◎Newbie Village Missions Start with the Weather Forecast◎
Dragging two copies of the contract that were countless times larger than its own body, it looked rather comical. Zhong Yao couldn’t help curling her lips and laughing out loud.
She flipped open the contract, and the most eye-catching clause read: “Each time Party B completes a task based on Party A’s prophecy, the reward obtained shall be split thirty–seventy between the two parties, with Party B receiving seventy percent and Party A receiving thirty percent.”
In her lifetime, she never thought she’d see a contract where Party A was the one getting the short end of the stick.
Zhong Yao pointed at the words “reward” and asked in confusion, “What does ‘reward’ mean? If I complete your prophecies, you can get paid?”
As she said this, her eyes narrowed dangerously. If that were the case, then that meant that for the previous three times, she’d been completely freeloaded off of!
Dou Dou guiltily scrambled for an excuse. 【Those were tests for you before. Only after you passed the test do you get paid. Everything has an internship period, right?】
“Then why are you suddenly being so generous now, giving me seventy percent? Don’t tell me you’re plotting something,” Zhong Yao said suspiciously as she sized it up. Unfortunately, it was so small that no matter what expression it made, it just looked cute, there was no way to see anything else.
The smile on Dou Dou’s face froze. Of course it was because this contract had been drafted by Si Ning Qing, how could she possibly leave it any loopholes to exploit!
Thirty–seventy meant thirty–seventy, with no room for negotiation at all.
Swallowing its grievance along with its pride, it said casually, 【That’s just how the rules are. Hurry up and sign it, you won’t lose out.】
The more it urged her, the more Zhong Yao insisted on figuring things out. She might be a bit slow, but that didn’t mean she was easy to fool. “Then you at least have to explain clearly how the reward is calculated. Is the reward the same for every prophecy, or are there other criteria?”
If she didn’t understand the total amount, then even if she got seventy percent, or even a full hundred percent, she could still end up losing out.
Dou Dou scratched its head. This question, it genuinely didn’t know the answer to.
【I don’t really know how much each prophecy is worth either. Generally speaking, the things I foresee are tragic events. If they can be successfully prevented, I gain a certain amount of merit, and I’ll give seventy percent of that to you.】
Zhong Yao nodded, half understanding. “So the reward, that is, merit, is a variable? It could be different every time?”
Dou Dou: 【Yes. But you don’t need to worry about me skimming any off. After signing this contract, every time merit is obtained, it’ll automatically be split into two portions, one for you and one for me. It won’t be distributed by me personally.】
But Zhong Yao’s questions only multiplied. “Then who’s the one issuing the merit? Is it issued per task or monthly? And through what method? What exactly does merit look like? How can you be sure that whoever issues the merit will also acknowledge this contract?”
Dou Dou’s head started spinning from all of it. “I don’t know, I’m not sure, stop asking me! I’m just a wage worker too!”
If you want answers, go ask your good sister Si Ning Qing!
If it weren’t for Si Ning Qing threatening it not to expose her identity, it would really have liked to dump this whole mess on her.
Most people, if handed such a stroke of good fortune, would be thanking heaven and earth, who would nitpick like this, asking question after question as if they were the embodiment of ten thousand “whys”?
Zhong Yao looked at it with sympathy, suddenly feeling a sense of kinship as a fellow wage slave. Unable to resist, she reached out and poked it, knocking it flat onto the ground. “For the sake of us both being corporate drones, I’ll sign the contract.”
Dou Dou landed hard on its backside, then heard what she said: ???
“Who are you calling a beast? I’m the number-one prophecy spirit under heaven, and you dare call me livestock?”
Zhong Yao curled her lips speechlessly. “Didn’t you say you keep up with the times? This is it?”
She flourished her pen and signed her name on the contract in one bold stroke, then pushed it toward Dou Dou with heroic flair. Holding the pen, she hesitated a little. “So how are you supposed to sign?”
Its entire body wasn’t even as tall as half a pen.
Noticing the teasing in her eyes, Dou Dou rolled its eyes and ignored her. Its tiny finger lightly brushed across the paper, leaving behind its name.
Zhong Yao picked up the signed contract in surprise. “So your name really is Dou Dou!”
Dou Dou’s foot slipped and it face-planted onto the ground, voice muffled as it said, “Shut up!”
“Hahahaha!”
The next day, Zhong Yao slept until she naturally woke up, then leisurely got out of bed. Perhaps because she’d slept enough, the gloom that had been hanging over her since hearing about the tanker explosion the day before suddenly dissipated, and her mood inexplicably brightened.
There was only one final exam left. With the mindset that the day’s plan begins in the morning, she set an alarm and focused on reviewing for two hours before taking out her phone to relax.
Dou Dou sent her a message: 【Quick, open Yu Yin. I’ll take you through the newbie village quest.】
Thinking of the contract they’d signed in her dream the night before, Zhong Yao still found it a bit surreal, but she patiently followed Dou Dou’s instructions step by step.
【First, register a new Yu Yin account and post some harmless prophecies through it. If people see your videos and avoid the situations foretold in your prophecies, that counts as completing a task and you’ll earn merit.】
Zhong Yao raised an eyebrow. “You can earn merit without even leaving the house? There’s such a good deal?”
【It’s not that simple. Online information is a mixed bag these days. To make people believe what you’re saying, you’ll need to invest a lot upfront.】 Dou Dou explained diligently, after all, how much merit it could earn now was completely tied to Zhong Yao.
“But if it’s a prophecy, can it really be avoided so casually like this?”
