Waking Up, the First Day of Fortune-Telling
In the first second or two after Xie Qingmian regained consciousness, he felt a pain in his forehead.
What was going on? Could ghosts feel pain these days?
Still dazed, Xie Qingmian opened his eyes, covered the painful spot on his forehead, and sat up. The place beneath his palm prickled faintly.
Yet during the nearly thousand years he had spent as a ghost, he had never been able to feel anything, let alone such a sharp pain.
Xie Qingmian immediately sensed that something was wrong. He abruptly lowered his head and saw that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, its material fairly decent but unmistakably dirty and torn. He was stunned.
He had just seen this shirt. Moments ago, he had watched the seemingly mentally impaired young man wearing it get pushed off a cliff.
So… had he ended up inside that little fool’s body?
Xie Qingmian braced himself against the tree beside him and stood, bewilderedly taking in his surroundings.
He was at the foot of a mountain. Perhaps because the mountain was thick with trees, the original owner had not broken any limbs when he rolled down the cliff.
Still, after tumbling down from such a height, some bruises and scratches were unavoidable.
Xie Qingmian even found a small black rectangle in his pocket. He remembered that people nowadays called these things phones.
Imitating modern people, he pressed the phone’s power button, but nothing happened.
He guessed it had been damaged in the fall.
Xie Qingmian did not bother with it any further. He put the phone back in his pocket, leaned against the tree, and stood there for a while to recover.
Sunlight streamed down in threads between the leaves. Xie Qingmian tilted his head back and squinted at the sun, roughly determining the time.
After resting for a while, he began making his difficult way out, intending to leave the foot of the mountain before sunset.
Xie Qingmian had originally been the State Preceptor of the Great Yuan dynasty, and for the sake of the country and its people…
And that rather handsome dog emperor.
He had calculated a divination he should never have touched, then forcibly altered Heaven’s will. But the Heavenly Dao had always been petty. Sure enough, not long after completing the divination, Xie Qingmian fell gravely ill and died.
He was not entirely sure what happened after that. When he regained consciousness, he was already trapped around this little Nameless Mountain.
Later, he watched this place develop from an obscure little city into an international metropolis. Yet he still could not find the road to the underworld, and no Black and White Impermanence came to collect his soul.
It was as though the world had shut him out.
Fortunately, Xie Qingmian could find lonely ghosts in the surrounding area to play with, such as the big brother from the wild graveyard on the neighboring hill and the young woman at the foot of the mountain who had been murdered and buried there.
The three of them most enjoyed gathering beneath the scholar tree to play Dou Dizhu.
But eventually, the big brother from the wild graveyard was remembered by his descendants. His grave was relocated, and he officially entered the underworld to prepare for reincarnation.
The murdered young woman at the foot of the mountain was also discovered during a road construction project. The case was solved, and she entered the underworld without regrets.
Xie Qingmian had thought he would once again spend an unknown number of lonely years there. Who could have guessed that he would suddenly awaken inside someone else’s body?
After floating around this area for nearly a thousand years, Xie Qingmian knew the terrain better than anyone. It did not take long for him to find the main road, which he followed all the way to an overpass.
There were quite a few scattered stalls beneath the overpass. Some hung cloth banners or wooden plaques bearing words such as fortune-telling and divination.
During the part of each year when the yin qi was particularly heavy, Xie Qingmian could briefly escape the Nameless Mountain and float over here to watch the show.
But the main reason he had come here now…
Was to make money.
Even the State Preceptor of the Great Yuan could be defeated by a lack of money!
Xie Qingmian tugged at the shirt, which had been torn further by branches, trying to make it look a little cleaner. After struggling with it for a long while, he finally gave up.
He walked over to a fortune-telling stall run by a young man who looked relatively approachable. He borrowed a calligraphy brush and a strip of cloth, then raised his hand and swept the brush across the fabric in one fluid motion, writing four characters.
Fortune-Telling and Face-Reading
The young man in the black robe who had lent him the brush had been watching with great interest, curious about what he intended to do. When he saw the words, he froze.
“Are you giving that to me?” Xu Keke muttered. “I’m not paying for this thing.”
Xie Qingmian looked at him strangely. “Of course I’m using it myself.”
