cage immediately flapped its wings, as if to greet him.

"Congratulations on getting rich! Congratulations on getting rich!" He spoke in a clear and loud voice.

"You are a thrush, don't try to imitate those mynah birds in the yard."

He tapped the bird on the head through the cage and took the cage down from the tree.

It’s almost time to go bird walking.

(End of this chapter)