People always say fate is hard to defy, that one should go with the will of heaven. If things could really be changed so easily, could it still be called a prophecy at all?
【Fate is very complex. It isn’t fixed at all, on the contrary, it’s changing every moment. It’s like a tree trunk that can grow countless branches. Every person also has innumerable branches attached to them, and every choice they make in life may guide them onto a different branch, creating a different future. We merely foresee one of those branches and change it, but there are still tens of thousands of other branches in existence.】
【They might avoid the outcome of this particular branch because of our prophecy, but at the same time they may step onto another branch, or from there give rise to even more new branches. All of this is constantly in flux.】
Dou Dou rambled on for quite a while, only to realize that Zhong Yao looked completely lost, clearly she hadn’t understood a single word.
It rubbed its forehead in speechless frustration. If it weren’t already bound and unable to switch partners, it would really want to return this one.
How did the always scheming and ruthless Si Ning Qing end up choosing such a dummy? If it weren’t afraid to offend Si Ning Qing, it would really want to divine what kind of relationship these two actually had.
Given how meticulously attentive Si Ning Qing was toward her, maybe this foolish girl was actually Si Ning Qing’s biological daughter who’d been lost outside.
It grumbled inwardly. Seeing that Zhong Yao still looked half-confused, it sighed and added: 【Just think of it as “man can triumph over heaven.” Destiny isn’t really set in stone, so long as you put in the effort, there’s nothing that can’t be changed.】
Zhong Yao more or less understood what Dou Dou meant: in other words, fate was something that could be altered at will.
She’d been stunned because she’d thought of how in movies and TV dramas people always say heavenly secrets must not be revealed or changed, and every time someone tried, some white-bearded old man would end up coughing blood and suffering the consequences.
So it was all made up.
She curled her lips, tapped lightly with her fingers, and casually typed in the nickname “Shao Siming (Lesser Controller of Fate)” in the username field, quickly completing the registration. “So what’s next? You’re supposed to start making predictions now, right?”
Dou Dou didn’t reply. She waited patiently for a while, when suddenly a video automatically popped up on her phone. In it, the street was still being scorched by blazing sunlight one second, and the next it was blanketed by dark clouds as a torrential downpour came crashing down, drenching pedestrians in an instant.
【Let’s start with the simplest, and the easiest to grab people’s attention, weather forecasts.】 Dou Dou floated back out. 【Three hours from now, Changming Street in Dongchuan City will be hit by an extremely heavy rainstorm.】
Watching the video, Zhong Yao couldn’t help clicking her tongue. Just a moment ago the sky had been clear, and then the dark clouds seemed to appear out of nowhere, pressing down without the slightest hint of thunder or lightning before the rain came pouring down. Weather like this really did catch people off guard.
“But doesn’t the meteorological bureau already forecast the weather? Would posting this even be useful?”
【The meteorological bureau makes predictions on a macro level, and there’s always a margin of error. My prophecies are more precise, and they don’t have errors.】
Zhong Yao nodded. She originally planned to save the video and post it directly through the “Shao Siming” account, but to her surprise, it showed “Unable to save.”
【This isn’t a real video. I’ve transcoded my prophecy into this form on your phone, only you can see it. No one else can.】 Feeling a bit stifled, Dou Dou crawled out of the phone and sat on the desk, crossing its legs.
Zhong Yao looked at the tiny figure with a complicated expression. The way it had just crawled out made it hard not to think of The Grudge.
Forced to abandon the lazy option of directly reposting the video, she fidgeted with her fingers, tapped “Post,” picked a photo of rain from her album, added some text, and published it.
Dou Dou hopped over to take a look and found that her caption was almost exactly what it had just said: “Three hours from now, Changming Street in Dongchuan City will experience an extremely heavy rainstorm. Everyone heading out, please remember to bring an umbrella.”
The corner of its mouth twitched. 【With a post like this, you’ll be lucky to get ten views. I’ll help you drive some traffic, when you have time, go learn how to do self-media properly.】
As soon as it finished speaking, it burrowed back into the phone and vanished without a trace.
Zhong Yao’s expression darkened. That silly thing, was its previous form really from The Grudge? Or maybe it even had a bit of Sadako’s bloodline?
She stared at her phone, the more she looked at it, the more uncomfortable she felt. She reached out and wiped the spot it had crawled over, then went over it again with an alcohol wipe, and only then did the lingering discomfort in her heart gradually subside.
Chen Xiang sat up from her bed with a bird’s-nest of messy hair, lazily stretching as she looked at Zhong Yao sitting alone at the desk. “Why are you the only one in the dorm? Where’s Si Ning Qing?”
Startled by the sudden voice, Zhong Yao jerked around and looked at Chen Xiang, who was still half-asleep and could barely open her eyes. Realizing that Chen Xiang had only woken up after Dou Dou had returned to the phone, Zhong Yao finally let out a sigh of relief.
She shook her head. “I don’t know either. I’ll message her on WeChat and ask.”
Chen Xiang glanced at her phone, it was almost noon. Yawning, she climbed down the ladder from her bed. “Then wait for me to get ready. Let’s go eat.”
“Alright.” Zhong Yao suddenly thought of something and asked, “Ah Xiang, I remember you have a cousin in the School of Communication, right? He has tens of thousands of followers on some platform, doesn’t he?”
Chen Xiang had her head buried in the wardrobe, rummaging for clothes. “Yeah. What about him?”
Zhong Yao curved her lips into a smile, a trace of slyness flickering in her eyes. “I might need to ask him for a little help.”