Xu Keke: “???”
Xu Keke lowered the folding fan he had been holding for show and rolled up his sleeves. “Hey, are you blatantly stealing my business?”
Xie Qingmian happily picked up the cloth banner. At his words, he looked up at Xu Keke, his bright eyes smiling.
“Your brows and eyes are broad and level, and your forehead is full and rounded. You have good financial luck.” Xie Qingmian blinked lightly, slowing his voice as though it carried a certain magic. “In about an hour, you’ll receive a major job.”
Xu Keke stared at Xie Qingmian as though he were an idiot, thinking, Is this guy taking me for a fool?
He had been conning people in this line of work since he was a child. If he said these things to someone else, they might actually believe him, but Xu Keke would never believe them himself.
He was just about to raise his voice and curse out this person who was trying to swindle him when his gaze met Xie Qingmian’s beautiful eyes, and his heart inexplicably softened.
Looking at Xie Qingmian’s face and clothes, both somewhat grimy yet still unable to conceal his beauty, Xu Keke sighed.
“Forget it. I’ll just consider myself unlucky today.”
As he spoke, he turned around, pulled a piece of bread and some tissues from a basket, and tossed them into Xie Qingmian’s arms. “Here. Take these.”
Xie Qingmian caught the bread and smiled at Xu Keke. “Thank you.”
Holding the bread and the cloth banner, Xie Qingmian found a spot with fewer people and sat down. He spread the banner on the ground in front of him, then unwrapped the bread and began to eat.
Its taste was completely different from the pastries made in the imperial kitchen.
Xie Qingmian had not eaten like this in nearly a thousand years. He had not felt hunger as a ghost, but now he was an ordinary human being.
According to his memories, the body had been pushed off the cliff that morning. It was now close to sunset, which meant that, rounding up, he had gone almost a whole day without eating.
After finishing the bread, Xie Qingmian was not concerned about whether he would get any business. He propped up his chin and began observing his surroundings, especially the “colorful metal boxes” that sped along on four wheels.
It was not until the sun had completely set and the sky gradually darkened that Xie Qingmian finally emerged from his curious observations and turned his attention to another main road.
His business was coming.
Not long after Xie Qingmian shifted his gaze, a black sedan slowly appeared in view.
The sedan eventually stopped not far from the overpass. Xie Qingmian watched a slightly plump man in his forties get out, hunch over slightly, and secretly look behind him, as if checking on something.
After confirming whatever it was, the middle-aged man walked beneath the overpass. He looked at the many fortune-telling stalls and began hesitating again.
Xie Qingmian could hear the young man in the black robe, the one who had lent him the brush and cloth, grumbling.
“That uncle’s been here more than a dozen times, and he still won’t give up.”
Xie Qingmian lowered his beautiful eyes.
It was not long before the middle-aged man noticed the newcomer, Xie Qingmian, and headed toward him without hesitation.
But Xie Qingmian’s stall was far too simple. After coming over, the slightly plump middle-aged man stood in front of him for quite a while, apparently unsure whether he should consult him.
Finally, Xie Qingmian took the initiative. “Big brother, want a reading?”
Before the man could respond, Xie Qingmian curved his eyes into a smile. “Or would you like to buy a talisman? It can block out the voices of other things around you.”
The middle-aged man’s eyes lit up.
He excitedly crouched down and reached for Xie Qingmian’s hand. “You know I can hear those voices!”
Xie Qingmian said, “They follow you every day too, don’t they?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Xu Keke glanced at Xie Qingmian, admiration entering his eyes.
Impressive. He had hooked the client with just a few words.
But Xu Keke was not the only fortune-teller around. Just as Xie Qingmian was about to have the man hold out his hand, a bearded fortune-teller wearing sunglasses gave a cold snort.
“Mr. Liu, you’ve come here so many times. Your problem spread through our circle ages ago. Anyone can find out about you with a little asking around. Do you really need him to tell you?”
Xie Qingmian’s movement halted. He then looked at the fortune-teller who had ruined his business, perfectly composed and showing no sign of anxiety.
When Xie Qingmian said nothing, the fortune-teller thought he had struck a nerve. “You’re so young, with no training at all, and you’ve already come out to deceive people. It’s people like you who ruin the reputation of our profession!”
“People like us…” Xie Qingmian muttered to himself before laughing softly. “And what makes you say that, old sir? Aren’t you one of us too?”
“What did you say?” Having been challenged, the man shot to his feet and raised his voice. “Who in this place doesn’t know that I’m Blind Ma, Ma the Demi-Immortal? You little brat, still wet behind the ears, and you dare question me?”
“Blind Ma?” Xie Qingmian’s gaze slowly rose, finally settling on the fortune-teller’s standard pair of sunglasses. “Although your eyes have been diseased since you were eight, and your vision is somewhat impaired, you are not blind. Isn’t pretending to be blind a form of deception?”
At those words, Blind Ma’s heart jolted.
He really was not blind.
His eyes had been injured in an accident when he was eight. His eyesight had been slightly damaged afterward, but outwardly he looked no different from someone who was truly blind.
Food had been hard to come by in those days, so his father had teamed up with him to pretend to be blind and tell fortunes.
No one in all of Hai City knew about it except his late father.
Yet Xie Qingmian had casually stated his exact age.
Blind Ma was left speechless. But the other fortune-tellers, convinced that Xie Qingmian had stolen a business opportunity from them, had no intention of letting him off so easily.
As the people united to call him a fraud, Xie Qingmian shook his head and turned to Xu Keke, who was watching the show. “Brother Xu, may I borrow another pen and a sheet of paper?”
Xu Keke hesitated only briefly. He was just about to refuse when his gaze fell on Xie Qingmian’s still-dirty face, and his heart softened again.
“Fine, fine, fine. Ugh, I really was unlucky to run into you today.” Though he continued grumbling, Xu Keke’s hands moved quickly. He casually pulled an ordinary ballpoint pen and a sheet of white paper from the basket behind him.
Xie Qingmian did not object. He accepted them, curved his eyes, and thanked him.
A modern ballpoint pen was far too different from the brushes of the past. Even though Xie Qingmian had seen how modern people held pens, trying it himself still felt strange.
In the end, using an awkward grip, Xie Qingmian barely managed to draw the talisman he wanted.
He folded the crooked talisman and handed it to Mr. He, who was already looking doubtful and distrustful.
“Keep it on you, close to your body. I won’t charge you for now. Come back to me in three days.”
With that, Xie Qingmian watched Mr. He drive away.
Xu Keke thought the exceptionally handsome young man beside him might have something wrong with his head, especially after seeing him casually draw a mess of lines on paper and call it a talisman.
And yet Mr. He had actually accepted it.
Of course, Xu Keke could understand the behavior. It was free, after all. Accepting it cost nothing, and he might as well let a desperate remedy have a try.
The sky grew dark. The stalls around them gradually packed up and left. Xu Keke checked the time and prepared to close his own stall and go home.
But just as he stood up, the handsome young man beside him suddenly spoke.
“Wait a little longer. Don’t hurry home. Your big job will arrive in ten minutes.”
Xu Keke was an experienced fraud himself and held such claims in contempt.
But perhaps there was some magic in the way this person spoke, because he really did sit back down and stop packing.
Ten minutes passed quickly. Beneath the overpass, only Xu Keke and the handsome young man beside him remained.
Xu Keke gazed at the empty space beneath the overpass and felt that staying behind to wait ten minutes had been an exceptionally idiotic decision.
“I’m going home!” Xu Keke stood up again. He glanced at Xie Qingmian, who was sitting huddled on the ground beside him, and paused once more. “Hey, do you want me to call the police for you? Are you a student who ran away from home?”
Maybe it was because of the surrounding streetlights, but Xu Keke felt that this young man’s eyes were just like the kind in manga, sparkling as though they naturally contained starlight.
And… they were strangely endearing.
Xie Qingmian smiled at him. “Your big job is here.”
Xu Keke: “???”
Just as he was wondering whether this young man really had something wrong with his head, a car horn suddenly sounded behind him.
A minute later, Xu Keke stared at the car parked not far in front of him and at the wealthy patron who had directly pulled out a thick stack of red banknotes and said he wanted to hire him for a job. He fell into deep thought.